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This study sought to further develop the growing body of qualitative evidence exploring the content, duration and triggers of cognitive distortions and deviant sexual fantasies in perpetrators who offend against adult women, using grounded theory techniques. Detailed accounts of the thoughts and fantasies of 10 rapists pre‐ and post‐intervention were analysed. All participants reported having benefited from the programme. Nine participants reported that the victim‐focused work had the most impact on them. It was also found that after treatment: (a) there was a reduction in the level of cognitive distortions around victim blaming, other justifications for offending (such as alcohol use) and the acknowledgment of the impact that their offences has had upon their victims; (b) reductions in denial of fantasising about the offences prior to their offences. The implications of this study, for the improvement of intervention programmes for this group of offenders, are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate knowledge sharing (KS) to characterize its behavior in companies based on the concepts of theory of reasoned action and game theory (GT).

The paper proposes two models: Model A: KS process is constructed by capturing personal psychological feelings; and Model B: KS process is not only constructed by personal psychological feelings but also takes into consideration other people's decisions. By comparing the two knowledge‐sharing models' predictability performance, the authors are able to characterize the process of KS.

The results show that different companies require different models. On average, Model B with game concept has lower predictive accuracy than the Model A without game concept.

The paper provides practical implications for manager to frame effective KS policies and also suggests future studies to improve measurement.

The values of this paper are: provide a methodology to determine whether individuals analyze decisions of others in making KS decisions; test the predictive ability of GT analysis in a KS modeling, and build a single‐instance two‐person game to characterize individuals' tacit KS behavior.

In a pandemic framework (COVID-19), this chapter explores the impact of the global economy and socio-cultures concerning three axes: recreational, tourism, and hospitality. Although we slowly see an economic revival, it is well known that this sector of study is very susceptible to being affected by the context of nations. Following restrictions and measures taken by governments around the world to reduce the number of cases of coronavirus infections, many nations closed their borders, affecting international travel and by 2020 tourism had been reduced to the near cessation of operations due to the imminent fear of this poorly studied disease, and the service sector was negatively affected. It should be added that, according to the World Tourism Organization's projections, a decrease of between 20 and 30% is forecast for 2020 compared to the previous year.

The M&A literature lacks coherence and consistency when explaining the role of CEO power in influencing post-acquisition firm performance in both theoretical and empirical terms. This study uses meta-analytic techniques to quantitatively synthesize and evaluate the impact of 11 CEO power constructs (CEO duality; compensation; ownership; founder CEO; acquisition experience; functional area experience; outside directorship; elite education; CEO celebrity; age; and tenure) on acquiring firms’ post-acquisition performance. Results of 85 independent studies show that CEO ownership, functional area experience, and tenure are significantly positive predictors for better acquisition performance. At the same time, CEO duality and CEO elite education are significantly negative predictors of different measures of acquisition performance. These findings indicate the importance of integrating different theories to enhance our understanding of the nature of strategic leadership in acquisition performance.

Using the Analytical Hierarchy Process, this study aims to identify organizational and market factors that prevent hoteliers from adopting greener management systems. This study first constructs a list of critical factors based on expert judgments reported in the literature and the responses from a select group of experienced managers. Then, the list is further refined by six hotel managers who consolidate the factors, which results in four categories explained by 20 items. Subsequently, this study draws from surveys on an expert panel consisting of 20 study subjects who are familiar with hotel operations. The survey results show that hoteliers’ abilities to create a greener image are the most important factor influencing the managers’ decisions to adopt environmentally friendly management schemes. Nevertheless, their motivation of adopting a green strategy seems to be associated with a marketing strategy, instead of generic environmental stewardship.

In an evolving business environment characterised by globalisation and a challenging competitive paradigm, it is imperative for strategic management processes to focus on the financial perspectives of value and risk in intellectual capital to create sustainability in long‐term value. This paper presents the key issues pertaining to the strategic management of value and risk in intellectual capital and presents some hypotheses for a strategic management framework based on identified underlying value‐drivers, which in turn helps to focus and address the issue of risk management more adequately. The pervasive value‐drivers in three intellectual capital‐intensive sectors in Australia are identified from an analysis of case studies, then specified and extrapolated to provide implications for the strategic management of value and risk in the knowledge‐based firms. The strategic management implications of these value‐drivers are discussed and explained.

The investments in intellectual capital by firms in the knowledge economy are a critical driver for growth, profitability and competitiveness. This paper reviews the basic option‐pricing models for pricing financial instruments and evaluates their characteristics in relation to their applicability to intellectual property, focusing on two distinct characteristics, i.e. past decisions that influence future technological options, and the inherent uncertainty over future innovation opportunities. The findings in this study include the discovery and confirmation of certain financial characteristics that are important for the successful implementation of the option‐pricing methodology in high technology financial planning and management. This paper attempts to summarise the current strand of literature pertaining to the use of option pricing in the intellectual capital‐intensive sector by evaluating their strengths and weaknesses, and make recommendations as to how they can be effectively addressed to produce better results in the valuation process.

The optimality objectives are the structure weight and embodied energy as well as calculating the cost and embodied carbon of the resulting optimum options. Three optimality algorithms developed in MATLAB, namely, genetic algorithms (GA), particle swarm optimisation (PSO) and harmony search algorithm (HSA), were used for structural optimisation to compare the effectiveness of the algorithms. Two life-cycle stages were considered, production and construction stages, which include three boundaries: materials, transportation and erection. In the formulation of the optimum design problem, 107 universal steel beams (UKB) and 64 columns (UKC) sections were considered for the discrete design variables. The imposed behavioural constraints in the optimum design process were set according to the provision of Eurocode 3 (EC3). The study aims to find the optimum solution of 2D steel frames whilst considering weight and embodied energy, investigate the performance of the analysis integrated with MATLAB and provide three examples to which all these are applied to.

Undoubtedly, in structural engineering, the best design of any structure aims at the most economical and environmental option, without impairing the functional and its structural integrity. In the paper, multi-objective stochastic search methods are proposed for optimum design of three two-dimensional multi-story frames.

Results showed that the optimised designs obtained by HSA are better than those found by the GA and PSO with an average difference of 16% from GA and PSO, where this difference increases at larger frame structures. It was, therefore, concluded that the integration of the analysis, design and optimisation methods employed in MATLAB can be effective in obtaining prompt optimum results during the decision-making stage.

There may be some possible limitations in the study. Due to the time constraints, only three meta-heuristic approaches were investigated, where more methods should be investigated to fully understand their effectiveness in multi-objective problems.

Investigating the performance of three optimisation methods in multi-objective problems developed in MATLAB. More importantly, developing optimisation models for evaluation of embodied energy, embodied carbon and cost for steel structures to assist designers, during the initial stages, to evaluate design decisions against their energy consumption and carbon impacts.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the field of trust research with a focus on optimising this perception via electronic transactions in the banking industry. Specifically, the study aims to examine trust toward a bank and its dependability using a variety of “institution‐based” trust mechanisms, such as security of transaction, reputation and web quality.

It is expected that the manner in which the trust‐generating mechanisms are presented has different effects on the level of trust in the internet banking services. The analysis of these influences is based on an experimental design applied to internet banking users with the aim of treating the scenarios defined by combinations of stimuli. In particular, a design was used with three intra‐subject factors: the first two, manipulated a priori, combine seals and their associated clauses or arrangements, while the third considered a bank website's quality from the user viewpoint.

The analysis discovers that the mere presence of seals is not in itself important for the explanation of beliefs about trustworthiness and dependability of a website with electronic banking services. However, the manner in which the trust‐generating mechanisms are presented, either individually or in their different combinations, has different effects on trust.

The study is limited to data from one country and a single specific context (a new electronic banking website), so care should be taken when generalising to other electronic businesses. The findings contribute several recommendations for web design and optimisation of the online services and/or content offered by a bank.

This paper is the first study to evaluate the combined effects of four seals generators of trust in a bank's website and its associated arrangements or clauses as well as design quality. The study will provide greater understanding of navigation behaviour and the decisions made by users of electronic banking.