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To discuss the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC’s) final rule regarding margin for uncleared swaps (the CFTC margin rule) and an interim final rule exempting non-financial and certain other end-users who are eligible for the end-user clearing exception from the scope of the CFTC margin rule, both adopted in December 2015.

Compares the CFTC margin rule to the similar “Bank margin rule”; explains what trades and types of entities are covered, the treatment of inter-affiliate swaps, the initial margin and the variation margin requirements, the types of collateral that can be posted, the required documentation, how netting is applied, the custodian requirements and the compliance dates.

The margin rules apply to uncleared swaps including cross-currency swaps, non-deliverable foreign exchange forwards and currency options. Exempt foreign exchange swaps and deliverable foreign exchange forwards are not required to be margined. Non-financial end-users who rely on the end-user exception are exempt from margin requirements.

Practical guidance from experienced financial services lawyers.

This article considers how current national policies could include disadvantaged groups or people with disabilities so that they have more equality of opportunity in the housing system. It looks at identifying needs, the delivery of social housing through the Housing Corporation and housing associations, and the social housing options of rented and low‐cost home‐ownership schemes. It also explores the way forward and some of the challenges involved for government and professionals if they are to help vulnerable people or those with disabilities to live in more ordinary housing. In National Service Frameworks and other guidance the Government expects special groups to have the same rights and choices over where and how they live. For example Valuing People, the learning disability White Paper, tells us that people with learning disabilities can live successfully in different types of housing and can cope with different forms of tenure. This is true of other vulnerable people too, yet many still live with their families or are offered ‘placements’ or specialist homes. How can we use housing policy to ensure we can meet some of these challenges?

Considers how women have progressed in their careers to middle/senior management levels in the North‐East. Focuses on the individual experiences of 40 such women and covers the impacts of their work and environment, education training and development, personal circumstances, and contributions and barriers to success. The data were collected via interviews and questionnaires during 1992/3. Our findings point to a highly qualified group of women who stress the importance of networking and mentoring at different stages in their careers. Personal characteristics are highlighted as contributors to success. Organizational issues and peer pressure are among the key barriers to success.

This is the title of an article by Valerie Fawcett in Volume 15 Number 3 of Library Management. This programme has been helping many women in library and information work to fulfil their potential. Women who have taken part in this personal development course have become more confident and assertive, and their managers have found them more willing to put forward their ideas, take the initiative, and take on additional responsibilities. Many achieve promotion, but women set their own agenda on the course, decide what they want to achieve and the steps they need to take.

The learning outcomes are as follows: to use advanced frameworks and tools to convey complex ideas related to strategy and sustainable business practices; apply relevant concepts and theories of corporate social responsibility and governance to a practical situation while making decisions; demonstrate understanding of the importance of stakeholders when developing socially responsible thinking; and analyze the different strengths and weaknesses of the organization when making a decision that would affect the company strategy.

Claire Humphry was the General Manager at the renowned The Nacre Hotel in Penang, Malaysia. Claire had a very busy job as she had many people who reported to her, and the hotel was always full of guests. One of the things Claire also managed was the restaurant OceanSound that was owned and operated by her hotel. OceanSound was a very thematic restaurant that specialized in making sculptures of food for special events. On the New Year’s Day in 2023, Claire came to work ready to tackle what was sure to be a long and busy day. However, Claire had not anticipated exactly how taxing the day would end up being. During Claire’s talks with her colleagues throughout the day, her conversation with her friend, the head chef of OceanSound, Poh, would nag at her head for the rest of the day based on the events that followed. The New Year’s special sculpture at OceanSound was to be a large rabbit made of cake to commemorate 2023 being the year of the rabbit according to Chinese zodiac. This is usually kept secret until the sculpture is revealed; but somehow this information had been leaked. This led to The Nacre Hotel and OceanSound being in the spotlight for bad reasons as this sparked a debate online regarding food wastage. This escalated quickly and even led to a famous food influencer commenting on this using specifically The Nacre’s name. Activists also quickly emerged in front of the hotel to protest the creation of sculptures and the food wastage in Malaysian hospitality industry, seeking to make an example out of The Nacre Hotel. The online criticism died down and was eventually replaced by praise for the sculpture. The activists were also eventually asked by the hotel security to leave, which led to the rest of the day to go as expected for a New Year’s Day at The Nacre. However, Claire’s nagging suspicion that they were not out of the woods led her to start looking into food wastage in the hospitality industry in Malaysia to educate herself and bring it up in a future meeting. Two days after this incident, on January 3, 2023, Claire found The Nacre Hotel posted on the newspaper headlines, dissecting the food wastage associated with the hotel now. After getting an urgent phone call from the Regional Manager, who was pressured by the board and shareholders, Claire decided the time to address this issue could not be delayed any longer. She wrote an email to her strategy team to come up with some ideas for possible solutions to the issue and to present them in a group meeting within a week’s time. At the conclusion of the meeting, Claire was contemplating about the decision that she had to make if she wanted The Nacre Hotel to continue operating successfully in Malaysia’s hospitality industry.

The main theoretical concepts illustrated in the case include corporate governance approaches, types of corporate social responsibility, stakeholders’ prioritization, organizational culture, organizational structure, industry analysis and strategic choices. Therefore, this case study can be used in a upper-level undergraduate business courses in the field of Strategic Management and Corporate Social Responsibility. The case study can be successfully used in a capstone course on Business Policy and Strategy, when tackling the concepts of corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability strategy and corporate governance. Under this scenario, the usage of conceptual frameworks from Chapters 2 and 3 of the textbook titled “Concepts in Strategic Management and Business Policy: Toward Global Sustainability” by Wheelen and Hunger would be required. This case study can also be successfully applied to MBA level courses on Strategic Management in a Globalized World. In this case, the latest edition of the textbook titled “Exploring Strategy” by Whittington et al., could be used (particularly, the material from Chapters 2–9, 11, 14 and 15). Additionally, the case could also be used in courses related to Tourism and Hospitality, especially in schools which have specialized programs in this field.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CCS 12: Tourism and Hospitality.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss issues related to entrepreneurial undertakings of women in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the purpose of contributing to the development of context-dependent knowledge of entrepreneurship. Focussing on the life narratives of two expatriate female business-owners who created a common enterprise, the case permits to uncover and critically assess the different stages of the entrepreneurial process in a unique cultural setting.

The authors employed a narrative case study approach to allow for a rich contextual information to emerge from the detailed accounts of individual lives and entrepreneurial experiences of case protagonists. Data were gathered from multiple sources (e.g. interviews, e-mail exchanges, web sites) and subsequently analyzed and coded into prevalent themes by two researchers and one assistant independently, permitting to achieve both data and investigator triangulation.

This case elucidates the entrepreneurial journey of two female expatriates who launched their individual businesses and joined efforts in the establishment of Heels and Deals (H & D), a network that helps UAE-based women-entrepreneurs reach their professional aspirations within a patriarchal society. The cofounders are now at a cross-roads where they have to make a choice between running their own businesses to secure their sustainability and focussing on H & D to lead its international expansion. The narratives of the case protagonists allow contrasting the discovery and creation views of entrepreneurship and examining the role of leadership skills and personality characteristics in entrepreneurial success.

Despite an increasing number of businesswomen in the UAE, little is known about the way they approach the complex entrepreneurial process and deal with challenges and opportunities faced on the road. The case bridges this gap by offering the possibility to reflect on how expatriate female entrepreneurs in a Middle-Eastern context balance multiple trade-offs to succeed in their business-related endeavors.

This paper examines how a beginning teacher in Virginia and a beginning teacher in Florida make sense of the high-stakes tests in their state. By examining beginning teachers in two states where the tests are so very different, we gain important insight into whether there are similarities and differences across states and how the nature of the test affects the teaching and learning of history. We first offer insight into the context of accountability in Virginia and Florida and then discuss what ambitious teaching and learning look like in these states as informed by the literature. Then, we turn to our research methods, findings, and implications for the field of social studies.

Six Feet Under is one of HBO's most unlikely success stories, which in its third season in 2002 was nominated for ten Emmy awards. Let's say you are the CEO of HBO and I come in proposing to do a series on a family of morticians, living in their funeral home. Dad dies in the pilot episode (although he makes cameo appearances from the great beyond). Ruth, the mother, is a repressed housewife who smothers her family. David, the son who takes over at dad's death is a closeted gay, who comes out in the second year of the series. Nate, the elder son, is a Birkenstock-style floater, who, after an Oregonian vegan experience, finds himself caught at home by his father's death, suddenly a partner in the family business. His teenaged sister Claire, suffers from the angst that characterizes her cohort, angst intensified by growing up and living in a funeral home. You, as the CEO of HBO are likely to say: You want to do what? We’ll call you, don’t call us. However, then, you learn that my name is Alan Ball, and that I just won the Oscar for writing American Beauty. I get to do the unlikely series about morticians and burials.

In a rapidly changing business environment, the need to constantly adapt is deemed essential to maintain competitive advantage. This requires an optimum balance of quantitative and qualitative measures to monitor progress and performance. This paper provides a framework of thought process that will guide practitioners in developing better qualitative measures and seeks to answer three essential questions: thought process 1 – what is the nature of reality? Provides the answer to the question, can the phenomenon be realistically measured? Thought process 2 – what are the processes used for constructing the measure? Provides answer to the question, are the processes appropriate and sufficiently influential? Thought process 3 – what usefulness and power does this measure provide? Provides answer to the question, is it powerful in a practical environment? The framework was applied to measurement in learning organization contexts and ten models were reviewed. Conclusions cover deficiencies in the models and suggestions on how they might be improved.

To highlight content of interest to this journal’s readership that promotes current thinking and activities in information technology.

A selective conference report of the annual meeting of the American Library Association and a pre‐conference.

The largest conference of librarians, the variety of programs, activities, exhibit halls, creates one of the best professional development opportunities for librarians. Attracting librarians from all sectors and work environments from around the globe, this conference is hard to describe in a brief way except to say it is an experience. Documenting relevant programs about information technology was the goal of this contribution.

An alternative to not being present while gaining some information and coverage.

Contains information of particular interest to readers who did not attend these sessions. Introduces them to presenters and important hot topics.