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The pricing off products in the marketplace is of crucial importance to market share and profitability, yet often little is known about the effects of price changes on a brand's performance. Manufacturers cannot afford to ignore the contribution pricing research can make to their marketing decisions.

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how useful information about the structure of markets, and in particular the pricing of products, can be achieved by simple and economical research techniques. Two fields of pricing research are covered: simple pricing questions which can be added to research designed primarily for other purposes and custom‐built pricing studies. The work is derived entirely from actual pricing and other research conducted for a number of clients by the Oxford Research Agency.

The abilities and skills of employees will be crucial to the prosperity of small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and there is some evidence that graduates may have an important role to play in improving performance. This paper examines how the Department of Business Studies at the Manchester Metropolitan University investigated the relevance of its provision to SMEs.The provision is generally perceived as relevant and could be quickly enhanced through the use of guest speakers and case studies. Future changes could include a named route through the existing programmes or the development of a dedicated course. More flexible methods of delivery should be investigated. A gap in the academic literature has been identified and appropriate theoretical material needs to be developed. However, the tension between theory and practice needs to be acknowledged in designing teaching/learning strategies. Short courses in basic skills, particularly in relation to IT, may help some SME students.

This paper aims to explore how organizations use annual reporting for legitimacy purposes in the context of the ten recently privatised regional water companies in the UK. Although privatization required the water plcs to establish a distinctly different organizational legitimacy for themselves as customer‐focused companies commensurate with their new private sector status, it was clear from the nature of their privatization that they would experience difficulties in achieving this. Privatization did little to change their previous monopoly character, and this created discrepancy with the model of private sector companies operating in customer‐led competitive markets.

The paper uses a content analysis of statements concerning customer service in annual reports. The analysis examines the variety of ways in which the ten water plcs deployed both assertive and defensive impression management techniques in their attempts to gain, maintain and repair their legitimacy as customer‐focused companies.

The analysis emphasises the importance of the role of corporate reporting as a resource in legitimacy management. The paper also argues that, despite sustained efforts, the water plcs did not wholly succeed in persuading all their customers that the privatization of water was “a good thing”.

The paper will be valuable to researchers and practitioners alike, as it attempts to take further one's understanding of how organizations use corporate reporting for legitimacy purposes by examining a much more extreme case of the legitimacy problem than has been previously considered in the literature: namely, the need for an entirely new basis for corporate legitimacy.

Company financial managers, when confronted with a change in accounting regulations, may face a change in their economic environment as a result of the reaction of users to the reported accounting information. In 1990 a requirement for lessees to capitalize finance leases was introduced in Spain. Reports the results of a survey in Spain of two key groups, company financial managers and bank financial analysts. The study concludes that leasing companies successfully lobbied for changes in the accounting rules which actually proved adverse to their economic interests; and company managers and bank analysts misunderstand each other′s reactions to the capitalization of finance leases. Indicates that managers can benefit from studying research on economic impact issues before determining their own response.

Our greatest manpower problem — a shortage of at least 42 000 teachers — is nowhere near a solution. Indeed recent events are likely to aggravate rather than ease the situation.

The literature on precarious and insecure work rarely examines how workers with jobs in large bureaucratic firms experience insecurity. Current theories suggest two approaches. First, workers might focus on their individual occupation and detach their commitment from firms that no longer reciprocate long-term commitments. Second, employees might respond with increased organizational commitment because leaving an employer creates risks of uncertainty. Based on in-depth interviews with 22 financial services professionals, this paper refines our understanding of when workers focus on intra-organizational career development. This happens when large firms offer opportunities for advancement and foster loyalty. I develop the terms spiral staircase and serial monogamy career. A spiral staircase career results when workers take entrepreneurial approaches to advancement that include lateral job changes and vertical promotions within a firm. When the local labor market has multiple firms in their sector, career advancement may take an intermediate form, in which workers spend medium-to-long-term stints with multiple organizations. I call this the serial monogamy career. My research shows how sector characteristics and geography can impact worker commitment and mobility in insecure environments.

Emerging technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), have been influencing both the tourism supply side and tourists alike. The purpose of this study is to analyse VR research in tourism and to provide a comprehensive state-of-the-art review. As the technological connotation of the term VR has been changing and encompasses various VR systems with different capabilities, this paper aims to provide a systematic and structured overview. The overall objective of this paper is to contribute to a thorough understanding of VR research in tourism.

This paper comprehensively reviews and analyses existing literature on VR in tourism, published from 1994 to February 2018. Using a wide variety of sources, these papers were examined so as to give a state-of-the-art literature review and to deepen one’s understanding of the diverse applications of VR in a tourism context. This paper also presents a novel classification of different VR systems according to the level of immersion and depicts their respective technological capabilities.

The advent of new VR hardware necessitates a distinction for different VR systems applied in the tourism sector. Research conducted during the past three years has been focussing on the application of head-mounted displays, which reflects the temporal development of VR technology. Regardless of the VR system, most studies examine VR as a marketing tool for promotion and communication purposes during the pre-travel phase, focussing on behavioural aspects. Advances in technology will yield new opportunities and application possibilities for the tourism industry.

The key contribution of this paper lies in its structural approach, which differentiates between non-, semi- and fully immersive VR systems in tourism, as well as the proposition of respective definitions. The concluding part of the paper proposes practical implications for tourism businesses together with directions for future studies.

Despite indications of scholarly interest, there are still gaps in the research of the concept of felt accountability, especially the felt accountability of board members. This paper aims to clarify the sources of accountability experienced by board members. Especially those in a non-executive capacity. How these sources can be accessed to enhance felt accountability and thereby governance effectiveness is explored.

Qualitative, exploratory research methods were used. In total, 15 semi-structured, in-depth interviews were completed with non-executive board members of Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed companies in South Africa. Thematic content analysis was used to analyse data.

The findings clarified the formal and informal sources of accountability experienced by non-executive board members. This included relational and structural mechanisms that can be used within corporate governance to enhance both types of accountability. Accessing the identified sources of accountability through appropriate mechanisms could increase the levels of felt accountability experienced by the individual non-executive board member, thereby strengthening accountability inside the boardroom and improving overall board effectiveness. The study also revealed a layer of implicit and explicit accountability.

The study was conducted solely in South Africa, with non-executive board members of Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed companies.

There is limited research that clarifies the sources of accountability experienced by non-executive board members. This study aims to address this gap in the literature by providing techniques on how to enable the clarified sources of accountability to improve governance effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to present the challenges female parliamentarians in Ghana face in their attempt to balance their professions and families.

This is a qualitative study which explores the nature of strain female MP’s in Ghana encounter in their struggle to achieve a work-life balance.

It is concluded that most female parliamentarians in Ghana go through tough times in trying to juggle career with family life. The study revealed that the MPs adopt strategies such as prioritizing roles, limiting official duties at home and using social support to help them cope with the pressures of their roles. The organizational policies put in place to aid female employees to achieve a healthy work-life balance did not yield much result for the participants in this study.

The originality of this paper lies in it being the first study that qualitatively explores the complex challenges female parliamentarians face in their political careers and family lives in Ghana.