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The purpose of this paper is to celebrate the manifold contributions made by Michael Thomas, marketing professor extraordinary.

This paper is an exercise in autobiographical memory, coupled with the subjective personal introspective procedures advocated by many leading marketing scholars, most notably, Steven Gould and Morris Holbrook.

The paper shows that ornithology is an apt metaphor – analogy, rather – for Professor Thomas's many and varied contributions to marketing thought.

The paper comes closer than most to defining the quintessential Michael Thomas.

Human rights figure largely in both rhetoric and practice, and government policy seeks to value and enhance individual equality and quality of life. This paper draws on recent work, some funded by the Judith Trust, to illustrate gaps in the achievement of these ideals. The proposed new single body, a Commission on Equality and Human Rights (CEHR), may offer an improved framework for implementation of policy goals and more fulfilled lives. The Judith Trust aims to improve the lives of people with both learning disabilities and mental health needs.

This article describes the approach to modernisation of adult mental health day services taken in Sandwell, which retains a building‐based element to provide for attachment and belonging, while developing community‐based models that promote social integration and recovery.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the contingency effect of natural resource abundance on the foreign direct investment (FDI)–growth relationship in a nonlinear (threshold) model.

The authors use the fixed effect threshold model for panel data with annual frequency for 83 countries and estimate threshold level of natural resource abundance that split the sample and change the FDI–growth relationship.

The results show that FDI has a strong positive impact on the economic growth of the host country if the host country's natural resources export is below the statistically significant estimated threshold. However, this FDI-induced economic growth is watered-down if the countries natural resources export is larger than the estimated threshold.

The results show that FDI has a strong positive impact on the economic growth of the host country if the host country's natural resources export is below the statistically significant estimated threshold. However, this FDI-induced economic growth is watered-down if the countries natural resources export is larger than the estimated threshold. The results are robust for alternative indicators of natural resources, i.e. natural resources rents.

The issue of foreign aid has continued to gain renewed economic cum political attention in the early years of the twenty-first century. At a summit, popularly known as the Millennium Summit, which took place in 2000, there was an agreement by the international community concerning some goals known as the Millennium Development Goals which were targeted to be reached by the year 2015 but have now been replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals. Against this background, it becomes pertinent to ascertain the contributions and impact of foreign aid in the form of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) on capital formation in Nigeria. This is an area of foreign aid studies that has been ignored by many researchers. Most studies are seen delving into analyzing the aid-growth nexus without evaluating the transmission link through which foreign aid transmits to affect economic growth. There is paucity of studies on the aid-capital nexus. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The empirical method used was autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model.

The empirical results from the ARDL model estimations show that foreign aid, which is proxied by ODA, has a positive and significant impact on capital formation in Nigeria for the years under analysis. The result of the Granger causality test shows that a bi-directional granger causality exists between foreign aid and gross fixed capital formation (GFCF).

Empirical results from the ARDL model estimations show that foreign aid, which is proxied by ODA, has a positive and significant impact on capital formation in Nigeria for the years under analysis. The result of the Granger causality test shows that a bi-directional Granger causality exists between foreign aid and GFCF. It is therefore recommended that government should make serious efforts toward the implementation and effective utilization of foreign aid. Appropriate policy measures that would monitor the maximum and effective utilization of foreign aid are also required.

High quality health-care delivery is not only the governments’ responsibility but also every prisoner’s right. Health care in prison and, particularly, of Iranian prisoners is increasingly important topic because of the rising number of the prison population. This paper aims to explore health-care managers’ perspectives and experiences of prisons and the barriers to health-care delivery in Iranian prisons.

A qualitative research design was conducted in Iran from October 2018 to August 2019. The participants consisted of 51 health-care managers (50 men and one woman) from Iranian prisons. A combination of face-to-face (N = 42) and telephonic (N = 9) semi-structured interviews were used because of the geographical distribution of the respondents. The first part of the interview guide consisted of demographic characteristics, and the second part consisted of three main open ended-questions. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and thematic descriptive analysis was used to interpret the data.

The barriers to health-care delivery in Iranian prisons were categorized into four main topics: human resources, financing, facilities and barriers related to the health-care delivery process. Data synthesis identified the following themes for barriers to human resources: barriers to human resources planning (with eight sub-themes); barriers to education (with three sub-themes); and motivational barriers (with seven sub-themes). Moreover, barriers to financing consisted of five sub-themes. The barriers to facilities consisted of barriers related to physical infrastructures (with two sub-themes) and barriers related to equipment (with six sub-themes). Finally, barriers to the health-care delivery process included the following themes: communication barriers (with six sub-themes); legal barriers (with five sub-themes); and environmental-demographic factors (with seven sub-themes).

Identifying the barriers to health-care delivery in Iranian prisons plays a critical role in the improvement of planning, decision-making and the health-care delivery process.

This qualitative research explores the relationship between religiosity, suicide thoughts and drug abuse among 55 homeless people, interviewed with interpretative phenomenological analysis. Analyzing the thematic structure of the participants' narrations, important main themes appeared in order to avoid suicide, among which family, the certainty of finding a solution and the will to live. However, the suicide ideation inheres in about 30% of participants, almost all believers, addicted and/or alcoholics. Results suggest that religiosity and meaning of death neither prevent from substances abuse and alcoholism, nor is a protective factor against suicide ideation. Meanings of life are the most important reasons for living, and when they are definitively considered unworkable, alcohol and drug help to endure life in the street. A specific model is discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the driving forces and structural changes of China as a market provider for Korea. This paper gives the answers for the following questions: How do China’s final demands trigger the growth of its imports from Korea? And what’s the impact of China’s final demands on the import in different industries?

Based on the Multi-Regional Input-Output model and World Input-Output Table database, this paper constructs the non-competitive imports input-output (IO) table of China to Korea. According to this table, we can calculate the induced imports coefficient and comprehensive induced import coefficients of China’s four final demands for imports from Korea in the 56 industries in China.

Among the four driving forces, the strongest one is changes in inventories and valuables. The impact of final consumption expenditure and fixed capital formation is much lower than that of changes in inventories and valuables, but they have a broader impact for the 56 industries. This paper finds out the China’s import induction of the final demands to Korea peaked in 2005 and 2010 and decreased greatly in 2014, so the position of China as market provider for Korea will no longer rise substantially, contrarily it will be in a steady state.

First, this paper constructs the non-competitive IO table to analyze the market provider issues between two countries and provides practical ways and methods for studies on the issues of imports and market provider. Second, this paper investigates the different roles of four final demands on driving force of China as market provider for Korea and the structural changes of China as a market provider for Korea among 56 industries from 2000 to 2014.

A growing number of studies indicate that the export growth of China’s textiles poses serious threats to many developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to empirically measure the extent to which the export growth of Chinese textiles has come at the expense of Egyptian textiles exports in third importing markets.

To measure this effect, an augmented gravity model equation was estimated using annual data covering the period 1994-2012 on Egyptian and Chinese textile exports to traditional importers of Egyptian textiles.

The empirical results suggest that Egyptian textiles are vulnerable to competitive threat posed by China, especially in the EU and US markets. In contact, Egyptian textile exports have moved hand-in-hand with Chinese textile exports to Asian markets. Moreover, the results suggest that the expiration of the Multi-fiber Agreement in 2005 has exposed Egyptian textile exports to fierce completion with China and resulted in declines in Egypt’s textile exports to the world. However, the trade agreements that Egypt signed with the world countries have given Egypt a competitive edge in major importing regions and mitigated the negative impacts of China in the post-2005 period. Finally, the paper argues that unless Egypt adjusts and develops its textile sector in response to such heightened competition from China, Egyptian textile exports undoubtedly would further be negatively impacted.

In this study, Egypt’s textile products are aggregated to one group and analyzed as a whole, “textile exports.” Further research using a more disaggregated level of data would offer deeper insights into the impacts of China on Egyptian textile exports.

The contribution of this paper is twofold: first, it adds to the growing literature aiming to understand the impacts of China’s growth on developing countries exports by providing a case study of Egyptian textile export sector. Second, the policy implications drawn from this paper could be useful to Egyptian policy makers and stakeholders to address and respond to the competitiveness challenges posed by China to the Egyptian textile industry.