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There is much anecdotal evidence that birds and their droppings are a major problem for the heritage profession. The purpose of this paper is to examine how serious heritage practitioners consider the bird impact to be.

An online survey was conducted of 59 Australian heritage professionals of between one and >20 year’s experience in the field.

Bird impacts were not considered of major concern to buildings. The longer experience a practitioner had, the less likely the impacts were considered an issue. Feral pigeons were deemed the most problematic, followed by cockatoos, starlings, swallows, seagulls, mynas, sparrows, cormorants, ibis, ducks and birds of prey. The professionals ranked common deterrent methods. The highest-ranking deterrents were bird netting and bird spikes, but they were only considered moderately effective. The costs of installation and maintenance, as well the ease of installation, were all deemed significantly less important than the physical impact, the aesthetic sympathy and the effectiveness of a deterrent method.

This study indicates that the impact of birds on buildings in Australia may be of less concern than previously thought, and may be driven by other factors (i.e. aesthetics, commercial companies) rather than actual effects.

This is first study of its kind that surveyed the experiences of a wide range of heritage practitioners.

There has been increased attention and focus on the importance of intellectual capital disclosure. Several Scandinavian companies have ventured forward by publishing intellectual capital statements. However, despite the global appeal and changing beliefs surrounding the value of intellectual capital, it continues to be excluded from Canadian corporate annual reports. This paper outlines a study in which content analysis was conducted on the annual reports of 10,000 Canadian corporations. A list of intellectual capital related terms was searched within the annual reports yielding a significantly small number of instances in which intellectual capital disclosure took place. A major recommendation for corporations who are concerned with their relationship with the capital markets is to develop strategic and tactical initiatives that provide for voluntary disclosure of intellectual capital. These initiatives may initially be used for internal management purposes only, however, an external stakeholder‐focus report will more than likely should be the ultimate goal.

Michelle, a first-generation college student from a predominantly Black urban area, was a senior health and recreation major at Midwest University. Although successful in her health and recreation coursework and an engaged campus student leader, Michelle “often talked about her time on campus as ‘painful’” (Winkle-Wagner, 2009, p. 99):You might get the one person who's like, “Well I don't like Black people,” but, then you have a bunch of other people ganging up on him saying, “That is so old, nobody does that anymore.” And I feel like I am more accepted by White people than I am [by] the Black people. Because they're like, well she doesn't dress a certain way, or … “Why are you listening to that type of music?” (Winkle-Wagner, p. 99)

This paper aims to propose and investigate the relationships among the components of brand equity, and examining the effects of these components on overall destination brand equity in Hoi An tourism destination, Vietnam, from the perspective of domestic tourists.

Questionnaire data were collected from 319 domestic tourists who have visited Hoi An city. The results of empirical tests using a structural equation model support the research hypotheses.

The results indicate that destination brand awareness has significant, positive effects on destination brand image and destination perceived quality; destination brand image has positive influences on destination perceived quality and destination brand loyalty; destination perceived quality has significant, positive impacts on destination brand loyalty; except for destination brand image, the remaining dimensions have positive and direct impacts on overall destination brand equity.

An integrated model of destination brand equity dimensions and overall destination brand equity was tested in a tourism city in the context of a developing economy. Moreover, relevant implications are provided for destination marketers as to how to improve destination brand equity in the tourism industry.

Leslie Kenton examines three companies which have taken such theories as ‘job enrichment’ and ‘employee participation’ and fashioned them into workable ‐ and profitable ‐ techniques. Derek Bryan (right) recalls that the process took seven painstaking years and was at first resisted by middle management and supervisors.

This study examines the contribution of urban development to Vietnam's economic progress over the period 1986–2020. The study uses an augmented Solow framework, where urbanization is included as a shift variable in addition to capital per worker and accounts for structural breaks. It examines the cointegration and the long-run and short-run effects of urban development from four different cases of cointegration (constant, restricted constant, restricted trend and trend options), with each case accounting for the effect of a significant structural break. Also, the study provides causality nexus to check the presence of urbanization-led growth hypothesis. From the results, we note a long-run positive effect of urbanization on economic growth, but no short-run effects. In all cases, a 1% increase in population results in 0.8–0.9 increase of output, hence supporting a positive and momentous effect of urbanization over the long-term. We note a significant positive effect of a single structural break period (1991), which is a period of major shift towards economic progress. We note bidirectional causality between capital and output and a unidirectional causality from output and capital to urbanization. The former suggests a mutually reinforcing effect of capital accumulation and economic growth, and the latter indicates that urban development necessitates economic growth and capital accumulation. The findings derived from this study provide further impetus for urban development and urban policies and consider urbanization as a critical source of economic growth for Vietnam.

Birds are implicated in spoiling and decay of buildings, especially through their droppings. Pigeons are considered the main culprits, and several studies have examined the effects and chemistry of accumulations of droppings without evidence to the exact origins of the source of the excreta. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study reviews and summarises the state of knowledge with regard to the impact of bird excreta on buildings. It experimentally assesses the acidity of fresh pigeon excreta with different diets and examines the development of the acidity of the excreta after voiding.

Feral pigeons in urban settings are known to be fed by a range of foods. Urban food scraps-derived diets produce more acidic excreta than more natural diets such as seeds. This is a first study of its kind to examine the impact of a bird’s diet on the pH and thus the resulting (potential) decay of masonry.

This study showed that from a management’s perspective, pigeons that subsist entirely on human provided foods will be depositing more initially acidic faeces. If faecal accumulation occurs; then, mould and other bacteria quickly alter the chemistry from acidic towards basic, but the damage may already be done.

This paper is the first study of its kind to examine the effects of fresh pigeon droppings of known origin and age once voided from the intestine. This allows the authors to assess the impact during the first few days.

The North/South divide is an image frequently used to depict the territorial structure and the economic dynamism of England, and thus to describe the social and economic geography of the country. This image distinguishes a post-industrial North, which still faces economic and social difficulties, from a tertiary, rich and powerful South. It separates a central space (the South) from a periphery (the North). However, the recent economic changes in Britain question the relevance of this image, which is perhaps too simplistic to describe accurately the economic and social geography and the spatial disparities in the country.

Since the Thatcher years, this debate on the North/South divide has been constantly renewed, regardless of the political colour of the majority at Westminster, and the local and regional policy of the government in power has been systematically criticised. On the one hand, this reflects the persistence of territorial and social disparities in the United Kingdom and more specifically in England. On the other hand, this shows that the North/South divide is not just a geoeconomic question, but it also includes identity, societal and geopolitical issues.

Based on a geographical, critical geopolitical and cartographic approach, the aim of this chapter is to question the relevance and the significance of the North/South divide in 2017, after the impact of the 2008 Great Recession, as the United Kingdom is on its way to Brexit and when its unity is being challenged by Scottish nationalism. How can territorial disparities be described, evaluated and measured in England? How are they perceived by citizens and political leaders? This chapter will also study the policies proposed to close this gap and to meet the aspirations of peripheral regions.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how country image affects the dimensions of country brand equity (CBE) (i.e. awareness, image, perceived quality and loyalty) in the higher education sector, as well as the interrelationships between these dimensions.

Quantitative research with 208 international students who were starting the academic year at a Spanish university was performed to test the hypotheses. In accordance with the characteristics of the target population, the subjects interviewed were mainly from Europe and the Americas.

The results indicate that the country image affects the perceived quality and awareness of the universities in the country. Additionally, a hierarchy of effects between the dimensions of CBE was found. In particular, loyalty toward the universities of a country is positively influenced by their perceived quality, which is affected by image and awareness of these universities. For its part, the image of universities is positively influenced by the awareness attributed to them by international students.

These results have implications for marketing activities aimed at the internationalization of higher education institutions and, therefore, their appeal to international students.

The paper’s findings represent an important step in the advancement of knowledge about CBE by taking as a basis a complex model that involves the different dimensions of this construct together with a relevant variable in international marketing, that is, country image.