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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of falling commodity prices on farm debt usage of corn and soybean farms, and how this debt usage differs based on the financial leverage of the farm.

Using panel data on farms surveyed at least twice in the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) from 1996 to 2015, this paper uses a difference-in-differences approach to measure the effect of low commodity price shocks on financially vulnerable farms. To account for the correlation in the error structure between the three dependent variables (real estate debt, non-real estate debt, and interest payments) we use a seemingly unrelated regression approach.

Following a commodity price shock, financially vulnerable farms (debt-to-asset ratio greater than 40 percent) were found to increase their non-real estate debt when compared with non-financially vulnerable farms. Off-farm business income was found to help farms reduce real estate debt and interest payments in the face of these shocks.

Data consist of corn and soybean farms surveyed more than once in the ARMS from 1996 to 2015 and are not representative of all US farms, but have similar characteristics to US commercial farms.

The results indicate that financially vulnerable commercial crop farms respond to lower prices by taking on non-real estate debt, increasing financial stress. Well-targeted federal programs could prevent further financial stress for this group.

This is the first paper to use unbalanced panel data from ARMS to examine how farm debt use responds to commodity prices. This paper can inform policymakers about the financial risks to farms resulting from the current low-price environment.

Effective teaching, while supplemented by best practice methods and assessments, is rooted in accurate, age-appropriate, and engaging content. As a foundation for history content, elementary educators rely strongly on textbooks and children’s literature, both fiction and non-fiction. While many researchers have examined the historical accuracy of textbook content, few have rigorously scrutinized the historical accuracy of children’s literature. Those projects that carried out such examination were more descriptive than comprehensive due to significantly smaller data pools. I investigate how children’s non-fiction and fiction books depict and historicize a meaningful and frequently taught history topic: Christopher Columbus’s accomplishments and misdeeds. Results from a comprehensive content analysis indicate that children’s books are engaging curricular supplements with age-appropriate readability yet frequently misrepresent history in eight consequential ways. Demonstrating a substantive disconnect between experts’ understandings of Columbus, these discouraging findings are due to the ways in which authors of children’s books recurrently omit relevant and contentious historical content in order to construct interesting, personalized narratives.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

This paper describes the three main phases of automation at the National Library of Scotland. During Phase I (1978–85) NLS was a member of the British Library's Local Cataloguing Service (LOCAS), submitting forms for keypunching prior to the production of a COM catalogue. During Phase II (1985—87) data was input online to the computer at NLS and then was transmitted to LOCAS. The use of the VTLS (Virginia Tech Library System) systems forms Phase III (1988—). The current applications, cataloguing (including downloading and authority control) and use of OPAC are discussed along with systems information. Future plans for automation in NLS are listed.

This chapter integrates organization design and sustainability concepts to describe an accelerated transformational change at the Fairview Medical Group (United States).

A case study of the transformation at Fairview Medical Group’s primary care clinics was developed from interviews and first-person accounts of the change. Objective data regarding outcomes was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the redesign process.

The Fairview Medical Group developed an innovation and change capability to transform 35 primary care clinics in six months. All of the clinics were certified by the state of Minnesota as complying with their healthcare standards. Clinical outcomes, costs, and employee and physician engagement also increased. All of the improved measures are sustained.

Healthcare reform in the United States struggles because the organization design challenges are great and the change difficulties even greater. Fairview’s experience provides important evidence and lessons that can help advance our understanding of effective healthcare and create more sustainable healthcare systems. This chapter provides healthcare system administrators evidence and alternatives in the pursuit of implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to assess and document the progress of postponement research, identify current gaps, and provide direction for future research efforts.

Postponement literature published from 1999 to 2006 was reviewed.

The review revealed a significant increase in the number of postponement research efforts, many of which at least partially addressed past challenges noted in previous research. Several opportunities to continue addressing these past challenges were identified. Future researchers are challenged to validate new postponement concepts and extend postponement research beyond its manufacturing context. Other challenges call for the continued assessment of the relationship between postponement and uncertainty and the investigation into the slow rate of postponement adoption among practitioners.

This effort is not an exhaustive review of all postponement research. This review does not consider unpublished papers, papers in non‐academic journals, or papers presented at conferences.

This review is a useful resource for supply chain researchers interested in supply chain strategies and the evolution of postponement as a supply chain concept.

This paper uses the challenges of past research as a measure of the progress of postponement thought and theory. The gaps identified and challenges made will serve as a foundation upon which future researchers can build.

People living on poverty-level incomes in developing nations face unique health challenges as compared to those in developed nations. New insights emerge from a bottom of the pyramid context (India) where culture-based health notions, preventive orientation and health resources differ from developed western health orientations and resources. The purpose of this paper is to explore how structural and cognitive social capital indirectly influence preventive health behavior (PHB) through perceived health value.

The participants for this study include rural people from Tamil Nadu, a state of India who are classified as those living below poverty level based on a per capita/per day consumption expenditure of Rupees 22.50 (an equivalent of US$0.40 a per capita/per day) (Planning Commission, Government of India, 2012). The study included a total number of 635 participants (312 males and 323 females). Relatively a high response rate (79 percent) was achieved through personal contacts and telephone solicitation, cash incentive and multiple follow-ups. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing structural and cognitive social capital, preventative health behavior, perceived health value, and health locus of control (HLC).

The results show that perceived health value mediates the relationship between cognitive social capital and PHB. Specifically, cognitive social capital influences BoP people’s assessment of benefits of engaging in PHB, that, in turn, influences PHB. In addition, the findings showed that HLC moderates the effect of social capital on PHB. Social capital positively related to enhanced PHB only among those who believe that health outcomes are controllable.

The authors findings indicate that cognitive social capital has enormous potential in promoting health intervention and the health of poor communities, a sentiment shared by prior researchers (Glenane-Antoniadis et al., 2003; Fisher et al., 2004; Martin et al., 2004; Weitzman and Kawachi, 2000). Overall, from a theoretical, empirical and methodological perspective, the current study offers a unique contribution to the social capital and PHB literature. First, drawing from the HBM and HLC, the findings provide a more nuanced explanation of how distinct aspects of social capital predict PHB. Specifically, the relationship between social capital and PHB is qualified by the extent one perceives personal control over her health. In addition, the cognitive component of social capital influences PHB through perceptions of health value.

Bidhya Bowornwathana is associate professor at the Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. His research interests are on governance and administrative reform. His writings appear in journals such as Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration, Public Administration and Development, Australian Journal of Public Administration, Asian Survey, Public Administration Quarterly, Public Administration: An International Quarterly, Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, Asian Review of Public Administration, and Asian Journal of Political Science. He has written several books in Thai on administrative reform and public administration. He co-edited a book with John P. Burns on Civil Services Systems in Asia (Edward Elgar, 2001). He also has chapters in recent books such as in Christopher Pollitt and Colin Talbot, eds., Unbundled Government (Taylor and Francis, 2004), Ron Hodges, ed., Governance and the Public Sector (Edward Elgar, 2005), Eric E. Otenyo and Nancy S. Lind, eds., Comparative Public Administration: The Essential Readings (Elsevier, 2006), and Kuno Schedler and Isabella Proeller, eds., Cultural Aspects of Public Management Reform (Elsevier, 2007). He was Chairman of Department of Pubic Administration, Chulalongkorn University. He has served several times as member and secretary of the national administrative reform commissions appointed by Thai governments.

The purpose of this paper is to use the sociology of time to understand how time is perceived by academic librarians who provide reference and information service (RIS).

This study is a qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) of two phenomenological studies about the experience of RIS in academic libraries. The authors used QSA to re-analyze the interview transcripts to develop themes related to the perception of time.

Three themes about the experience of time in RIS work were identified. Participants experience time as discrete, bounded moments but sometimes experience threads through these moments that provide continuity, time is framed as a commodity that weighs on the value of the profession, and time plays an integral part of participants’ narratives and professional identities.

Given that the initial consent processes vary across organizations and types of studies, the researchers felt ethically compelled to share only excerpts from each study’s data, rather than the entire data set, with others on the research team. Future qualitative studies should consider the potential for secondary analysis and build data management and sharing plans into the initial study design.

Most discussions of time in the literature are presented as a metric – time to answer a query, time to conduct a task – The authors offer a more holistic understanding of time and its relationship to professional work.

The methodology taken in this paper makes sense of the experiences of work in RIS for librarians. It identifies commonalities between the experience of time and work for RIS professionals and those of other professionals, such as physicians and software engineers. It suggests revising models for RIS, as well as some professional values.

This paper contributes a better understanding of time, understudied as a phenomenon that is experienced or perceived, among RISs providers in academic libraries. The use of secondary qualitative analysis is an important methodological contribution to library and information science studies.

The organisational literature suggests a plethora of techniques available to managers to enhance their managerial effectiveness (e.g., planning tools, decision‐making guidelines, etc.). However, an often‐overlooked skill that could assist managers in overcoming obstacles in their daily jobs involves the self‐management of their cognitive processes. In fact, a leading psychologist has written, “One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think,” (Seligman, 1991, p.8). It has been suggested that managers can better lead themselves and work more effectively with others by applying strategies that help them to manage or control their thoughts. More productive thinking and improved performance are the payoffs. This theory, labelled Thought Self‐Leadership (TSL), centres on employees' establishing and maintaining constructive desirable thought patterns (Neck & Manz, 1992; Manz & Neck, 1991; Neck & Milliman, 1994). This perspective suggests that just as we tend to develop behavioural habits that are both functional and dysfunctional, we also develop habits (or patterns) in our thinking that influence our perceptions, the way we process information, and the choices we make in an almost automatic way.