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Optimal application and commitment toward financial management practices enhance organization performance. This study aims to assess the influence of financial management practices on the organizational performance of small- and medium-scale enterprises.

Data were collected from 45 small-sized and 72 medium-sized firms. Data supported the hypothesized relationships. Construct reliability and validity were established through confirmatory factor analysis. The conceptual model and hypotheses were evaluated by using structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that working capital significantly influenced organizational performance. Capital budget management significantly influenced organizational performance. A non-significant influence of asset management on organizational performance was observed.

The generalizability of the findings will be constrained due to the research’s SMEs focus and cross-sectional data.

The study’s findings will serve as valuable pointers for stakeholders and decision-makers of SMEs in developing well-articulated and proactive financial management systems to ensure competitiveness, sustainability, viability, and financial competencies.

The study adds to the corpus of literature by evidencing empirically that financial management practices significantly influenced SMEs’ performance.

This paper analyzes two external costs often associated with port development, cost to fisheries from marine dredge disposal and damages from air pollution, using estimates of development and operation for a proposed (but since cancelled) container port as a case study. For dredge disposal, a bio-economic model was used to assess short- and long-term and indirect (joodweb) damages to fisheries from marine disposal of clean sediments. In the case of air pollution, estimates of annual activity levels and emission coefficients are used to estimate incremental annual emissions of three key pollutants (NOx, HC and CO) for trucks, trains, yard vehicles, and vessels. These estimates allow for phasing in of strict new air pollution regulations. For both external costs, sensitivity analyses are used to reflect uncertainty. Estimates of shadow values in year 2002 dollars amount from $0.094 per cubic yard to $0.169 per cubic yard of clean dredged material for the selected disposal site and from $0.0584 per mile (jor current control standards) to $ 0. 0023 per mile (after phasing in of new regulations) for air pollution from heavy trucks.

This paper aims to identify a possible mismatch between the theory found in academic research and the practices of investment managers in Brazil.

The chosen approach is a field survey. This paper considers 78 survey responses from 274 asset management companies. Data obtained are analyzed using independence tests between two variables and multiple regressions.

The results show that most Brazilian investment managers have not adopted current best practices recommended by the financial academic literature and that there is a significant gap between academic recommendations and asset management practices. The modern portfolio theory is still more widely used than the post-modern portfolio theory, and quantitative portfolio optimization is less often used than the simple rule of defining a maximum concentration limit for any single asset. Moreover, the results show that the normal distribution is used more than parametrical distributions with asymmetry and kurtosis to estimate value at risk, among other findings.

This study may be considered a pioneering work in portfolio construction, risk management and performance evaluation in Brazil. Although academia in Brazil and abroad has thoroughly researched portfolio construction, risk management and performance evaluation, little is known about the actual implementation and utilization of this research by Brazilian practitioners.

It is becoming increasingly important for leaders to recognize and develop the skills needed to interact with diverse others (Karim, 2003). To this end, several leadership programs in American colleges and universities offer courses that explore the practice of multicultural leadership (Brungardt, Greenleaf, Brungardt, & Arensdorf, 2006); our institution’s leadership program is no different in its goals of preparing culturally competent leaders. The multicultural leadership course in the Staley School of Leadership Studies at Kansas State University has two learning outcomes: “Understand the impact of cultural identity (Note that this manuscript uses the terms social identity and cultural identity interchangeably, which is common practice (Wren, 2002), life experiences, and world views on leadership relationships as it relates to privilege and inclusion,” and, “Practice inclusive leadership through advocacy for social change.” Such goals are desirable, but also lofty – how can we know if our course has had any effect on student learning toward these objectives?

Theory-informed assessment of the effects of multicultural leadership courses can meet many pedagogical needs while answering the demands of multiple stakeholders (Fink, 2006; Wholey, Hatry, & Newcomer, 2004). Knowing what changes occur in students’ attitudes or behaviors during a multicultural leadership course would permit faculty, staff, and other practitioners to evaluate whether the experience may be able to meet desired learning goals. Future courses could be recalibrated to address deficiencies or strengthen successes. Assessment data also facilitates the sharing of the course’s effects to administrators, prospective students, parents, or donors in efforts to communicate the value of intentional, curricular student leadership development.

Beyond these larger-scale needs for assessment, we have an interest in knowing to what degree the course contributes to our students’ engagement and leadership development. Assessment can help us to identify what students are learning as a result of the course. Further, we hope that sharing our assessment structure, analysis, and results can help other leadership educators strengthen a culture of assessment in their own programs, particularly concerning multicultural leadership development.

To determine if we are making progress in meeting our learning outcomes, we developed an assessment tool to determine students’ change over the course of the term across two theoretical constructs: diversity attitudes, which encapsulates the first learning goal of recognizing linkages between worldview and leadership (Bennett, 2004; Karim, 2003; Komives, Longerbeam, Owen, Mainella, & Osteen, 2006); and changes in leadership behaviors and attitudes, which speaks to the second learning goal of catalyzing social change-based leadership (Komives, Wagner, & Associates, 2009).

We use a pre-test / post-test design to compare students’ reported values at the beginning of the semester to their values upon completion of the class (Fink, 2006). By comparing pre-test and post-test responses to questions from the assessment instrument, we demonstrate in what ways our course might influence student leadership development and multicultural competence, as well as areas we might wish to consider fortifying in future iterations of the course to better meet learning objectives. We then reflect on the effect the results will have on learning outcomes, curricular development, and the instrument itself, illustrating the cyclical relationship between theory, practice, and assessment in multicultural leadership education.

We have two aims here. Our first is to articulate what gains may be made by students who engage in our course to determine what exactly is gained by students who participate in such experiences. We believe such courses have educational value, but needed to find a way to articulate our course’s success in helping students meet our stated learning objectives. Our second aim is to illustrate both the necessity, rewards, and limitations of engaging in critical engagement with the assessment-practice cycle (Maki, 2002). Here, we reflect on what changes we or others could make to our course to better achieve our desired goals, as well as how we might continue to strengthen our assessment efforts. We hope that our analysis here provides some starting points to assess multicultural leadership programs’ efficacy in meeting student learning outcomes.

In the fall of 1966, a small and informal group of wives whose husbands were classified as Prisoner of War (POW) or Missing in Action (MIA) formed a small and informal group. By December 12, 1969, this group of women had gained such power, influence, and a multitude of disparate followers that twenty-six met with President and Mrs. Pat Nixon at the White House. In part, the POW/MIA story is about a small group of women taking a decisive role to change the United States POW/MIA policy, accentuate the plight of the prisoners, and demand humane treatment by Hanoi—all in a national and global arena.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of creativity in work-based research and practice to yield deeper understanding of practice situations. Unexpected insights can lead one (or a team) to identify new approaches, tackling workplace issues differently, leading to unexpected outcomes of long-term impact.

This paper draws on work conducted for a doctoral thesis, investigating the impact of work-based learning for recent masters graduates of a work-based learning programme. Fiction was incorporated into analysis of the data, creating play scripts to represent key aspects of the researcher's perceptions and interpretations for each participant.

Research participants experienced personal, professional and organisational impact, although there was considerable variability between individuals. Additionally, societal impact was wished for and/or effected. The approach to representation of analysis, which involved fictionalising participants' experiences, created a strong Thirdspace liminality. This appeared to deepen awareness and understanding.

Such approaches can transform the researcher's perspective, prompting insights which lead to further adventure and development in work-based research and practice.

Managers and employees taking creative approaches in the workplace can prompt wide-ranging development and, with professional judgement, be constructive.

Managers and employees taking creative approaches in the workplace can prompt wide-ranging development and, with professional judgement, be constructive.

The creation of play scripts, representing an interpretation of participants' stories about their work-based learning experience, is an innovative feature of this work.

By drawing on current reports, this paper positions that Homo sapiens could in the near future be faced with an increasingly uninhabitable planet. It emphasises the importance of adventure tourism and its associated activities as a means of supporting individuals to develop more outdoor survival skills.

This study applies a scenario narrative approach in exploring and presenting potential future ideas. The significance of narratives lies at the essential examination of current trends and drivers that could be shaping future scenarios. This paper, through the exploration of past and current trends supports the researcher in presenting future views. The scenario narratives in this research are established via desk-based research and inspection of academic journals, industry reports, ideas and knowledge.

If society is pushed to the brink of extinction due to a catastrophic event(s), people will require survival skills, similar to those shared by our hunter-gather nomad ancestor. Thus, this paper highlights the value and importance of the industry in encouraging soft and hard outdoor adventure in the coming years. It recognises how different adventure travel activities can support people in rekindling with our more basic instincts and ultimately, surviving in different natural environments.

This paper offers original theoretical knowledge within the adventure tourism literature. Offering original consideration to the value of exploring the past as a method of understanding the future, the paper presents an original spectrum of soft and hard skills-based adventure tourism activities.

Mainstream pornography is popular, freely accessible, and infused with themes of male dominance, aggression, and female subservience. Through depicting sex in these ways, mainstream pornography has the potential to influence the further development of harmful sexual scripts that condone or endorse violence against women and girls. These concerns warrant the adoption of a harms-based perspective in critical examinations of pornography's influence on sexual experiences. This chapter reports on findings from interviews with 24 heterosexual emerging adults living in Aotearoa/New Zealand about how pornography has impacted their lives. Despite a shared awareness among participants of mainstream pornography's misogynistic tendencies, and the potential for harm from those displays, men's and women's experiences were profoundly gendered. Men's reported experiences were often associated with concerns about their own sexual behaviors, performances, and/or abilities. Conversely, women's experiences were often shaped by how pornography had affected the way that men related to them sexually. Their experiences included instances of sexual coercion and assault which were not reported by the men. These findings signal the need for a gendered lens, situated within a broader harms-based perspective, in examinations of pornography's influence.

How does the human brain absorb information and turn it into skills of its own in psychotherapy? In an attempt to answer this question, the authors will review the intricacies of processing channels in psychotherapy and propose the term transprocessing (as in transduction and processing combined) for the underlying mechanisms. Through transprocessing the brain processes multimodal memories and creates reparative solutions in the course of psychotherapy. Transprocessing is proposed as a stage-sequenced mechanism of deconstruction of engrained patterns of response. Through psychotherapy, emotional-cognitive reintegration and its consolidation is accomplished. This process is mediated by cellular and neural plasticity changes.