An Exploratory Study in Community Perspectives of Sustainability Leadership in the Murray Darling Basin

This article explores the emergence of leadership during implementation of a water saving initiative in the rural community surrounding Barren Box Swamp in the Murray Darling Basin, Australia. Qualitative data analysis indicated that the system elements affecting the type of leadership to emerge included the extent to which the groups were engaged in the process, the level of access to resources, and the level of investment in the outcomes of the project. Although these results reinforced key aspects of complex problem-solving through collaboration, they demonstrated varying degrees and types of both engagement and leadership within the case community. Given the current finding that these varying elements can coincide within one system, this case suggests that each community’s characteristics, resources and context will determine the optimal combination of leadership style and level of collaboration needed to facilitate sustainable community development.     

Continuing the evolution of the selling process: A multi-level perspective

This paper considers the selling process from a relational perspective, thereby developing a more comprehensive understanding of the process. Emerging from this is a multi-level framework, which delineates the multiplicity and connectedness of relationships which exist in B2B interactions. The paper provides a relationship management tool for theorists as well as practitioners. The model visualizes strategic advantage for selling firms in seeking to optimize their position in an evolving network context. The combining of IMP, sales and relationship marketing theories that underpin this approach calls for further extension and/or reconceptualization of the selling process. Our reconceptualization asserts that identifying, measuring and managing selling-related relationships at the monadic, dyadic and network levels will facilitate the strengthening of a firm's network position and thus their performance. Our framework provides an analytical tool to assist in this.     

"Children of the city": juvenile justice, property, and place in England and Scotland, 1945-60

This article uses cases studies of Dundee and Manchester to explain juvenile property-offending in terms of young people's use of objects and spaces in the period 1945-60. A composite picture is assembled of objects stolen, which reflects growth of the specifically "teenage" consumer market as well as continued significance of young people's contribution to family economies. Concerns about youth, property, and space were reported in newspapers in terms of vandalism and hooliganism. "Play" and "nuisance" were overlapping and contested categories; re-education of young people in the correct use of place, space, and property was a key aim of the postwar juvenile justice system.     

Corporate-Sponsored Volunteering: A Work Design Perspective

This study explored employee perceptions of participation in a corporate-sponsored volunteer initiative. Drawing on both questionnaire and focus group data, this study reaffirms the importance of altruistic concerns as a key driver for employee involvement in corporate- sponsored volunteering. Characteristics of the volunteering activity also emerged as important determinants of employee’s initial engagement and ongoing motivation for involvement in corporate-sponsored volunteering. In the same way that models of work design point to the value of enriched jobs, we see that there is scope to consider how corporate-sponsored volunteer programmes can be enriched so that employees have satisfying experiences and are more likely to participate. Enhancing perceptions of task significance and meaningfulness and incorporating relational elements into the volunteer activity seem to be especially critical in this regard.     

Emotions, store-environmental cues, store-choice criteria, and marketing outcomes

This study integrates extant research relating to store-related cognitions, customer emotions (arousal and pleasure), satisfaction, and loyalty into one framework. The researchers administer a survey to 274 customers in four coffee shops of a major chain. Using these data, the researchers test the hypotheses and model with structural equation modelling. The findings suggest that (a) store-related cognitions differentially affect emotions and customer outcomes (satisfaction and loyalty) and (b) the two emotions of arousal and pleasure differentially mediate the relationships between store-related cognitions and customer outcomes.     

SCAM: Design of a learning and teaching resource

University accounting students often have to assimilate technical auditing knowledge without practical audit experience. The desire to develop an appropriate experiential opportunity motivated this research - to create an audit teaching and learning resource to simulate audit experience and facilitate the development of transferable skills. Literature findings and dedicated questionnaire survey results suggested that such a resource should: (i) use a web based case-study to simulate a real-life audit scenario; (ii) require group working of the participants; (iii) facilitate the use and development of a range of transferable skills; and (iv) encourage a consideration of the wider business context. The web-based resource SCAM (www.scam-plc.co.uk) was developed to address these aims. This paper details this development process.     

Loose coupling in asset management systems in the NHS

This paper aims to identify whether the components of a loose-coupled system were present in the asset management systems of the National Health Service (NHS) in Wales and, if so, whether this had a negative impact. By utilising a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with senior officials at two NHS Hospital Trusts together with the findings of a survey of all of the Hospital Trusts in Wales, we conclude that the asset management system of the NHS in Wales exhibits the features of a loosely coupled system with detrimental consequences. Where information on capital assets has been required below board level, lower management relies on local systems, while the information for senior managers and political leaders relies on the management accounting system and ad hoc enquiries. The result has been an impairment of the ability of lower management to reconfigure capital assets which leads to the nation's health service underperforming.     

Telling a different story: How nonprofit organizations reveal strategic purpose through storytelling

Responding to a call for research into storytelling within the nonprofit context, the paper contributes to an emerging research conversation about communicating organizational strategy through storytelling. The research analyses one hundred stories across 10 leading organizations to identify how they are being deployed and what that tells us about the underpinning strategy. Through bringing story character, classification, and content together for the first time, the paper presents a holistic perspective on the story construct. It identifies that, when viewed as a whole, the stories told by organizations can be a powerful communication tool for reaching external audiences. However, the research also identifies that their ability to convey strategic purpose through storytelling is moderated by storytelling capability. It finds that organizations with stronger storytelling capability use this craft to differentiate themselves more effectively. It concludes with contributing a new conceptual model for understanding organizational storytelling and a roadmap for practitioners to strengthen storytelling capability.     

Use of Public Perceptions of Groundwater Quality Benefits in Developing Livestock Management Options

In this study, a dichotomous choice model is used to determine the compensating welfare measure for water quality improvements stemming from livestock waste management in the Abbotsford region of southwestern British Columbia. The benefits of improving water quality are compared with the net costs of composting manure on a large scale, the option for handling livestock wastes preferred by the provincial government. The results indicate that the costs of composting manure exceed the revenue from selling manure (compost) plus the off-site damages avoided.