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Since the mid-2000s, there has been a marked resurgence in Hollywood action films featuring older male heroes, predominantly showcasing stars ranging from their mid-fifties into their seventies. This ‘geri-action’ cycle – a less-than-kind label that combines geriatric and action – has revitalised the careers of aged action stars such as Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. A core element of the cycle, beyond action franchise revivals and all-star ensembles featuring stars from the 1980s and 1990s, has been the emergence of late-career action turns by ageing Hollywood actors in globally successful French-produced, Hollywood-style action films. Part of a larger trend in French cinema towards the production of films in a distinctly commercial register, the ‘globalised’ aesthetic of French action film cannily mimics Hollywood action film style and aesthetics. These French-produced geri-action films are the roots of the cycle, represent some of its biggest box office successes and have transformed the career of several acclaimed recent-to-action Hollywood stars, exemplified by the prolific late action career of Oscar-nominated actor, Liam Neeson, most notably across three Taken films (2008–2014, EuropaCorp). Despite this, these French-produced geri-action films have predominantly been examined as a Hollywood and American phenomenon.

Geri-action quickly became synonymous with 1980s Hollywood action cinema's white male ‘hard bodies’, who are still widely understood to diagnose national anxieties and social ills – and violently embody their so-called “cures”. These French geri-action films similarly feature protagonists who forcefully struggle against perceived threats to the cultural position of traditional (white) masculinities and professional and paternal redundancy. Yet they also showcase deep-seated European anxieties about the threat of porous borders, immigration and social change, presaging a later shift in the cycle in Hollywood. Focusing on films that have received comparatively less scholarly attention, Taken 2 (2012), 3 Days to Kill (2014) and The Commuter (2018), this chapter examines the productive confluence of lower budget French-produced geri-action films and their ageing recent-to-action stars. These films depend on their stars to fortify their globalised Hollywood aesthetic and the stars' personae permit efficiencies such as clipped pacing. At the same time, budget constraints enhance the action performance of recent-to-action stars as unadorned, visceral and authentic-feeling. The films often stage fight sequences in confined, everyday spaces of work and tourism with ageing heroes who must creatively ‘make do’ with objects available to them. Equally, stunt coordination and choreography, editing and sound design make ageing and less experienced action performers appear to move faster and hit harder. Taken together, French-produced geri-action and its recent-to-action stars have transformed not only who stars in ‘Hollywood’ action cinema but who produces it.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the evolution of “push” marketing in the confectionery industry in Britain during the 1930s. It examines the interplay between a manufacturer and advertising agency in creating advertising for cocoa and chocolate.

A survey of the literature examines the uses of health and well-being in the design of advertising in Britain between the wars. The records of Rowntree and its main advertising agency, J Walter Thompson, are used to examine the themes and tactics used in advertising for cocoa and Aero chocolate bars during the 1930s.

The paper emphasises the different ways in which health and nutrition was used in advertising for the two products. The campaigns of the 1930s built on earlier use of these themes. J Walter Thompson looked for ways of presenting commodities as “new and improved” and their role extended into pressing for changes to production methods and the nature of products. Themes of modernity, sexuality and lifestyles all featured, confirming conclusions of earlier studies. However, targeting of mothers and of different age and gender groups indicated that market segmentation was used extensively via print media and tailored advertising messages.

Although Cadbury, Rowntree and confectionery have been studied in depth before, this paper emphasises their role in applying new advertising ideas to everyday items. It points to the influence of advertising on the mass of consumers compared to the middle- and upper-income groups targeted in the marketing of houses, motor-cars and new consumer durables.

International Business, Ethics, International Legal Issues/Law, Environmental Management.

Upper-level undergraduates and graduate students. The case is appropriate for courses in International Law, Ethics, International Business and Strategy.

This case is inspired by current ethical, legal, social and environmental issues that have plagued the multinational mining industry in frontier markets. The case focuses on a multitude of legal, ethical and strategic issues involving the multinational mining industry. This case describes a hypothetical assignment facing an operations manager at the fictional Minera, Inc. The assignment revolves around several dilemmas a manager must confront as he attempts to secure valuable mining licenses from the Mongolian Government while simultaneously attempting to harmonize seemingly detrimental operating practices with the organizations' stated beliefs. The case provides detailed background information on the social, economic and political climate in Mongolia, as well as the applicable laws, ethical frameworks and competitive market considerations facing multinational mining organizations.

This case will help students understand the complexity of international business in frontier markets; identify key international legal issues such as the foreign corrupt practices act; and recognize ethical issues and formulate economically, strategically, ethically and legally sound courses of action in complex environments.

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

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the use of the internal rate of return (IRR) as a principal measure of performance of investments and to highlight some of the weaknesses of the IRR in evaluating investments in this way.

This Education Briefing is an overview of the limitations of the IRR in making capital budgeting decisions. It is illustrated with a number of counter-intuitive examples.

The advantage of the IRR is that it is, on the surface, a wonderfully simple benchmark. One figure that tells a story. But, the disadvantage is that if used in isolation the IRR can give misleading results when used to assess investment proposals.

The IRR should be used in conjunction with other analyses to appraise projects, so that the user can determine its veracity in the context of other benchmarks. This context is particularly important when assessing investments with unusual cash flows.

This is a review of existing models.

In order to mark the beginning of the fifteenth century, a group of prominent Muslim theologians and jurists assembled to draft a document that systematically laid out the rights and duties of all human beings according to the dictates of Islam. The year of Christ was 1981, and the occasion was formally the International Islamic Conference, held that year in Paris. The document that these jurist produced seems at first an odd one, titled The Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights (Universal Islamic Declaration, 1988). Odd as the document so pointedly invokes the famed 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Universal Declaration, 1999). But perhaps such an invocation is not odd at all, for the document is first of all a symptom of and a response to two massive contemporary facts. The first is the ubiquity of human rights talk. It is certainly proof of the success of this discourse as a normative and normalizing force that no-one can speak of universality or ethics or even the most drab topic in international relations without paying homage, only sometimes qualified, to the idea that all humans have rights. The second fact to which the Islamic declaration responds is the suspicion if not outright insistence that the religion of Islam in unsuited to this new order of civilization. Amongst the jurists themselves there is a sense that clarification is needed of the relation of Islam to the global (to say nothing of globalizing) discourse of human rights. This much is readily conceded by the drafters, who felt impelled by the forces of the contemporary world scene to formulate the Islamic position in relation to human rights (Weeramantry, 1988, p. 122).Not surprisingly, such a position involves dethroning the sovereign subject (entirely different from its deconstruction) and proclaiming victory once again for God and his absolute sovereignty, even as it involves extending a governmental interest in the life of the individual, from the conditions of his cultural life (article 14) to the legislation of his leisure time (article17). However, in contrast to the Universal Declaration that never once mentions God or Creator, the Islamic Declaration insists that only God to be “the creator the sustainer, the sovereign the sole guide of mankind and the Source of all Law” (Universal Islamic Declaration, 1988, p. 176). A hasty reading would take this as a response not just to the Universal Declaration, which here is named and renamed, but the entire western tradition of rights and secular power after the death of God. This, however, would be a mistake, for it would overlook both the distinctly modern project of power that the Islamic Declaration articulates, and the peculiar construction of the U.N Declaration itself, the way it refers to and refracts the idiom of the famous eighteenth century revolutionary documents – the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Thus in the Universal Declaration the repetition of the American phrase, “endowed by their creator,” becomes simply “endowed with reason and conscience,” with no one doing the endowing. In short, the omission of God from the Universal Declaration is an over determined decision and not one of a casual or inevitable secularism.

Universal helmet laws (UHLs) are widely believed to be effective in reducing motorcycle fatalities. In this chapter, we further investigate the effectiveness of such policies by focusing on their long-term impact as well as their effect on motorcycle use. Using state-level longitudinal data from 1975 to 2005, we estimate how the adoption and repeal of UHLs influence motorcycle safety. Our results confirm earlier findings that adoption of UHLs prevents fatalities, whereas repeals lead to higher fatality rates. We provide evidence that UHLs operate as intended, decreasing fatalities mainly by improving safety rather than by reducing motorcycle riding. Finally, using dynamic specifications, we show that the long-term effects of both adoption and repeal persist in the years beyond the policy change.