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This study investigates and explores the needs and demands of Malaysian local authority taxpayers for financial information published by Malaysian local authorities. The study found, in the absence of standard financial reporting requirements placed on these authorities, a large expectation gap between the needs and demands of local taxpayers and the financial reporting practices adopted by Malaysian local authorities. Based on a sample of 305 local taxpayers in three local authorities studied, the results reveal that a significant percentage of taxpayers who expressed interest in reading the annual financial accounts of these authorities had a general desire for more financial information. The results also reveal that there are statistically significant differences in terms of taxpayers’ willingness to pay local tax demands between local authorities with high local tax arrears and local authorities with medium and low local tax arrears if such financial information were to be provided.

This chapter presents a holistic view of dynamic external macro environments and their impact on internal organizational strategies. It suggests how events, and particularly major crises at the global or national level, affect organizational responses. Specifically, the authors submit that organizations adapt their strategy in line with the pressures they face from the external environment. Consequently, the day-to-day operations inside the organization change, and managers find themselves faced with new challenges in terms of how they manage their talent. By exploring critical roles that human resource (HR) professionals can play in talent management, the authors delineate several ways in which the HR department can help organizations to react to these external pressures, supporting managers in ensuring that employee behavior and values are aligned with the new organizational strategy. The objective of this chapter is not only to reflect on the HR professionals and their role in helping to manage organizational talent, as their organizations navigate the dynamic macro context, but also to stimulate further research in this field.

Those who would establish high-growth businesses (HGBs) in rural settings face significant challenges. We report findings from more than 80 in-depth interviews regarding the obstacles that rural HGBs face and identify approaches for overcoming these obstacles. First, interviews confirm the need for improved access to a full range of financing options to support HGBs across different development stages. Second, HGBs need in-depth, sophisticated technical assistance, which is generally unavailable in rural areas. Finally, cooperation among financial and technical service providers is vital to program success. Based on these findings, a model is proposed for successful development of HGBs in rural areas.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of information context in crisis communication. Previous studies have examined the effectiveness of types of message strategies used during different periods of a crisis. The crisis presented in this case is unusual in that there were no crisis communication strategies used to mitigate it. There was a void where a crisis communication strategy should have been, allowing for critique of what happens when crisis communication is not proactive and strategic.

This is a case study of crisis response developed through participant observation and interviews with key informants, verified through quantitative content analysis of newspaper coverage.

The study found that when issues reported by the media are not tempered by explanation of context from the organization, increasingly negative media frames result, therefore elevating the salience of the issues and the perceived severity of the crisis. When issues are not proactively managed, people outside the organization begin to identify with the side of the issue presented in the media.

The study provides insights into effective crisis communication management by examining the importance of proactive communication for managing public opinion.

The paper describes what happens when proactive communication is not used during a crisis and therefore shows what happens in the absence of effective public relations, when the crisis response is no response at all.

The report recently issued by the joint committee, appointed by various Administrative Counties and County Boroughs in the North of England, to inquire into the subject of milk contamination, is an important document to which reference was made in the last number of this journal. Unfortunately little permanent good is likely to result from such reports unless the circumstances which have given rise to the grave faults to which attention is called be dealt with by authority. Such reports are admittedly of great interest. They contain much valuable and important matter, and are full of first‐hand and reliable evidence collected by experts at the expenditure of much time and trouble. As a general rule, however, they are too technical in their wording to appeal directly either to the general public or to the ordinary milk dealer. Still, the bearing of the matters they refer to on the every‐day life and health of the nation is so great that they should not be allowed to sink into oblivion by failure to bring their essential features before the wider public to which they are in tended to appeal. On these grounds the suggestion contained in the report that a pamphlet, should he issued containing the results of the committee's investigations is an excellent one. The means that are taken from time to time to rouse public interest in the important and allied questions of meat and milk are unfortunately characterised by their spasmodic, if vigorous, nature. The agitation dies down after a time and is not renewed until perhaps the original question again rises in a sufficiently acute form. The work has then to be done over again. It is necessary to bring home to the public the importance of, say, a pure milk supply, but to produce a permanent impression it is needful to proceed by an educational process and not by one that is based on unorganised agitation. The methods pursued in the United States in relation to food questions are not always to be commended, but in relation to the educational methods to which reference has just been made we may usefully consider the means adopted by the State authorities of the Republic. They are in the first place nothing if not practical. There, as here, the greatest hope of a would‐be reformer lies in his being able to rouse up public opinion. Hence we find questions such as these are kept steadily to the front by the authorities, by means of official publications and the public press, with the avowed object of enlisting the trade on the side of the law to aid in keeping food products up to reasonable standards of quality. In a report recently issued by the State Agricultural Station of Kentucky dealing with the question of the milk supplied to the town of Louisville it is said that the result of inquiries instituted by the station showed “the large majority of dairymen to be anxious to co‐operate with the officials in the enforcement of all fair regulations; that they need help in an educational way and are eager for any practical information which will help them to better their plants; that to accomplish this both the State and the city should maintain, not at the dairyman's expense, sufficient experts in dairying science, and veterinarians to constantly inspect the districts, helping wherever possible, not only pointing out deficiencies, but suggesting remedies, and, finally, reporting for prosecution or withdrawing the permit of the dairyman not complying with the regulations necessary to produce wholesome milk.” What is said in this report might equally well apply to affairs on this side of the water as regards the milk supply. The authorities in Kentucky have had exactly the same problems to face and deal with as those referred to in the report of the Joint Committee. The same want of attention to cleanliness, to light, ventilation, and drainage in the cowshed; the same unpleasant methods of dealing with the milk during the process of transport; and the same want of cleanliness in the shop characterised many of the small and large dealers in Kentucky as in this country. For all that we cannot assume the milk dealer or cowkeeper to be invariably in the wrong through malice aforethought. The Kentucky report just quoted states that the time and money spent in telling the cowkeeper and dairyman not to do this or that would be in many cases better spent by showing him how to do things. “Most dairymen would be willing to make improvements if they knew exactly how to go about it.” It appears that three‐fourths of the dairymen who supply Louisville with milk are co‐operating with the health authorities in the task of “cleaning up.” We must not assume that the British cowkeeper or dairyman is less willing to do the right thing than is his American confrére. The position of such an institution as a State Experiment Station is probably peculiar to the United States. It is in intimate touch with the requirements of every farmer in the State. It deals with all problems relating to the rearing and diseases of cattle, their housing, food and treatment; with the products of the dairy, farm, and stockyard. It is consulted by farmers on all conceivable subjects affecting their business at all times. The interests of the station do not end here. Not only is it concerned with the cattle and their products as such, but the Experiment Station is authorised by the legislature to concern itself with the distribution and sale of all dairy produce including, of course, milk and allied substances, with the hygienic and veterinary inspection of buildings and cattle, as well as with the conditions prevailing in dairies and milkshops. Moreover, the inspection of food products of all kinds and their analysis under the Pure Food Law of the State is frequently placed by the State in the hands of the experts attached to the Experiment Station. Under these circumstances such an institution is exceptionally well qualified to judge the requirements or faults of any process or institution affecting the food supply. In the case under review the Experiment Station sent round a circular letter to all cowkeepers and dairymen concerned, pointing out what it proposed to do, and asking for comments and suggestions. The object, in fact, was to make all farmers and dairymen feel that in the authorities of the Experiment Station they had to deal with a friendly body and not one whose desire was merely to catch them tripping. This they have apparently succeeded in doing, and with good results. The position of affairs in this country seems rather to suggest that public authorities and the milk trade occupy two hostile camps, and if this be so the fact is regrettable.

The Milk and Cream Standards Committee, of which Lord WENLOCK is Chairman, have commenced to take evidence, and at the outset have been met by the difficulty which must necessarily attach to the fixing of a legal standard for most food products. The problem, which is applicable also to other food materials, is to fix a standard for milk, cream and butter which shall be fair and just both to the producer and the consumer. The variation in the composition of these and other food products is well known to be such that, while standards may be arrived at which will make for the protection of the public against the supply of grossly‐adulterated articles, standards which shall insure the supply of articles of good quality cannot possibly be established by legal enactments. If the Committee has not yet arrived at this conclusion we can safely predict that they will be compelled to do so. A legal standard must necessarily be the lowest which can possibly be established, in order to avoid doing injustice to producers and vendors. The labours of the Committee will no doubt have a good effect in certain directions, but they cannot result in affording protection and support to the vendor of superior products as against the vendor of inferior ones and as against the vendor of products which are brought down by adulteration to the lowest legal limits. Neither the labours of this committee nor of any similar committee appointed in the future can result in the establishment of standards which will give a guarantee to the consumer that he is receiving a product which has not been tampered with and which is of high, or even of fair, quality.

Dr. F. J. H. COUTTS'S report to the Local Government Board on an inquiry as to condensed milks, with special reference to their use as infants' foods, has been issued as No 56 of the new series of reports on public health and medical subjects.

The latest information from the magazine chemist is extremely valuable. He has dealt with milk‐adulteration and how it is done. His advice, if followed, might, however, speedily bring the manipulating dealer before a magistrate, since the learned writer's recipe is to take a milk having a specific gravity of 1030, and skim it until the gravity is raised to 1036; then add 20 per cent. of water, so that the gravity may be reduced to 1030, and the thing is done. The advice to serve as “fresh from the cow,” preferably in a well‐battered milk‐measure, might perhaps have been added to this analytical gem.

Disinformation, false information designed with the intention to mislead, can significantly damage organizational operation and reputation, interfering with communication and relationship management in a wide breadth of risk and crisis contexts. Modern digital platforms and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), introduce novel risks in crisis management (Guthrie and Rich, 2022). Disinformation literature in security and computer science has assessed how previously introduced technologies have affected disinformation, demanding a systematic and coordinated approach for sustainable counter-disinformation efforts. However, there is a lack of theory-driven, evidence-based research and practice in public relations that advises how organizations can effectively and proactively manage risks and crises driven by AI (Guthrie and Rich, 2022).

As a first step in closing this research-practice gap, the authors first synthesize theoretical and technical literature characterizing the effects of AI on disinformation. Upon this review, the authors propose a conceptual framework for disinformation response in the corporate sector that assesses (1) technologies affecting disinformation attacks and counterattacks and (2) how organizations can proactively prepare and equip communication teams to better protect businesses and stakeholders.

This research illustrates that future disinformation response efforts will not be able to rely solely on detection strategies, as AI-created content quality becomes more and more convincing (and ultimately, indistinguishable), and that future disinformation management efforts will need to rely on content influence rather than volume (due to emerging capabilities for automated production of disinformation). Built upon these fundamental, literature-driven characteristics, the framework provides organizations actor-level and content-level perspectives for influence and discusses their implications for disinformation management.

This research provides a theoretical basis and practitioner insights by anticipating how AI technologies will impact corporate disinformation attacks and outlining how companies can respond. The proposed framework provides a theory-driven, practical approach for effective, proactive disinformation management systems with the capacity and agility to detect risks and mitigate crises driven by evolving AI technologies. Together, this framework and the discussed strategies offer great value to forward-looking disinformation management efforts. Subsequent research can build upon this framework as AI technologies are deployed in disinformation campaigns, and practitioners can leverage this framework in the development of counter-disinformation efforts.

The Milk and Dairies (Scotland) Order, 1925.—This Order, framed under Section 12 of the Act, and applying to Scotland as a whole, was issued along with the model dairy byelaws. It prescribed the form of register of dairies and dairymen, and contained provisions for the ascertainment of infectious disease at dairies, for the prevention of contamination of milk at railway stations, on the street, by means of unsuitable conveyances or unsuitable surroundings, or through insulticient protection from dust or exposure. The colouring or thickening of cream was prohibited by the Order; me use of wooden vessels, except for buttermilk, was prohibited; milk vessels for transit were required to nave marked on them the name and address of the owner, to have a proper lid, and to be locked or sealed. The Order also filled a gap in the administrative provisions of the Act by requiring every person about a dairy, if he became aware that any person in his household was suffering from an infectious disease, to notify the dairyman immediately. The dairyman must then notify the medical officer of health.