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To describe and analyze a proposed rule recently issued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) that would overhaul the use of derivatives and financial commitment transactions by registered investment companies and business development companies.

This article summarizes the various aspects of the proposed rule, discusses the elements of the proposed rule in greater detail, explains the effect of the proposed rule on existing guidance from the SEC and its staff, and notes the potential transition period for any final rule.

While the proposed rule is subject to public comment and subsequent consideration by the SEC and its staff, if the proposed rule is adopted in its current form it would result in sweeping changes for registered investments companies and business development companies.

This article contains a detailed overview of a recent SEC rule proposal regarding the use of derivatives by registered investment companies and business development companies and practical guidance from experienced asset management lawyers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of different label-message formats (positively vs negatively framed messages) on consumers’ purchase intentions in an organic seafood shopping setting, along with the moderating effects of two individual characteristics (purchase-decision involvement and perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE)) on the message-framing performance.

Data were gathered from 1,698 consumers of a supermarket chain in the northeast region of the USA using a web-based experiment.

Results of this study support the superiority of a positively framed message over a negatively framed message in persuading consumers to buy organic food. In addition, this effect of framing on persuasion is contingent upon different levels of consumer purchase-decision involvement as well as PCE concerning organic products.

This study offers managerial implications for marketers and retailers, messages appealing the environmental and health benefits of organic seafood consumption (positively framed arguments) would be more persuasive to increase consumer purchase intention than negatively framed ones. In addition, individual characteristics of their target market should be taken into account in communication design and implementation.

This survey research offers insights into the organic food consumption literature by validating the applicability of message framing in the organic seafood labelling setting and identifying consumers’ individual characteristics (purchase-decision involvement regarding organic seafood and PCE) moderating the message framing effectiveness.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the twenty‐second to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items in English published in 1995. After 21 years, the title of this review of the literature has been changed from “Library Orientation and Instruction” to “Library Instruction and Information Literacy,” to indicate the growing trend of moving to information skills instruction.

To assess incoming international students' library and computer experience before coming to the US, and to determine their current library needs.

A study was undertaken to assess incoming international students' exposure to libraries, computer literacy skills, and to determine their library needs. Results from a survey conducted in August 2003 include demographic information about incoming students, computer and library use before coming to the US, library concepts that are new to them, and opinions about the library.

Survey results show that international students arrive in the US with high levels of computer literacy and that most incoming students have used a library in their home country. Findings suggest that international students would benefit from specialized library information competence and orientation programs.

This study was conducted just over 3 weeks after the Dr Martin Luther King, Jr Library opened its doors. Thus, student survey responses were collected during an unsettled period. While students perceive themselves as understanding library terminology, no testing was conducted to confirm this. Further study is needed to determine the extent of their knowledge of library terms and jargon.

Survey results have led to the implementation of library programs that support the information competence, retention and academic success of international students.

Few studies include the international students themselves to determine their library and educational needs. This study offers a current view of the library needs of international students as they perceive them.

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the picture of strategies for information searching and seeking by reviewing the conceptualizations on this topic in the field of library and information science (LIS).

The study draws on Henry Mintzberg’s idea of strategy as plan and strategy as pattern in a stream of actions. Conceptual analysis of 57 LIS investigations was conducted to find out how researchers have approached the above aspects in the characterizations of information search and seeking strategies.

In the conceptualizations of information search and information seeking strategies, the aspect of strategy as plan is explicated most clearly in text-book approaches describing the steps of rational web searching. Most conceptualizations focus on the aspect of strategy as pattern in a stream of actions. This approach places the main emphasis on realized strategies, either deliberate or emergent. Deliberate strategies indicate how information search or information seeking processes were oriented by intentions that existed previously. Emergent strategies indicate how patterns in information seeking and seeking developed in the absence of intentions, or despite them.

The conceptualizations of the shifts in information seeking and searching strategies were excluded from the study. Similarly, conceptualizations of information search or information retrieval tactics were not examined.

The study pioneers by providing an in-depth analysis of the ways in which the key aspects of strategy are conceptualized in the classifications and typologies of information seeking and searching strategies. The findings contribute to the elaboration of the conceptual space of information behaviour research.

Service research holds that as services become more technology dominated, new service provider roles emerge. On a conceptual level, the potential impact of different roles has been discussed with regard to service provider readiness, job performance and overall experience. However, as yet, there is sparse empirical support for these conceptual interpretations. The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the new service provider roles that emerge due to the increase of technology mediation in services.

This study follows a qualitative methodology. Insights are drawn from in-depth interviews with 32 junior and senior health-care service providers (across 12 specialties) and 5 information governance/management staff.

This analysis illustrates that new service provider roles include those of the enabler, differentiator, innovator, coordinator and sense-giver. By adopting these roles, health-care service providers reveal that they can encourage, support and advance technology mediation in services across different groups/audiences within their organizations (e.g. service delivery level, peer-to-peer level, organizational level). This paper further shows the relationships between these new service provider roles.

This study contributes to theory in technology-mediated services by illustrating empirically the range of activities that constitute each role. It also complements prior work by identifying that service providers adopt the additional role of sense-giver. Finally, this paper provides an understanding of how by taking on these roles service providers can encourage, support and advance technology mediation in services across different groups/audiences in their organization.

Internal aspects of public sector branding have received limited attention in existing research. The purpose is to examine, firstly, how public managers experience and handle the tension between empowering employees to be dedicated brand ambassadors while at the same time regulating their voice, and secondly, to outline some implications of aligning employee voice with the organization's brand, especially for the public interest.

The study is based on two sources of data. The first includes official admission statistics for high schools in Oslo, Norway, for 2018/2019. Schools in Oslo, a city which has introduced a competitive secondary education market, fall into three admission levels based on points necessary for entry. The second source is semi-structured interviews with principals in 15 high schools on different admission levels.

Most of the principals were concerned about how marketization of the high schools leads to a skewed distribution of students and an increasing divide between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ schools, but signalled market adaptation through their handling of employee voice. Due to reputation and branding concerns in the competition for students and funding, voice restrictions, not brand ambassadorship, was the preferred strategy to ensure brand alignment. The consequence of this strategy, the paper argues, is public silence at the expense of the public interest.

Not interviewing teachers or middle managers may be seen as a limitation, but principals were chosen as they are the main decision makers and strategists in high schools. Using a qualitative research design may be a limitation, but this design was chosen as it seems appropriate in order to uncover the school executives' perceptions, experiences and thoughts.

Selling the brand to employees and enabling them to further sell it to external stakeholders is an enticing ideal but perhaps less possible to implement in reality for public sector organizations facing strong market mechanisms because the concern for the brand image takes precedence. Public sector managers should exercise care when managing employee voice so as to not negatively influence employees’ commitment to the brand. They should also be aware of the implications of voice restrictions for the public interest. Public silence may cause a less informed public with limited possibilities to make informed school choices and knowing how money is spent.

The present study is among the first to explore internal aspects of public sector branding. Researching the position of employee voice in brand alignment strategies is a novel contribution. The study is unique in its focus on the implications of branding for the public interest.

This paper examines the effects on families of a broad range of intervention programs designed to assist family caregivers of persons with mental illness. In so doing, the paper critically discusses the intervention designs utilized, similarities and differences in intervention modalities, the characteristics of study subjects, and the effects of these intervention programs on a variety of caregiver outcomes. The paper addresses the degree to which particular interventions are more effective than others, and assesses the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of these intervention studies. Implications for future practice, policy, and research are presented.

In Arizona’s mature, market-based school system, we know little about how school leaders make meaning of school choice policies and programs on the ground. Using ethnographic methods, the author asked: How do school leaders in one Arizona district public school and in its surrounding community, which includes a growing number of high-profile and “high-performing” Education Management Organisation (EMO) charter schools, make meaning of school choice policies and programs? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The author analysed 18 months of qualitative fieldnotes that the author collected during participant observations and six semi-structured school leader interviews from both traditional district public schools in the area (n=4) and leaders from EMO charter schools (n=2).

School leaders’ decision-making processes were influenced by competitive pressures. However, perceptions of these pressures and leadership actions varied widely and were complicated by inclusive and exclusive social capital influences from stakeholders. District public school leaders felt pressure to package and sell schools in the marketplace, and charter leaders enjoyed the notion of markets and competition.

As market-based policies and practices become increasingly popular in the USA and internationally, a study that examines leaders’ behaviours and actions in a long-standing school choice system is timely and relevant.

This study uniquely highlights school leaders’ perceptions and actions in a deeply embedded education market, and provides data about strategies and behaviours as they occurred.

Explains that the idea of the compressed work week is already a familiar one and much has been written on the subject in trade and academic publications. Presents an annotated bibliography compiled from many years of research.