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An explanation of techniques for the connection of sensors to data acquisition systems and how to stop noise swamping your signal.

This paper reports on a taxonomy design project involving graduate students in information science (MLIS degree) working as intern-consultants under the guidance of an information science faculty member. The consulting team developed a taxonomy that would reflect current academic departmental structures and be used to optimise publisher tools for generating metrics and interpretive assessment.

In this case study, three students worked under the direction of a faculty member on a consulting team for a Silicon Valley company that provides business analytics to academic publishers. Tasked with designing a taxonomy of disciplinary knowledge to support the company’s analytical software tools, the students developed methods for environmental scans, vocabulary design, validation and taxonomy management for the project objectives.

The consulting experience proved to be highly beneficial for the students as an opportunity to take concepts learned in their coursework and apply them in practice. The project team delivered to the company the most detailed taxonomy of academic disciplines in the marketplace, along with recommendations for its maintenance and management for ongoing support of business objectives. The company was supportive throughout the internship programme, generating collaborative contributions from all stakeholders.

As more students earning an Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) or similar degree move into a wide array of careers within business environments, internship experience through consulting can be an essential advantage to their preparation.

Examines how a finance gap for small firms might be addressed by means of government policy to support informal financing initiatives. A review of both the finance and the government policy literature provides the basis for discussing and conceptualising the financing difficulties faced by small firms, the role of informal financing in alleviating certain of these difficulties and the areas where public policy is currently usefully employed in addressing such financing problems. Undertakes a questionnaire survey to collect data concerning small business awareness and use of informal finance and to identify issues concerning difficulties encountered in gaining access to finance. The results suggest that a debt finance gap may exist for a minority of firms, though an equity finance gap may represent a more significant issue for small firms. Four categories of policy action emerge from the study towards the achievement of economic and social policy objectives.

Resurgent interest in the life and work of the Italian Cambridge economist Piero Sraffa is leading to New Directions in Sraffa Scholarship. This chapter introduces readers to some of these developments. First and perhaps foremost is the fact that as of September 2016 Sraffa’s archival material has been uploaded onto the website of the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge University, as digital colour images; this chapter introduces readers to the history of these events. This history provides sharp relief on the extant debates over the role of the archival material in leading to the final publication of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, and readers are provided a brief sketch of these matters. The varied nature of Sraffa scholarship is demonstrated by the different aspects of Sraffa’s intellectual legacy which are developed and discussed in the various entries of our Symposium. The conclusion is reached that we are on the cusp of an exciting phase change of tremendous potential in Sraffa scholarship.

This article reviews the quantitative marketing literature on artificial intelligence (AI) through an economics lens. We apply the framework in Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence to systematically categorize 96 research papers on AI in marketing academia into five levels of impact, which are prediction, decision, tool, strategy, and society. For each paper, we further identify each individual component of a task, the research question, the AI model used, and the broad decision type. Overall, we find there are fewer marketing papers focusing on strategy and society, and accordingly, we discuss future research opportunities in those areas.

Aboriginal people across Australia have diverse practices, beliefs and knowledges based on thousands of generations of managing and protecting their lands (Country). The intimate relationship Aboriginal people have with their Country is explored in this chapter because such knowledge is important for building insight into the relationship between social and ecological systems. Often in research Aboriginal views have been marginalised from discussions focused on their lands to the detriment of ecosystems and human health. This chapter aims to understand if such marginalisation is evident in Western human–nature relationship discourses.

This chapter provides a critical literature review which examines whether Aboriginal people’s diverse understanding of their ecosystems have been incorporated into human–nature theories using the biophilia hypothesis as a starting point. Other concepts explored include solastalgia, topophilia and place.

Critiques of these terminologies in the context of Aboriginal people’s connection to Country are limited but such incorporation is viewed in the chapter as a possible mechanism for better understanding human’s connection to nature. The review identified that Aboriginal people’s relationship to Country seems to be underrepresented in the human–nature theory literature.

This chapter emphasises that the integration of Aboriginal perspectives into research, ecological management and policy can provide better insight into the interrelationships between social and ecological systems.

This paper aims to examine practical wisdom from the Islamic religion elaborating on how it pertains to the sustainability mind-set. The purpose is to assess whether the Islamic and sustainability mind-sets coincide and if so, how they do.

The first two chapters of the Holy Qur’an were divided into parts based on the divisions in the exegesis by Abu Bakr Al-Jaza’eri. Next, a qualitative content analysis of the main sustainability themes in these chapters was conducted. The first stage of the content analysis involved the collection of Qur’anic verses related to the sustainability concepts. Following that, inductive interpretive analysis was conducted in the second stage of the content analysis, where key sustainability lessons within the agreed upon Qur’anic verses were extracted.

The empirical study reported in this paper reveals 10 lessons from the examined Qur’anic text that pertain to the sustainability mind-set. Each of these lessons appears to foretell the wisdom behind the sustainability mind-set.

This study contributes to the literature on sustainability and Islam in two ways. First, the analysis results in key lessons relating to sustainability, the majority of which were not covered in existing literature. Second, the research takes a holistic approach to finding commonalities between the sustainability mind-set and the Islamic mind-set, instead of focusing on a specific aspect of sustainability such as the environment.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss experiential education as a way to develop future consultants in human resource management and marketing with the goal of developing consulting competence.

This is a conceptual paper that proposes, outlines, and discusses a model, containing 11 dimensions of consulting competence.

The conceptual model includes 11 building blocks: foreign language competence, non-verbal competence, perception of cultural distance, cultural self-awareness, knowledge, skills, motivation, effectiveness, appropriateness, contextual interaction patterns, and affinity. Considerations for each of these elements are introduced and discussed.

This model and the explanation of its components should guide management and marketing educators in their efforts to build and develop experiential education programs of excellence.

The model proposed and outline in this paper will assist institutions of higher education and faculty members to guide students in their development of a successful career in consulting.

This research uses accounting information to supplement abnormal returns evidence in order to gauge the performance of greenmailed firms. Our results support the management entrenchment hypothesis; target firm earnings are poor relative to industry in the years surrounding the greenmail event, and earnings do not significantly improve as would be expected under the shareholders' interest hypothesis. This result holds after adjusting for greenmail premia net of tax effects. Evidence on investment spending suggests firms that pay greenmail differ substantially from their industries, but in a negative direction. In contrast, the industry‐adjusted earnings of non‐greenmail repurchasing firms are significantly greater than the earnings of greenmailed firms. Together, these results are consistent with the contention that greenmailed firms are not managed in shareholders' interests; they underperform their industry, the poor operating results are not attributable to higher investment outlays associated with a long‐term strategic focus, and performance does not improve. This is consistent with observed negative abnormal returns being attributable to both a lost takeover premium and a lost opportunity for improved corporate performance.