Search results

Islamic and cooperative banks – including credit unions – are broadly similar in that they both share risk with savers. However, risk sharing goes along with ownership control in cooperatives, whilst Islamic banks share risk with borrowers also, and full downside risk with depositors. Islamic banking is consistent with mutual ownership, which may ease some of the governance and efficiency concerns implied by Shari’ah constraints. Greater risk sharing among cooperative bank stakeholders, along the lines of products offered by Islamic banks, may strengthen cooperatives’ financial resilience.

One of the most important principles that accountants apply when determining trading profit is the matching of costs against related revenues—a principle that in practical terms requires the identification of those costs incurred prior to and during the accounting period under review which have to be charged against the revenue brought into the profit and loss account and those which have to be carried forward as a charge against the revenues of future accounting periods. In the case of manufacturing and trading enterprises many of the problems associated with this matching process arise in relation to the valuation of stocks and work in progress. Expenditures incurred in bringing these stocks of raw materials, work in progress and finished goods to their present state at the balance sheet date, after taking into consideration the possibility of deterioration, pilferage, obsolescence and factors of a similar nature, are treated as a charge against the revenues of future accounting periods and are accordingly carried forward in the balance sheet under the classification of “current assets”. It is thus that the values ascribed to trading stocks become a key factor in determining the trading profit for the period. It is not surprising, therefore, that the methods of valuing stocks and work in progress should have formed the subject of one of the most significant of the Statements of Standard Accounting Practice that have been issued by the Accounting Standards Steering Committee under the sponsorship of the major accountancy bodies. Even less surprising is the strength of feeling that has been aroused by some of the views expressed by individuals and organisations in giving evidence to the ASSC and to the Sandilands Committee, which has also been considering the problems of stock valuation in relation to its inquiry into inflation accounting. In this article the finance director of Tate & Lyle Limited argues the case for the “base stock” method of stock valuation. Although this method has a limited range of applications and is not widely used, it has got valid arguments in its favour in certain circumstances—despite failing to find favour with the ASSC in its Statement of Standard Accounting Practice No. 9. He contends that for his company to use the “first in—first out” method that finds favour with many accountants as an “all purpose” basis, the outcome would be to produce trading results that bear little reality to the true position.

About 4% of all prisoners can be diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, but it is largely unknown how these prisoners function during imprisonment. The present study aimed to describe symptoms of psychotic prisoners during imprisonment and incidents caused by them as well as care provided to these prisoners. A total of 61 prisoners were observed for a maximum of 12 weeks. Results show that poverty of speech and blunted affect significantly decreased over time. The largest group of psychotic prisoners either did not suffer from positive psychotic symptoms or the encountered positive psychotic symptoms exhibited a steady or decreasing pattern during their imprisonment. Reasons for these findings still remain unclear.

It is of practical importance to measure and control the morphological state of thin film superconductors. Properties such as critical current, magnetic response and high frequency response are significantly affected by the microstructure of granular thin film specimens. A simple and functional method, magnetically modulated resistance, is described for assessing the granularity of superconductors.

It is a matter for sober reflection on the state of the art of communicating information to shareholders and others who are interested in corporate financial affairs when one compares the complexity of today's annual report document with its counterpart of, say, fifteen years ago.

The purpose of this study was to develop pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) education materials that directly address the needs of trans women. PrEP medication is an effective HIV prevention strategy, but some groups at high risk of HIV, such as transgender (trans) women, have suboptimal uptake and adherence. Most PrEP marketing has been aimed fat men who have sex with men (MSM) and include trans women as part of that audience, but this strategy ignores important differences in perceptions of and barriers to PrEP.

This study used a social marketing approach grounded in exchange theory to systematically develop and pretest PrEP messaging and communication materials for trans women through qualitative (focus groups: n = 5, 34 participants) and quantitative (surveys: n = 128) methods in Philadelphia and the San Francisco Bay area. Segmentation analysis, perceptual mapping and vector message modeling techniques were used to create three-dimensional visualizations of PrEP perceptions to identify highly targeted messaging. Working with trans artists, the authors developed prototype materials using the targeted messaging and pretested these (n = 11) in both locations for feedback on content, look and insight on appropriate intervention strategies.

Using segmentation and perceptual mapping, this study identified key PrEP messaging across different subgroups, including by demographic and psychographic variables. Differences by group were determined to not be significant and overall messages that would resonate with all groups were built into the materials. Pretesting sessions indicated high acceptability of the messaging and trans women-centered approach to increase PrEP uptake.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to use a social marketing framework to create targeted PrEP communication materials for trans women in partnership with trans women.

The concept of organizational identity became a subject of interest within the academic milieu in the mid‐1980s. In this paper, we propose the construct of legacy identities, those persistent identities that, first, endure over time at different levels of expression and, second, are comprised of resilient ideals from the past that represent the perceived persistent character of what the organization used to be. This construct is derived from a case study that portrays the radical transformation of a former state‐owned Brazilian company that became a subsidiary of a North American firm and survived the crisis that originated from its parent company’s debacle. Building on data from the case study, we develop a framework that shows the salience of different identities through time in the company and seek to explain the dynamics underlying these changes.

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), careful plotter of the fictional region of “Wessex,” is a novelist both acutely aware of the role of space in his works and remarkably fascinated by violence. Bringing these two significant elements of his fictional method together, this chapter examines the numerous violent spaces created by Hardy throughout his fiction. It focuses in particular on the ways in which different spaces, at first presumed to be safe, become invaded by extreme acts of violence. In the course of the chapter, I ask: How does this perversion of space by violence contribute to Hardy's literary aims? How do spatial relationships and boundaries intersect with his characterization? And does Hardy leave his readers with any hope for future spaces?

I suggest that Hardy's situation of acts of violence in a range of spaces, natural and domestic alike, is purposefully disorientating. It allows him to interrogate defined social ideas of “moral” indoor spaces and “wild” outdoor landscapes during the late Victorian period. There is, in fact, no such thing as a safe space in Hardy – spaces are ambiguous, changing and shaped by their inhabitants. The effect of violent spaces in Hardy, therefore, provides a challenge both to the conventional settings of nineteenth-century realist writing and any presumed knowledge of these environments. It might be tempting to see such spatial aesthetics as rather pessimistic, yet I argue that by dispelling the illusory link between space and safety, Hardy promotes a more sensitive awareness of everyday environments and our interactions with/within them.

While qualitative work has a long tradition in the strategy field and has recently regained popularity, we have not paused to take stock of how such work offers contributions. We address this oversight with a review of qualitative studies of strategy published in five top-tier journals over an extended period of 15 years (2003–2017). In an attempt to organize the field, we develop an empirically grounded organizing framework. We identify 12 designs that are evident in the literature, or “designs-in-use” as we call them. Acknowledging important similarities and differences between the various approaches to qualitative strategy research (QSR), we group these designs into three “families” based on their philosophical orientation. We use these designs and families to identify trends in QSR. We then engage those trends to orient the future development of qualitative methods in the strategy field.