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Discusses the way in which effective management of business processes can deliver improved competitiveness‐via specific reference to engineering in the capital goods (CG) industry. Having defined the critical success factors which differentiate the CG sector, shows how the resulting organizational dynamic is best served by an entirely new multi‐disciplinary approach. This delivers the required outcome by collapsing both lead and response times and facilitating the construction of a fully‐integrated operational and knowledge base.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how skateboarding as a community, sport and cultural phenomenon can become integrated into and drive the development, branding and marketing of a city (Malmö).

This paper is produced through a communicative co-constructed process of one scholar and one practitioner within the skateboarding field. Through the narrative told by the practitioner, and with basis in the established understanding and conceptualization of place marketing through sport, success factors of the skateboarding initiatives in Malmö are identified.

The skateboarding story of Malmö fits well into the established conceptualization of place branding and marketing, neoliberalism and urban entrepreneurialism. Also, it demonstrates the power of a unique user-driven partnerships between skaters, a non-profit organization and public institutions to create a skateboard-friendly city and as a consequence a strong internationally renowned skate-image. The multi-level, multi-content approach is founded in shared values and mutual benefits. Instead of fitting a phenomenon into an outward-oriented image-strategy, skateboarding as a sport and culture has been allowed to develop organically, creating a credible and unique image for Malmö.

This study adds to the literature on sport and city marketing/branding by developing a deeper, empirically founded, understanding of how to combine top-down and bottom-up approaches in urban development, marketing and branding. The results have scientific as well as practical value.

This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering all library types.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2018.

The paper provides a brief description of all 422 sources, and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians and anyone interested as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

The study aims were: (1) to replicate a previous study by the first author to confirm previous findings (internal validity) and to check construct validity of previously proposed information-behaviour profiles, (2) to compare the information processes used by students in parallel with requirements of early professional practice.

A replication study used the same questionnaire, delivered online to all 175 students across three years of a BSc adult nursing degree programme on one UK university campus. The survey included questions on information seeking processes, personality, approaches to learning and self-efficacy with information literacy. The literature review examined evidence around the transition from nursing student to practitioner and the Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL) standards for nursing information literacy.

The response rate was 86/175 (49%). The result verified findings on the most frequent information processes and association between approach to learning and information literacy self-efficacy. The personality findings differed. Combining results for both studies helped confirm most of the information-behaviour profiles. Mapping the frequent information processes against requirements of practice indicated gaps, particularly around professional networking.

As both studies were carried out at one higher education campus, further research to assess external validity is required.

Information-behaviour profiles, plus the mapping, help librarians and tutors develop tailored information literacy support that is clinically relevant and support transition to practice.

Validated a set of information behaviour profiles for nursing students and linked these to the requirements of professional practice.

Recent literature on customer engagement has introduced the concept of “actor engagement,” which serves as the foundation for this study. The study aims to investigate the formation of engagement and engagement's impact on the performance of sharing economy platforms in an international context.

The study analyses unstructured data from 145,434 service providers and 1,703,266 customers on Airbnb across seven countries (USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, China and Singapore). Machine learning techniques are used to measure actor engagement, and the research model is tested using structural equation modelling (SEM).

The findings suggest that actor engagement, encompassing the reciprocal relationship between customer engagement and service provider engagement, has a significant impact on platform performance. The moderator analysis highlights the role of cultural differences in the relationship between customer engagement and service provider engagement and between actor engagement and platform performance. Specifically, the study reveals that actor engagement exhibits a more pronounced impact on platform performance in Western countries (such as the USA, Australia and the UK), compared to Eastern countries (such as China and Singapore).

The analysis of the conceptual model is based on the utilisation of behavioural data obtained from the Airbnb website. Due to the nature of the available data, proxies are employed as measures for variables such as platform performance.

This research is amongst the first to provide empirical evidence for actor engagement formation and the function's role in platform performance in the sharing economy. The global nature of Airbnb as a platform facilitates the investigation of country-level factors, specifically cultural values, across seven diverse countries and highlight differences from business to customer (B2C) business models.

This paper aims to build upon climato-economic theory to investigate the issue of climate’s effect on foreign expansion and location choice.

This empirical paper looks at foreign subsidiary location through the lens of the climato-economic theory. To do this, the study uses a balanced data set, looking at foreign expansion before, during and after the global financial crisis of US multinational firms. A multilevel step-wise regression is used to look at climate, culture and economic effects on foreign location choice.

The findings suggest that US multinational enterprises tend to have fewer foreign subsidiaries in countries with extreme climates, and they prefer locations with warmer climates, avoiding locations with colder climates, although they gravitate toward locations with less sunshine. Climate emerges as an important factor in location choice, with greater weighting than other factors, including economic and cultural factors in times of economic calm, but the weightings of the factors change during times of economic crisis.

This paper contributes to the global business literature by extending the climate-economic theory to macro levels affecting the firm. The paper is the first to look specifically at how climate affects foreign subsidiary location.