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The purpose of this paper is to determine systematically the broader relationship between news media sentiment, extracted through textual analysis of articles published by leading US newspapers, and the securitized real estate market.

The methodology is divided into two stages. First, roughly 125,000 US newspaper article headlines from Bloomberg, The Financial Times, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal are investigated with a dictionary-based approach, and different measures of sentiment are created. Second, a vector autoregressive framework is used to analyse the relationship between media-expressed sentiment and REIT market movements over the period 2005–2015.

The empirical results provide significant evidence for a leading relationship between media sentiment and future REIT market movements. Furthermore, applying the dictionary-based approach for textual analysis, the results exhibit that a domain-specific dictionary is superior to a general dictionary. In addition, better results are achieved by a sentiment measure incorporating both positive and negative sentiment, rather than just one polarity.

In connection with fundamentals of the REIT market, these findings can be utilised to further improve the understanding of securitized real estate market movements and investment decisions. Furthermore, this paper highlights the importance of paying attention to new media and digitalization. The results are robust for different REIT sectors and when conventional control variables are considered.

This paper demonstrates for the first time, that textual analysis is able to capture media sentiment from news relevant to the US securitized real estate market. Furthermore, the broad collection of newspaper articles from four different sources is unique.

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the leadership necessary for the retail sector which is having to embrace complexity induced through accelerating changes in consumer behaviour and expanding information accessibility.

Semi-structured interviews were used for across 10 disparate retail organisations deployed as case studies safeguarding all quality considerations were fully integrated.

The findings reveal brands are coping with greater complexity than before. Loyalty is eroding whilst social media increases the complexity for brands to uphold control of their image. Developing the market without sacrificing exclusivity or alienating core consumers necessitates effective leadership. The deductions revealed that despite some leadership styles seemingly more conducive, that specific qualities are more important for the retail sector.

By selecting ten organisations every effort was made to ensure a greater degree of credibility in the findings. It is acknowledged that this investigation is sector specific. Nonetheless, there exists considerable transferability value as the role of leadership within the retail sector can mirror expectations within other environments.

It was validated that leaders need to foster an organisational culture promoting continuous learning whilst introducing a consumer-first perspective across the business. The findings reinforce how specific traits, behaviours and styles are imperative amongst leaders preserving the success of the retail organisation with less focus on specific leadership styles.

The rise of the ‘green movement’ in Europe over the last 10 years has been quite astonishing. From being dismissed as cranks and eccentrics, they have reached the position where they are either important pressure groups (as in the UK) or have real political power (in those countries that have proportional representation). This pressure and power has implications for the way in which businesses carry out their activity. We are already seeing the ‘greening’ of commerce, starting with those organisations who are nearest to the end user such as retail stores. This ‘greening’ process will move backwards up the supply chain over the next few years to influence many organisations.

This paper aims to stimulate the discussion in the fields of hospitality, tourism and leisure on what exactly constitutes “an experience” and how to measure it; the authors unpack the experience construct into its core constituent elements, namely, emotions.

The paper reviews insights from psychology and cognitive neuroscience that define experiences as a fine-grained temporal succession of emotions that occur during an experiential episode. Limitations of current methods for measuring experiences are discussed, after which biometric and neuroscientific methods are reviewed that are optimally geared toward measuring emotions, as they occur during an experience with fine temporal detail.

An overview is presented of the available studies within the fields of hospitality, tourism and leisure that use these methodologies. These studies show that using these methodologies provides a fruitful methodological approach to measuring experiences in real time.

Companies are constantly seeking to create memorable experiences for their customers. The proposed research methodologies allow companies to get a more fine-grained image of what impacts customers over the course of their experience and to actively integrate the use of emotions into creating experiences, as emotions are key to making them memorable.

The paper sketches the contours of a rapidly emerging framework that unpacks memorable experiences into their constituent element – emotions. It is proposed that this will contribute to a deeper understanding of how consumers experience offerings in the hospitality, tourism and leisure industry.

This paper proposes a classification scheme for the quantified analysis of micro‐grip principles. Micro‐part gripping has received quite some attention in micro‐assembly research. However, there is a lack of quantified data on the characteristics and applicability of micro‐grip principles. The micro‐grip principle is the physical principle that produces the necessary forces to get and maintain a part in a position with respect to the gripper. The classification scheme defines criteria that are essential in the evaluation and selection of a micro‐grip principle for gripping a given part. The criteria are defined on the basis of characteristics of the parts to be gripped, demands on the grip operation to be performed and characteristics of the environment in which the grip operation takes place. The classification scheme is evaluated using examples from literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer emotions and the social science and observation measures that can be utilised to capture the emotional experiences of consumers. The paper is not setting out to solve the theoretical debate surrounding emotion research, rather to provide an assessment of methodological options available to researchers to aid their investigation into both the structure and content of the consumer emotional experience, acknowledging both the conscious and subconscious elements of that experience.

A review of a wide range of prior research from the fields of marketing, consumer behaviour, psychology and neuroscience are examined to identify the different observation methods available to marketing researchers in the study of consumer emotion. This review also considers the self report measures available to researchers and identifies the main theoretical debates concerning emotion to provide a comprehensive overview of the issues surrounding the capture of emotional responses in a marketing context and to highlight the benefits that observation methods offer this area of research.

This paper evaluates three observation methods and four widely used self report measures of emotion used in a marketing context. Whilst it is recognised that marketers have shown preference for the use of self report measures in prior research, mainly due to ease of implementation, it is posited that the benefits of observation methodology and the wealth of data that can be obtained using such methods can compliment prior research. In addition, the use of observation methods cannot only enhance our understanding of the consumer emotion experience but also enable us to collaborate with researchers from other fields in order to make progress in understanding emotion.

This paper brings perspectives and methods together to provide an up to date consideration of emotion research for marketers. In order to generate valuable research in this area there is an identified need for discussion and implementation of the observation techniques available to marketing researchers working in this field. An evaluation of a variety of methods is undertaken as a point to start discussion or consideration of different observation techniques and how they can be utilised.

This work analyzes a pharmaceutical supply chain (PSC) in terms of supply chain visibility (SCV). The current good distribution practice (GDP) guideline demands increased visibility from firms. The purpose of this paper is to propose a solution for SCV enhancements based on automatic identification (Auto-ID) technologies.

The authors qualitatively analyze data from ten case studies of actors in a PSC. A review of Auto-ID technologies supports the derivation of solutions to enhance SCV.

This work shows that the functionalities of Auto-ID technologies offered by current practical monitoring solutions and challenges created by the GDP guideline necessitate further SCV enhancements. To enhance SCV, the authors propose three solutions: securPharm with passive radio frequency identification tags, transport containers with sensor nodes, and an SCV dashboard.

This study is limited to a PSC in Germany and is therefore not intended to be exhaustive. Thus, the results serve as a foundation for further analyses.

This study provides an overview of the functionality of Auto-ID technologies. In juxtaposition with the influence of the GDP guideline, the use of our Auto-ID-based solutions can help to enhance SCV.

This work analyzes a PSC in Germany, with consideration given to the influence of current legislation. Based on a multiple-case-study design, the authors derive three Auto-ID-based solutions for enhancing SCV.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated model assessing the frequency and timing between reports on the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) reporting the framework by higher education institutions (HEIs) and the relationship between the STARS score and reputation (enrollment), finances (endowment) and performance (emissions).

The development of the theoretical model is based on learning, signaling and legitimacy theories. This study collects data from the AASHE STARS to indicate the rating level of 202 HEIs, control variables, enrollment, endowments and emissions. The hypotheses were tested using generalized linear models.

Findings suggest that as HEIs report on their sustainability activity, they learn to report better but that there is also an “un-learning” aspect if the HEI skips reporting in a period. The results support the main hypothesis that there is a relationship between reporting and engagement with the HEIs in the form of enrollment and endowments. Finally, the findings provide evidence that the HEIs’ reporting is associated with a reduction in emissions.

The findings suggest that HEIs should develop a reporting strategy on a standardized framework such as AASHE STARs and they ought to codify the approach to learn from prior reporting. Students and alumni are increasingly seeking to engage the HEI in the sustainability process and the report is a mechanism for signaling activities.

The findings suggest that AASHE STARS scores may be used by HEIs as a signaling mechanism to stakeholders of their commitment to sustainability. The signal is a mechanism to reduce information asymmetry between the HEI and stakeholders who may want more information on the institution’s attempts toward sustainability but lack access to information. Further, HEI partners have a mechanism to assess the overall level of commitment of the HEI toward sustainability and can, therefore, engage accordingly.

There has been significant work on signaling theory and sustainability. However, the relationship between STARs reporting as a signal that legitimates the HEI, learning how to report well and HEI performance has received less attention. The current study demonstrates that the STARS framework as a reporting mechanism signals the HEIs’ level of commitment to sustainability thereby legitimating it resulting in improved performance.

European projects from a wide list of subjects are sharing and promoting good practice in knowledge development but there appears to be opportunities to exploit the findings of these projects more effectively, especially relating to sustainability issues, in the implementation and development of robust curricula within higher education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

A detailed description will be given of an example of a partnership between several universities from Sweden, France, Romania, and Lebanon related to a high-profile industry area: oil and gas. This partnership was created within a European Project carried out during the 2015–2018 period. The importance of this project is focused on how energy issues play an important role in the global development of industrial and underdeveloped countries. Energy issues are commonly accompanied with the challenging trade-off of energy production and environmental sustainability. The research project evaluates the creation and delivery of a new curriculum at the Lebanese universities based upon the joint effort and support of the European partners of the Project Consortium.

The overall aim of the project was to promote academic excellence through an academic network and by joint research, education, and exchange of experience, but also knowledge that has led to the high-quality curriculum. It is expected that this will contribute in the sustainable development of the Lebanese higher educational system. The project is in perfect alignment with the EU Commission’s action aiming to deepen the knowledge of extraction technologies and practices of unconventional gas and oil while minimizing potential health and environmental risks. The project succeeded in the delivery and the transfer of specific knowledge, through a more effective curriculum, for future educators and offers students a high-quality educational experience preparing them for the oil and gas industry.

The following bibliography focuses mainly on programs which can run on IBM microcomputers and compatibles under the operating system PC DOS/MS DOS, and which can be used in online information and documentation work. They fall into the following categories: