Search results

To explain the January 6, 2016 written guidance (the “New Guidance”) issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Investment Management on payments made by mutual funds to intermediaries for distribution and non-distribution-related services.

Explains the SEC’s earlier guidance in the 1998 “Supermarket Letter,” the provisions of Rule 12b-1, the practice termed “distribution in guise,” the emphasis in the “New Guidance” on the role of a fund board’s business judgment, how Rule 12b-1 compliance fits into Rule 38a-1 compliance programs, specific fund activities and arrangements with intermediaries that are of concern to the SEC staff, and the focus of the New Guidance on an adviser’s fiduciary duty to mitigate or eliminate conflicts of interest.

The New Guidance articulates clear expectations that fund boards will have a process to evaluate the nature of intermediary payments and that fund advisers will provide boards with information in the advisers’ possession that the boards need to carry out that evaluation. Another intent of the New Guidance is apparently to give the SEC a clearer basis to bring enforcement actions concerning the use of fund assets to pay intermediaries for distribution-related activities.

Practical guidance from experienced investment management lawyers.

This study’s purpose is to examine whether providing prior consulting services influences internal auditors’ subsequent assessments when providing assurance services to assist management in its assessment of internal control over financial reporting. A behavioral experiment is used, with internal auditors as participants. We provide some evidence that internal auditors who perform prior consulting services are less likely than others to conclude that an identified control deficiency is a material weakness, but only when the deficiency is directly related to the prior consulting services performed. Limitations include relatively small sample sizes and manipulation check failure rates that, although consistent with several prior studies, are somewhat high. If internal auditors have provided consulting services, they may want to consider limiting the assurance services provided to management that are more directly related to their consulting services. While prior studies have examined the effects of internal auditors’ role in designing internal controls on subsequent services, this is the first study to focus on the impact of providing internal audit consulting services on subsequent assurance services.

Agribusinesses seek university graduates who have leadership ability. Role playing, one method of teaching leadership skills, is used in a university agricultural policy course. It has been a fun and effective leadership learning tool. Students improve their communication skills, conduct in-depth research about a topic of their choice, and develop a better understanding of other sides of issues. Graduates who have gone into leadership positions cite role playing as an important part of their leadership development.

Without feedback from members and former members, professional organizations run the risk of being stalemated. This study sought to explore perceptions of current and former members of the Association of Leadership Educators (ALE) related to the organization and the climate within the organization. No statistical differences were found in the perceptions of dues paying and non-dues paying members related to the climate of ALE as measured by the Team Climate Inventory (TCI); however, perceptions of both groups were fairly neutral. Open-ended questions were asked to elaborate, enhance, and clarify findings. Five themes emerged as successes achieved by ALE including the members, the ALE annual conference, information and idea sharing, networking, and the Journal of Leadership Education. Five themes also emerged as challenges facing the organization including a lack of direction or identity, recruitment and retention issues, lack of cohesion, lack of communication, and lack of participation.

The world of work is changing and creating challenges and opportunities for the employment inclusion of young people with disabilities. In this article, the perceptions held by young adults with disabilities regarding participation in the future of work are examined.

One-on-one interviews were conducted with Canadian young adults (ages 18–36 years) living with a disability. Participants were asked about their thoughts regarding the impact of the changing nature of work on their labor market involvement and career aspirations. A thematic analysis was performed to identify and examine emergent salient themes.

In total, 22 young adults were interviewed; over half held secure employment. Career aspirations and work-related decisions were primarily shaped by a participant's health needs. The future of work was seen as a more proximal determinant to employment. Digital technologies were expected to impact working conditions and create barriers and facilitators to employment. Participants who indicated being securely employed held positive expectations regarding the impact of digital technology on their work. Participants working precariously held negative appraisals regarding the impact of digital technologies on employment opportunities. The role of technological and soft skills was critical to participating in a labor market reliant on advanced technology. Participants reported barriers to developing job skills related to their disability and their work arrangements.

This research highlights the importance of considering changes in the future of work, especially the digital transformation of the economy, in the design of initiatives which promote the employment inclusion of young adults with disabilities. Despite the significance of the changing nature of work, supporting health needs and encouraging access to secure work arrangements also remain paramount.

Drawing on accounts from 22 lesbian couples with children conceived using donor insemination, this chapter explores how the respondents’ selection of parent terms, such as “momma” and “mommy,” influences day-to-day negotiation of parenthood. Term selection was affected by personal meanings respondents associated with terms as well as how they anticipated terms would be publicly received. Couples utilized personalized meanings associated with terms, such as terms used by families of origin or reflected in a parent’s cultural background, to help non-biological mothers feel comfortable and secure in their parenting identities. Some families also avoided terms that non-biological mothers associated too strongly with biological motherhood and felt uncomfortable using for themselves. Families also considered whether parent terms, and subsequently their relationships to their children, would be recognizable to strangers or cause undue scrutiny to their family. However, not all of the families selected terms that were easily decipherable by strangers and had to negotiate moments in which the personal meanings and public legibility of terms came into conflict. Overall, these accounts illustrate the importance of parent terms for lesbian-parent families, and other nontraditional families, as a family practice negotiating both deeply personal meanings surrounding parent–child relationships and how these terms, and the families, are normatively recognizable in public spaces.

This chapter examines the perspectives of culturally responsive teachers of immigrant and refugee youth in a high performing school in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany. Academic success in the region has been traditionally designated for ethnic Germans and nonnatives who suppress their culture and assimilate into normative German culture. Assimilating to normative German culture through the lens of global meaning making is a preordained social order that perpetuates exclusion for immigrants in society and school. The consequences of failed intercultural education in Europe have prompted increased demands to consider diversity in teacher training and to provide more equitable opportunities for immigrants. Gymnasium Baden welcomed a few Syrian refugees where immigrant youth represented one 10th of the population during the 2015–2016 academic year. In a broader context of limited access and opportunity to higher education among immigrant and refugee youth, this chapter examines teachers who interrupted existing frames and maintained high expectations and mindfulness for their students. The perspectives and voices of teachers who employ culturally responsive practices were documented through interviews and examined through the lens of Tierney's (2018) dimensions of global meaning making, more specifically the models of interrupting existing frames, critical literacies, and being mindful. Participants' perspectives interrupted existing frames and were documented against the grain of a conservative region that has experienced dilemmas of integrating immigrants and refugees into school and society. An examination of interview transcripts revealed teachers who maintained high expectations through an asset orientation and were overwhelmingly supportive and responsive to longtime immigrant and newcomer refugee youth.

The teaching of reading in English is fraught with challenges that influence teachers' practices in Papua New Guinea (PNG). There are a plethora of linguistic issues regarding teaching in both the vernacular languages and English. Postcolonial education in PNG has continued to promote English as the medium of instruction while also promoting the use of vernacular and mother tongue. The outcomes-based education reform in the Language and Literacy Policy (1993–2014) supported the use of vernacular languages in the elementary years with the gradual bridging to English in Grade 3. In 2015, the Language and Literacy policy changed to standards-based education. One major shift was from the use of vernacular languages to English as a medium of instruction at all levels of formal education.

In this chapter, we use Tierney's concept of decolonizing spaces to investigate teachers' perspectives on implementing the English standards-based curriculum and the role the vernacular, mother tongue, and translanguaging plays in the classroom as Year 4 teachers grapple with the teaching of reading. It will problematize the colonization of English, the place of translanguaging, and the benefits and challenges for teachers when the classroom teacher most likely is not a native speaker of the children's dialect or English.

The aim of this article is to provide an understanding of how satisfaction, quality, and value affect repurchase and positive word‐of‐mouth in a business‐to‐business (B2B) setting. Most previous studies in this area apply to business‐to‐consumer (B2C) situations.

A survey of 382 users of freight services was undertaken in the USA. An exploratory pilot study was undertaken to gain a better understanding of these users and to test the research instrument. Structural equation modeling was used to test the constructs.

The results showing the best‐fit model identified a number of relationships that were unexpected. These are discussed in detail.

Managers have a model, survey instrument and methodology that service firms can use to establish what they are doing right or wrong to retain customers. Managers are also given guidelines on how to increase customer satisfaction in B2B services.

This paper deals with these constructs in a B2B service environment.