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The paper responds to calls in recent research for a model that shows how the business case should be used throughout the project's lifetime to achieve sound governance and thereby project success. The aim of the paper is to advance theory about the effective use of the business case.

Besides the processes and information required, the literature identified 43 organizational facilitating factors, structured into 5 categories, which are required for effective use of the business case. To offer a useful model, the authors' approach was to do a factor analysis, based on existing survey data, to reduce the number of facilitators and to validate their categorization.

The findings of the paper were as follows: (1) the classification of the proposed facilitating factors was validated; (2) the number of facilitators needed to ensure that the business case is used effectively was substantially reduced and (3) a “business case effectiveness model” is proposed to clarify the relationship between the organizational facilitating factors, the business case processes and the information required to effectively use the business case.

This is the first time that a business case effectiveness model has been proposed. Besides consolidating business case theory, it can be used to guide people and organizations on simple, affordable ways to improve their use of the business case to achieve sound governance and hence business/information technology project success.

On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and nearly caused a meltdown of the financial system. This article looks at the situation before Lehman went bankrupt and how this event came to trigger a financial panic during the fall of 2008 and early 2009. Two key ideas inform the analysis. The first is that what triggers financial panics are typically hidden losses. The second is that confidence plays a key role in financial panics and that confidence can be conceptualized as a belief that action can be based on proxy signs, rather than on direct information about the situation itself.

Common Core State Standards Initiative mandates increased readings of informational texts within English Language Arts starting in elementary school. Accurate, age-appropriate, and engaging content is at the center of effective social studies teaching. Textbooks and children’s literature—both literary and informational—are prominent in elementary classrooms because of the esoteric nature of primary source material. Many research projects have investigated historical accuracy and representation within textbooks, but few have done so with children’s trade books. We examined children’s trade books centered on three historical figures frequently incorporated within elementary school curricula: Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Helen Keller. Findings revealed various forms of historical misrepresentation and differing levels of historicity. Reporting such lacunae is important for those involved in curricular decisions. We believe children’s books, even those with historical omissions and misrepresentations, provide an unique opportunity for students to incorporate and scrutinize diverse perspectives as they actively assemble historical understandings. All secondary narratives, even historically representative children’s books, can benefit from primary source supplementation. We guide teachers interested in employing relevant and rich primary source material.

In November 2001, Scott Carlson, in the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote an article on library use titled “The deserted library: As students work online, reading rooms empty out—leading some campuses to add Starbucks” (Carlson, 2001). The essence of this chapter is that many librarians, facing dramatic declines in library gate counts resulting from the wealth of electronic resources accessible remotely, were beginning to move away from traditional conceptions of the library as primarily a repository for print collections. Carlson describes the “tough sell” that the Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville had experienced when planning a $19.5 million library addition in the mid-1990s. In response librarians had begun “fighting back” with “plush chairs, double-mocha lattes, book groups, author readings.” Still, no one knew whether these stratagems would enhance learning or bring its readers back.

Global investors demand, regulators require, and companies disclose their sustainability performance information, and scholars have started to conduct research on sustainability performance, reporting and assurance. The goal of firm value creation can be achieved when management considers the interests of all stakeholders and integrates all five economic, governance, social, ethical, and environmental (EGSEE) dimensions of sustainability performance into managerial strategies, actions and reporting. This paper provides a synthesis of research on sustainability and presents a theoretical framework consisting of theories and standards relevant to all five EGSEE dimensions of sustainability performance and risks and their integration into corporate culture, business models and reporting in creating stakeholder value.

This article aims to present a synopsis of inertially‐driven future demographic, economic and technologic realities that will predictably alter the marketplace operating environment for post‐secondary education during the next 10 to 15 years. The article also seeks to explore a detailed scenario speculating on multiple implications for the university as it simultaneously confronts all of the predictably changing elements of its operating environment.

A convergence of published long‐term demographic, economic and technologic trends and forecasts is examined that has begun to produce structural and operational changes throughout the business world, setting in motion five fundamental transformations in the context of all enterprises: the globalization of the economy; the information of work; the disaggregation of organizations; the maturation of the workforce; and the reconfiguration of employment. The practical implications of these long‐term realities for industrial era universities are described, and a scenario for the future evolution of the “post‐industrial university” is presented, modeled on – and in consonance with – transformations already under way throughout corporate enterprise.

Reliably forecastable aspects of the University's operating environment, including a shortage of qualified faculty, stagnant personal income and baccalaureate markets, mounting competition from for‐profit schools and an explosion in new applied knowledge in every field and discipline are likely to coerce innovation and change in higher education in spite of institutional intransigence, necessity being the mother of invention.

A scenario based on multiple statistically valid forecasts does not constitute an infallible prediction of the future, but it does present decision makers and strategic planners with sound benchmarks for the pace and scale of change that may reasonably be expected, as well as raising issues and posing options that routine linear extrapolations are unlikely to have revealed.

This paper seeks to make the case for new research into the perceived fairness and impact of executive pay.

The paper reviews the literature regarding executive compensation and corporate performance and examines the evidence that a more egalitarian approach to pay could be justified in terms of long‐term shareholder value.

There would appear to be no evidence to suggest that the growing gap between the pay of executives and that of the average employee generates long‐term enterprise value, and it may even be detrimental to firms, if not the liberal capitalist consensus on which the corporate licence to operate is based.

The paper outlines a new approach to tracking income differentials with corporate performance through the development of a corporate Gini coefficient “league table”.

The proposed research is expected to point towards better practice in executive remuneration, and support the growing momentum for a sustainable and enlightened approach to business, in which the key goal is long‐term enterprise value based on a fair distribution of the rewards of business.

In producing a deeper understanding of the impact of widening income differentials, the paper should be of interest to senior executives in publicly quoted companies as well as press commentators, government officials and academics.

Education of the surgeon and development of surgical expertise have been debated for centuries. Today, research in surgical education applies terms and methods from other performance domains such as sport and music. However, there still seems to be a lack of consensus as to how talent may be brought into the discourse about surgical education. Especially, when it comes to identifying and developing trainees who in the future will perform better than the average surgeon.

This five-step scoping study aims to map existing literature about talent identification, talent development and development of expertise in the domains of surgery, sport and music in the period of 1985-2014.

A total of 242 studies, divided in the four domains of surgery (69 studies), sport (115 studies), music (34 studies) and cross-disciplinary studies (24 studies) published in the period 1985-2014 were included.

Informed by the performance domains of sports and music and their inclusion of a holistic, ecological approach to research, this study suggests that research in surgical education may benefit from broadening its view on talent by including psychosocial variables and environmental, demographic and structural influencers when considering how surgical talent may be identified and developed.

The US restaurant industry and the food‐service industry have undergone tremendous changes during the last decade owing to demographic changes, changes in the family structure, the increase in the number of working women and senior citizens, advances in technology (inventory management, customer order processing, accounting/financial systems, etc.), availability of financing, changes in the real estate industry (location, negotiation with malls, relationships with developers, etc.), intense competition, the growth in the types and number of marketing channels (including the Internet), increasing number of drive‐through customers, employee training requirements, changes in labor laws, the rate of implementation of technology, changes in food sourcing/purchasing, the growth of the franchising business model, and increasing regulation. These factors have combined to shape the strategic, legal, economic and operational considerations that executives and decision makers should thoroughly understand. This article discusses the issues and challenges facing one company in these two industries and how management and banks have reacted, and then explains strategies for the future. Also discussed are relevant considerations for financial sponsors and companies. Most data and analysis are as of April 2000.