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As with post‐World War II economic policies, boom or bust are terms which can be applied to the birth rate. For those of us who are baby boomers, used to our place in the demographic spotlight as a focus for endless “what do young people want?” media features, the realization that marketing attention is switching to a new baby bust generation comes as something of a shock. After record births between 1946 and 1964, the rate decreased dramatically between the years 1965 and 1980. This new generation is entering the workforce en masse (albeit a smaller mass than in previous years) about now. Their new‐found spending power is having an impact in consumer markets causing marketers to ask the question “what do young people want?” and causing baby boomers everywhere to realize that, once again, a generation gap has opened up.

Online consumer complaint behaviour that is observable to other consumers provides the firm with an opportunity to demonstrate transparency and service quality to the public eye. The purpose of this paper is to assist practitioners with a strategy to increase perceived accommodativeness in complaint management on social media and reduce the social risk associated with online consumer complaint behaviour using a social exchange theory perspective.

Six online experiments with 1,350 US Facebook users were conducted to investigate the effect of supportive and non-supportive virtually present others, and employee intervention on a consumer’s choice to complain, likelihood to make an observable complaint (on the Facebook page) and likelihood to make a non-observable complaint (via Facebook Messenger). The mediating role of perceived accommodativeness and subsequent social risk is also examined.

Supportive comments made to the complainant by virtually present others were found to influence participants’ decision to complain, heighten participants’ likelihood to complain about the Facebook page and reduce their likelihood to complain via Facebook Messenger. This effect was reversed in the presence of non-supportive virtually present others and was explained by perceived social risk. Further, a participant’s likelihood to complain about the Facebook page was increased when an employee intervention was directed at a non-supportive comment made to a complainant, by a virtually present other. This effect was explained by the perceived accommodativeness of the employee interaction.

The findings advance research on online consumer complaint behaviour by investigating how employee intervention can be used to increase the likelihood of an observable complaint. This research is limited in that it does not incorporate individual characteristics, such as introversion/extroversion and propensity to respond to peer pressure, which may affect participant responses.

This research shows that perceptions of social risk are most effectively reduced by employee intervention directed at a non-supportive comment (made to a complainant) of a virtually present other. Consumer complaint management strategies aimed at minimising perceptions of social risk and encouraging observable online complaint behaviour are proposed.

This research extends the consumer complaint behaviour taxonomy by introducing the term “observable complaining”, that is, visible complaints made on a Facebook page, and broadens understanding of the organisation’s role in managing non-supportive virtually present others to assuage perceptions of social risk in potential complainants.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the emergent properties perspective from the field of biology can be applied to the field of intellectual capital. Much attention has in recent years been directed towards problems of accounting for intellectual capital and how the value of intellectual capital at one level of an organization influences the value of intellectual capital at higher or lower levels of the organization.

Through a literature review an emergent properties framework was developed. This framework was applied to an intellectual capital perspective with empirical illustrations.

In this paper, it is argued that the inherent difficulties of understanding the interdependencies of intellectual capital across different levels of an organization can be traced to a lack of understanding of the differences between synergetic effects, causal relationships and emergent properties. The paper illustrates through examples how an emergent properties perspective can be mobilized in relation to the field of intellectual capital.

The paper is conceptual in nature and reports the theoretical propositions from an ongoing empirical project. The lack of empirical content limits the strength of the conclusions.

The paper is a step in the direction of enhancing the understanding of the different levels of intellectual capital by applying the biological perspective of emergent properties. Although this perspective in itself may not constitute a general testable theory of intellectual capital, it is the hope, at least, that it may provoke thought, development and further research in this field.

Ethnographic interviews are often favoured when examining sensitive issues, such as patients' accounts of their illness experiences. This type of interview enables the researcher to get a deeper (some would argue possibly better) understanding of the experiences that interviewees are recounting, relying on the interviewee to drive the focus of the conversation rather than the researcher determining what is discussed and shared.

There is a widely held stereotypical view that accounting is structured, precise, compliance-driven and repetitive. Drawing on social psychology theory, this paper aims to examine how accountants may contribute to these stereotypical perceptions.

Individual perception data were collected through questionnaires and interviews with accountants from the corporate, public practice and not-for-profit sectors, along with “Chartered Accountants” who no longer work as accountants.

These findings suggest that, contrary to results from an earlier study, the targets of the accounting stereotype contribute to the stereotype formation and maintenance and that increased exposure to accountants may serve only to confirm and reinforce the accounting stereotype.

There are a small number of participants in this study, and this limits the ability to generalise the findings.

These findings have important implications for the profession in how it communicates and promotes the role of the accountant in society. Failure to address the issues identified may lead the stereotype to become self-fulfilling. This may result in the recruitment of future accountants who lack the required skills and capabilities. This could lead to the loss of non-compliance-related accounting work to other business professionals.

This study responds to criticism that little is known about how and why the accounting stereotype is formed and how contact with an accountant may increase stereotypicality. Additionally, this paper proposes a strategy to reduce stereotypicality through contact with accountants.

Since 1934, the federal government has provided a process for municipalities to declare bankruptcy, and approximately 500 governments have done so. In recent years, an average of less than one city government declares bankruptcy each year. In this article, the authors identify five factors that contribute to financial distress for cities which, if left unattended, can lead to municipal bankruptcy. This discussion is followed by an examination of the events that led to the bankruptcy of the City of Prichard, Alabama, once a prosperous suburb of Mobile. The authors conclude that this municipal bankruptcy occurred, in large part, because Prichard failed to face the factors of financial distress identified by the authors in the years prior to filing for bankruptcy.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and improve patient care processes by collaborating patients, relatives and healthcare professionals.

To identify and improve patient care processes by collaborating patients, relatives and healthcare professionals.

Healthcare problems captured from collaboration between patients and healthcare professionals fall into simple, complicated and complex problems. Healthcare staff and patient experiences with patient processes differ, and a collaborative approach is needed to capture all areas needing improvement.

The conclusions are drawn from a project with few participants in a context that probably influenced the results. In contrast, other studies in the same area confirm the results.

The study outcomes have direct implications for healthcare professionals who can learn from patients involved in quality improvements such as this experience-based co-design (EBCD) project.

The paper contributes to limited studies on EBCD involving patients in healthcare quality improvements.

The purpose of the paper is to outline the development of academic research in the discipline of accounting, paying particular attention to the important contribution made by qualitative research projects.

Provision of a historical trajectory based on a review of developments in academic journals, the size and breadth of the academic community and other dimensions of the academic discipline of accounting.

The review indicates that accounting has developed into a pluralist discipline in the UK. Qualitative research features in many sub‐disciplinary areas of accounting.

The paper identifies the sibling discipline of finance as an area where qualitative research has not developed fully. It makes some suggestions and provides some indicators of how qualitative research in the areas of accounting and finance may develop in the future.

The paper provides the only attempt to date to analyse and review developments of qualitative research in accounting.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

The January (1953) issue of this Journal carried an editorial article on this subject. And the prevalence of bad practices in the retail fish trade was emphasised at the Conference at Scarborough, in June, of the Institute of Weights and Measures Administration. Now it appears that the White Fish Authority is actively engaged in preparing regulations under the Sea Fish Industry Act, 1951, to deal with the evil. What follows is taken from the second annual report of the Authority, for the year ended March 31st, 1953.