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This chapter provides an overview of the Department of Defense (DoD) laboratory structure to help equipment designers, modelers, and manufacturers determine where research, testing programs, or relevant findings can be found. The chapter includes a discussion of the performance measures and metrics typically used in DoD laboratories and concludes by considering the current state-of-the-art as well as the state-of-the-possible for human performance measurement.

This study investigates the determinants of students’ intention to major in accounting (IMA) in pre-recessionary, recessionary, and post-recessionary time periods. By examining four factors (perceived professional ethics (PE), job market consideration (JMC), social influence (SI), and self-efficacy (SE)) in accordance with the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we address two primary research questions. The first question concerns whether the four factors are related to students’ IMA before, during, and after the recession. The second deals with whether there is a shift in the relative importance of the factors between the pre-recessionary, recessionary, and post-recessionary periods. We use structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis of structural invariance to analyze these issues. The results show that all four factors have significant structural weights in each period, with the exception of perceived PE in the pre-recessionary period. In terms of students’ IMA over the three periods, perceived PE, JMC, and SI become factors of greater importance during the recessionary and post-recessionary periods, while SE decreases in relative importance.

This study examines short selling as one external determinant of corporate tax avoidance. Prior research suggests that short sellers have information advantages over retail investors, and high short-interest levels are a bearish signal of targeted stock prices. As a result, when short-interest levels are high, managers have been shown to take actions to minimize the negative effect of high short interest on firms’ stock prices. Tax-avoidance activities may convey a signal of bad news (i.e., high stock price crash risk). We predict that, when short-interest levels are high, managers possess incentives to reduce firm tax avoidance in order to reduce the associated stock price crash risk. Consistent with this prediction, we find that short interest is negatively associated with subsequent tax-avoidance levels. This effect is incremental to other factors identified by prior research. We conclude that short selling significantly constrains corporate tax avoidance.

The concept and practice of e-services has become essential in business transactions. Yet there are still many organizations that have not developed e-services optimally. This is especially relevant in the context of Indonesian Airline companies. Therefore, many airline customers in Indonesia are still in doubt about it, or even do not use it. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for e-services adoption and empirically examines the factors influencing the airlines customers in Indonesia in using e-services offered by the Indonesian airline companies. Taking six Indonesian airline companies as a case example, the study investigated the antecedents of e-services usage of Indonesian airlines. This study further examined the impacts of motivation on customers in using e-services in the Indonesian context. Another important aim of this study was to investigate how ages, experiences and geographical areas moderate effects of e-services usage.

The study adopts a positivist research paradigm with a two-phase sequential mixed method design involving qualitative and quantitative approaches. An initial research model was first developed based on an extensive literature review, by combining acceptance and use of information technology theories, expectancy theory and the inter-organizational system motivation models. A qualitative field study via semi-structured interviews was then conducted to explore the present state among 15 respondents. The results of the interviews were analysed using content analysis yielding the final model of e-services usage. Eighteen antecedent factors hypotheses and three moderating factors hypotheses and 52-item questionnaire were developed. A focus group discussion of five respondents and a pilot study of 59 respondents resulted in final version of the questionnaire.

In the second phase, the main survey was conducted nationally to collect the research data among Indonesian airline customers who had already used Indonesian airline e-services. A total of 819 valid questionnaires were obtained. The data was then analysed using a partial least square (PLS) based structural equation modelling (SEM) technique to produce the contributions of links in the e-services model (22% of all the variances in e-services usage, 37.8% in intention to use, 46.6% in motivation, 39.2% in outcome expectancy, and 37.7% in effort expectancy). Meanwhile, path coefficients and t-values demonstrated various different influences of antecedent factors towards e-services usage. Additionally, a multi-group analysis based on PLS is employed with mixed results. In the final findings, 14 hypotheses were supported and 7 hypotheses were not supported.

The major findings of this study have confirmed that motivation has the strongest contribution in e-services usage. In addition, motivation affects e-services usage both directly and indirectly through intention-to-use. This study provides contributions to the existing knowledge of e-services models, and practical applications of IT usage. Most importantly, an understanding of antecedents of e-services adoption will provide guidelines for stakeholders in developing better e-services and strategies in order to promote and encourage more customers to use e-services. Finally, the accomplishment of this study can be expanded through possible adaptations in other industries and other geographical contexts.

Business literature reveals the importance of generating innovative products and services, but much of the innovation research has been conducted in large firms and not replicated in small firms. These firms are likely to have different perspectives on innovation, which means that they will probably behave differently to large firms. Our study aims to unpack how firms in Spatial Information perceive and engage in innovation as a part of their business operation.

To investigate these questions we conduct 20 in-depth interviews of top management team members in Spatial Information firms in Australia.

We find that small firms define innovation very broadly and measure innovation by its effect on productivity or market success. Innovation is seen as crucial to survival and success in a competitive environment. Most firms engage in product and/or service innovations, while some also mentioned marketing, process and organisational innovations. Most innovations were more exploitative rather than exploratory with only a few being radical innovations. Innovation barriers include time and money constraints, corporate culture and Government tendering practices. Our study sheds a light on our understanding of innovation in an under-researched sector; that is Spatial Information industry.

In this article, we survey experiments that are directly related to monetary policy and central banking. We argue that experiments can also be used as a tool for central bankers for bench testing policy measures or rules. We distinguish experiments that analyze the reasons for non-neutrality of monetary policy, experiments in which subjects play the role of central bankers, experiments that analyze the role of central bank communication and its implications, experiments on the optimal implementation of monetary policy, and experiments relevant for monetary policy responses to financial crises. Finally, we mention open issues and raise new avenues for future research.