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The relative performance of five popular nonzero-investment strategies, including Size, book-to-market ratios, earnings-to-price (E/P) ratios, cash flow-to-price (CF/P) ratios and dividend-to-price ratios, and their corresponding zero-investment strategies (also known as premiums) are first examined altogether for equally weighted (EW) and value-weighted (VW) methods to check whether a certain strategy (or some strategies) could be recommended to portfolio managers as the best (better) strategy (strategies). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper uses the stochastic dominance (SD) approach, a non-parametric test, to investigate the relative performance among various strategies and help investors search for the best or better strategy (strategies).

The main results show that both the highest E/P and CF/P strategies (and their corresponding premiums) generally produce higher returns than the other three strategies (and their corresponding premiums) through allocating investors’ capital between the risky and risk-free assets for the EW and VW methods, respectively.

This study only examines US stock markets by SD approach, whether the results are consistent with non-US markets still needs further investigation. The findings imply that investors can benefit by investing in the highest E/P or CF/P stocks (or their corresponding premiums) to make more profit or less loss for US stock markets.

First, the SD findings suggest that investors or portfolio managers can allocate their funds between risky and risk-free assets to maximize their profits. Next, the simulation results again prove that the profits of each nonzero-investment or zero-investment strategy for EW portfolios are higher than those of each corresponding strategy for VW portfolios. Finally, the findings imply that portfolio managers or investors can invest in the highest E/P or CF/P stocks (or their corresponding premiums) to make more profit or less loss.

This study first uses an extensive data set (1952-2009) to examine the relative performance of nonzero-investment strategies and their corresponding zero-investment strategies for the five popular indicators altogether for the EW and VW methods with the SD approach for US stock markets. Moreover, the results reveal that the investors or portfolio managers can invest in the highest E/P and/or CF/P portfolios (or their corresponding premiums) to make more profit or less loss.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

The literature is rich with examples that stress the importance of marketers having long‐term customer relationships. Yet, the reality is that while relational attachments can foster benefits, there are many occasions when marketers seek, or are forced, to disband or change the nature of customer relationships. Interestingly however, despite the obviousness of this circumstance, this remains an unexamined strategic condition. In a unique investigation, this article explores the strategic opportunities and conditions that emanate from “relational unrest” in the business‐to‐business marketplace. Consequently, this article notes how sellers can benefit from understanding how to properly manage relational unrest. To address this issue, a strategic framework is proposed, which concludes that when sellers experience relational difficulties, strategic options with positive outcomes and related managerial implications can be associated with this condition.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

In recent years, guides to hiking trails and wilderness areas have enjoyed an increase in popularity. Here, Douglas J. Ernest and Lewis B. Herman evaluate more than 100 such books.

Feminist legal activists in law schools developed what we call critical community tactics beginning in the late 1960s to bring about important cultural change in the legal educational arena. These feminist activists challenged the male-dominant culture and succeeded in making law schools and legal scholarship more gender inclusive. Here, we develop the critical community tactics concept and show how these tactics produce cultural products which ultimately, as they are integrated into the broader culture, change the cultural landscape. Our work then is a study of how social movement activists can bring about cultural change. The feminist legal activists’ cultural products and the integration of them into the legal academy provide evidence of feminist legal activist success in shifting the legal institutional culture. We conclude that critical community tactics provide an important means for social movement activists to bring about cultural change, and scholars examining social movement efforts in other institutional settings may benefit from considering the role of critical community tactics.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the degree to which business schools, in particular MBA programs, have developed academic programs and centers specifically focused on corporate social responsibility and sustainability (CSRS) and, for those that have, promote them on their Web sites. The instruction of CSRS in institutions of higher education is increasing worldwide. The extent to which US MBA programs have developed academic programs and centers focused on CSRS could potentially be a way for business schools to distinguish themselves from other schools.

The authors use a Web-based search of the Web sites of the top-100 US MBA programs to ascertain the extent to which they have developed CSRS-related academic programs and centers. They then look specifically at the full-time MBA main Web page to ascertain to what extent these programs promote CSRS material.

The results suggest that schools in the top quarter and bottom quarter, as well as private schools, are more likely to have CSRS academic programs and centers. The authors also find that very few full-time MBA programs promote CSRS on their main MBA Web pages.

This study is unique in its focus on the top-100 US MBA programs and the collection of primary data directly from their Web sites. Additionally, a summary of the data gathered from the MBA programs is provided in Table I of the study.

Growing appreciation for the potential impact of principals on their schools has stimulated a significant body of research concerning the principalship. While many aspects of the principalship have been the object of study, it is often difficult to determine the relationship among these studies and how these studies, as a whole, contribute to a better understanding of the principalship. It is also difficult to judge which aspects of the principalship would provide the most productive focus for subsequent research. The review reported in this article addressed both sets of difficulties by analysing a total of 135 empirical studies conducted between 1974 and 1988; 60 of these studies were reported between 1985 and 1988 and received more attention than the earlier 75. Results of the analysis identify aspects of the principalship about which much is known, approaches to research which appear to have exhausted their usefulness and areas in which further study seems likely to be of most value. One major conclusion from the analysis is that we know most about effective principal practices and least about how such practices develop.