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The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the advice executives gave aspiring student leaders in one‐hour talks. The author was interested in understanding how well the aspiring student leaders interpreted the messages given by the executives.

Thematic analysis was used to identify common themes across speakers. The themes were given to students in questionnaire format to determine if the students heard the same message.

The themes identified within and across speakers suggested that their recommendations for leader development were relatively consistent. Themes included people orientation, relationships, communication skill, full commitment, accepting difficult challenges, ethics, and continued education. Participants were able to identify the presence of themes and did not project their individual differences onto the message when interpreting the speakers’ insights.

The findings suggested the researcher‐identified themes were also generally identified by the students. Future research should seek to determine which themes students dedicate the most effort towards accomplishing.

The themes provide a unique vantage point of perceptions by executives of what led to their effective leadership. Identification of these behaviors and experiences illuminated ways that aspiring leaders could learn and develop their leadership capability.

The research applied qualitative and quantitative data creation, analysis, and interpretation thereby exhibiting an inductive and mixed methods research approach. Mixed method research may lead to more valid results and helps understand the leadership development process. The research indicates that leadership relationships are fundamentally rooted in communication and that language is the dominant mode of interaction between leaders and staff.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

Discrete choice models are widely used for estimating the effects of changes in attributes on a given product's likely market share. These models can be applied directly to situations in which the choice set is constant across the market of interest or in which the choice set varies systematically across the market. In both of these applications, the models are used to determine the effects of different attribute levels on market shares among the available alternatives, given predetermined choice sets, or of varying the choice set in a straightforward way.

Discrete choice models can also be used to identify the “optimal” configuration of a product or service in a given market. This can be computationally challenging when preferences vary with respect to the ordering of levels within an attribute as well the strengths of preferences across attributes. However, this type of optimization can be a relatively straightforward extension of the typical discrete choice model application.

In this paper, we describe two applications that use discrete choice methods to provide a more robust metric for use in Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency (TURF) applications: apparel and food products. Both applications involve products for which there is a high degree of heterogeneity in preferences among consumers.

We further discuss a significant challenge in using TURF — that with multi-attributed products the method can become computationally intractable — and describe a heuristic approach to support food and apparel applications. We conclude with a summary of the challenges in these applications, which are yet to be addressed.

Hypertext software is being used to link and reference documents stored in a library that will be used by civil rights housing discrimination investigators. The library is a part of an expert system which verifies the existence of housing discrimination. A method of organizing the hypertext files so as to prevent the user from becoming disoriented in the system is illustrated in this paper.

The early stages of projects are often characterised by ambiguity arising from differences in stakeholder views regarding project rationale and objectives. The purpose of this paper is to present a viewpoint on how to build a shared understanding of project goals and thus reach a shared commitment to achieving them. One of the ways to achieve shared understanding is through open dialogue, free from political and other constraints. The authors call an environment that fosters such dialogue a holding environment. The main aim is to illustrate, via a case study: how an alliance‐based approach to projects can foster a holding environment; and how argument visualisation tools such as IBIS (Issue‐Based Information System) can be used to clarify different points of view and options within such an environment.

Following a discussion of theoretical background and literature review, an alliancing case study is used to illustrate the development of a holding environment and demonstrate the utility of IBIS in the creation of such an environment.

It is seen that an alliance‐based approach to projects can provide the foundation for a holding environment. IBIS is seen to facilitate the building of shared understanding by making arguments explicit and capturing decision rationale.

The paper outlines a practical framework for improving the quality of dialogue and achieving stakeholder commitment on projects.

Achieving shared understanding and commitment to action is difficult, particularly in the early stages of projects. The paper outlines the conditions and techniques needed to facilitate this via a non‐trivial case study.

Little is known about how assistive technology standards have been implemented in preservice teacher preparation. This chapter provides a review of the literature concerning the importance of evidence-based practice and the research base supporting assistive technology in order to set the context for reporting the results of a comprehensive national study of the status of assistive technology state standards for teachers in all of the 50 states (plus Washington, DC). This chapter includes the findings of the study, the research that the study was based upon, and a review of relevant research in the fields of assistive technology, educational technology, and evidence-based practice. Only six states reported having AT standards and six states reported having AT competencies. Three states reported having both standards and competencies, yielding nine unique states (out of 51) with AT standards and/or AT competencies. Regression analyses to determine the relationship between the study variables and national reading and math performance of students with disabilities were inconclusive. The implications of the study findings and recommendations for future research are presented.

Previous research has concluded that there is consumer desire for nutrition information to be provided on restaurant menu items and restaurant customers presented with this information will make healthier menu choices (Mills & Thomas, 2008). Limited research has been performed in a restaurant setting measuring real rather than intended behavior. The purpose of this research experiment is to measure consumer response, in a full-service restaurant setting, to nutrition information on menu items and subsequently determine if consumers will use this information in their menu item choice. An experiment was conducted with 264 restaurant customers at a full-service a la carte restaurant. Customers chose from menu items labeled with or without a Healthy Choice® label. A logistic regression model was used to predict whether people would choose Healthy Choice menu items. Fifty-four percent of restaurant customers chose the healthy choice menu item. The logistic regression confirms that those people who desire nutrition information also use this information in their menu choice. The study concludes with recommendations for the industry on directing consumer menu choice toward healthier items.

Raison d'Etre is a hypermedia design history application. It provides access to a database of video clips containing stories and personal perspectives of design team members recorded at various times during the course of a project. The system is intended to provide a simple frame‐work for recording and organizing the informal history and rationale that design teams create and share in the course of their collaboration. This article describes 1) the scenarios of use the authors are trying to support, 2) the methods they used collecting and organizing the database, and 3) the status of their prototype.

At its best, participation observation (PO) includes the researcher living inside a formal or informal organization long enough to actually observe first-hand how the organization makes sense of its environment, frames problems and opportunities, plans and performs actions, evaluates outcomes, rewards and punishes its members, and celebrates and commiserates sacred, climatic, and/or exceptional events. The core feature of PO is being there — the researcher's presence in the same context as participants as events happen and not relying mostly on participants retrospections about what happened and the causes and consequences of what happened. In some studies PO data collection occurs unobtrusively — the researcher does not inform the organizations’ participants that she is conducting a study of their thinking and behavior — for example, in The Tearoom Trade (Humphreys, 1970) the researcher becomes a “watch queen” (lookout watching for police) in a men's room in park while others engage in homosexual acts; in The Informant (Eichenwald, 2000) an executive in an international manufacturing firm becomes an undercover researcher (with hidden cameras and listening devices) to collect data showing his colleagues planning and doing illegal price-fixing deals with executives in other firms. In most studies PO data collection is obtrusive with the organizations’ members knowing that a researcher is present for the purposes of observing, describing, and explaining what is occurring in the organization — for example, in Coming of Age in Samoa (Mead, 1943) the American researcher lived among the natives in the south Pacific island to describe rituals relating to the transformation of child to adult; in The Used Car Game (Browne, 1976) the researcher directly observed interactions of salesmen, customers, and sales managers for seven-to-ten hours a day for 15 months with all participants knowing that the researcher was “being there” to collect data to describe and understand their thinking and behavior. The intent for this chapter is not to present a full review of the PO literature; the focus here is to illustrate an obtrusive PO study in a formal organizational context in-depth. The main goals include (1) illustrating doing PO and (2) describing the value of PO research. This chapter serves to introduce the reader to relevant organizational PO literature and provides details of applying participant observation to the study of organizational behavior. The study applies an ethnographic approach to develop flow diagrams of the information processes and decision-making stages of corporate and plant executives in developing corporate purchasing agreements with suppliers. Participant observations of the processes to develop corporate purchasing agreements were conducted along with extensive personal interviews of plant buyers at seven plant locations of Epsilon Corporation — a multinational electronics firm with headquarter offices in New York City. The results indicate that valid and useful descriptions are possible of the information processes and decisions actually used to produce corporate purchasing agreements. Several diagnostic comments are provided to each of the four phases in the processes used to develop corporate purchasing agreements. A template for applying participant observation methods in case study research concludes the chapter.