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The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of manager ability on a firm’s choice of lease classification and the decision to capitalize vs lease firm-specific assets.

The authors use regression analysis to examine the association between manager ability, lease classification and asset specificity.

Using 31,110 firm-year observations from 1998 to 2013, the authors find a significant positive relationship between manager ability and the decision to classify leases as operating. The authors also find that high-ability managers are more likely to capitalize, rather than lease, specialized firm-specific assets.

The results imply that manager ability influences the choice of lease classification, which provides some support for the recent changes to lease accounting in Accounting Standard Update (ASU) 2016-02. The authors also show that asset specificity may serve as a mitigating factor in high-ability managers’ preference for operating leases, which implies that high-ability managers’ concerns with operational efficiency outweigh the benefits of off-balance sheet financing in their purchasing decisions if the asset in question is firm-specific.

The findings may be useful to boards of directors, investors and accounting academics concerned with the role that managerial ability plays in operational decision making and financial reporting.

The results imply that high-ability managers prefer off-balance sheet financing, which is unlikely to limit their access to external capital, but that this relationship is mitigated if the firm requires highly specialized assets.

By adopting the dictum that all knowledge is knowledge from a point of view, educators can arrange the literature on leadership into nine categories from three conceptually distinct points of view, namely the Leader, the Follower, and the Investigator. Students who come to appreciate and account for point of view not only increase their understanding of leadership, but also prepare to compensate, if not transcend their own point of view – a skill that successful participants in leadership will increasingly require.

The Seminar on Library Interior Layout and Design organised by IFLA's Section on Library Buildings and Equipment, and attended by people from over twenty‐two countries, was held at Frederiksdal, Denmark, in June 1980. This present article neither reports on the Seminar's proceedings, as it is hoped to publish the papers in due course, nor describes fully the Danish public libraries seen, but rather uses the Seminar's theme and the library visits as a point of departure for considering some aspects of the interior layout—the landscape—of public libraries. Brief details of the new Danish public libraries visited are given in a table at the end of the article.

The purpose of this paper is to perceive the perspective of Portuguese and Czech’ talented athletes regarding: the main reasons pointed to drop out of sport, putting into analysis motivational factors; the conciliation of School and Sport, and how the organization of schools and sports contexts are articulated in relation to the training and promotion of students, athletes and citizens; and the contributions (positive/negative) of sports to daily life and society.

This study uses a qualitative approach to interview eight talented athletes from different sports that had to drop out the practice of sport and explores their narratives regarding experiences and the relational dynamics between sports contexts and schools.

Athletes identify factors that led to drop out: the coach profile or the methodology and dynamics of practicing/training; time consuming; and the impossibility of reconciling sports with school/job. Athletes can identify the sport’s culture, self-development and health being as positive contributions of sports, whereas injuries were referred as the main negative factor of sport. As proposal of changes, athletes referred to the need of a more professional organization of the sport contexts and to more proximity between school policies and sport policies allowing conciliating both.

One limitation that could be pointed to this research is the difference between the Czech and Portuguese socio-cultural and political situation, not only in the concept and organization of sports activities (since scholar years) but also in the general society. This difference could have more visibility when interpreting the data that led to this fact referred above.

It is recommended a more proximity relationship between researchers and the contexts of practice (sport contexts) being that it is important that these contexts should have feedback from the investigations carried out. Only in this way coaches, federations and confederations can be aware of the motivational factors that lead to talented athletes drop out, and make a greater investment in initial formation of the coaches and propose policies that try to establish partnerships with schools or professional contexts which could help the management of athletes’ times outside of sport.

Departing from the athletes’ feelings, concerns and motivations related to sport and the reasons that led to their drop out, we argue for the definition of public policies, in both countries, that promote non-discrimination of young people who wish to maintain a path linked to sports in articulation with other areas of their lives.

Much of the existing literature on shared decision making (SDM) in mental health has focused on the use of decision aids (DAs). However, DAs tend to focus on information exchange and neglect other essential elements to SDM in mental health. The purpose of this paper is to expand the review of SDM interventions in mental health by identifying important components, in addition to information exchange, that may contribute to the SDM process in mental health.

The authors conducted a systematic literature search using the Ovid-Medline database with supplementary scoping search of the literature on SDM in mental health treatment. To be eligible for inclusion, studies needed to describe (in a conceptual work or development paper) or evaluate (in any type of research design) a SDM intervention in mental health. The authors included studies of participants with a mental illness facing a mental health care decision, their caregivers, and providers.

A final sample of 31 records was systematically selected. Most interventions were developed and/or piloted in the USA for adults in community psychiatric settings. Although information exchange was a central component of the identified studies, important additional elements were: eliciting patient preferences and values, providing patient communication skills training, eliciting shared care planning, facilitating patient motivation, and eliciting patient participation in goal setting.

The review indicates that additional elements, other than information exchange such as sufficient rapport and trusting relationships, are important and needed as part of SDM in mental health. Future SDM interventions in mental health could consider including techniques that aim to increase patient involvement in activities such as goal settings, values, and preference clarification, or facilitating patient motivation, before and after presenting treatment options.

The purpose of this paper is to undertake a personal, historical, analytical and interpretive investigation of the evolution of the concept of authentic leadership in educational administration/leadership over a number of decades.

The paper includes the author's reflections on his own journey on the topic as well as an analysis of the contributions of great researchers, theorists and writers since early in the twentieth century but, especially, since the early 1960s.

While there is no coherent body of literature on the development of the concept of authentic leadership, there is a general discernible trend starting with a focus on self (know thyself, to thine own self be true); to considering and defining self in relationships; to accepting that there is a moral force behind notions of self-fulfillment; to recognising that authentic leaders operate in a real post-modern (perhaps post-post modern) world of pressures, paradoxes and ethical challenges. This is often a world of standards, assessment and accountability for performance outcomes.

The paper draws on the author's own research journey and legacy on the topic as well as the contributions of “giants in the field” who have continually pushed the envelope when exploring the topic and closely interrelated topics.

With any new skill, the time comes when one must put together the various steps that have been practiced and actually ‘play the game’. For many students of library and information science, online searching is a new search for a ‘real world’ client. This paper describes some problems these novice searchers have in putting it all together.

Peer pressure and popularity are important issues for teenagers, potentially affecting teenagers’ attitudes toward luxury products. In turn, peer pressure and popularity can potentially be affected by self-concept clarity (how clearly teens view themselves). The authors empirically aim to investigate these relationships using data from a sample of Brazilian teens and find that self-concept clarity has a significant effect on peer pressure, popularity and social consumption motivation, which, by itself, directly affects attitudes toward luxury items.

The total sample consisted of 558 teenagers between the ages of 12 and 19 (grades 7 through 12). Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

The results of the study suggest that teenagers’ social consumption motivations positively affect attitudes toward luxury.

The paper first explicitly examines the impact of peer pressure and popularity on attitude toward luxury among teenagers.

The purpose of this paper is to study job attitudes between unionized and non-unionized employees in Australia as recent research on attitudes among unionized employees has centred on topics such as attitudes towards unionization and involvement, but not on work-related attitudes.

This study uses a data set of over 5,000 responses from the Australia at Work survey. Ten attitudinal survey questions adapted from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey and the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes were used to compare work-related attitudinal differences between unionized and non-unionized employees.

Findings show that unionized employees perceive less manager–employee consultation, health and safety, dispensability, time flexibility, workload flexibility, managerial trust, fair treatment and pay equity.

Not much is known about the attitudinal differences between unionized and non-unionized employees, given the paucity of research on unionist job attitudes. Recent research in this area has centred on employee attitudes towards unionization and involvement as opposed to studying work-related attitudes. The findings can help the management predict behavioural responses between unionized and non-unionized employees for improved decision making.