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With rising industry consolidation in the banking industry, it is unclear whether community banks may find more or less market opportunities. This paper aims to investigate how industry consolidation may affect community banks’ market share outcomes. The second goal of this paper is to establish the ways in which community banks may successfully manage market share growth goals that may be antithetical to the principles of being a local brand.

The empirical analysis is on the US banking industry, spanning the years from 1994 to 2018. This comprehensive panel data set includes county-year level granularity for more than 15,000 banks. Panel regression models that include bank-, county- and year-specific fixed effects are deployed.

It is found that local brands, operationalized as community banks in this study’s empirical context, are having the most success in consolidated market contexts. When pursuing market share growth, a distribution strategy to saturate a local market is found to be advantageous while expanding across geographies is less advisable for community banks.

The findings shed empirical light on the challenges and opportunities for community banks, thereby contributing to the banking industry literature and to an emerging stream of research on local brand management. By demonstrating the means of which growth can be successfully managed by local brands, the important and largely unanswered question of how a local brand can effectively grow is addressed.

This chapter presents a virtue-based approach to research ethics which both complements and challenges dominant principle- and rule-based ethical codes and governance frameworks. Virtues are qualities of character that contribute to human and ecological flourishing, focussing on the dispositions and motivations of moral agents (in this case, researchers) as opposed to simply their actions. The chapter argues for the usefulness of ‘researcher integrity’, in the context of increasing interest internationally in ‘research integrity’ frameworks for regulating research practice. ‘Researcher integrity’ is analysed, including weak and strong versions of the concept (conduct according to current standards, versus reflexive commitment to ideals of what research should be at its best). Researcher integrity in its stronger sense is depicted as an overarching complex virtue, holding together and balancing other virtues such as courage, care, trustworthiness, respectfulness and practical wisdom. Consideration is given to educating researchers and university students as virtuous researchers, rather than simply ensuring that rules are followed and risks minimised. Several approaches are outlined, including Socratic dialogue, to develop attentiveness and respectfulness and participatory theatre to rehearse different responses to ethical challenges in research. Some limitations of virtue ethics are noted, including dangers of reinforcing a culture of blaming researchers for institutional failings, and its potential to be co-opted by those who wish to indoctrinate rather than cultivate virtues. Nevertheless, it is an important counter-weight to current trends that see research ethics as entailing learning sets of rules and how to implement them (to satisfy institutional research governance requirements), rather than processes of critical and responsible reflection.

This paper comes from workshop activities and structured reflection by a group of artists and researchers who have been using artistic practice within research projects aimed at enabling researchers to collaborate with communities. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Three out of four in the group have a practicing creative background and their own studio/workshop space.

Artists are often employed – whether in schools or research projects – to run workshops; to bring a distinctive set of skills that enable learning or collaboration to take place. In this paper the authors reflect on the different meanings and connotations of “workshop” – as noun (as a place where certain types of activity happen, a bounded space) and a verb (to work something through; to make something together). From there the authors will then draw out the different principles of what artistic practice can offer towards creating a collaborative space for new knowledge to emerge.

Key ideas include different repertories of structuring to enable different forms of social interaction; the role of materal/ality and body in shifting what can be recognised as knowing; and the skills of “thinking on your feet”, being responsive and improvising.

The authors will conclude by reflecting on aspects to consider when developing workshops as part of collaborative research projects.

This paper examines three approaches to increasing awareness in an academic setting: a discussion session, a checklist and a web based tutorial. All three are found to be effective in raising motivation and understanding of security because they present the issues in an accessible, interesting way. The research for the paper was funded by the JISC Committee for Awareness, Liaison and Training as part of a project on the human and organisational issues associated with network security. http://litc.sbu.ac.uk/calt/

Info Globe to distribute Datasolve's World Reporter. Info Globe, the electronic publishing division of the Canadian national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, and Datasolve Limited, a British online vendor, have recently concluded an agreement whereby Info Globe will distribute the World Reporter database in Canada and the USA.

This study aims to analyse 508 financially distressed firm-year observations for the period 2010–2018 of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) listed firms to examine the magnitude of indirect financial distress costs (IFDC) and to investigate which firm-specific variable is relatively important in explaining these indirect costs. This will not only enrich empirical literature but also helpful in cross-country comparison.

Optimal model selection along with panel data analysis technique is used to select the most optimal model to observe the findings. Financial distress is measure through Altman’s Z-score and firm-specific variables cover leverage, level of intangible assets, investment policy, tangible assets, firm’s size, level of liquid assets and Tobin’s Q of sample firms.

The findings of this study show that the average size of IFDC for the sample observations is 6.70%. In addition to this, finding further suggest that leverage, the level of intangible assets and changes in investment policy have positive while the size of the firm and Tobin’s Q have a significant negative impact on IFDC. Further, this paper argues that the level of tangible assets and liquid assets are statistically unimportant in observing the IFDC for PSX financially distressed firm-year observations.

The findings of this study provide more insight to corporate managers and investors about the association between firm-specific financial characteristics and IFDC concerning Pakistani firms. Furthermore, this study contributes to the existing literature by adding new evidence from developing countries such as Pakistan which are helpful for regulatory bodies and policymakers in the formulation of long-term strategies to manage the financial distress costs.

The study extends the body of existing literature on IFDC regarding Pakistan. The results suggest that policymakers may pay special attention to the quality of a firm’s capital structure strategies while predicting corporate financial distress costs.

Introduction: Technology and the environment remain uncertain for organisations that impose enormous challenges and opportunities to redesign policies and practices for human resources (HR). The use of technology is ubiquitous and pervasive. Technology has altered the way individuals and organisations seek knowledge, process information, instrument, and practice the learning outcomes.

Purpose: This conceptual paper highlights the change in technological and change nature of work impact on HR practices. Technology has changed the nature of work, which affects individuals and organisations. The dynamic change in technology forces organisations to rethink policies and procedures that fuel the organisation’s competence. The difference in HR practices (recruitment and selection, training and development, performance management, and turnover) is not a trend but rather a need for organisational survival. There is not only a transformation in technological implementation in an organisation but also in employee–organisation relations. The organisations install technology and replace employees.

On the contrary, employees leave an organisation and switch towards self-employed jobs entitled Gig-economy (World Bank, 2018). The individuals are moving towards a more flexible and self-employed relationship. Unfortunately, though, working flexibly create concern for an employee–employer relationship such as pension plan, health insurance, and paid leaves. It also creates income inequality.

Methodology: This is a conceptual paper.

Findings: Technology has a dual effect on the organisation and employees. Thus, technology affects employees, employers, and organisations. The change in technology moderates the psychological contract and career selection, leading to change in the policies and practices of the HR department. A research model is proposed in this conceptual research study which will further be tested to examine and confirm the impact of change.