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To describe the modernization and simplification amendments of certain disclosure requirements of Regulation S-K and related rules and forms recently adopted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

This article provides an overview of the amendments, their effective dates and related practical considerations for companies.

The amendments cover many provisions within Regulation S-K and affect various forms that rely on the integrated disclosure requirements of Regulation S-K. The amendments are designed to enhance the readability and navigability of SEC filings, to discourage repetition and disclosure of immaterial information and to reduce the burdens on registrants, all while still providing material information to investors. The amendments contain several changes relating to confidential information contained in exhibits. For consistency, parallel amendments have been adopted to rules other than Regulation S-K, as well as to forms for registration statements and reports.

Most of the amendments are effective May 2, 2019. The amendments relating to the redaction of confidential information in certain exhibits became effective April 2, 2019. Given these dates, companies should review the rule changes implemented by the amendment now and consider how they will impact their disclosure in upcoming SEC filings.

Practical guidance from experienced lawyers in the Corporate & Securities practice.

The linkage between internal and external satisfaction is an understudied topic in the service field. This study aims to address this gap by proposing an original research model, the service excellence chain (SEC), that connects the internal and external perspectives by conjoining performance-excellence models and the service-profit-chain approach. Theoretical assumptions and quantitative measures are proposed by using advanced statistical techniques.

The SEC is investigated through an empirical study in the healthcare sector, focusing on an Italian hospital and involving two of its core units. Qualitative and quantitative approaches were used. First, internal and external customer satisfaction were separately tested through structural equation modeling. The linkage between internal and external satisfaction is then proposed by mathematically defining a synthetic index, the internal and external customer satisfaction index (IEGSI), modeled through Bayesian networks (BNs) and object-oriented BNs to provide an overall measure able to predict organizational improvement.

The distinct measured models show good internal validity and adequate fit both for patients' and employees' perspectives. The IEGSI allows rigorously connecting internal and external satisfaction by developing conjoint scenarios for organizational improvement.

This study proposes the SEC model as an innovative way to connect internal and external satisfaction. The findings can be useful both for private and public organizations and may provide several useful insights for healthcare managers as well as for policy-makers in relation to developing strategies for improving service quality.

The critical incident technique (CIT) wherein informants describe their experiences and feelings attendant to a specific occasion is an attractive qualitative technique because it is easy to administer in a group setting, computer textual analysis is readily available, and it provides insight into marketplace phenomena. However, self‐disclosure theory predicts and studies have found that the informant’s gender, the target of the disclosure, and similarity between informant and target affect the quality of the informant’s narrative text. Using hypotheses from this knowledge base and adding the consumer construct of involvement, the authors conduct an experiment using CIT. Three hypotheses are supported: females disclose more than males, more is disclosed to friends than to strangers, and a high involvement topic produces more disclosure than does a low involvement one. Qualitative marketing researchers are warned that subtle biases exist in narrative text generated by the use of CIT, and precautions are suggested.

In the 1970s, the United States Congress enacted two statutes that have had dramatic and far‐reaching effects on the education of handicapped children by public schools. These two laws, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Education For All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (known as Public Law 94–142), have required local public school agencies to provide new eductional programs for thousands of handicapped children not previously served by the public schools. Counselors, principals, and teachers were quickly informed of the law's requirements and willingly began the task of main‐streaming and assimilating these children into various curricula. Their physical needs were attended to rapidly; their societal and emotional needs, unfortunately, lagged behind. Within the past seven years, there has been an increase in books, articles, and films specifically addressed to counseling the handicapped. Unlike past literature which focused only on the vocational aspect of rehabilitation counseling, current writing emphasizes personal counseling meant to assist a disabled child to participate fully in the problems and joys of daily living.

The aim of this article is to explore the perceptions of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields in two ethnic groups (majority Serb and minority Hungarian) in a multiethnic region – Vojvodina, in Serbia – from an intersectional perspective.

A qualitative study was implemented, capitalizing on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with university faculty members from two ethnic groups working in a multiethnic region of Serbia (Vojvodina) in the STEM field of studies. Intersectionality as a theoretical approach was applied to reveal the interconnectedness between gender, ethnicity and field of studies.

The intersectional analysis indicates that minority Hungarian women are more conservative and less inclusive toward other women in STEM, thus they continue to build and enforce gender-based stereotypes. Their lack of inclusiveness is due to having had to overcome a situation of “double jeopardy” (Almquist, 1975) when building a career in STEM, being both members of an ethnic minority and women in STEM. Majority Serb women have adopted masculine patterns of behavior, try to blend in, and become “one of the boys” (Powell and Sang, 2015) in order to diminish the gender penalty and be seen as equal to men. Both minority and majority women agreed that deeply rooted gender stereotypes prevent women from choosing a career in STEM and identified the need for more inclusive education programs at all levels and for more female role models in STEM.

The study contributes by increasing understanding of ethnic minority and majority women's issues in STEM studies in Serbia from an intersectional perspective. It may be relevant to policy makers and contribute to the development of policy recommendations that steer more women in general and ethnic minority women specifically toward STEM, with the ultimate goal of enabling Serbia to develop not only socially but also economically. The paper contributes to the limited research on the STEM-related career experiences of ethnic minority Hungarian women and majority Serb women in Serbia and in the Western Balkans in general.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 and its amendment – the Trade and Competitive Act of 1988 – are unique not only in the history of the accounting and auditing profession, but also in international law. The Acts raised awareness of the need for efficient and adequate internal control systems to prevent illegal acts such as the bribery of foreign officials, political parties and governments to secure or maintain contracts overseas. Its uniqueness is also due to the fact that the USA is the first country to pioneer such a legislation that impacted foreign trade, international law and codes of ethics. The research traces the history of the FCPA before and after its enactment, the role played by the various branches of the United States Government – Congress, Department of Justice, Securities Exchange commission (SEC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); the contributions made by professional associations such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICFA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the American Bar Association (ABA); and, finally, the role played by various international organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). A cultural, ethical and legalistic background will give a better understanding of the FCPA as wll as the rationale for its controversy.

Explores the application of expert systems in the field of services marketing. Describes the basics of the technology along with several hypothetical systems. Concludes with a brief examination of costs versus benefits, system design and implementation issues, together with the potential for other artificial intelligence technologies to contribute to the management of services marketing. Notes that advanced applications such as expert systems will dramatically change the competitive landscape of the future.

Looking beyond and “beneath” the short‐term effects of the 1990‐1991 recession, the general trends taking place in American retailing as it enters the third year of the 1990s are reviewed. These include: the effects of demographic changes, the significance of retailing in the economy, specialisation, “value” retailing, merchandise “scrambling”, the increasing segmentation of retail “offers”, the decline of the American department store, the “hangover” from the 1980s “space race”, the continued decentralisation of retail floorspace, the impacts of LBO debt problems, a return to “basics”, store “localising”, the “internationalisation” of American retailing, and the contributions of information technology. In conclusion, a brief prognosis is given for the remainder of the 1990s.

This paper aims to examine the effectiveness of PhD support groups as an intervention that improves mental well-being and increases confidence in timely PhD completion.

Participants of six PhD support groups, which we co-facilitated, completed a survey at the start of the intervention and at the end of the eight weeks of attendance. The survey measured subjective well-being and confidence in completion using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale and statements from the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (2017 and 2019). The final survey also included open-ended questions to identify the helpful factors of the intervention.

Participants’ subjective well-being scores increased considerably over the eight weeks of group attendance and improved from initial score ranges associated with risk of depression or psychological distress. As a result of feeling understood and supported by other group members, participants felt less isolated and anxious, were more satisfied with their life and work-life balance, and felt more confident about completing their PhD within the institutional time frame. The results confirm previous findings on the positive effects of social support and the relationship between poor well-being and attrition.

Support groups could form an integral part of university support as they increase well-being and could improve retention.

Existing literature mainly highlights factors that affect postgraduate researchers’ well-being, with limited research on innovative interventions. This paper investigates the impact of social support in a facilitated peer group that focuses on the emotional and psychological aspects of the PhD experience, rather than peer group learning or support with specific research tasks.