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A variety of enabling technologies such as synthetic speech, print enlargement on CRT screens, braille printers and displays, and communications technology has made library operations at the American Foundation for the Blind accessible to persons who are blind or visually impaired. INMAGIC software, a versatile database management system, has automated many library functions and has been integrated with other adaptive technologies. In addition to other applications, INMAGIC is used to update and create bibliographies and accession lists in inkprint, large print, or braille formats (with tape cassette versions available on request). Sidebars discuss the Xerox/Kurzweil Personal Reader (KPR); closed circuit television (CCTV); computers with speech; large print enhancements; Inmagic, Inc.—the company; and, in some depth, the functionality of INMAGIC.

“The definition of auditing calls for the communication of the degree of correspondence between assertions and established criteria” [ASOBAC, 1973]. As the profession has rejected adoption of universal quantitative definitions of materiality as infeasible [FASB, 1979], Don Leslie [1984] recommended adoption of a standard requiring disclosure of specific engagement materiality thresholds in the auditor's report. This study examines how such disclosures might affect perceptions of an auditor's culpability and liability in instances where post publication errors are discovered which alternately aggregate to more or less than reported materiality thresholds. A behavioral experiment was conducted in which eighty‐seven U.S. general jurisdiction judges participated. Findings support the potential for meaningful modifications to the standard auditor's report to reduce perceived auditor liability but also note the importance of jurists' pre‐experimental attitudes and beliefs respecting the public accounting profession. In 1985, the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants published Materiality: The Concept and its Application to Auditing [CICA, 1985]. In that research study, Don Leslie focused on his perceptions of the communication deficiencies of the standard form audit report used in Canada and the U.S. — the most critical of which he found to be the continuing lack of a quantitative definition of materiality. Leslie's remedy for the problem was novel and controversial even if his recognition of this problem was not without precedent. Leslie did not recommend the prompt adoption of universal, quantitative materiality standards (a proposal which has stalemated progress in the profession for years) but rather adoption of a standard making it compulsory that auditors disclose their individual materiality standards, whatever they may be, on each specific audit, in the audit report. To date, no serious research has examined this proposal since the report's publication, and yet the costs of the communications gap between accounting/auditing professionals and the public seem to be getting greater. The Auditing Standards Board recently readdressed the communications provided by the standard form audit report. One of the clearest observa‐tions to emerge from those deliberations was that there is a lack of reliable research data upon which to base regulatory decisions in this area [Elliott and Jacobson, 1987]. This paper contributes to reduce that vacuum. Specifically, on the following pages we outline the genesis of a research project and the findings of that study in which eighty‐seven (87) U.S. judges evaluated whether and to what degree an altered form of the audit report (including quantitative definition of materiality) would reduce the assessed culpability and legal liability of auditors. The remaining sections of this paper are organized as follows: in section one, we will summarize representative recent relevant literature; in section two, we develop testable hypotheses from that background literature; in section three, we provide a description of the design of our study; in section 4, our findings are reported and in section 5 we discuss implications for practice and future research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the types of business consulting services most needed by small business owners and entrepreneurs and to examine the role that gender and ethnicity plays in the demand for specialized assistance.

A survey was administered to small business owners and entrepreneurs to rate their interest in specialized consulting services. The consulting assistance was divided into strategic, operating and administrative categories based on the framework of Chrisman and Leslie.

Overall, the type of consulting with the highest interest was in the area of operations assistance, followed by strategic assistance and administrative assistance. Although few differences were found between male and female respondents, there were significant differences in the needs of minority women.

This study demonstrates the need for further research on minority female small business owners and entrepreneurs. In particular, it suggests further investigation of services that could be made available to them.

The results indicate that programs designed to assist minority women might have the greatest potential impact. Specialized attention may be necessary to assist this demographic segment, particularly since prior research indicates that minorities often start with greater resource limitations. Public policies should continue to encourage progress by helping establish a new generation of minority entrepreneurs.

The findings from this study provided current evidence of the specialized needs of minority entrepreneurs. It is important to distinguish the needs of entrepreneurs in today's marketplace, in order to develop the most effective and impactful small business assistance programs.

Additive manufacturing (AM) enables the fabrication of complex geometries beyond the capability of traditional manufacturing methods. Complex lattice structures have enabled engineering innovation; however, the use of traditional computer-aided design (CAD) methods for the generation of lattice structures is inefficient, time-consuming and can present challenges to process integration. In an effort to improve the implementation of lattice structures into engineering applications, this paper aims to develop a programmatic lattice generator (PLG).

The PLG method is computationally efficient; has direct control over the quality of the stereolithographic (STL) file produced; enables the generation of more complex lattice than traditional methods; is fully programmatic, allowing batch generation and interfacing with process integration and design optimization tools; capable of generating a lattice STL file from a generic input file of node and connectivity data; and can export a beam model for numerical analysis.

This method has been successfully implemented in the generation of uniform, radial and space filling lattices. Case studies were developed which showed a reduction in processing time greater than 60 per cent for a 3,375 cell lattice over traditional CAD software.

The PLG method is a novel design for additive manufacture (DFAM) tool with unique advantages, including full control over the number of facets that represent a lattice strut, allowing optimization of STL data to minimize file size, while maintaining suitable resolution for the implemented AM process; programmatic DFAM capability that overcomes the learning curve of traditional CAD when producing complex lattice structures, therefore is independent of designer proficiency and compatible with process integration; and the capability to output both STL files and associated data for numerical analysis, a unique DFAM capability not previously reported.

The role of dark side personality characteristics in the workplace has received increasing attention in the organizational sciences and from leadership researchers in particular. We provide a review of this area, mapping out the key frameworks for assessing the dark side. We pay particular attention to the roles that the dark side plays in leadership processes and career dynamics, with special attention given to destructive leadership. Further, we examine the role that stress plays in the emergence of leaders and how the dark side plays into that process. We additionally provide discussion of the possible roles that leaders can play in producing stress experiences for their followers. We finally illustrate a dynamic model of the interplay of dark leadership, social relationships, and stress in managerial derailment. Throughout, we emphasize a functionalist account of these personality characteristics, placing particular focus on the motives and emotional capabilities of the individuals under discussion.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between QSC (quality, service and cleanliness) inspection scores and financial performance in quick service restaurants.

Restaurant QSC inspection data were collected from 25 quick service restaurants of an international chain over a period of 18 months. Audited financial data were also collected for these participating restaurants. Using SPSS software, the data were analyzed for possible relationships between the restaurant QSC scores and the financial performance measured as total unit sales per week, revenues per available seat per week, and gross operating income for each month. Restaurant unit size is measured by total revenues per month.

Contrary to the commonly held belief, the relationship between QSC variable and restaurant performance is weak. This study found there was a “V” curve in QSC inspections and financial performance when restaurant size was chosen as the moderating variable.

The specific items measured in the QSC may differ across organizations, although the broad categories remain constant. Certain operational factors such as price changes, special promotions, additional restaurant openings in the specific area, and local economic conditions could have confounded the results.

The knowledge obtained from this study could help restaurant organizations determine the level of weighting given to a specific inspection variable. This study also suggests the use of FQSC inspections instead of traditional QSC to emphasize financial performance (F). This study demonstrates the liability and limitations of tying QSC inspections to merit raises and bonus plans as normally done in restaurants.

This paper is the first empirical study to analyze the QSC inspections of restaurants related to financial performance. In contrast to the past studies with food safety/health inspections, the current study focuses directly on QSC inspections conducted more frequently and in greater detail by the quick service restaurants with emphasis on operational and financial performance.

The study aims to provide a critical review of the extent to which digital technologies are likely to replace human labour, the exponential rise in the amount of work to be done and how far distinctively human skills are future-proofed and therefore likely to be in short supply. It reviews the evidence for a permanent switch to home and remote working enabled by emerging technologies. It assesses the business, digital and labour strategies of work organisations and the promise and challenges from a dominant trend towards a digitally enabled flexible labour model.

A critical review of 1020 plus case studies and the extant literature was carried out.

The relationship between emerging technologies and work is widely misunderstood, and there are major qualifiers to the idea of an overwhelming tsunami of technology drastically reducing headcounts globally. Distinctive human skills remain valuable, the amount of work to be done is increasing exponentially and automation is becoming more a coping than a labour replacement mechanism. Moves to a hybrid digitalised flexible labour model are promising but not if short-term, and if the challenges they represent are not managed well.

The main limitation is that we are making projections into the future, though we are drawing on a lot of different sources and evidence and past data projected into the future.

The problem is not labour displacement but large skills shortages that will slow down the speed of technology adoption. Skills development is vital, as is the taking of long-term perspectives towards the management of hybrid, flexible working based on human-machine interactions.

Organisations need to revitalise their training and development and labour management models. Governments and intermediary institutions need to manage transition states if the skills required to gain economic growth are to be available, and to ensure that large labour pools do not get bypassed from not having requisite skills.

The study offers a more subtle and complex perspective on the emerging evidence about the future of technology and work.

Work-life flexibility policies (e.g., flextime, telework, part-time, right-to-disconnect, and leaves) are increasingly important to employers as productivity and well-being strategies. However, policies have not lived up to their potential. In this chapter, the authors argue for increased research attention to implementation and work-life intersectionality considerations influencing effectiveness. Drawing on a typology that conceptualizes flexibility policies as offering employees control across five dimensions of the work role boundary (temporal, spatial, size, permeability, and continuity), the authors develop a model identifying the multilevel moderators and mechanisms of boundary control shaping relationships between using flexibility and work and home performance. Next, the authors review this model with an intersectional lens. The authors direct scholars’ attention to growing workforce diversity and increased variation in flexibility policy experiences, particularly for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality, which is defined as having multiple intersecting identities (e.g., gender, caregiving, and race), that are stigmatized, and link to having less access to and/or benefits from societal resources to support managing the work-life interface in a social context. Such an intersectional focus would address the important need to shift work-life and flexibility research from variable to person-centered approaches. The authors identify six research considerations on work-life intersectionality in order to illuminate how traditionally assumed work-life relationships need to be revisited to address growing variation in: access, needs, and preferences for work-life flexibility; work and nonwork experiences; and benefits from using flexibility policies. The authors hope that this chapter will spur a conversation on how the work-life interface and flexibility policy processes and outcomes may increasingly differ for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality compared to those with lower work-life intersectionality in the context of organizational and social systems that may perpetuate growing work-life and job inequality.