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This study aims to explore the opportunities offered by interactive and situated learning (e-learning and m-learning) in support of education for sustainability in disciplines of the built environment.

The paper illustrates the development of an online portal and a mobile app aimed at promoting students’ motivation and engagement with sustainability in design, and discusses the outcomes of their testing, investigating users’ acceptance, comparing academic results and analysing feedback.

The findings add empirical evidence to the view that information and communication technology-enhanced pedagogies can substantially contribute to the agenda of sustainability in higher education, primarily due to their affordance of interactive communication and contextualisation of knowledge, while guaranteeing flexible time and pace of learning.

The study solely focused on the development and testing of e-learning and m-learning tools to foster students’ competence of sustainability in design studio work. The tools trialled were mostly at their prototypical stage and their testing included a relatively short-term evaluation and a narrow, self-selected, user base. However, the approach and findings are felt to be applicable to a much wider range of educational contexts.

Interactive and situated pedagogical methods and tools have the potential to prompt a departure from transmissive educational models, encompassing at once theoretical, experiential and analytic learning processes. This is of value to education for sustainability in disciplines of the built environment due to the requirement to holistically consolidate multi-/inter-/trans-disciplinary knowledge into a coherent design whole.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/13666282200800007. When citing the article, please cite: Anne McCrudden, Tom Wilson, Robin Johnson, (2008), “Supporting strengths: the work of Julian Housing”, A Life in the Day, Vol. 12 Iss: 1, pp. 24 - 28.

The pat ten years have seen sweeping changes in the way that housing‐related support services are being delivered across Britain. We are only now beginning to take stock of a wide range of exciting and innovative projects, and the potential role of these models in promoting social inclusion and in the modernisation of community mental health services.A series of articles in the next three issues of A Life in the Day will be exploring a number of emerging themes, illustrated through the examples of innovative services that demonstrate what can be achieved when working from a housing support base. The series begins with an article by Tom Wilson and Anne McCrudden on the work of Julian Housing Trust, a mental health charity that provides a wide range of housing support services across Norwich and Norfolk.Julian Housing has blended recovery principles with a strengths model to develop a clear and coherent philosophy that underpins all their work. Their success demonstrates the close affinity between the person‐centred principles of the Supporting People programme and contemporary thinking about social inclusion in community mental health practice.Robin Johnson National Social Inclusion Programme

Reviews the use of simulation tools for process design at Land Rover. Outlines new applications of Jack and Robcad tools to the development of the Freelander production process. Describes how simulation reduces time‐to‐insight. Explains the potential for virtual reality tools in process development.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of earnings management (EM) and tax aggressiveness (TA) on shareholder wealth and on stock price crash risk (SPCR) of German companies.

The sample comprises 820 firm-year observations of 188 non-financial companies listed on German stock exchanges from 2008 to 2014. The authors apply generalized least square panel regression to overcome autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity problems.

EM and TA are not related in terms of affecting shareholder wealth and SPCR. EM has no impact on shareholder wealth but significantly affects SPCR. TA has a significant positive effect on shareholder wealth but no impact on SPCR. Thus, EM practices applied within German companies are non-opportunistic, as they do not affect shareholder wealth and decrease SPCR. TA practices are also non-opportunistic, as they increase shareholder wealth and do not affect SPCR.

This study provides insights that can improve managers’ accounting choices (EM vs TA) and alleviate investor concerns about the effect of managers’ manipulation strategies. Considering other variables affecting TA, such as discretionary book tax differences, may add further insights into this discussion. The analysis of and comparison with other markets may shed more light on the validity and generalizability of the results.

This study recommends that investors must take into consideration the accounting variables to ensure better investment decisions and highlight the importance of CEO choices on market reaction.

The investigation of the mutual impact of EM and TA on shareholder wealth and SPCR is novel, and so too is the analysis of whether EM and TA are complementary or substitute for each other in this relationship.