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The purpose of this article is to evaluate whether students used the library and information services at the University of Teesside and, if not, what were the reasons for them seeking other sources of information.

The article was based on a literature review and a subsequent questionnaire study.

It was found that staff placed a higher value on access to the University LRC than did the students. This was due to several reasons such as staff being reluctant to identify students' needs and the induction failing to stress the benefits of using it.

This article has helped to confirm the link between induction and use of a University LRC and demonstrates the importance of improving the induction process, thereby creating a natural path to the library facilities. There is scope for further research into the usage of public libraries by HE students.

This paper aims to explore any potential link between the corporate issue of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) with a changed environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting focus as part of a complementary communicative legitimation strategy.

A longitudinal content analysis of the annual reports of three sample Australian corporations was undertaken, measuring changes in ESG disclosure levels and disclosure focus around the time a SLAPP was issued by each sample firm.

This paper provides support for the contention that both the number of ESG disclosures and the type of ESG disclosures changed after the sample firms issued SLAPPs.

A number of limitations are identified within the paper, including difficulties identifying when SLAPPs are initiated.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first investigation of the relationship between SLAPPs and ESG reporting, and this study helps open up a new area of research into how ESG reporting is used by corporations in a strategic manner.

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a case study evaluating the introduction of an instant messaging (IM) reference service.

During November 2006, an IM chat service was introduced at the University of Teesside in the UK. A review of the literature informed the introduction of the new service. An evaluation of the service, based on usage statistics and impressions from staff and students, has been taking place.

The paper finds that it is possible to set up an IM service without the need for the purchase of hardware or software. There have been some issues fitting the IM service into the existing range of help services, and there are concerns about the relatively small number of queries, although usage of the service is growing. But users of the service have been delighted with it.

The IM chat service has been in operation for only four hours per day, Monday to Friday, with limited marketing of the service. It is not known how much more popular a more extensive service would be.

The authors believe that the University of Teesside has introduced a quick and easy way for students to communicate with them, and recommend that other libraries consider IM‐based services.

There is a shortage of publications that report the results of the use of IM for chat, especially in the UK.

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a case study evaluating the revision of the assessment methods of an information literacy module. The revised assessment method took the form of a portfolio.

During 2004, all six credit modules at the University of Teesside had to be reviewed and restructured into ten credit modules. Following Biggs' principles of constructive alignment, the tutors looked at the existing module aims and learning outcomes. A review of the literature and previous experience informed the selection of the new assessment method by portfolio. An evaluation of the assessment method was undertaken after the module had run.

The paper finds that the assessment method had real strengths especially in terms of validity. It was also economical and efficient. Students knew what they were expected to do and where they needed to put in effort.

The assessment by a portfolio method has been carried out once with a relatively small cohort of students, so the findings can only be regarded as interim.

The tutors believe that they have created a very useful module with an aligned assessment method which would be of benefit to a much greater number of students

There is a shortage of publications that report the results of the use of portfolios for the assessment of information literacy.

This integrated care study seeks to highlight how voluntary sector “wellbeing co-ordinators” co-located in a horizontally and vertically integrated, multidisciplinary community hub within one locality of an Integrated Care Organisation contribute to complex, person-centred, co-ordinated care.

This is a naturalistic, mixed method and mixed data study. It is complementing a before-and-after study with a sub-group analysis of people receiving input from the wider hub (including Wellbeing Co-ordination and Enhanced Intermediate Care), qualitative case studies, interviews, and observations co-produced with embedded researchers-in-residence.

The cross-case analysis uses trajectories and outcome patterns across six client groups to illustrate the bio-psycho-social complexity of each group across the life course, corresponding with the range of inputs offered by the hub.

To consider the effectiveness and mechanisms of complex system-wide interventions operating at horizontal and vertical interfaces and researching this applying co-produced, embedded, naturalistic and mixed methods approaches.

How a bio-psycho-social approach by a wellbeing co-ordinator can contribute to improved person reported outcomes from a range of preventive, rehabilitation, palliative care and bereavement services in the community.

To combine knowledge about individuals held in the community to align the respective inputs, and expectations about outcomes while considering networked pathways based on functional status, above diagnostic pathways, and along a life-continuum.

The hub as a whole seems to (1) Enhance engagement through relationship, trust and activation, (2) Exchanging knowledge to co-create a shared bio-psycho-social understanding of each individual’s situation and goals, (3) Personalising care planning by utilising the range of available resources to ensure needs are met, and (4) Enhancing co-ordination and ongoing care through multi-disciplinary working between practitioners, across teams and sectors.

Retail analysts Tony MacNeary and John Richards of stockbrokers Capel Cure Myers are engaged in a study focussed on retail designers, but it inevitably took them beyond this relatively narrow field to examine UK design generally. For the most part design in this country has been sluggish, but one gratifying exception has been retail design, which has really taken off in the last 10 years. RDM asked the analysts about their findings and where they thought the future of retail designers lay.

This paper aims to investigate how firms’ relationships with employees define their debt maturity. The authors empirically test the role of employee litigations in influencing firms’ choice of short-term versus long-term debt. The authors study employee relations by analyzing the importance of the workplace environment on capital structure.

The author’s test hypotheses using a sample of US publicly traded firms between 2000 and 2017, including 3,056 unique firms with 4,256 unique chief executive officer, adopting the fixed effect panel model.

The authors document that employee litigations have a significant negative effect on the use of short-term debt and a significant positive affect on long-term debt. Employee litigations, along with legal fees, outcomes and charging parties, matter the most in explaining debt maturity. In addition, frequently sued firms abandon the short-term debt market and use less shareholders’ equity to finance their operations while relying more on the longer debt market.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the role of employee mistreatment in debt maturity choice. The study extends the lawsuit and finance literature by examining unique, hand-collected data sets of employee lawsuits, allegations, violations, settlements, charging parties, case outcomes and case durations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the filing of a securities class action, and associated corrective actions taken by management, impact the operating performance of sued firms.

A matched sample is formed three years prior to the filing of a class action, as opposed to the traditional one year used in the literature. Match adjusted performance is analyzed from three years prior to the filing to five years after. Further the authors analyze the impact corrective actions have on operating performance.

The results show that operating underperformance happens considerably earlier than had hitherto been believed. Further, there is no evidence that the filing adversely affects performance, rather securities class actions appear to act as a turning point. The findings also indicate that firms that increase leverage post filing, experience subsequent increases in their operating performance.

The results show that rather than leading to a deterioration in performance, as is currently understood, the filing of a securities class actions results in improved operating performance. This improvement is, in part, associated with more optimal use of leverage by management. Overall, class actions appear to be an effective disciplinary mechanism.

Examines the legal environment of the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA with respect to auditor liability. Provides an understanding of the legal risks to accountants associated with third‐party uses of audited financial statements by contrasting accounting liability for negligent misrepresentation in various US settings with those of the four other nations. Liability pressure has been very acute and litigation in the five countries has increased. Evidence supports a trend towards limiting third‐party liability to accountants.

It is a well known problem the interactions between the market value of cash flows and the discount rate (usually the weighted average cost of capital, WACC) to calculate that value. This is mentioned in almost all text books in corporate finance. However, the solution adopted by most authors is to assume a constant leverage D%, and hence assume that the leverage gives raise to an optimal capital structure and the discount rate is constant. On the other hand, most authors use the definition of the Ke, the cost of leveraged equity for perpetuities even if the planning horizon is finite. Among these authors we find the work of Wood and Leitch W&L 2004. In this article we wish to analyse the claim made by W&L 2004 in the sense to have found an iterative solution to the problem of circularity that results in a “near” matching with the Adjusted Present Value APV, proposed by Myers, 1974. They use as the basic principle the fact that there is a “near” constant relation between Ke the cost of equity and Kd the cost of debt. They consider as well that the cost of debt Kd is not constant and changes proportionately with the leverage D%. We propose a very simple and precise approach to solve the above mentioned circularity problem.