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The purpose of this article is to provide an insight into the importance of understanding the workforce as it affects and is affected by the internal and external environment; an essential element of effective business performance accomplishment.

The study was conducted in a 148‐bed, four‐star hostel over a four‐week period using multiple data collection methods comprising written questionnaires, documentation collection and observation of assistants in the hostel. By using Herzberg's motivation/hygiene factors as the theoretical foundation, this piece of research investigated the factors involved in the motivation of hostel assistants. The findings were then used to interpret the results, enable comparison with previous studies in the field and provide insights into suggested courses of action.

The findings suggest that the favourable environment, which enabled tasks to be carried out and made it possible for the accomplishment of business objectives, was due a balance between motivation and hygiene factors supported by understanding of the workforce.

It is hoped that the findings provide the reader (managers, students and academics) awareness of the importance of a balanced work environment and help to improve practice in the context of budget accommodation where multi‐tasking is an essential requirement.

This paper provides the reader with an overall view of modern hostelling while discussing, from a human resources perspective, the requirements for a more favourable working environment.

This paper's purpose was to examine the impact of geomagnetic activity (GMA) on the timing and valuation of earnings information disclosed by firms every quarter.

The authors start the analyses with a sample of 112,669 client firms from 1989 to 2018. To analyze the impact of GMA on the earnings response coefficient (ERC), the authors use the three-day cumulative abnormal returns and cumulative abnormal returns for the extended post-earnings announcement window [2, 75] as the dependent variables. The authors interact unexpected earnings (UE) with the C9 Index, an index commonly used to measure GMA and study how GMA affects the pricing of new public information. To examine the effect of GMA on the timing of disclosure of earnings news, the authors regress a variant of the GMA index on the propensity to disclose bad earnings news.

The authors find significantly lower earnings response coefficients during periods of high GMA. This effect is permanent and stock prices do not correctly incorporate the implications of earnings information over time. The authors also show that managerial behavior is affected by GMA as well and the managers are more (less) likely to release bad (good) news during periods of higher activity. Finally, the authors also find that in situations where stakeholders are likely to rely on modern technology that depends minimally on humans, the adverse impact of GMA on the pricing of earnings information is mitigated.

The literature on the effect of GMA on the capital market is very limited and focuses primarily on stock returns, while the behavioral finance literature focuses on circumstances like weather, temperature and sporting outcome to study how the investors' mood affects their capital market behavior. The authors add to both the literature by investigating how GMA influences investors' and managers' behaviors in the capital market.