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This paper aims to investigate whether cues of morality can mitigate stock sell-offs in the face of earnings uncertainty prior to earnings conference calls and draws on moral foundations theory to study the effect of universal moral cues (harm/care and fairness/reciprocity rhetoric) and primarily conservative moral cues (ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity rhetoric) on market performance.

The study relies on a longitudinal data set of 1,920 firm-quarter observations corresponding to calls held by firms listed on the S&P 500 in 2015 and relies on computer-assisted-text-analysis and event-study methodology to test hypotheses.

The results suggest that cues of universal moral foundations have a mitigating effect on stock sell-offs and are able to create firm value; while cues primarily conservative moral foundations are not found to have an effect on market performance.

This investigation highlights why earnings conference calls may serve as a valuable tool for communicating a firm’s moral inclination and why universal morality may appeal to a wider range of shareholders than primarily conservative morality.

The semantic Web is an exciting prospect, but not yet a reality, for researchers who are faced with an ever‐increasing range of material – some freely available and some accessible to them only by virtue of their affiliation. This paper introduces the concept of the semantic Web and indicates how, if realized, the semantic Web could be of great benefit to researchers. Some parallel activities now under way are aimed at providing practical solutions to scholars today through the use of agent technology built into library portals; the paper explains, in particular, how one system, MetaLib – the library portal solution from Ex Libris – addresses these issues.

A persona describes a group of library patrons as a single person to better identify and describe user patterns and needs. Identifying personas in academic libraries can assist in library planning by focusing on patrons. Initially, personas were thought to be unique to each library; additional insights led the researchers to rethink this assertion. The purpose of this paper is to determine if personas, developed in one library, are unique or more universal than previously thought.

In this study, 903 surveys were completed across two institutions asking library patrons to identify use patterns within each library. Mean score responses were analyzed using an ANOVA, principal component analysis and RapidMiner technology. All analyses were used to identify personas with common interests and places personas in groups or neighborhoods.

The findings provide evidence for the universality of academic library personas. However, differences occur in how the personas are grouped and use different library services and resources.

Personas allow librarians to view patrons in a more personal way as they connect personas to specific library spaces. While the personas appear to be universal, their interactions with each other depend on specific library amenities.

Learning and development occur in many spaces both within and outside formal education settings. This chapter explores progress and possibilities of a knowledge exchange programme with a third sector organisation involved with community development, playwork and youth work in an urban area of the East Midlands. Theoretical concepts draw on a growing international interest in intergenerational play (Graves, 2002) and ‘cultural circles’ (Gill, 2020) as a method of challenging power and communication barriers between practitioners and families from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Using Foucault, post-structuralist feminism and autoethnography, as well as insight from a knowledge exchange partnership – the chapter offers a critique of a national initiative aimed at addressing ‘holiday hunger’ and community engagement. Practitioners in international contexts may benefit from the chapter’s attempt to address a series of co-constructed questions that include:

1. How do we raise the profile of children’s play as a non-negotiable starting point for universal service provision to children and young people?

2. What can be done to ‘connect’ diverse communities living in close proximity and sharing amenities within urban areas?

3. How can we celebrate differences whilst designing universal services, which promote social cohesion through play and leisure spaces?

How do we raise the profile of children’s play as a non-negotiable starting point for universal service provision to children and young people?

What can be done to ‘connect’ diverse communities living in close proximity and sharing amenities within urban areas?

How can we celebrate differences whilst designing universal services, which promote social cohesion through play and leisure spaces?

This paper aims to present a new user interface design for text proofreading portals in a digitization and crowdsourcing context. Several of the current proofreading portals lack usability in their user interfaces. The aim of the new design is to increase user performance and satisfaction.

An empirical experiment has been conducted to evaluate the new user interface as a comparison with 18thConnect – TypeWright proofreading portal. Two of the main measures involved times and errors and this approach is considered to be good for these kinds of measures allowing a good degree of control. Nevertheless, personal opinions are also very important and these are elicited by means of a post-experiment questionnaire.

The data were statistically analysed and overall the new user interface helped users to perform better in terms of task time. Errors were also better with the new user interface, but the differences were not statistically significant. Furthermore, users were more satisfied with the new user interface. User satisfaction measures were mostly statistically significant.

As far as has been ascertained, there have been no systematic studies evaluating a new design with an existing design of a proofreading portal. Therefore, this research is considered to be original, and if implemented widely, it would be very valuable to the mass digitization aims.

This article investigates the possibility of studying modern organizations with the feudal model. We introduce feudalism as an ideal type and explain why it is necessary for understanding organizations. The model synthesizes several perspectives on intra-organizational conflict. After defining the feudal model and tracing its theoretical roots, we review several empirical studies to identify the conditions under which feudal conflicts arise. These factors include decentralization, structural interdependence, uncertainty and informal power. The feudal model highlights several overlooked aspects of organizations, including personal relations, the manipulation of formal rules, bribery, corruption and sabotage. However, given the model's limitations, we propose a “segmented approach” to social analysis, which emphasizes the need for multiple models to explain any organization, past or present.

This study aims to address three important but under-researched questions in the trust and negotiation literature: What do negotiators do to determine the trustworthiness of a potential business partner? What trust criteria motivate their search and help them interpret the information their search reveals? Whether there are systematic cultural differences in search and criteria, and if different, why?

This study used qualitative methodology. The data are from interviews with 82 managers from 33 different national cultures in four regions of the world identified by cultural levels of trust in negotiation and tightness-looseness. Interviews focused on how negotiators determined the trustworthiness of potential business partners in intracultural negotiations.

Analyses revealed four search activities negotiators use to gather information about a potential business partner: due diligence, brokerage, good will building and testing; and five criteria for determining the trustworthiness of a new business partner: respect, mutual values, competence, openness and professionalism. Quotes illustrate how these search activities and criteria manifest in different cultures.

This study used multiple cases to build a longitudinal picture of the process. It did not follow a single case in depth. The study focused on identifying cultural central tendencies at the same time recognizing that there is always variability within a culture.

Knowing what is culturally normative allows negotiators to anticipate, interpret and respect their counterpart’s behavior. Such knowledge should facilitate trust development.

This study provides an in-depth understanding of cultural similarities and differences in the process of trust development in negotiating new business relationships.

The purpose of this study was to understand the effects of colocation on office workers' perception of workplace design and interaction freedom in organizations.

The study was conducted at six different departments of an office organization that moved from geographically dispersed office buildings to one office building. The pre‐move data were collected three to six months before the move, and the post‐move data were collected almost one year after the move through questionnaire surveys. Out of 284 workers, 169 office workers filled out the questionnaire in the pre‐move survey, and 175 filled out the questionnaire in the post‐move survey.

Based on statistical analyses of the data, the study found that colocation did not help improve office workers' overall perception of interaction freedom in the organization, but it helped eliminate perceptual disparities concerning interaction freedom among its different departments. The study also found that office workers' perception of workplace design support for interaction and workstation location were strong predictors of their perception of interaction freedom in the organization. Overall, the findings of the study indicated that the purpose of colocation might be defeated if organizational behavior and culture were not modified simultaneously to promote workers' perception in support of interaction freedom.

The study considered only one type of colocation that involved bringing people of different organizational units together from geographically dispersed places to one place. Therefore, these findings cannot be generalized for all other types of colocation.

The findings of the study are important for corporate real estate (CRE) strategists and organizational leaders who are actively considering colocation as a strategy to improve interaction and team effectiveness in the organization.

The study investigates different mechanisms involving the effects of colocation on office workers' perception of workplace design and interaction freedom in organizations; and identifies important distinctions to consider for achieving the benefits of colocation in terms of face‐to‐face interactions in the workplace.

Crime as a force in globalisation has largely escaped analysis. Even crime as a natural product of modernisation and social development is concealed or ignored in both the literature of development studies and criminology. In order to understand globalisation fully, and its paradoxical progress, crime provides an interesting and dynamic insight as a force within world cultural transition.