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There is increasing recognition of the importance of dealing with material hardship rather than just income poverty. This paper deals with electricity disconnection and shows how Electricité de France (EDF), the French monopoly provider of electricity, has been testing a number of new policy instruments to avoid disconnection among its low income residential customers. EDF’s approach is grounded in marketing principles and techniques both in terms of its willingness to respond to French public opinion on the need to reduce poverty and hardship, and in terms of its use of poor customers surveys to analyze the satisfaction of this segment of clientele to its energy assistance programs. EDF’s programmes show how utilities, both public and private, can go beyond financial assistance as represented by the LIHEAP energy voucher programme in the USA.

Several approaches towards increasing the number of users of an item of software have been pursued; cooperative development, low cost distribution and greater flexibility in the end use of software. One technique for the more flexible use is to relate items of software which were not initially designed for such a relationship i.e. — to interface software. This may be done by designing software systems so that two programs have a file in common. Several microcomputer system utilities are written with this in mind. As well, file conversion can make the output file from one program compatible with another program. Examples of these techniques are provided.

Computerized accounting information systems (CAIS) are becoming more readily available to all types and sizes of business. The increased growth in real‐time and online data processing in CAIS has made access to these systems more available and easier for many users. Therefore, implementing adequate security controls over organisations, CAIS and their related facilities has become a necessity. The main objective of this article is to investigate the adequacy security controls implemented in the Egyptian banking industry (EBI) to preserve the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the banks' data and their CAIS through a proposed security controls check‐list. The security controls check‐list of CAIS was developed based on the available literature and the empirical results of previous studies. It includes many security counter‐measures that are empirically tested here for the first time. The entire population of the EBI has been surveyed in this research. The significant differences between the two respondent groups had been investigated. The statistical results revealed that the vast majority of Egyptian banks had adequate CAIS security controls in place. The results also revealed that the heads of computer departments (HoCD) paid relatively more attention to technical problems of CAIS security controls. This study has provided invaluable empirical results regarding inadequacies of implemented CAIS security controls in the EBI. Accordingly some recommendations were suggested to strengthen the security controls in the Egyptian banking sector.

This paper seeks to describe a protocol to estimate annual community energy consumption baselines for single‐family detached homes in the Gainesville Regional Utility service area of Alachua County, Florida, USA. Further, it details methods using these baselines to make direct comparisons of individual households' energy consumption and evaluate the energy impacts of three prescriptive demand side management (DSM) programs.

To improve estimates of energy savings, the paper proposes using a “micro” scale multivariate regression methodology based on a census of utility and property appraiser household data.

Results suggest that traditional analysis approaches are likely to overestimate savings significantly and that the annual community baseline technique provides more consistent estimates of energy savings than most commonly used methods.

This type of analysis could provide a tool that utilities can use to more accurately and cost effectively measure DSM savings. This could result in reduced energy demand related to streamlined program setup and management.

The proposed methodology is unique in that it defines a new household‐level energy consumption baseline measure that we think is a more appropriate performance measure, uses a census of publicly available data for the population of interest, merging metered utility data with property appraiser data, and works upward to construct a simple model for evaluating household‐level energy consumption. The critical element that distinguishes our proposed energy performance measures is that they are calculated and interpreted using annual, population‐level, comparison‐group baselines that effectively normalize for community energy consumption patterns in any given year.

While many states have adopted renewable portfolio standards (RPS), they have employed agencies with very different missions to manage these programs. These organizational differences are important in understanding how agencies are approaching the policy implementation. However, there is little research on the comparative effectiveness of these implementation approaches. This article begins with a background of RPS programs, and presents a typology of RPS implementation agencies. The effectiveness of RPS implementation approaches is tested with a pooled state-level dataset covering 14 years of program adoption and implementation. The results indicate implementation approach is substantively important in explaining policy outcomes and the growth of renewable energy. More specifically, the findings suggest using an economic development approach is the most effective way of producing growth in renewable energy generation.

Almost overnight the political risk map for the decade has been redrafted. This annual forecast of key risk factors keeps score for some 85 countries.

Libraries need to provide general purpose CD‐ROM workstations to make the large numbers of publications distributed on CD‐ROM disks available to the public. Setting up and maintaining those workstations can be greatly simplified by standardizing the hardware and software used on all workstation PCs; by organizing software on the hard disk using subdirectories; and by using utility programs, DOS batch files, and a shell program. Organization of the search software for the numerous Bureau of the Census CD‐ROM disks is used as an example. The article is intended for users of IBM‐compatible PCs. While the general principles should be readily understandable to anyone, a knowledge of DOS is required for a thorough understanding of the article. The shell program PreCursor and the hypertext program PC‐Browse are discussed.

The digital divide has persisted in California and the USA as a whole at approximately the same level for the past decade. This is despite multiple programs being created and billions of dollars being spent to close it. This paper examines why the efforts to date have been ineffective and to offers policy alternatives that might be more successful.

Using data from three, variable constrained projects in California, this paper examines the effectiveness of information-based outreach efforts at closing the digital divide. The projects tested various outreach and enrollment methods to see which, if any, could increase broadband adoption in low-income households.

This project found that providing low-income households’ information about low-cost broadband offerings was ineffective at closing the digital divide. The findings in this paper were similar to those of two other works that examined the federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The findings of this paper along with the works cited that evaluated the BTOP program should be enough to change public policy. For the past ten years, efforts to close the digital divide have focused on providing information to low-income households. However, two independent surveys show broadband adoption has remained virtually flat during that period.

The digital divide brings concomitant economic and education harms and challenges that plague those unable to access information, services, educational and employment opportunities with the same ease, speed and sufficiency as their connected peers and neighbors. Those harms exacerbate the already existing education and income divides. This paper shows that without a change in strategy, those harms will persist.

This paper breaks new ground and addresses one of the weaknesses identified in existing research. To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first paper of its type to use programs designed to generate data that can be empirically evaluated for effectiveness. Prior studies attempted to assess program effectiveness by using data generated from fully implemented government programs. However, those programs contained a vast number of unidentified variables and insufficient data collection. They were not designed to facilitate academic evaluation, and as such made a true effectiveness evaluation challenging.

This paper aims to use goal-setting theory to explain the transfer of knowledge and skills between master of business administration (MBA) and the workplace.

Data were obtained by an online survey of MBA students enrolled in at four US graduate business schools. These were a public and private institution in the Northeast region, a private sectarian institution in the Midwest region and a private institution in the Pacific region. All students worked while attending the university. The sampling frame consisted of each school’s MBA enrollees. Questionnaires were distributed to a random cross-section of part-time students at each graduate school of business representative of returned by 144 students. The profiles of responders were consistent with parameters for the entire MBA student population.

The research shows that multiple goals of reciprocal knowledge and skills transfer may be in harmony and mutually reinforcing. In principle, each goal is more likely to be attained with greater economy of effort than might be surmised. Additionally, the same forces may act similarly to facilitate attainment of two well-integrated goals, in this case transfer between MBA studies and work, as well as between work and MBA studies.

The present study involved participants from part-time public and private MBA granting institutions in the USA. The study tested and extended goal-setting theory and introduced the innovative concept of reciprocal transfer. Future studies should seek to generalize the findings to a broader population of part-time MBA students, especially from other nations. Despite its strengths, the findings of this study need to be interpreted in the perspective of some limitations. The current study did not measure transfer climates in either the organization or university settings. Transfer climates undoubtedly have an important bearing on transfer outcomes.

Review of the present study suggests that a positive MBA environment is needed to influence motivation to learn and perceptions of the MBA program’s utility, thereby promoting transfer of knowledge and skills to MBA studies from the workplace. A supportive work-to-MBA-studies transfer climate will lead to more active learning of course content that has greater relevance for achieving career goals. Potentially generalizable from the organizational transfer climate literature (Rouiller and Goldstein 1990; Rouiller and Goldstein 1993), positive transfer from work to MBA studies will occur when appropriate situational cues and consequences are present in the program.

A constructive implication suggested by the findings of this study would be the intervention and transfer management by educators to structure and strengthen the university transfer climate of their part-time MBA programs. Traditionally, the concept of transfer climate has been primarily applied to employee workplace training activity and job performance. The university culture of the MBA student might emphasize and reward continuous learning from workplace experiences. Opportunities at the university should be provided for the exercise of newly acquired workplace skills that reinforce MBA learning experiences.

This is the first study that shows how learning goals and performance goals are integrated in the context of a new concept, i.e. reciprocal transfer of knowledge and skills between MBA and workplace settings. It also demonstrates, for the first time, the impact of learning and motivation for MBA studies and perceived utility of MBA program on the extent of transfer of learning and skills from the workplace to the university setting.

The purpose of this paper is to identify relevant financial concepts and skills that are being taught and/or should be taught, as part of the financial management curriculum in undergraduate agricultural economics and agribusiness programs.

The skill gap analysis uses survey respondents' rankings of the importance and competence scores of recent graduates' skills. The scores help to identify opportunities for improvement in the most critical areas of importance. The skill gap is calculated as (Average importance–Average competence)*Average importance.

Generally, employers in the agricultural financial services sector saw greater opportunities for improvement in finance skills relative to non‐finance skills. The results also indicated a greater focus on business and financial risk might be helpful in increasing the competence of new hires. Finally, respondents strongly endorsed maintaining a focus on the problem‐solving skills in undergraduate agribusiness programs.

The value of the study would be that departments of agricultural and applied economics would use the results of this survey to enhance their financial management curriculum and their undergraduate program. By responding to the desires of employers, agricultural economics and agribusiness programs cannot only remain relevant as a source of employees for the industry but the first choice of agricultural financial services sector when they are searching for new hires. This should also help inform students of the desirability of the skills they acquire in their degree programs. This information will also benefit the agricultural finance services sector by assisting college and university instructors in developing and/or enhancing their agricultural finance course(s) so that the may provide their students with the requisite financial and non‐financial skills that they require.