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The reader might be forgiven for not being familiar with the term Community Asset Management. Indeed, doing a web search for ‘community asset management’ yields a disparate range of responses, suggesting connections to lessons from financial crisis, to knowledge management technology, to nutrition support in home care, to name but a few of the more interesting articles found in a preliminary web search. It certainly was not part of the lexicon in international development when the Max Lock Centre began using the phrase several years ago at the start of Department for International Development (DFID) - UK funded research on Community Asset Management (CAM) in India and Eastern and Southern Africa. Indeed, lack of recognition was one of the two reactions most often received when the term was first mentioned in discussions with various stake-holders in community development in these locations. Once the ideas behind CAM had been explained however, most quickly remarked something along the lines of, ‘Oh yeah, we're doing that’. (See for example MUTTER 2001; see also KRETZMANN and McKNIGHT 1993)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dickens et al. model of bank holding company dividend policy. They identified five explanatory factors in a sample of bank holding companies (BHCs). Banking companies typically pay larger dividends and more often than industrial firms. Investors often look at the dividends as being important return variables.

In this study, a sample of 99 firms with 2006 data from governmental reports and Yahoo is used in regression equations to test the relationship of the five identified variables with dividend yields. The analysis is extended to investigate non‐linearities between dividend yield and insider ownership.

The paper finds that the original model is robust, but not all variables keep their significance. Insider holdings have a non‐linear relationship with dividend yields.

The significant factors affecting bank dividend policy help dividend seeking investors find BHCs that return higher dividend yields.

This paper reveals a non‐linear link between insider holdings and dividend yields among BHCs.

The size of the population classified as people with disabilities or older adults is increasing globally. The World Health Organization estimates that the average prevalence of disability is around 18% among adults age 18 and older. People with disabilities and older adults have lower levels of physical activity and experience significant barriers to walking in local neighbourhoods. A new perspective is needed that views disability in the context of the built environment and across the lifespan. The purpose of this chapter is to examine walking as an activity that is inclusive of any age, ability or assistive device used for mobility. Through a literature review, we illustrate the complex relationship that exists between individuals with disabilities/older adults and the built environment. We describe environmental and social factors, which have been found to be associated with walking among people with disabilities and older adults as well as factors perceived to be barriers to walking. Factors cited in the literature include aspects that fall into the environmental domains of the International Classification of Functioning. We conclude by highlighting key factors needed for planning supportive walking environments for people with disabilities and older adults. Recommendations include the use of walking audits to gain information on detailed aspects of the built environment, developing inclusive walking initiatives, including people with disabilities and older adults in the planning process and planning for maintenance.

This study examines the relationship between various agency factors and debt of property management firms in the UK. Findings indicate that debt is significantly inversely related to percentage of shares closely held, dividend yield and price‐to‐book ratio. Size, measured by sales volume, appears to be insignificant in determining debt level.

Game-based learning or simulation-based learning – especially Serious Games – are notions of the contemporary discourse on digitalisation in the higher education sector in Germany. These methods offer a more vivid and motivating learning context and they help to improve important competencies for reaching work-related higher education goals. This explorative study focuses on experts’ experiences with digital and non-digital serious games and their contribution towards developing self, social and management competencies, in the Bundeswehr Command and Staff College in Hamburg (Germany). Whilst there are numerous opportunities for using serious games in higher education, their use creates barriers for addressing social, as well as leadership/management competencies. In the future, game-based learning – and more specifically, digital game-based learning – could challenge the relation between learning as hard work and learn for fun, and between explicit and goal-oriented learning and implicit, incidental and explorative learning.

This study aims to investigate the perceptions of elderly learners in experiencing Zoom learning under the effects of COVID in the case of Hong Kong.

An online survey and focus group interviews have been conducted with quantitative and qualitative approaches, respectively. The survey design was based on the input-process-output (IPO) model conceptual framework and used to assess students’ perceptions regarding their Zoom learning experiences at the Elder Academy of Hong Kong Metropolitan University. Thereafter, selected students were invited to participate in focus group interviews to offer more in-depth comments for analysis purposes. Statistical Product and Service Solutions software and SmartPLS were used for data analysis of the survey, and content analysis was used to summarize opinions from the focus group interviews; thus, a comprehensive picture of elderly learners’ learning experiences on Zoom is presented.

An overall positive perception was the result of elderly learners’ Zoom learning journeys, particularly in the “input” and “process” stages of the IPO model. Yet, their perception of the “learning outcomes achieved” level in the “output” stage was lower among the rest, thus strongly affected by the factors of “interactions” and “teaching” experienced by elderly learners on Zoom. Although the perception of the youngest age group was more positive, none have agreed that Zoom learning was more favourable when compared with the traditional face-to-face mode.

Given Zoom as the short-term replacement option under the COVID pandemic, this study will provide recommendations for educators/institutions to improve their design of the whole learning process for elderly learners on the Zoom platform.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

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 purpose of this study is to explore audit procedure disclosures related to key audit risks, during the prior year and the initial year of the COVID-19 outbreak, by reporting on matters published in over 3,000 Australian statutory audit reports during 2019 and 2020.

This study partially uses latent semantic analysis methods to apply textual and readability analyses to external audit reports in Australia. The authors measure the tone of the audit reports using the Loughran and McDonald (2011) approach.

The authors find that 3% of audit procedures undertaken during 2020 were designed to address audit risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. As a percentage of total audit procedures undertaken during 2020, the authors find that smaller practitioners reported much less audit procedures related to COVID-19 audit risks than most larger audit firms. Finally, the textual analysis further found differences in the sentiment or tone of words used by different auditors in 2020, but differences in sentiment or tone were not found when 2020 was compared to the prior year 2019.

This study provides early evidence on whether auditors designed audit procedures to deal specifically with audit risks that arose due to the COVID-19 pandemic and on the extent and nature of those audit procedures. The study will help policymakers to better understand whether Key Audit Matters provided informational value to investors during a time of global crisis.

The Marketing of Spain as a Holiday Destination by British Tour Operators. As the competition between overseas tour and package holiday operators grows more intense, the nature of their marketing strategies and presentation assumes greater interest. The purpose of this paper is to examine some aspects of the structure and marketing of holidays to Spain by British tour operators. Each September or October brochures are published by tour operators, containing information on holiday destinations for the summer season of the following year, which usually extends from April to September. A total of 15 such brochures including Spain in their programme for the summer of 1986 were examined. These provided the data on the structure and marketing of package holidays to Spain examined in this paper.