Examines McCarthy & Stone plc, the market leader in retirement housing.Traditionally a construction‐oriented industry, at best sales‐oriented.Charts the story of the writer′s…
Abstract
Examines McCarthy & Stone plc, the market leader in retirement housing. Traditionally a construction‐oriented industry, at best sales‐oriented. Charts the story of the writer′s activities as Marketing and Sales Director in changing this orientation at a time in the late 1980s when the company′s market dominance was under tremendous assault from emergent competitors. Underlines the importance of challenging historical practices and how to handle the inevitable fall‐out. Marketing is an integrative process, and this requires total conversion of all disciplines within the company at all levels. Gives practical advice and a checklist of various stages for those charged with the task of developing marketing attitudes. Provides hints and suggestions on how to win the hearts and minds of all staff and point everyone in the same direction. Deals with human relationship, team dynamics, corporate strategy and the importance of the total involvement role of marketing. Gives support to those marketing practitioners facing the inevitable brick wall of tradition and inertia in companies divorced from the realities of the marketplace.
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Sarah Lindop and Kevin Holland
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which UK equity prices reflect shareholder level taxation on dividends (dividend tax capitalisation). Despite an…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which UK equity prices reflect shareholder level taxation on dividends (dividend tax capitalisation). Despite an extensive theoretical and empirical literature controversy exists.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of UK firm year ends from 1991 to 2007 archival accounting and share price data are used to test for the presence or otherwise of dividend tax capitalisation.
Findings
The paper finds evidence of equity values reflecting shareholder level dividend taxation. In particular, a significant reduction in the valuation of retained earnings, a measure of dividend paying potential, is observed around the July 1997 abolition of the repayment of dividend tax credits to tax exempt shareholders. This suggests a link between shareholder level taxation of dividends and firms’ cost of capital.
Research limitations/implications
The analysis focuses on share prices and is therefore subject to an underlying assumption of shareholders’ understanding tax and other potential relevant information.
Practical implications
The taxation of dividends is an important issue because of the potential for it to influence firms’ cost of capital and therefore investment decisions. Further, non-tax costs may be incurred to the extent that attempts are made to mitigate any “adverse” tax effects.
Social implications
The results indicate that taxation of dividends and share prices are associated and therefore also indirectly firms’ cost of capital. This linkage has implications for investment appraisal and the allocation of capital between competing demands.
Originality/value
In using an asset valuation approach the limitations of alternate methods of examining shareholder level taxation of dividends are avoided, e.g. analysis of dividend drop of ratios.
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Erik M. Hines, Paul C. Harris and Dwayne Ham
In this chapter, the authors discuss how school counselors may create a college-going environment for African American males in middle school. The authors use Bronfenbrenner’s…
Abstract
In this chapter, the authors discuss how school counselors may create a college-going environment for African American males in middle school. The authors use Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Ecological Systems Theory to explain how environmental influences impact African American males’ college trajectory, both positively and negatively. Moreover, they use Ecological Systems Theory to discuss how multiple stakeholders (e.g., school counselors and parents) and various structured activities that align with the Eight Components of College and Career Readiness (NOSCA, 2010) may promote college preparation among Black male middle school students. The authors also present two case vignettes as examples of how school counselors may assist African American males for postsecondary options. In closing, the chapter concludes with implications for educational policy, research, and practice.
To celebrate the life and achievements of Felix Geyer by addressing issues of mutual interest, in a light‐hearted and informative fashion.
Abstract
Purpose
To celebrate the life and achievements of Felix Geyer by addressing issues of mutual interest, in a light‐hearted and informative fashion.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopts a polemical style that encapsulates the conclusions that will appeal to many types and affiliations of reader.
Findings
That, on the one hand, Felix Geyer is a cool dude who once smoked cigars and wore a raincoat. That, on the other hand, by walking around with “implants” in his body, and by celebrating/publicising this fact to the mass media, Kevin Warwick raised issues that remind us of the cult of the dandy.
Originality/value
Style, agenda, and range of concerns are unorthodox.
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Three themes dominate Hunting Causes. The first is that cause is a plural concept. The methods and metaphysics of causation, Cartwright believes, are context dependent. Different…
Abstract
Three themes dominate Hunting Causes. The first is that cause is a plural concept. The methods and metaphysics of causation, Cartwright believes, are context dependent. Different causal accounts seem to be at odds with one another only because the same word means different things in different contexts. Every formal approach to causality uses a conceptual framework that is “thinner” than causal reality. She lists a bewildering variety of approaches to causation: probabilistic and Bayes-net accounts (of, for example, Patrick Suppes, Clive Granger, Wolfgang Spohn, Judea Pearl, and Clark Glymour), modularity accounts (Pearl, James Woodward, and Stephen LeRoy), invariance accounts (Woodward, David Hendry, and Kevin Hoover), natural experiments (Herbert Simon, James Hamilton, and Cartwright), causal process accounts (Wesley Salmon and Philip Dowe), efficacy accounts (Hoover), counterfactual accounts (David Lewis, Hendry, Paul Holland, and Donald Rubin), manipulationist accounts (Peter Menzies and Huw Price), and others. The lists of advocates of various accounts overlap. Nevertheless, she sometimes treats these accounts as if they were so different that it is not clear why they should be the subject of a single book. And she fails to explain what they have in common. If, as she apparently believes, they do not have a common essence, do they have a Wittgensteinian family resemblance? She fails to explore in any systematic way the complementarities among the different approaches – for example, between invariance accounts, Bayes-nets, and natural experiments – that frequently make their advocates allies rather than opponents.
Asya Draganova and Shane Blackman
The term Canterbury Sound emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s to refer to a signature style within psychedelic and progressive rock developed by bands such as Caravan and…
Abstract
The term Canterbury Sound emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s to refer to a signature style within psychedelic and progressive rock developed by bands such as Caravan and Soft Machine as well as key artists including Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers. This chapter explores Canterbury as a metaphor and reality, a symbolic space of music inspiration which has produced its distinctive ‘sound’.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, particularly observations and interviews with music artists and cultural intermediates (Bourdieu, 1993), we suggest that the notion of the Canterbury Sound – with its affinity for experimentation, distinctive chord progressions and jazz allusions in a rock music format – is perceived as a continuing artistic and aesthetic influence. We interpret the genealogy of the Canterbury Sound alternativity through discussions focused on the position of the ‘Sound’ within contemporary heritage discourses, the metaphorical and geographical implications of place in relation to popular music, and cultural longevity of the phenomenon.
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Sara Trucco, Maria Chiara Demartini, Kevin McMeeking and Valentina Beretta
This paper aims to investigate the effect of voluntary non-financial reporting on the evaluation of audit risk from the auditors’ viewpoint in a post-crisis period. Furthermore…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the effect of voluntary non-financial reporting on the evaluation of audit risk from the auditors’ viewpoint in a post-crisis period. Furthermore, this paper analyses whether auditors perceive that voluntary non-financial reporting impacts audit risk differently for old clients as compared with new clients.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is conducted on a sample of Italian audit firms through a paper-based questionnaire. Both Big4 and non-Big4 audit firms have been included in the sample.
Findings
Results show that integrated reporting is perceived to be the most relevant reporting method and intellectual capital statement the least relevant. Surprisingly, empirical findings over the sample period show that auditors do not perceive statistically significant differences between old and new clients.
Practical implications
Auditors can identify opportunities to adapt their assessment model to include voluntary non-financial report information. Moreover, they can use different assessment models regarding the research variables in the case of new and old clients.
Originality/value
Empirical findings highlight the growing role of voluntary non-financial reporting in the auditors’ perception of their client’s audit risk. All the observed voluntary non-financial reporting forms, except for intellectual capital, are considered as relevant by auditors in the evaluation of their client’s audit risk when compared to an indifference point. In addition, findings reveal that female auditors perceive a reduced gap in the relevance between integrated reports and intellectual capital reports compared to their counterparts.
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Ana Campos-Holland, Brooke Dinsmore, Gina Pol and Kevin Zevallos
Rooted in adult fear, adult authority aims to protect and control youth (Gannon, 2008; Valentine, 1997). Continuously negotiating for freedom, youth search for adult-free public…
Abstract
Purpose
Rooted in adult fear, adult authority aims to protect and control youth (Gannon, 2008; Valentine, 1997). Continuously negotiating for freedom, youth search for adult-free public spaces and are therefore extremely attracted to social networking sites (boyd, 2007, 2014). However, a significant portion of youth now includes adult authorities within their Facebook networks (Madden et al., 2013). Thus, this study explores how youth navigate familial- and educational-adult authorities across social networking sites in relation to their local peer culture.
Methodology/approach
Through semi-structured interviews, including youth-centered and participant-driven social media tours, 82 youth from the Northeast region of the United States of America (9–17 years of age; 43 females and 39 males) shared their lived experiences and perspectives about social media during the summer of 2013.
Findings
In their everyday lives, youth are subjected to the normative expectations emerging from peer culture, school, and family life. Within these different and at times conflicting normative schemas, youth’s social media use is subject to adult authority. In response, youth develop intricate ways to navigate adult authority across social networking sites.
Originality/value
Adult fear is powerful, but fragile to youth’s interpretation; networked publics are now regulated and youth’s ability to navigate then is based on their social location; and youth’s social media use must be contextualized to be holistically understood.