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Previous studies point to a range of factors as influencing managerial decision‐making processes. There are four major trends with regard to the studies. They are environmental antecedents, organisational antecedents, decision‐specific antecedents and individual managerial characteristics. While the majority of literature has chosen to focus in a specialised way on the influence of unidimensional variables there are a number of studies advocating the study of multiple dimensions simultaneously. This paper examines the findings from a qualitative research methodology, convergent interviewing, focussing on the impact of environmental, organisational, decision‐specific and individual characteristics, in combination with environmental and organisational characteristics on managerial decisions. Information from managers suggested decision‐specific and individual characteristics in combination with environmental and organisational characteristics, were highly relevant to the process of decision making. For all managers, managerial years of experience and the complexity and politicality of decision content were indicated as an important preconditions for determining the nature of managerial decision making. Furthermore, environmental and organisational factors such as environmentally determined time constraints (e.g. government policy) and staff conflict were important issues influencing managers’ decisions. A number of multidimensional interactions were posited from the findings. Implications for future research are discussed.

Increasing trends toward casualization of the workforce and job mobility have increased the need for delivery of targeted career counselling relevant to the specific needs of individuals but have not been matched by refinements to vocational interest instruments, which have largely remained focussed on student‐based norms. By investigating the interests and factor structure of the Vocational Interest Survey for Australia (VISA), this study has replicated earlier findings that the unemployed appear to respond with higher mean interest levels on the VISA in comparison to the instrument’s normative sample of secondary students. In comparison to an earlier study of unemployed white‐collar workers, the present study suggests that unemployed managers are able to discriminate between more dimensions of vocational interests than their non‐managerial counterparts. This observation is interpreted as support for a call to investigate the need for multi‐sample norming for vocational interest instruments.

Suggests that collaborative climate is one of the major factors influencing effectiveness of knowledge work. Discusses the concept of collaborative climate and develops a survey instrument to measure it. Presents results based on data from 8,277 respondents in a wide variety of public and private sector organisations. Collaborative climate tends to improve with age, education level and managerial role. It is generally better in private firms, and seems to peak with mid‐size firm level. Employees tend to experience a U‐formed appreciation of the collaborative climate. Theories proposing that people reach a “professional plateau” (an S‐formed curve) have been supported to some degree. Finally, collaborative climate in the private sector is generally better than in the public sector. Uses the data to identify gaps and potentials for improving effectiveness. Further investigates two cases of good and bad practice and identifies strengths and weaknesses.

This paper seeks to present a model which connects performance measurement at the business level to the concept of public goods usage, and thus incites a linkage between the micro- and macro-economic aspects of sustainability.

The paper presents the essentials of a public goods cost perspective in order to agitate discussion between statisticians, standard-setters for business reporting and practitioners who wish to explore new approaches in the topic of building performance indicators.

The paper illustrates what has been achieved in measuring the outcomes of sustainable development efforts and what still needs to be done in order to arrive at aggregate values for national and global commons.

The viability of the concept will depend on the co-operation of businesses and national statistics which test the feasibility of the proposed micro-macro-link through numerical studies. As the paper is published, efforts are under way with a piloting group to initiate a pertinent study, but the results have yet to be attained.

For practitioners in both the statistics profession and management accounting who are concerned with measurement of socioeconomic and environmental phenomena, this attempt at integrating sustainable development indicators to the managerial control system of companies might provide a valuable proposition. It also is a helpful contribution to the ongoing debate about the value and credibility of sustainability reporting.

If businesses make no attempts to exhibit numerically how they contribute to preserve and expand the societal commons, they will be confronted with ever-growing agitation from pressure groups and they might be bypassed in the discussion on the issue of sustainability parameters that those groups are advocating.

This is the first academic paper that demonstrates a reporting model that unites business accounts and national accounts.

Background/Objectives: Protein-based meal replacements (MR) with viscous soluble fibre are known aids for weight loss. This study aims to compare the effects of new whey and vegan MR containing different amounts of PGX (PolyGlycopleX) on weight loss over 12 weeks, along with a calorie-restricted diet.

Subjects/Methods: Sixty-eight healthy adults of both sexes (53 women; 15 men; average age 47.1 years; BMI 31 ± 7.1 kg/m² and weight 85.05 ± 23.3 kg) were recruited. Participants consumed a whey or vegan MR twice/d (5–10 g/day PGX) with a low-energy diet (1,200 kcal/day), over 12 weeks. Weight, height, waist and hip circumference were recorded (four time periods).

Results: Forty-four participants completed the study. Results showed significant reductions in average body weight and at week 12, whey group was [−7.7 kg ± 0.9 (8.3%), p < 0.001] and vegan group was [−4.5 kg ± 0.8 (6.2%), p < 0.001)]. All participants (n = 44; BMI 27 to 33 kg/m²) achieved significant reductions in body measurements from baseline to week 12; p < 0.001. Conclusions: Supplementation of protein-based MR with PGX and a balanced, low-energy diet, appears to be an effective approach for short-term weight loss.

As the authors were evaluating if the MR as a whole (i.e. with PGX) caused weight loss from baseline over the 12 weeks, no comparators, i.e. just the MR without PGX, were used. Formulation of these new MRs resulted in a whey product with 5 g PGX and a vegan product with 2.5 g PGX. Only 2.5 g PGX could be formulated with the vegan protein due to taste and viscosity limitations. Study participants were not randomized and no control groups (e.g. no MR or MR without PGX but with energy restricted diet) were used. Furthermore, it is not clear whether the sort of protein alone or the combination with a higher amount of PGX (whey with 5 g PGX/serving vs vegan with 2.5 g PGX/serving) has contributed to these significant greater weight-loss effects. This was something the authors were testing, i.e. could only 2.5 g PGX/serving have an effect on weight loss for a vegan MR. These limitations would be somethings to evaluate in a subsequent randomized controlled study. Hence, the results of this study may serve as a good starting point for further sophisticated randomized controlled trials that can demonstrate causality – which the authors acknowledge as one of the fundamental limitations of an observational study design. Participants tracked their calories but adherence and compliance were self-assessed and they were encouraged to keep their exercise routine consistent throughout the study. Hence, these are further limitations. No control group was used in this study to observe the effect of the dietary intervention and/or physical activity on weight loss alone. However, a goal of the authors was to keep this study as close to a real-life situation as possible, where people would not be doing any of these measurements, to see if with minimal supervision or intervention, people can still lose weight and alter their body composition. Furthermore, differences in gender and the corresponding weight loss effects in response to MR-protein-based treatments could be evaluated in follow-up studies.

This study indicates that the consumption of protein-based (animal, whey or plant, pea protein) MR incorporating the highly soluble viscous PGX is beneficial for weight loss when combined with a healthy-balanced, calorie-restricted diet. MRs at either 2.5 g or 5 g per serving (RealEasy^TM with PGX) proved to be a highly effective as a short-term solution for weight loss. The observed results are encouraging, however, further long-term studies (i.e. randomized clinical trials RCT) are needed to confirm the clinical relevance. RCTs should focus on the individual effects of PGX and/or the different protein sources used in MRs, on weight loss and the maintenance of the reduced body weight, and should measure detailed blood parameters (lipid profiles, glucose etc.) as well as collect detailed exercise and food consumption diaries.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study comparing a whey versus vegan, (as pea) protein-based MR that is supplemented with fibre PGX; thus, this work adds information to the already existing literature on fibre (such as PGX) and MRs regarding their combined weight loss effects. The purpose of this study was to observe if the novel protein-based (either whey or vegan versions) MR RealEasy^TM with PGX at 2.5 or 5 g in addition to a calorie-restricted diet (total of 1,200 kcal/day) would aid in weight loss in individuals over a 12-weeks period. Adding increasing amounts of whey protein and soluble fibre can help reduce subsequent ad libitum energy intake which could help adherence to energy restricted diets, but whether similar effects are seen with vegan protein is unclear – this study does aim to address this.

Reviews, from an anthropological perspective, three 1993 additions to the Gulf Publishing Company's “Managing Cultural Differences” Series. This trilogy is comprised of the volumes Developing the Global Organization: Strategies for Human Resource Professionals, Transcultural Leadership: Empowering the Diverse Workforce, and Multicultural Management: New Skills for Global Success. Examines the five concepts of globalisation, diversity, multiculturalism, transcultural, and empowerment central to the trilogy and to anthropology, and as they are used in both. Views the global paradox — a bigger world economy requires the more powerful smallest of players (e.g., entrepreneurs) — as a useful framework for understanding these and related concepts as they operate in the global village today, and as they may be employed throughout and beyond the 21st century. Finally, reports on: (1) the training, transformation and development tasks of global managers of complexity in business as well as in government, academia, and the military; and, (2) the intercultural learning strategies through which these tasks are achieved and through which these managers, the multicultural workforce and teams they lead, and their organisations are empowered to contribute, collaborate and fully participate in producing their major project: Service, country, group, business, or social structure through the mixture of peoples or technology” (p. 242). This suggests a process, a becoming. In Developing the Global Organization, Robert T. Moran, Philip R. Harris and William G. Stripp continue that globalisation is both a way to think and to act. Specifically, it moves individuals “away from parochialism towards transnationalism”. And it nurtures a state of mind geared toward a more effective use of personal and organisational resources (p. 299).

In 2008, Paul De Knop (Vrije Universiteit Brussels) stated that “in spite of the social value of sport and its role as a policy tool, human sport sciences still lack a fulfilling position in the academic world.” In Belgium and in Flanders (the northern and Dutch-speaking part of the country), the sociology of sport is still a small field of research among the sport sciences. The discipline is institutionalized within the institutes of physical education of the three universities (University of Ghent; Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Vrije Universiteit Brussels). The scarcity of academic funding streams resulted in a focus on more applied, policy-based research in Flanders. Additionally, all institutes emphasize increasingly an interdisciplinary cooperation to connect with stronger research fields (e.g., health sciences, social studies, or international studies on sport participation). Even though each university has its own research tradition, the universities and the government cooperate in a longitudinal study on sport participation in Flanders. De Knop, who became rector of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB) in 2008, was the first lecturer of the course sociology of sport at his university. He graduated in 1975 as licentiate in physical education and his career at the university converged with the development of the discipline. Together with Roland Renson and Bart Vanreusel (KU Leuven), he was one of the academic pioneers for the sociology of sport in Flanders.

This chapter enters the debate of knowing if the financial regulations should be overhauled in the continuity of behavioural finance developments. The lack of precision in the behavioural finance conclusions could lead to misleading new financial regulations adoption. Furthermore, through an analysis of the literature, we show that behavioural finance hypothesis building converges to the neoclassical one's, which contradicts the idea to overhaul financial regulations. We also highlight the fact that universal heuristics and biases contribute to the financial regulations revision proposal. Finally, we analyse some of the propositions put forward by advocates of behavioural finance and the limits thereof.

This study seeks to trace the development of curriculum integration and related curricula designs in state schools in Aotearoa/New Zealand (NZ) during the “New Education” era (1920s‐1940s).

The mixed historical/theoretical analysis draws on primary and secondary data.

The paper concludes that largely forgotten designs for curriculum integration developed in the 1920s‐1940s in NZ are similar in intent to the student‐centred “integrative” model of curriculum integration and may usefully inform the contemporary discourse in NZ concerning best practice on middle schooling for young adolescents (approximately ten to 14 years old).

The study provides an additional point of entry towards theorising and re‐evaluating the history of progressive education in NZ.

This study provides historical/theoretical context for recent interest in curriculum integration in NZ, particularly in relation to middle schooling and to student‐centred pedagogies.