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This paper aims to report a case study regarding the combined use of several non‐destructive techniques (NDTs) as a tool in the management of diagnosis and refurbishment of a damaged reinforced concrete building.

Four types of NDTs have been selected and carried out on the pillars of the building: visual inspection, electromagnetic rebar location, sonic test and rebound hammer test. The campaign has been planned and run in order to get the highest amount of reliable data about materials degradation and structural safety with limited costs and limited interference with the functionality of the building.

The diagnostic campaign highlighted the usefulness of the selected techniques in the diagnosis of the type and the amount of degradation, thus permitting a plan of refurbishments to be defined, and to get a realistic estimation of restoration costs.

NDTs' ability to specifically identify a type of damage may be viewed as a reliable tool in assessing and managing the structural life‐cycle cost.

The presented case study highlighted that NDTs are very likely to locate and quantify the damage of materials and buildings, so that they can be considered as one of the most important parts of health monitoring of civil structures and infrastructures.

Outlines the legislation in Italy covering advertising to children, who are regarded as the most vulnerable among consumers. Relates Italy’s legislative policy to its membership of the European Union and therefore to Community law. Describes the self‐regulation regime as administered by the Institute for Advertising Self‐Regulation, and the general principles of child protection with regard to safety, children’s lack of experience, and the natural feelings of adults to adolescents and children. Moves on to specific areas such as cigarettes, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, toys, electronic media, radio and TV, and the Internet; children under 14 must not be used in TV commercials or promotions.

This article aims to describe how information and communications technology (ICT) has introduced a new approach in the handling of spatial data and related services and how Regione Autonoma della Sardegna, one of the Italian local governments, has been involved in an interesting growth that adopts ICT to provide spatial data and related services to itself and to its territory.

This article considers three aspects data and services interoperability and the implications of spatial data delivered through a multi-channel environment; the use of social web as a platform for volunteered geographical information in the public administration environment; and the application of mobile technologies.

The article represents the summary of recent activities in the Sardinia region and may constitute a paradigmatic example for other realities.

The research and activities conducted represent a point of view advanced and innovative in the field of territorial sciences and spatial planning on a regional scale.

This case is to familiarize students with the peculiarities of social enterprises (SEs). They would be able to recognize that SEs are hybrid organizations that merge a social purpose with the managerial logics of business ventures. Because of this dual nature, social entrepreneurs need to balance their social aim and the financial viability of the project when analyzing different ways to grow the business, as well as understand and address internal tensions that arise because they have to deal with diverse stakeholders. At the end of the analysis, students would have clear that social and commercial ventures respond to different logics, and therefore, require different managerial models.

Andrea Meoño was the founder of Hope Home, a center for early childhood education in San José, Costa Rica. The goal of the center was to provide education and daily care to children of disadvantaged families, especially single mothers for whom it was a real challenge to maintain a permanent job to sustain their children, and at the same time, provide them with adequate care and attention. After five years of operating the center, Andrea had to figure out the best way to grow her business, ensuring financial sustainability while keeping true to her original purpose of helping vulnerable mothers by providing their children with excellent educational opportunities.

Master’s and Master of Business Administration students taking a course on social entrepreneurship.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

This study aims to map and analyze health-care pricing information research. This work highlights current gap in pricing information research in health care and proposes future research avenues to academia and industry professionals.

A bibliometric method was adopted to analyze extant literature on pricing information asymmetry. Semistructured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders in health care to triangulate the findings.

Pricing information is crucial for all stakeholders including health-care consumers, providers and regulators. The popular research areas were the rising health-care cost, cost-saving, outcome-based pricing, price based on service supply and demand, insurance and out-of-pocket spending. Cost–quality perceived linkages, cost–demand correlation in health-care service and cost–price interlinked drivers were the dominant themes in extant literature. The study highlighted that pricing information asymmetry pushed patients from weaker sections into a debt trap due to unplanned out-of-pocket health-care expenses. The study suggests areas of research to minimize this pricing information asymmetry.

The emerging themes in health pricing asymmetry will help key stakeholders to identify areas for improvement and take remedial actions in the health-care domain.

This study is a pioneering effort to summarize extant literature published in the health-care information pricing domain and analyze it from a bibliometric perspective. The study also triangulates the finding with primary data from key stakeholders and highlights emerging research areas.

BY THE TIME this is in the hands of readers most of them have ceased to record their daily doings in any detail in the new diary; it will now be used merely as an engagement book, although some men and women seem to be able to do even without that limited reminder of their appointments. Nevertheless we wish our readers at this late hour a good librarianship year with increasing progress in the arts of the book and of communication, and their distribution. If the men who do things were only as ready and able to find time to write of them for the benefit of their fellows, how lively our professional journals, including ourselves of course, would be. That is something we would stress. It has been well said, indeed is widely recognized, that every man and woman owes a debt to the profession of his or her choice. They pay it by doing the business of their library day well, by their efforts, successful or otherwise to improve their service; it is only after those efforts, we agree, that their duty to their co‐workers may emerge. No one writer or librarian can be familiar today with everything that is happening in libraries; the profession is so much larger than any one of us, and infinitely larger than those we serve imagine it to be. Nor can any library journal, with the resources now available, give the merest chronique of the variations that abound in practice. Something towards such omniscience may be reached if we all have a regard for the whole profession.

The greatest challenges with which digital systems present us are the creation and maintenance of reliable records and the preservation of their authenticity over time. It is vital for every organisation that its records be able to stand for the facts they are about i.e. that their content is trustworthy. To meet these challenges the international community of records professionals must develop appropriate strategies, procedures and standards. In this article the author explores the concepts and principles derived from archival diplomatics that should guide the management of electronic records and therefore these developments, as well as drawing conclusions about the nature of the research work required

This is the title of an article by Sheila Rothwell in Vol. 91 No. 1 of the European Business Review. The developments in working trends, problems, legislation, and research in the context of equal opportunities in employment in the 1980s are examined. Attempted policy changes are detailed in the following areas: education, training, employment, trade unions, and social policy. There is discussion of three themes which have been the subject of debate: conforming to the male career model; obtaining greater recognition for “female” qualities, skills and attributes; and emphasis on a common humanity and maximising choices for both women and men. The likelihood of the success of each is discussed, and the third approach is supported. The implications for management development specialists are examined.

Do personal computers make sense? Do the benefits outweigh the costs? That's something you need to determine before you buy a computer (or add to your existing supply). A few years ago, many organizations underestimated the costs of computers and overestimated their benefits. Now, the prevailing wisdom may be going too far in the other direction. Our trailing‐edge skeptic notes some of the absurd projections of earlier years, showing the simple math that undermined the business plans. Going on to discuss some reasons why earlier cost‐benefit equations were seriously off in one direction, he proceeds to the current situation. Finally, notes from the literature cover four months (December 1988 through March 1989) with few startling developments but many worthwhile articles and reviews.

The purpose of this paper is to identify differences in auditors’ dysfunctional behaviour when expecting performance appraisal. Its main aim is to examine variances across countries; UK vs Kuwait. Also, it identifies differences between experienced and inexperienced auditors.

The paper focuses on dysfunctional audit behaviour (DAB) where premature sign-off and under-reporting of chargeable time are chosen as the two main signalling proxies. A survey made up of statements included in performance appraisal templates is distributed among auditors working for the Big Four firms in both, the UK and Kuwait.

The paper shows how performance evaluation of external auditors affects their behaviour in the workplace. From a cultural standpoint, assessing the performance of auditors whilst working in a competitive market in a developed country is regarded as a potential driver for DAB variations. Evaluating auditors’ performance in a developing country is seen as a stabiliser of DAB. This research paper demonstrates that experienced auditors have a greater tendency to behave dysfunctionally as compared to inexperienced auditors.

Prior studies have been conducted to assess auditors’ performance through using internal and external attributes (Kaplan, 1985), offshoring basic steps of audit work (Downey, 2018), and the perception of audit clients about auditors’ performance (Reheul et al., 2013). Such studies were conducted mostly on developed countries on a standalone basis. In this study, the focus has been shifted from focusing on one country to comparing two different countries. The paper examines DAB between experienced and inexperienced auditors in the UK and in Kuwait when expecting performance evaluation.