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Introduction In a recent article in this Journal Newbould, Stray and Wilson (1976) analysed the discounts or premiums on the price of newly issued equities by reference to the issue adviser. Their conclusions, based on a comparison between 1959–63 and 1969–73, were that (a) the most efficient advisers (those showing the lowest discounts) gained business between these periods and (b) new entrants to the market accounted in part for the general increase in efficiency observed over the decade. The evidence therefore appeared to support their basic hypotheses that resources tend to flow from inefficient towards efficient firms and that efficiency tends to rise in markets where freedom of entry exists.

This paper extends the search for small firms and exchange efficiency effects on seasoned stocks to the new issues market on a sample of placings drawn from the UKs Official List, Unlisted Securities Market and Third Market. Tests of means and regressions are undertaken to examine the relationships between sizes of new issues discounts, sizes of firms, and the exchange on which their equities are traded. Despite the observation that new issues discounts tend to be larger for equities of firms traded on exchanges with lower listing requirements, there is little evidence that the differences in discounts are affected by firm size.

While quantitative survey design represents a default research method in the field of hospitality and tourism, qualitative approaches remain largely sidelined. This is particularly true for netnography, a novel method of scientific enquiry that targets the online interactions of various actors. The present chapter seeks to introduce the netnographic approach, outline its implementation in hospitality and tourism, as well as demarcate it from other methods, such as survey, text mining and content analysis. By giving an overview of recent studies employing netnography, the chapter demonstrates applied examples of ethnographic research online, presents a cross-cultural study on disappointing travel experiences and suggests further research avenues, such as cross-cultural investigation. It concludes by discussing strengths and weaknesses of the netnographic approach. The value of this chapter lies in its reflection of state-of-the-art research in hospitality and tourism based on netnography and the proposition of further directions of research.

To ensure product quality within a manufacturing process, inspection processes are indispensable. One task of inspection planning is the selection of inspection characteristics. For optimization of costs and benefits, key characteristics can be defined by which the product quality can be checked with sufficient accuracy. The manual selection of key characteristics requires substantial planning effort and becomes uneconomic if many product variants prevail. This paper, therefore, aims to show a method for the efficient determination of key characteristics.

The authors present a novel Algorithm for the Selection of Key Characteristics (ASKC) based on an auto-encoder and a risk analysis. Given historical measurement data and tolerances, the algorithm clusters characteristics with redundant information and selects key characteristics based on a risk assessment. The authors compare ASKC with the algorithm Principal Feature Analysis (PFA) using artificial and historical measurement data.

The authors find that ASKC delivers superior results than PFA. Findings show that the algorithms enable the cost-efficient selection of key characteristics while maintaining the informative value of the inspection concerning the quality.

This paper fills an identified gap for simplified inspection planning with the method for the efficient selection of key features via ASKC.

Illustrates how terms of sale can influence demand for a firm's products and how a firm can model the best combination of credit policy variables. Analyses the results of a credit policy questionnaire designed specifically for sales respondents. Shows how credit policy produces organizational conflict and suboptimization when separated from the sales or marketing functions.

The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of electrical energy consumption through case studies of a small sample of buildings on a university campus in Hong Kong.

Data were used to produce deterministic time‐series models and so aid analysis of the climatic effects on energy consumption. Semi‐structured interviews were employed to supplement the data. Both technical factors impacting on energy consumption and behavioural considerations are addressed.

Conclusions demonstrate the impact of functions housed in the buildings, their intensity of occupation, and that the increased consumption to combat high temperatures and relative humidity during the summer can be mitigated by improved control systems and increased awareness of users to induce less energy consuming behaviour.

Limitations of the empirical study are due to the rather short run of data which were available for the case study buildings and the particular functions of the buildings studied. More detailed data of energy consumption is desirable. Complimentary studies should concern different building functional types and other locations, involving varying climatic conditions.

The findings demonstrate the value of time series models of, and the impacts of the main variables on energy consumption and so, should inform design decisions regarding life cycle costing of buildings and foster energy conservation.

This paper has provided empirical modelling of energy uses in the case study buildings and thereby demonstrated the impacts on energy uses of certain major variables to inform design for energy conservation.

The aim of this paper is to present evidence of the reliability and validity of the “Local Government 360 (LG360)”, a diagnostic tool for assessing both competent and engaging leadership behaviour among managers and professionals in local government.

The paper argues that the assessment of both leadership competencies (the “what”) and engaging leadership behaviours (the “how”) is essential for a valid diagnosis of individuals' strengths and developmental needs.

Evidence is presented of the internal consistency (reliability) and the criterion and discriminant validity of the tool, among an opportunity sample comprising 288 local government staff, of whom 143 were female and 77 male; 58 were from a Black and Minority Ethnic background and 220 were White.

Data on the impact of leadership behaviour on direct reports, provided by the LG360, are powerful in providing evidence to emphasise that the way in which a leader behaves can have a significant effect on staff attitudes and wellbeing at work.

Although a number of 360-tools are available, only in a small number of cases are their psychometric properties, particularly empirical evidence of their criterion and discriminant validity, reported.

Purpose – Service-dominant logic (S-D logic) has conceptualized value as value-in-context where context is defined as a “set of unique actors with unique reciprocal links among them” (Chandler & Vargo, 2011, p. 40). The chapter proposes a means of measuring value-in-context as experienced by an actor while integrating resources, called the ValConRIA model (value-in-context of resource integrating activities).Design/methodology/approach – Value emerges from experiencing interactions in a service-for-service exchange. The actor perceives value as emerging with his activities and hence experiences the emerging value as connected to either his activities or the items supporting his activities or the people he is interacting with. We call these realms of experience the I (–Me) realm, the I–It and It–I realm, and the I–You and You–I realm, composing five dimensions. An exploratory principal component analysis supports this structure. The measurement process has been tested for reliability and validity and applied to different activities: using a laptop, using cigarettes (=smoking), using a smartphone, and using Facebook.Findings – According to where the actor mostly experiences the value emergence, five dimensions of value-in-context have been identified using principal component analysis. The measurement scale shows high construct reliability and discriminant validity.Implications – Being able to measure value-in-context as proposed by S-D logic brings S-D logic into practice. Practitioners can use the measurement process to identify value their customers co-create. The proposed means of measuring value-in-context does not measure the value of things but instead values as it emerges from an actor’s activities, exchanging service for service.Value/originality – To our knowledge this chapter is the first to propose a means of measuring value-in-context, which is based on S-D logic.

This paper describes a relatively new budgetary game technique which may be used to evaluate library and information services. It describes a particular application of the technique to research workers at Southampton University in which the relation between the Library and other University support systems was investigated. The results indicated that according to the users, the value placed on library services held up well in conditions of budgetary restraint. An extension of the game technique applied to type of library and information service, indicated that interactive services were more highly valued than active services.