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The purpose of this paper is to provide an effective members-adding method for truss topology optimization in plastic design.

With the help of the distribution of principal stress trajectories, obtained by finite element analysis of the design domain, ineffective zones for force transmission paths can be found, namely, areas whose nodes may have ersatz nodal displacements. Members connected by these nodes are eliminated and the reduced ground structure is used for optimization. Adding members in short to long order and limiting the number of members properly with the most strained ones added, large-scale truss problems in one load case and multiple-load cases are optimized.

Inefficient members (i.e. bars that fulfil the adding criterion but make no contribution to the optimal structure) added to the ground structure in each iterative step are reduced. Fewer members are used for optimization than before; therefore, faster solution convergence and less computation time are achieved with the optimized result unchanged.

The proposed members-adding method in the paper can alleviate the phenomenon of ersatz nodal displacements, enhance computational efficiency and save calculating resources effectively.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

Knight's Industrial Law Reports goes into a new style and format as Managerial Law This issue of KILR is restyled Managerial Law and it now appears on a continuous updating basis rather than as a monthly routine affair.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the effect of royal family members on firm performance of publicly listed companies in Saudi Arabia.

Using 491 firm-year observations of non-financial publicly listed firms in Saudi Arabia’s stock market between 2009 and 2013, the study employs, besides others, the advanced econometric technique GMM-system estimator. This allows the dynamic nature and control of the endogeneity problem to be accounted for in corporate governance and firm performance.

The main result is that the attendance of royal family members at board meetings negatively influences firm performance but does not have an influence on firm value. The results also show that firms with many independent royal family members on the board of directors have better firm performance and firm value. In addition, firms with a high number of royal family members presenting on the board have better firm performance.

This study offers guidance to assist the further investigation of the SA Royal Family’s BoD membership either in SA or in other monarchy countries. It is interesting to compare these results in order to further understand the different effects that the Royal Family’s BoD membership have in such countries. This study’s results suggest that independent members of SA’s Royal Family on the BoD have some influence on firm performance in both the short and long term. Thus, policymakers should encourage the members of SA’s Royal Family to become more involved in firms’ BoDs.

This study offers guidance for further investigation of royal family members in the region or in other monarchy countries. It will be interesting to compare these results. The study suggests that royal family members on the board have a partial influence on firm performance, especially the independent ones. Thus, the policymakers should encourage more involvement of independent royal family members on the board.

Foreign and minority investors, who invest in SA’s publicly listed firms, should note that when independent members of SA’s Royal Family are on the BoD their investment will benefit from the reduced risks and uncertainty.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study undertaken to investigate empirically the influence a royal family’s presence on the board of directors has on firm performance. This study is based on both theories, namely the agency theory and resource dependence theory.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how trust, honesty and transparency impact the willingness and timeliness of communicating financial information between Government Finance Officers (GFOs) and members of the municipal boards they serve.

Survey data was collected from professionals who work with municipalities to ensure government resources are properly managed. Nonparametric local-linear regression was used to analyze the data.

Evidence suggests that trust in the board, GFO preference for honesty and greater transparency of the municipality influence the timeliness of communication. There is evidence that when the GFO and board members have a working relationship built on trust and the GFO has a preference for honesty, the GFO is more willing to share positive information with the board. In addition, there is evidence that with greater transparency and trust in the board, there is a reduction in the time of sharing positive information in situations where there is little discretion in disclosing and less willingness to share information.

A principal limitation of this study is the small sample size. In addition, the study was conducted using only participants from the pool of members of the Government Finance Officers Association of Texas. As an exploratory study, the survey included a minimal number of questions to gather data from actual GFOs and included only six possible scenarios. The time constraint resulted in a reduced number of questions related to the models used. Other limitations include the potential of missing variables, factors or perceptions related to scenarios not presented in the survey instrument.

The findings suggest that with greater transparency, there is less time between the event and the GFO communication to the board providing the opportunity to improve the effectiveness of the decision-making process.

This study is the first to explore the effects of increased transparency on the level of communication between the GFO and the board.

This paper aims to explore some of the effects of belonging to a virtual brand community on consumer behaviour. It also proposes the concept of belonging as a three‐dimensional construct.

The paper proposes that belonging to a virtual community has positive effects on consumer satisfaction, affective commitment and word‐of‐mouth behaviour. After validation of the measurement scales the hypotheses are contrasted through modelling.

The data show that belonging to a virtual community may enhance consumer satisfaction, affective commitment and word‐of‐mouth advertising towards the brand around which the community is developed. In addition, the paper introduces a third dimension to the construct of belonging, called non‐participative belonging. Active participative belonging influences the level of satisfaction and affective commitment more positively than passive and non‐participative belonging.

Data were obtained through surveys, web surveys and online interviews. There were also limitations of sample size and sampling procedure.

Managers may enhance consumer satisfaction, affective commitment and word‐of‐mouth advertising by developing virtual brand communities and promoting consumers' participation in them.

Previous works that have focused on virtual brand communities have never concentrated on virtual brand communities within Facebook. In addition, prior to this study, belonging to a virtual brand community was a two‐dimensional construct: active and passive participative belonging. The paper identifies a third dimension as non‐participative belonging. Thus this paper offers new areas for future research.

The purpose of this study is to explore polygamous program loyalty in hotel loyalty programs and the relationship between members’ behavioral loyalty and their perceptions of the program effectiveness.

Descriptive statistics, discriminant analysis, ordinary least square regression and one-way ANOVA methods.

This study suggests that the flexibility to purchase points in a loyalty program is significantly associated with the polygamous program loyalty. Members will stay in only one program if they perceive such flexibility. Although members tend to emphasize purchasing accommodation from the loyalty programs’ hotels, they do not necessarily advocate or pay price premiums for the brand. Compared with basic members, elite members exhibit higher levels of loyalty behaviors in general, but not in terms of paying price premiums.

The results suggest that how customers value a loyalty program can differentiate the number of membership(s) they have. Increasing the flexibility of point purchase in hotel loyalty programs encourages customers to stay in only one program. With a majority of the participants in the study being senior travelers, the results and implications should be generalized only in the senior market. A larger and more diverse sample is recommended for future research.

If loyalty programs seek to keep members from joining other loyalty programs, they should increase members’ likelihood to achieve their expected benefits such as increased flexibility of point purchase. In addition, loyalty programs should encourage, recognize and incentivize members’ reciprocal behaviors based on the norm of reciprocity to build a reciprocal chain in loyalty programs. However, in seeking sustained loyal behavior, loyalty programs need to demonstrate value beyond transactional rewards.

This paper explores the reason why customers join multiple loyalty programs (i.e. polygamous program loyalty) and identifies a broken reciprocity link in hotel loyalty programs. Many members primarily focus on the utilities of loyalty programs rather than contributing back to the program; therefore, the norm of reciprocity is suggested to improve loyalty program effectiveness.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how a combination of Normative Commitment (NC) and Instrumental Commitment (IC) affects the creation of budgetary slack when the decision-making mode is individual versus group.

We use 86 students in a two-by-two experimental design (individuals vs. groups and a combination of NC/IC vs. no NC/IC), fully crossed between participants, to examine the combined effects of NC/IC on budgetary slack creation by individuals and group members.

The results show that groups without NC/IC create the highest budgetary slack and differ from the other three experimental cells (groups with NC/IC and individuals with and without NC/IC). In addition, individuals with NC/IC also differ from individuals without NC/IC.

Research limitations are formation of groups, validity threats common to laboratory experiments, and generalizability of the findings. We do not believe these limitations are affecting the results.

As organizations continue to increase the use of group decision-making for setting their budgets, they may want to monitor groups with low NC/IC due to higher slack creation.

Use of groups can impact prosocial behavior via creating a “label” and/or forming social ties in budgeting.

This study extends budgetary slack creation under individuals versus group decision-making, introduces the combined effects of NC/IC as a psychological contract to the accounting literature, and examines the combined NC/IC effect on groups as compared to individuals.