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This paper aims to argue that important elements in the capital budgeting process are either undervalued or not considered and are a significant reason for both low and slow growth in large firms. Adopting an entrepreneurial mindset in conjunction with a portfolio approach based on different types of innovation to allow for growth projects to enter the process and be evaluated for possible selection are outlined as an alternative to strengthen the capital budgeting process.

Concepts and processes drawn from the finance, economics and entrepreneurship literature are used to form a proposed new approach to the capital budgeting process.

Only a handful of large firms even achieve returns more than their cost of capital. This manuscript argues that the reason for the lack of growth is a function of a capital budgeting process that does not allow the full spectrum of risk projects because of behavioral factors. This manuscript further proposes a portfolio approach that would allow for all projects to be fairly considered and aligned with stakeholder interests.

The current literature tends to focus on the financial evaluative aspect of the capital budgeting process. The void in the literature is with other aspects of the capital budgeting process both in terms of currency and in pursuing alternative explanations for the reasons the full risk spectrum of projects is not considered.

How can students become transformational leaders if they are left alone to grapple with the emotional toll of climate change, preparing for careers while scientists sound the alarm that business as usual is untenable? Ecoanxiety, solastalgia, and climate grief are the affective undercurrents in sustainability and environmental science classrooms. This case study discusses strategies used to support students' emotional well-being in an introductory sustainability class and a co-curricular climate change support group program at Oregon State University. Psychologists and sustainability educators created space for students and faculty to engage in authentic dialogues confronting the emotional uncertainty of the climate crisis and working together to define their roles building a resilient future.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution in terms of shares of scholarly book publications in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in five European countries, i.e. Flanders (Belgium), Finland, Norway, Poland and Slovenia. In addition to aggregate results for the whole of the social sciences and the humanities, the authors focus on two well-established fields, namely, economics & business and history.

Comprehensive coverage databases of SSH scholarly output have been set up in Flanders (VABB-SHW), Finland (VIRTA), Norway (NSI), Poland (PBN) and Slovenia (COBISS). These systems allow to trace the shares of monographs and book chapters among the total volume of scholarly publications in each of these countries.

As expected, the shares of scholarly monographs and book chapters in the humanities and in the social sciences differ considerably between fields of science and between the five countries studied. In economics & business and in history, the results show similar field-based variations as well as country variations. Most year-to-year and overall variation is rather limited. The data presented illustrate that book publishing is not disappearing from an SSH.

The results presented in this paper illustrate that the polish scholarly evaluation system has influenced scholarly publication patterns considerably, while in the other countries the variations are manifested only slightly. The authors conclude that generalizations like “performance-based research funding systems (PRFS) are bad for book publishing” are flawed. Research evaluation systems need to take book publishing fully into account because of the crucial epistemic and social roles it serves in an SSH.

The authors present data on monographs and book chapters from five comprehensive coverage databases in Europe and analyze the data in view of the debates regarding the perceived detrimental effects of research evaluation systems on scholarly book publishing. The authors show that there is little reason to suspect a dramatic decline of scholarly book publishing in an SSH.

In order to create sustainable health systems, many countries are introducing ways to prioritise health services underpinned by a process of health technology assessment. While this approach requires technical judgements of clinical effectiveness and cost effectiveness, these are embedded in a wider set of social (societal) value judgements, including fairness, responsiveness to need, non-discrimination and obligations of accountability and transparency. Implementing controversial decisions faces legal, political and public challenge. To help generate acceptance for the need for health prioritisation and the resulting decisions, the purpose of this paper is to develop a novel way of encouraging key stakeholders, especially patients and the public, to become involved in the prioritisation process.

Through a multidisciplinary collaboration involving a series of international workshops, ethical and political theory (including accountability for reasonableness) have been applied to develop a practical way forward through the creation of a values framework. The authors have tested this framework in England and in New Zealand using a mixed-methods approach.

A social values framework that consists of content and process values has been developed and converted into an online decision-making audit tool.

The authors have developed an easy to use method to help stakeholders (including the public) to understand the need for prioritisation of health services and to encourage their involvement. It provides a pragmatic way of harmonising different perspectives aimed at maximising health experience.

All health care systems are facing increasing demands within finite resources. Although many countries are introducing ways to prioritise health services, the decisions often face legal, political, commercial and ethical challenge. The research will help health systems to respond to these challenges.

This study helps in increasing public involvement in complex health challenges.

No other groups have used this combination of approaches to address this issue.

This study aims to investigate the potential of using polymer multi-material additive manufacturing (MMAM) to produce miniature hydraulic piston actuators combining rigid structures and flexible seals. Such actuators offer great potential for medical robots in X-ray and magnetic resonance environments, where conventional piston actuators cannot be used because of safety issues caused by metal components.

Hydraulic pistons with two different integrated flexible seal shapes are designed and manufactured using MMAM. Design 1 features a ring-shaped seal made from a flexible material that is printed on the surface of the rigid piston shaft. Design 2 appears identical from the outside, yet an axial opening in the piston shaft is added to enable self-reinforced sealing as fluid pressure increases. For both designs, samples with three different outer diameters are fabricated leading to a total of six different piston versions. The pistons are then evaluated regarding leakage, friction and durability.

Measurement results show that the friction force for Design 2 is lower than that of Design 1, making Design 2 more suitable for the intended application. None of the versions of Design 2 shows leakage for pressures up to 1.5 MPa. For Design 1, leak-tightness varies with the outer diameter, yet none of the versions is consistently leak-tight at 1.5 MPa. Furthermore, the results show that prolonged exposure to water decreases the durability of the flexible material significantly. The durability the authors observe may, however, be sufficient for short-term or single-use devices.

The authors investigate a novel design approach for hydraulic piston actuators based on MMAM. These actuators are of particular interest for patient-specific medical devices used in radiological interventions, where metal-free components are required to safely operate in X-ray and magnetic resonance environments. This study may serve as a basis for the development of new actuators, as it shows a feasible solution, yet pointing out critical aspects such as the influence of small geometry changes or material performance changes caused by water absorption.

The purpose of this paper is to explore two identified knowledge gaps: first, the identification and analysis of online searching trends for Financial Technology (FinTech)-related jobs and education information in UK, and second to assess the current strength of the FinTech-related job distribution in terms of job titles and locations in UK, job market in UK and what is required to help it to grow.

Two sets of data were used in this study in order to fill the two identified knowledge gaps. First, six years’ worth of data, for the period from September 2012 to August 2018 was collected from Google Trends. This was in the form of search term keyword text. The hypothesis was designed correspondingly, and the results were reviewed and evaluated using a relevant statistical tool. Second, relevant data were extracted from the “Indeed” website (www.indeed.co.uk) by means of a simple VBA programme written in Excel. In total, the textual data for 500 job advertisements, including the keyword “FinTech”, were downloaded from that website.

The authors found that there was a continuously increasing trend in the use of the keyword “fintech” under the category “Jobs and Education” in online searching from September 2012 to August 2018. The authors demonstrated that this trend was statistically significant. In contrast, the trends for searches using both “finance” and “accounting” were slightly decreased over the same period. Furthermore, the authors identified the geographic distribution of the fintech-related jobs in the UK. In regard to job titles, the authors discovered that “manager” was the most frequently searched term, followed by “developer” and “engineer”.

Educators could use this research as a reference in the development of the portfolio of their courses. In addition, the findings from this study could also enable potential participators to reflect on their career development. It is worth noting that the motivations for carrying out an internet search are complex, and each of these needs to be understood. There are many factors that would affect how an information seeker would behave with the obtained information. More work is still needed in order to encourage more people to enter to the FinTech sector.

In the planning stage prior to launching a new course educators often need to justify the market need: this analysis could provide a supporting rationale and enable a new course to launch more quickly. Consequently, the pipeline of talent supply to the sector would also be benefitted. The authors believe this is the first time that a study like this had been conducted to explore specifically the availability and opportunities for FinTech education and retraining in UK. The authors anticipate that this study will become the primary reference for researchers, educators and policy makers engaged in future research or practical applications on related topics.

Longitudinal studies have shown that consumer satisfaction has increased over the last 15 years, whereas trust and loyalty have decreased during the same period. This finding contradicts the trust–value–loyalty model (TVLM), which posits that higher satisfaction increases consumers' trust, value and loyalty levels. To explain this counterintuitive trend, this study draws on models of trust formation to integrate the stereotype content model and the TVLM. It argues that consumers' occupational and industry stereotypes influence their trust, value and loyalty judgments through their trusting beliefs regarding frontline employees and management practices/policies.

The study was conducted among 476 consumers who were randomly assigned to one of five service industries (apparel retail, airlines, hotels, health insurance or telecommunications services) and asked to rate their current service provider from that industry.

The results suggest that both occupational and industry stereotypes influence consumers' trusting beliefs and trust judgments, although only the effects of industry stereotypes are transferred to consumers' loyalty judgments.

The results of the study indicate that industry stereotypes have become increasingly negative over the last decades, which has a dampening effect on the positive effects of satisfaction.

This study provides guidelines for practitioners regarding the management of frontline employees and the development of consumer trust, value and loyalty.

This is the first study to propose and test an explanation for the counterintuitive trend concerning customer satisfaction, trust and loyalty. It is also the first to examine the roles of multiple stereotypes in the relationship between consumers and service providers.

Whereas job crafting and idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) have primarily been studied in white-collar jobs, there is a lack of research on job design in less skilled and highly structured work. Our study addresses this gap by analyzing the effects of transformational leadership on job crafting and i-deals in blue- and white-collar jobs.

To test our hypotheses, we surveyed 285 employees (31.9% blue-collar employees and 68.1% white-collar employees) in the German craft industry, using structural equation modeling for data analysis.

Our results show that transformational leadership is a strong predictor of job crafting and i-deals but that its influence depends on the occupational group. More specifically, the moderating role of the occupational group in the relationship between transformational leadership and job crafting differs regarding job crafting’s dimensions. Concerning i-deals, transformational leadership’s influence on both development and task i-deals is stronger in white-collar jobs than it is in blue-collar jobs.

The study provides new insights into the important role of the work context in which leadership takes place. In particular, these insights can guide leaders in how to manage different occupational groups to engage them in proactive behaviors.

This study is the first to compare the contextual roles of blue- and white-collar jobs with regard to job design. By examining the influence of transformational leadership on job crafting and i-deals in two occupational groups, our study contributes to research on the role of work context in the effectiveness of transformational leadership in encouraging employees to engage in proactive behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse factors influencing the propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip, across a sample of Millennial and Generation Z consumers in three different countries.

An online survey was sent to consumers between 16 and 30 years in Sweden, UK and India. Structural equation modelling and multigroup analysis was conducted to compare results between countries and generations.

Young travellers’ need for uniqueness (NFU) and opinion leadership (OL) with regard to travel tends to increase their propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip. Reflected appraisal of self is strongly related to NFU and OL and may therefore indirectly influence the propensity to share. Some differences were found between generations and countries.

Future research could consider comparisons between travellers from younger and older generations. The hypotheses formulated in this study could be tested in other countries. Further adaptions or extensions of existing NFU scales to fit in the travel and tourism context are suggested.

Millennial and Gen Z consumers will constitute an increasing part of travellers and visitors in the future. Through a better understanding of their behaviour, tourism managers can design strategies to engage them and increase electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM).

This study contributes by addressing the lack of research on “self”-related drivers of eWOM in general social media during the trip, and by providing an international perspective through cross-cultural comparisons.