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This case exposes students to contingent liabilities, a complex topic they must grapple with in practice, via introduction of the problem of accounting for vacation pay earned but untaken. The case has been tested with both undergraduates and graduates. It is appropriate for students in an intermediate accounting course and can be completed either individually or in small groups. Grappling with issues related to contingent liabilities makes students appreciate the difficulties these present. The case allows students to consider the impact of a policy change on budgeting, firm financials, financial ratios, and the potential reaction from investors and employees. This case forces students to critically think about a little discussed business problem – contingent liabilities. Understanding the variability of a contingent liability and the firm’s handling of it constitutes the primary educational value of the case. Critical thinking and application skills are enhanced by considering the impact of both the existing contingent liability and steps necessary to eliminate it. Firms switching to unlimited vacation policies have been widely discussed in the press of late (Chen, 2020; Fontana, 2017; Henley, 2018; Jackson, 2018).

This study examines the link between vacations, parental leave and voluntary turnover among Canadian organizations in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector.

The empirical analysis is carried out using firm-level data sourced from a survey that was completed by HR managers of 125 ICT firms operating in the province of Quebec (Canada).The organizational voluntary turnover rate was used and was obtained by dividing the number of employees who voluntarily quit an organization within the last year by the total number of its employees. Based on ordinary least squared estimates, results were generated by regressing voluntary turnover rate on vacation and parental leave.

Vacation, operationalized as the average number of annual vacation days, is negatively and significantly associated with the voluntary turnover rate of the ICT organizations surveyed. Parental leave, operationalized as the percentage of salary reimbursed during parental leave, does not significantly reduce voluntary turnover in the ICT organizations surveyed.

In light of the results of this study, if organizations in the ICT sector, in Canada or abroad, desire to reduce voluntary turnover, compensating employees through the use of additional vacation days appears to be a viable approach.

This research constitutes an empirical test of the link between turnover and two compensation practices adopted by firms. To our knowledge, there is no prior scientific evidence on that subject in the Canadian ICT sector.

The purpose of this paper is to provide simulation modelling for bulk arrival bulk service queueing system involved in a textile industry and analyze the performance metrics.

This paper describes the simulation modelling of a bulk queueing system with limited number of admissions and multiple vacations. The model is developed for the proposed queueing system using Flexsim 2017, and it is explained through an application observed in a textile industry involving the process of cone winding.

In this paper, the simulation model has been developed to study the behaviour of queues at different resources in a production system. Various performance measures such as average components, average waiting time, total number of inputs and outputs, processing time and idle time involved in a textile industry are evaluated using simulation and justified through numerical illustration.

The proposed simulation model may be used in various scenarios wherever a real time situation exists related to bulk queueing system. The results produced in this paper can be used by the manufacturing industries to enhance the need-based accuracy. It is worth pointing out that the findings are of direct practical relevance and can be successfully used for a number of industrial applications.

The approach suggested in this paper attempts to deal with the queueing system involved in a textile industry and provides numerical results in less time with less computer resources. It provides a reasonably good approximation for simple and complex queueing models where it is difficult to find closed form of theoretical results.

For decades organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been of interest to scholars and practitioners alike, generating a significant amount of research exploring the concept of what citizenship behavior is, and its antecedents, correlates, and consequences. While these behaviors have been and will continue to be valuable, there are changes in the workplace that have the potential to alter what types of OCBs will remain important for organizations in the future, as well as what types of opportunities for OCB exist for employees. In this chapter we consider the influence of 10 workplace trends related to human resource management that have the potential to influence both what types of citizenship behaviors employees engage in and how often they may engage in them. We build on these 10 trends that others have identified as having the potential to shape the workplace of the future, which include labor shortages, globalization, immigration, knowledge-based workers, increase use of technology, gig work, diversity, changing work values, the skills gap, and employer brands. Based on these 10 trends, we develop propositions about how each trend may impact OCB. We consider not only how these trends will influence the types of citizenship and opportunities for citizenship that employees can engage in, but also how they may shape the experiences of others related to OCB, including organizations and managers.

The crux of the paper's argument is that, if organisations are to counter computer fraud, they must adopt suitable personnel procedures. The authors start by examining previous research into computer fraud focusing on the work of Albrecht et al and Bologna. They then set out personnel practices and procedures which, it is maintained, provide a powerful deterrent to computer crime. The paper ends with an analysis of the Audit Commission's publication, ‘Survey of Computer Fraud and Abuse’ and an examination of cases where improved personnel procedures may have deterred computer abuse.

This is a systematically conducted study to design, develop and validate a measuring instrument to assess the nurses quality of work life (QWL) and determine the vital components of nurses' QWL.

In this methodical study, vital dimensions of nurses QWL are identified using Pareto analysis; data and information were collected from 474 nurses through the structured questionnaire. By conducting exploratory factor analysis (EFA), the number of dimensions and items was reduced. Through the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using SPSS 21 software, nine predominant dimensions were confirmed, they are work environment, working condition, work–life balance, compensation, relationship and cooperation, stress at work, job satisfaction, career development and organization culture. Additional structural equation modeling (SEM) was done to determine the interrelationships between extracted nine components using AMOS. By performing different statistical tests like reliability test, content validity, construct validity, convergent, divergent validity and multicollinearity, the proposed nine-component nurses QWL instrument was validated.

The proposed measurement model explained 73.18% of total variance; reliability of the instrument Cronbach's alpha value is 0.902. Model fit indices like chi-square df (CMIN) = 685, df = 523, CMIN/DF = 1.310, goodness-of-fit index (GFI) = 0.965, adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI) = 0.937, parsimony goodness-of-fit index (PGFI) = 0.918, incremental fir index (IFI) = 0.933, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = 0.921, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.931 and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.036 fulfill the acceptable criteria. The nine factors nurses QWL measuring instrument is reliable and statistically valid.

Data were collected from 474 nurses, poor responses and time constraints.

Hospitals are trying to improve the quality of patient caring by enhancing the nurses' skill sets, knowledge and attitude to meet global challenges. In this unstable business environment, hospitals face challenges like the high attrition rate and skilled nurses shortage. In this scenario, this study provides a valid instrument to measure the QWL of nurses to know the status of QWL, which will help to build a strategic plan to improve retention rate and to attract the talented workforce to the hospitals.

As a result, the scale developed in this study contributes to the body of the literature on nurses QWL. It seems to be more advantageous for carrying out further research in this field.

This paper aims to study the maintenance and replacement problem for a deteriorating repairable system with multiple vacations of one repairman. It proposes a new replacement policy and establishes corresponding replacement models.

It is assumed that the repair after the system failures is not “as good as new” and the repairman is in multiple vacations. The reaching of the effective age of the system is assumed to be mutually stochastic at working state, waiting state for repair and being repaired state. Under these assumptions, a replacement policy based on the effective age of the system is applied. The long-run expected downtime per unit time and the long-run expected profit per unit time as objective functions are chosen, respectively. By using geometric process theory and renewal process theory, the mathematic models have been established and the explicit expressions of the long-run expected downtime per unit time and the long-run expected profit per unit time are derived, respectively.

The optimal replacement policy can be calculated and determined by the computer to minimize the expected downtime or maximize the expected profit. The minimum expected downtime per unit time and maximum expected profit per unit time can also be determined.

This replacement policy and mathematic models can be used as reference to the failure system maintenance and replacement.

Technological advancements and growing complexity of many real-time systems, namely, communication, transportation, defense systems, etc., necessitate the importance to adopt a well-planned repair process such as phase type quasi-renewal process contributing to an improved system performance. Further, in an attempt to boost the role of maintenance as a financial benefactor, repairman’s multiple vacation policy is incorporated. Also, the significance of the degree of repair is illustrated while indicating the suitability of the matrix-analytic approach via the phase type quasi-renewal operating/repair times in reliability. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The optimal replacement policy is obtained by employing the matrix-analytic method and minimum average cost rate.

The considered models make a significant contribution towards establishing that the matrix-analytic method, using the phase type quasi-renewal process, aids in reducing the computations and also fills the gap in the literature in the study of deteriorating systems. Availability and rate of occurrence of failures are evaluated in transient and steady-state regime.

This model differs from the existing models, in that, a repairman’s multiple vacation, delayed repair time and representation of the failure occurrence by a mixed Poisson process have been incorporated into the analysis. Also, time-dependent case and N-policy have been adopted to explore the optimality issues using phase type quasi-renewal process analytically. The numerical illustrations warrant that the maintenance policy proposed in this paper produces a considerably lower cost.

To study the optimization of a randomized control problem in an M/G/1 queue in which a removable and unreliable server may provide two phases of heterogeneous service to arriving customers.

Arriving customers follow a Poisson process and require the first essential service (FES). As soon as FES of a customer is completed, the customer may leave the system or opt for the second optional service (SOS). The service times of FES channel and SOS channel are assumed to be general distribution functions. The server requires a startup time with random length before starting service. When the server is working, he may meet unpredictable breakdowns but is immediately repaired. The inter‐breakdown time and repair time of the removable server are exponentially random variable and generally random variable, respectively. By the convex combination property and the renewal reward theorem, several system performances are obtained. A cost model is developed to search the optimal two‐threshold policy at a minimum cost. Sensitivity analysis is performed.

Expressions for various system performances are derived. Sensitivity analysis of optimal randomized control policy (based on the developed expected cost function) with respect to system parameters is investigated.

It is the first time that analytic results of sensitivity analysis of optimal randomized control policy for the complex system have been obtained which is quite useful and significant for engineers.

Excellent companies in the automative finance industry are considered so because of, among other things, their financial strength. In order for these companies to have achieved such status there have been strategies successfully executed by a committed workforce. Policies and procedures have been put in place in each company that ensures that employees are afforded certain basic benefits that protect their livelihood and others that reach beyond to create a more attractive environment that will help guarantee a long relationship between company and employee. The employee benefits of Toyota Motor Credit Corporation, Ford Motor Credit and Nissan Motors Acceptance Corporation are explored here in an effort to illustrate why these companies have succeeded, why some have succeeded more than others and, very importantly, how these companies are affected by the benefits that are put in place as a means of achieving long term success.