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The purpose of this paper is to remind investment company compliance professionals of common traps for unwary investors, to emphasize the importance of detecting and preventing fraud in the marketplace that may affect individual investors, and to review basic investor rights and the importance of suitability for investment company clients.

The paper explains the constant danger of investment fraud, lists the North American Securities Administrators Association's (NASAA's) top ten investor traps for 2007, reviews questions investment sales professionals should ask themselves concerning the suitability of every investment for a given client, and lists rights to which investors should be entitled before they make every investment.

The paper finds that the path to safe investing is littered with pitfalls likely to catch unwary investors. Investment fraud is on the rise. Before offering any investment, sales professionals should ask themselves several key questions. Investors can avoid becoming trapped in a fraudulent or unsuitable investment by recognizing that they have certain rights and demanding that these rights be upheld before they invest.

Compliance professionals should remember that the underlying purpose of most state and federal regulations governing investment companies is centered on investor protection and concerned with investment suitability and fraud prevention.

The paper provides useful information with regard to the pitfalls likely to catch investors who want to make successful investments.

The study sought to evaluate a state agricultural leadership program, Leadership Idaho Agriculture (LIA), according to the perceptions of program graduates. Of the 348 graduates from 1993-2001, 246 returned a completed instrument for a total response rate of 70.7%. Participants rated communication skills as the most frequently used skills and public speaking skills as the least frequently used skills emphasized within the LIA program. Participants perceived LIA to have the greatest impact in their career and their ability to set new goals in their careers. Participants reported that the four LIA program objectives were met with an above average success rate or higher but recommended the inclusion of content related to conducting business meetings and conflict management.

In this chapter, we consider how the character of Rob Titchener has been developed in The Archers, moving him from hero of the hour to villain of the piece. We draw on a critical disability studies’ perspective to argue that ability and disability have been crucial in turning the character of Rob from the desirable and attractive man who first arrived in the village into a national hate figure, despised by all. We begin this analysis by introducing critical disability studies and studies of ableism as fields of academic inquiry. We then draw on these resources to offer an analysis of the ways in which ability and disability were used as a narrative device to develop Rob’s character. We question the ways in which ability and disability are used to denote ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in the development of characters in cultural texts like The Archers, and end with a plea to scriptwriters to engage differently with dis/ability and to consider the impact of the stories we tell on the everyday lives of disabled people.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine how staff contributes to the operations of an adult drug court and, more critically, how staff produces client failure. Previous drug court researchers often attribute outcomes to the characteristics or the behaviors of the clients or to the program design, not to the actions of the staff.

Methodology – This study is based on extensive field research in three drug courts over a 4-year period. We observed both public and less public drug court events from the court event to staff meetings.

Findings – The key finding is that staff produces program failures. Within the policies and procedures of their programs, using their professional belief systems, and in interaction with a range of others to manage the demands of their position, staff produces the outcomes.

Limitations – As with other ethnographies, the generalizability of the exact processes may be limited. The core finding that the staff actively creates outcome decisions is a fundamental process that we believe occurs in any drug court or, more widely, problem-solving courts.

Implications – The practical implications of this research are in the illustrations of how staff matter, which we hope will spur others into examinations of staff actions.

Originality – Previous research ignores staff or treats them as mere extension program policies. The in-depth examination of staff behavior provides a unique and valuable examination of how much is lost by ignoring the staff judgments, perceptions, and actions.

In this qualitative case study we explored the experiences of low- achieving students responding to an educational blog. Our intention was to leverage the unique affordances of blogs to teach United States history concepts primarily by providing access to digital primary sources and facilitating on-line participation. Overall, our findings point to the positive potential of blogs to enhance instruction with low-achieving students. We found the integration of the educational blog provided an effective instructional format to differentiate content instruction and deliver “equity pedagogy.” In this study student participation increased, students engaged in historical work (although tentative), and the resources activated their prior knowledge. Rather than withholding Web 2.0 technologies from low-achieving students we encourage teachers to use them to meet the unique learning needs of all of their students. With thoughtful scaffolding, it appears teachers might be able to leverage the unique features of blog-based activities to improve student experiences.

Successful smart cities' implementation will require organisational leadership decision-making competences. The foundation of smart cities is digital technologies; many of these technologies are emerging technologies that require IT skills, which are scarce and will exacerbate the battle for talent between organisations. Filling the talent gap will necessitate global hiring, which has implications for organisational culture, cultural diversity and organisational leadership. Organisational cultural mix is an important contributor to leadership decision-making. However, decision-making is underpinned by trust. Blockchain is an emerging technology that has the potential to engender organisational trust in decision-making and, by extension, in the leadership with the ‘right’ organisational culture. Smart cities will be required to leverage emerging technologies to give business performance a competitive advantage and use emerging technologies’ applications to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

Determining the skills required for salespersons to maximize their effectiveness was the main driver for conducting the present study. In order to identify those necessary skills, this study aims to review various research techniques drawn from multiple disciplines and applied that knowledge to salespersons.

This study used a mixed-method methodology. This study began by conducting a literature review and then interviewed experienced salespersons with varied backgrounds to develop a comprehensive list of sales skills and themes and categorize them into competency categories. This study then conducted a quantitative analysis to determine the respective importance of the skills and themes by surveying a sample of internal stakeholders of a multinational company. Finally, this study calculated the reliability and validity of the themes.

A total of 206 relevant skills (later reduced to 110) and 28 themes were identified and grouped into three competency categories: conceptual, human/interpersonal and technical. Survey respondents rated the skills and themes higher than the “somewhat important” score of 3 out of 5, with the overall mean importance for skills being in the “important” range (score of 4.27 out of 5). All identified skills were believed to be important to a salesperson’s success.

This study’s expanded list of sales skills will improve employability, reduce turnover among employees and build better groundwork for fostering learning through work, resulting in better performance. These skills represent a 2020 updated list that could be used for future academic research and training and research in the business world.