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The purpose of this paper is to operationalize theories of social learning and collective action for campus sustainability practitioners at higher education instititions (IHEs) to enhance their work, and to introduce the concept of collective action competence as a practical tool.

This paper presents a theoretical argument based on the concepts of learning and collective action for stronger consideration of social learning, action competence and voluntary collective action in campus sustainability initiatives.

Many important sustainability outcomes depend heavily on voluntary behaviors by groups of campus stakeholders, making voluntary collective action an important, although underused, tool for campus sustainability practitioners. The term “collective action competence” is introduced and defined as the capability of a group of people to direct their behavior toward a common goal based on a collective literacy, a collective competence, and a collective need or goal.

The term “collective action competence” is introduced as a novel unifying concept that articulates a critical capability needed for collective behavior change in social settings such as HEIs. Collective action competence is based on the theories of collective action and of social and free-choice learning and on the concepts of action competence and strategic competence.

This paper assesses the strength of the evidence on the impact of the physical environment on mental health and well‐being. Using a systematic review methodology, quantitative and qualitative evaluative studies of the effect of the physical environment on child and adult mental health published in English between January 1990 and September 2005 were sought from citation databases. The physical environment was defined in terms of built or natural elements of residential or neighbourhood environments; mental health was defined in terms of psychological symptoms and diagnoses. A total of 99 papers were identified. The strength of the evidence varied and was strongest for the effects of urban birth (on risk of schizophrenia), rural residence (on risk of suicide for males), neighbourhood violence, housing and neighbourhood regeneration, and neighbourhood disorder. The strength of the evidence for an effect of poor housing on mental health was weaker. There was a lack of robust research, and of longitudinal research in many areas, and some aspects of the environment have been very little studied to date. The lack of evidence of environmental effects in some domains does not necessarily mean that there are no effects: rather, that they have not yet been studied or studied meaningfully.

Those most socially disadvantaged are at a greater risk of common mental disorder (CMD). The need to evaluate the health impact of social policy interventions that aim to reduce social inequalities between the disadvantaged and the better off is well recognised. This paper reports findings from a review to explore evidence on the health impact of UK policy interventions that aim to tackle the key social determinants of CMD. These were previously identified from the literature as cumulative socioeconomic deprivation, unemployment, psychosocial work characteristics, and poor social relationships. We identified some evidence of a positive impact on CMD of urban regeneration schemes, but evidence was sparse on interventions relating to the other determinants. The ability of research to inform policy designed to improve the lives of the disadvantaged could be assisted by a broader definition of what counts as evidence. This may include wider use of qualitative methodologies and a more deliberate focus on social processes known to be implicated in mental health.

IN 1846, Charlotte Brontë was attempting to find a publisher for the sisters' first book—a selection of their poems. It was a bad time for poetry. In the earlier years of the century it had flourished remarkably with the rise of Scott and Byron, whose popularity brought record sales, but by the 1840s the demand had declined, and while prose fiction had a reasonable market, poetry was unwanted. Even the arch‐publisher of Victorian poets, Edward Moxon, was not keen to undertake the Poems (1844) of the established Elizabeth Barrett, and showed some reluctance even in the publication of Wordsworth. By 1848 Charlotte had come to appreciate ‘that “the Trade” are not very fond of hearing about poetry, and that it is but too often a profitless encumbrance on the shelves of the bookseller's shop’. It is little wonder, therefore, that of 1846 she later wrote: ‘As was to be expected, neither we nor our poems were at all wanted…. The great puzzle lay in the difficulty of getting answers of any kind from the publishers to whom we applied.’

This paper reports on the analysis of the principalship as portrayed in a sample of 48 films. The analysis reveals that, unlike the timid, obsequious pastor in the Western and the bullying marine sergeant in a war movie, for example, there is little that is stereotypic about the role of the school principal and the types of leadership practised; there is no single model of the “successful” (or, for that matter, “unsuccessful”) principal. Success, however defined, has been achieved by some but it has eluded others. Admittedly, one can readily identify common themes associated with the principalship, for example, the vesting of authority, the exercise of power, relationships with teachers, students and community, and so on. And yet, against this common backdrop, countless scenes have been enacted in which the role of the principal has been one of great variation. Portrayals of roles are, of course, the outcome of the interaction of author, scriptwriter, actor, director ‐ to name but some of those involved in the production of a film. Nevertheless, they provide at times quite extraordinary insights into others’ perceptions of both the role and the exercise of leadership in schools and school communities. For those involved in programs designed to prepare educationists for the principalship, considerable satisfaction is to be found in the variety of representations of this office that are displayed per medium of film. Films provide a legitimate basis on which to analyse leadership behaviour and from which a greater sensitivity to the role may be developed.

To examine whether the provisions of SFAS No. 142 allow for the earnings management technique termed “big bath” and whether firm size plays a role in earnings management.

A random selection of companies with December 31, 2002 fiscal year‐ends yielded 120 firms that reported goodwill impairments in 2002 and 82 firms that did not. The firms are then stratified into two groups. Analysis consists of measuring the magnitude of the 2002 goodwill impairment loss, comparing financial metrics of impaired and non‐impaired firms, and calculating the proportion of firms with negative versus positive earnings.

The results suggest that SFAS No. 142 adoption allowed companies to engage in earnings management. Findings indicate that small firms experienced a significantly greater negative impact and were much more likely than large firms to take big bath charges.

This study provides evidence on the use of newly issued accounting standards to manage earnings.

This paper aims to examine the anatomy of a real estate bubble. In the process, the paper identifies three phases of the market's evolution: flips, flops and foreclosures. An examination of the Las Vegas real estate market illustrates the three phases.

The paper examines transaction data from the metropolitan Las Vegas area (Clark County) from 1994 to 2009. The first part of the analysis identifies the three phases of the bubble and is descriptive in nature. This is followed by more formal tests of Granger causality.

In the early part of the sample, a large percentage of transactions are speculative or “flips” causing prices to rapidly increase. Eventually, flipping loses its profitability and over the last three years, there is an increasing number of foreclosures leading to falling prices. The descriptive analysis of the Las Vegas market is augmented with causality tests which show that prices were the driving force behind all three phases in the market's evolution.

Future research might focus on underlying structural inter‐temporal relationships to augment the Granger causality tests.

Analysis shows that price is the driving force behind a bubble and that loan modification programs alone will not solve the current housing crisis.

Government entities might expand neighborhood stabilization programs to affect both demand and supply of homes. Moreover, it might be prudent to include information related to flipping on multiple listing service agreements. Additionally, local governments should be consistent in their record keeping.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the housing bubble using an extensive set of transaction data.

GASB Statement No. 45 addresses how governmental units account for employees' other post-employment benefits (OPEB), requiring government employers to replace OPEB reporting on a pay-as-you-go basis with an accounting of the cost of current and future benefits. This requirement and the resulting OPEB liability may prompt government employers to reconsider key questions regarding their OPEB provision. The size of the OPEB liability depends on both the benefit promises made to employees and the assets to fund these promises. We propose a typology that defines four approaches for governments to respond to GASB 45 and their OPEB liabilities. These approaches represent different combinations of strategies involving OPEB promises and assets. We illustrate these strategies and responses using selected counties and nine mid-Atlantic cities.

What contributes to US professional doctoral student success in the online space is the subject of this chapter. The online doctoral student occupies two underserved categories of higher education students: doctoral students and online students, both of which have historically low graduation rates (Bawa, 2016; Stone, 2017). A number of US online doctoral programs have significantly higher graduation rates than normal, demonstrating that it is possible to create highly successful online doctoral programs. In this chapter, we apply the R. E. Clark and Estes (2008) conceptual framework of human performance to understanding the factors contributing to doctoral student success in online programs. We look at three stakeholder groups, faculty, staff, and students, and review the factors and solutions that could allow each group to contribute to doctoral student success. This review of the literature is informed by examples drawn from two online professional doctoral programs for which the authors either designed and taught courses, and chaired dissertations, or were enrolled in as a student.

This paper aims to examine how instructional videos produced by retail employers and tech companies have modelled cashier roles and skills in service encounters over time, providing insights into cashier training and job responsibility evolution across different retail eras.

Online video research is used, with YouTube as data source and the theory of practice architectures and related concepts as analytical framework, to examine 50 instructional video narratives produced between 1917 and 2021.

Cashiers’ selling practice comprises transactions and customer service, which are often taught separately. Technology has explicitly influenced changes in cashier work and training at three points in history: mechanised checkout (1917), computerised checkout (1980) and connected checkout (2010). “New technology” involves a combination of arrangements with the potential to transform the semantic, physical and social dimensions of cashiers’ selling practice. However, despite technological advancements, employers’ cashier training videos have not evolved significantly since the 1990s and still focus on emotional labour skills.

The findings indicate a need for transforming training for service work in the connected service encounter.

The relationship between technological innovations and changes in frontline service work and workplace learning is examined through the lens of instructional videos produced by retail employers and tech companies, giving rise to insights into limitations of current training methods for service workers. This paper suggests the need for a more holistic perspective on service encounters to understand service work and workplace learning changes.