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1 – 10 of over 2000
Article
Publication date: 3 October 2016

Kevin Quinn Walsh, Reza Jafarzadeh, Nicola M. Short and Jason M. Ingham

The purpose of this article is to assist facilities asset managers who are dealing with regulatory environments pertaining to earthquakes and buildings. These professionals can…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to assist facilities asset managers who are dealing with regulatory environments pertaining to earthquakes and buildings. These professionals can learn a great deal from the successes and short-comings of a case study programme from the Auckland Council Property Department (ACPD), which manages the public facilities portfolio for the largest local administrative region in New Zealand in both population and landmass.

Design/methodology/approach

ACPD has initiated its response to New Zealand’s earthquake mitigation mandates by identifying buildings most at risk to an earthquake in its large and varied portfolio through the use of a rapid building evaluation programme strategically targeted to vulnerable building types with consequential attributes, including service type, number of occupants, floor area and geographic location.

Findings

ACPD was able to rapidly cull down its portfolio of approximately 3,500 buildings to just over 100 “high-exposure” buildings in urgent need of evaluation, set priorities for future evaluations, estimate needed operational and capital expenditures for long-term planning and provide useful information to more general facilities management decision-making processes.

Originality/value

A number of major cities around the world in areas of high seismicity have enacted ordinances mandating seismic retrofitting. However, much of the existing guiding literature regarding earthquake-related portfolio evaluations and costs pertains to specific scenarios involving real or hypothetical earthquakes. This case study, in contrast, details the approach taken by a public portfolio owner responding to legal mandates and attempting to quantify and reduce its life-safety risk exposure across a large portfolio as efficiently as possible using readily available information, a rapid building evaluation programme and best-practice predictive models for consulting and construction work.

Details

Facilities, vol. 34 no. 13/14
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0263-2772

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 May 2004

Nicola Dellepiane

The operational component of a company’s short‐term plan (amounts of products to be delivered and sold to various markets at prices that vary according to markets, sales channels…

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Abstract

The operational component of a company’s short‐term plan (amounts of products to be delivered and sold to various markets at prices that vary according to markets, sales channels, types of customers and quantities sold, levels of utilization of production capacity, assignment of resources to the manufacturing of different products, amounts of raw materials purchased from different sources, stocks of raw materials and finished products) gives rise to a series of cash inflows and outflows which are not synchronized. The financial component of a company’s short‐term plan has to indicate how to compensate the imbalances, in time, generated by the operational plan, between availabilities and requirements of cash, and indicate the sources of financing to be used and how to temporarily invest cash surpluses. The approach, too often followed in companies, that defines the financial component of a company’s short‐term plan as a consequence of the operational component of the plan, ignores the potential interactions between them and the possibility of defining simultaneously a more economic interfunctionally integrated plan. A model is presented for the decisions in the operational component and a model for the decisions in the financial component. If these models are used separately, they can be integrated resorting to an iterative approach that mutually adapts their separate solutions in order to define the company plan. However, the best approach is to build a model that integrates the two separate models into one structured in a way that can define the optimal integrated short‐term operational and financial plan. The lack of integration between the operational and the financial components of the short‐term company plan is a common weak point in the existing literature and practice.

Details

Managerial Finance, vol. 30 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4358

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Broadlands and the New Rurality
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-581-8

Article
Publication date: 14 December 2018

Valérie Hémar-Nicolas and Pascale Ezan

The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of what well-being means to children in the food context and to formulate recommendations about the way food…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of what well-being means to children in the food context and to formulate recommendations about the way food retailers may take actions to promote children’s food well-being (FWB).

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative study based on a child-centric perspective is conducted with 25 French children aged 6–11 years. The data collection and analysis use both verbal and graphic data methods including focus groups and drawings in order to help children express their feelings and thoughts.

Findings

The findings put forward that according to children, the concept of FWB relies on five dimensions: sensory taste, health, commensality, empowerment and altruistic behaviours. Their discourses suggest that food practices contributes to objective, hedonic, eudaemonic and social well-being on the short and long term.

Practical implications

Based on children’s intrinsic needs for pleasure and empowerment, our recommendations highlight how food retailers might rethink their own-label offering, retail environment and communication to take into account young consumers’ FWB.

Originality/value

Drawing upon the concept of FWB and positive psychology, the authors do not only examine children’s food representations through a nutritional lens, but enlarge the scope to show how physical, emotional, psychological and social factors, involved in food context, contribute to different aspects of well-being.

Details

International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, vol. 47 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-0552

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 July 2010

Paul Rogers, Michelle Davies and Lisa Cottam

This study investigates the impact that perpetrator coercion type, victim resistance type and respondent gender have on attributions of blame in a hypothetical child sexual abuse…

Abstract

This study investigates the impact that perpetrator coercion type, victim resistance type and respondent gender have on attributions of blame in a hypothetical child sexual abuse case. A total of 366 respondents read a hypothetical scenario describing the sexual assault of a 14‐year‐old girl by a 39‐year‐old man, before completing 21 attribution items relating to victim blame, perpetrator blame, the blaming of the victim's (non‐offending) parents, and assault severity. Overall, men judged the assault more serious when the perpetrator used physical force as opposed to verbal threat or misrepresented play as a coercive act. Men also deemed the victim's non‐offending parents more culpable when the victim offered no resistance, rather than physical or verbal resistance. Women judged the assault equally severe regardless of coercion type, although they did rate the victim's family more culpable when the victim offered verbal rather than physical resistance. Implications and ideas for future work are discussed.

Details

Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, vol. 2 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-6599

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 31 May 2019

Leïla Oubrahim, Nicolas Combalbert and Véronique Salvano-Pardieu

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the prevalence of aggressive behaviour among children and adolescents with intellectual disability (ID) and to demonstrate a possible…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the prevalence of aggressive behaviour among children and adolescents with intellectual disability (ID) and to demonstrate a possible link with moral judgement.

Design/methodology/approach

This study was carried out using two scales on a sample of 60 young people with ID in specialized schools. The first scale was “Behavior Problems Inventory-Short Form” (Rojahn et al., 2012) used to assess the frequency of aggressive behaviour and the second involved several scenarios about social situations of aggressiveness to assess moral judgement.

Findings

The main findings indicate that children and adolescents with ID gave more importance to the factor “consequences” than to that of “intent”. Moreover, there was a link between moral judgement and aggressive behaviour. Indeed, aggressive people found it harder to take into account the other’s point of view. Regarding moral judgement, they gave greater importance to the “consequences” factor than non-aggressive people.

Originality/value

The study aimed to establish, for the first time, a link between aggressiveness and moral judgement (blame) in ID (Anderson, 1996). This study clearly provides useful information regarding public health for patients, professionals and families. The authors were able to measure a similar frequency of aggressive behaviour in both children and adolescents with ID. The authors also highlighted a link between these aggressive behaviours and moral judgement. This knowledge should enhance understanding of manifestations of aggressiveness in this population, and improve diagnostic assessment. It should also help define appropriate directions for educational interventions to prevent the onset of aggressive behaviour or delinquency.

Details

Journal of Intellectual Disabilities and Offending Behaviour, vol. 10 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-8824

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 April 2021

Carmen María Hernández-Nicolás, Juan Francisco Martín-Ugedo and Antonio Minguez-Vera

The construction industry has traditionally been a male-dominated economic sector. Barely 10% of managers are women. On the other hand, this sector is considered an engine of the…

Abstract

Purpose

The construction industry has traditionally been a male-dominated economic sector. Barely 10% of managers are women. On the other hand, this sector is considered an engine of the economy. For these reasons, it is important to examine the influence of women CEOs on financial variables of firms in the construction industry.

Design/methodology/approach

The empirical study is carried out using a sample from the Iberian Balance Sheet Analysis System record (“Sistema de Análisis de Balances Ibérico”, SABI). The sample includes 8,492 Spanish companies from the construction sector. The methodology employed is a three-stage least squares (3SLS) analysis. This methodology controls for the endogeneity of explanatory variables. It is employed in accordance with the peculiar characteristics of the sample, which includes data for only one year.

Findings

The results show that firms with a woman CEO have a lower level of debt, whatever the terms of the maturity of the debt are. In contrast to most previous evidence, firms managed by women are found to be less profitable.

Originality/value

The paper gives evidence of the influence of the CEO's gender on the performance (return and risk) of a firm. It provides original empirical evidence for the male-dominated construction sector. An extensive search identified no literature in which the researchers had focused on the construction industry.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. 29 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 April 2024

Roisin McColl, Peter Higgs and Brendan Harney

Globally, hepatitis C treatment uptake is lower among people who are homeless or unstably housed compared to those who are housed. Understanding and addressing this is essential…

Abstract

Purpose

Globally, hepatitis C treatment uptake is lower among people who are homeless or unstably housed compared to those who are housed. Understanding and addressing this is essential to ensure no one is left behind in hepatitis C elimination efforts. This study aims to explore peoples’ experiences of unstable housing and health care, and how these experiences influenced engagement in hepatitis C treatment.

Design/methodology/approach

Purposive sampling was used to recruit people with lived experience of injection drug use, hepatitis C and unstable housing in Melbourne, Australia. In-depth semistructured interviews were conducted and a case study approach with interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to identify personal experiential themes and group experiential themes.

Findings

Four people were interviewed. The precarious nature of housing for women who inject drugs was a group experiential theme, however, this did not appear to be a direct barrier to hepatitis C treatment. Rather, competing priorities, including caregiving, were personal experiential themes and these created barriers to treatment. Another group experiential theme was “right place, right time, right people” with these three elements required to facilitate hepatitis C treatment.

Originality/value

There is limited research providing in-depth insight into how personal experiences with unstable housing and health care shape engagement with hepatitis C treatment. The analyses indicate there is a need to move beyond a “one size fits-all” approach to hepatitis C care. Instead, care should be tailored to the needs of individuals and their personal circumstances and regularly facilitated. This includes giving greater attention to gender in intervention design and evaluation, and research more broadly.

Details

Drugs, Habits and Social Policy, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2752-6739

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 May 2022

Howard Cooke, Stefania Fiorentino, Rob Harris, Nicola Livingstone and Pat McAllister

This paper investigates how large UK corporate occupiers perceive the potential role of flexible office space in their office portfolios in a post-pandemic context.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper investigates how large UK corporate occupiers perceive the potential role of flexible office space in their office portfolios in a post-pandemic context.

Design/methodology/approach

The research methodology is qualitative and applied. For a longitudinal survey, convenience sampling was used to obtain co-operation from 11 corporate real estate managers with responsibility for managing large corporate real estate portfolios spread across a range of business sectors and countries. Semi-structured interviews were selected as the core research method to seek and to optimise the balance between discovery and generalisability.

Findings

Although the pandemic has led corporate occupiers to fundamentally re-appraise where and when different work tasks are performed, it is not yet clear whether this has major implications for the flex space sector. The flex space model, with its blending of various occupiers and activities, is perceived to be poorly aligned with an increasing emphasis on the office as a core corporate hub facilitating connection, collaboration, enculturation, learning and creativity. Since most flex space is concentrated in central locations, it is also not well positioned to benefit from any decentralisation of office functions. However, as the flex space sector evolves in response to structural shifts in employment and working practices and business change, its various products are likely to be a continuing requirement from corporate occupiers for short-term solutions to demand shocks, the need for rapid market entry, accommodation for short-term projects and access to desk space in multiple locations.

Practical implications

Understanding occupiers' drivers in their decision-making on selecting the method of occupation will assist investors in how they might adjust what they offer in the marketplace.

Originality/value

Whilst there has been a substantive number of surveys of corporate occupiers' perceptions and intentions regarding their office portfolio, this paper focusses on a specifically on the flex space sector. Whilst previous research has mainly been extensive, this research study is intensive.

Details

Journal of Property Investment & Finance, vol. 40 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-578X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 21 November 2016

Mattie Tops, Jesús Montero-Marín and Markus Quirin

Engagement, motivation, and persistence are usually associated with positive outcomes. However, too much of it can overtax our psychophysiological system and put it at risk. On…

Abstract

Engagement, motivation, and persistence are usually associated with positive outcomes. However, too much of it can overtax our psychophysiological system and put it at risk. On the basis of a neuro-dynamic personality and self-regulation model, we explain the neurobehavioral mechanisms presumably underlying engagement and how engagement, when overtaxing the individual, becomes automatically inhibited for reasons of protection. We explain how different intensities and patterns of engagement may relate to personality traits such as Self-directedness, Conscientiousness, Drive for Reward, and Absorption, which we conceive of as functions or strategies of adaptive neurobehavioral systems. We describe how protective inhibitions and personality traits contribute to phenomena such as disengagement and increased effort-sense in chronic fatigue conditions, which often affect professions involving high socio-emotional interactions. By doing so we adduce evidence on hemispheric asymmetry of motivation, neuromodulation by dopamine, self-determination, task engagement, and physiological disengagement. Not least, we discuss educational implications of our model.

Details

Recent Developments in Neuroscience Research on Human Motivation
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-474-7

Keywords

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