Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the preventable harm created by the adoption of austerity measures in 2010, added to the welfare reforms introduced in 2008 which, collectively, have negative implications for population mental health in the UK.

A critical reflection of published research papers and key policy documents in this area.

Negative mental health consequences of the combined impact of welfare reforms and austerity measures in the UK since 2010 are identified when relating to disability benefit assessments, and to the increased punitive conditionality applied to disability benefit claimants, as those in greatest need now live in fear of making a claim for financial support from the state or of losing benefits to which they are entitled.

This paper identifies the creation of preventable harm by social policy reforms, commonly known as “welfare reforms”. The implications for social scientists are the disregard of academic peer-reviewed social policy research by policymakers, and the adoption of critically challenged policy-based research as used to justify political objectives.

The negative mental health impact of UK government social policy reforms has been identified and highlights the human consequences of the adoption of the biopsychosocial model of assessment.

Reducing the numbers of sick and disabled people claiming long-term disability benefit has increased the numbers claiming unemployment benefit, with no notable increase in the numbers of disabled people in paid employment and with many service users in greatest need living in fear of the next enforced disability assessment.

This paper demonstrates the preventable harm created by the use of a flawed disability assessment model, together with the adoption of punitive conditionality and the increased suicides linked to UK welfare reforms which are influenced by American social policies.

No civilian has any comprehension of life in British military forces, or the impact of the removal of that life when unexpectedly returned to “Civvy Street” following the onset of a permanent illness or profound disability, with the gradual realisation that support in the civilian world means that a disabled veteran is just one of a crowd. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Participant observation.

Welfare reforms together with austerity measures introduced by the British government are causing preventable harm to the most vulnerable in society.

This paper was written by invitation and is limited by word length.

Older working-age disabled veterans are being abandoned by the state and suffer due to a change in government social policy.

Disregarding the suffering and preventable harm created in society by the ongoing welfare reforms will have consequences that will need to be addressed as a matter of urgency, as the often tragic consequences are eventually alerted to the public.

A demonstration that the older working-age disabled veterans are being harmed by welfare reforms and the armed forces covenant has been breached.

Drawing on the resource-based view, this paper aims to investigate how a firm’s integrated marketing communication (IMC) as a capability is influenced by the organisational antecedents of learning orientation (LO), market orientation (MO) and brand orientation (BO). Further, the research examines how an IMC capability influences brand performance and whether these relationships are influenced by brand size.

Based on survey data from 187 managers responsible for brand communications, this paper applies structural equation modelling using SmartPLS3 to assess hypothesised relationships.

IMC capability is directly influenced by BO but not by MO and LO; these have important indirect effects. Size does not moderate key relationships but directly affects IMC capability.

Organisational antecedents play an important role in shaping IMC capability and ultimately brand performance. Future researchers should consider a larger sample of brands and firms, IMC capability building in small firms and longitudinal design to evaluate the effects of IMC capability.

BO is nested in and complementary to learning and MO, and thus cannot stand alone. Developing an IMC capability is critical for translating the benefits of organisational orientations into performance outcomes. IMC capability links MO and BO to firm performance. Appropriate resourcing is critical for success, as it has implications for developing other resources and capabilities.

This study empirically establishes for the first time a relationship between critical organisational antecedents of LO, MO and BO, their influence on IMC capability and subsequently on brand performance.

An examination of the retrieval from two databases which cover philosophical materials, Philosopher's Index and FRANCIS, revealed that each database retrieved unique relevant items. A philosopher is likely to get relevant ‘hits’ from Philosopher's Index. At the same time, one is likely to miss at least some relevant items if one searches only that database. Some items are included in only one of them, e.g. theses and special issues of journals appear only in FRANCIS. Philosopher's Index, containing the larger collection of philosophical materials, often requires a more restrictive search strategy in order to retrieve relevant items but not large numbers of irrelevant items. There were some ‘misses’ that seemed to be due to journals not being regularly or ever indexed, and some ‘misses’ due simply to indexer error. Among items missed by Philosopher's Index were items in recognizably important journals, items by important figures in the discipline, and important kinds of articles.

As a practical engineering method, earthquake response spectra play an important role in seismic hazard assessment and in seismic design of structures. However, the computing scale and the efficiency of commercial software restricted the solution of complex structures. There is a clear need of developing large-scale and highly efficient finite element procedures for response spectrum analysis.

In this paper, the kernel theories for earthquake response spectra are deduced and the corresponding parallel solution flow via the modal superposition method is presented. Based on the algorithm and the parallel data structure of JAUMIN framework, a parallel finite element (FE) solution module is established. Using the solution procedure on a supercomputer equipped with up to thousands of processors, the correctness and parallel scalability of the algorithm are evaluated via numerical experiments of typical engineering examples.

The results show that the solution module has the same precision as the commercial FE software ANSYS; the maximum solution scale achieves 154 million degrees of freedom (DOFs) with a favorable parallel computing efficiency, going far beyond the computing ability of the commercial FE software.

The solution scale in this paper is very challenging for the large-scale parallel computing of structural dynamics and will promote the dynamic analysis ability of complex facilities greatly.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of multiple large ownership structure (MLS) and audit committee activity (ACA) on audit pricing for a sample of UK listed companies.

One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and cross sectional multiple regression analysis of a sample of UK listed companies showed statistically significant differences in the audit fees, firm size and audit committee activities of these firms when they are categorised based on the number of MLS.

The study finds a significant negative relationship between audit fees and number of MLS, but a surprising positive relationship with ACA. The findings confirm the beneficial effects of more active institutional investors’ monitoring, but also show that increasing monitoring by audit committees is associated with increase in audit fees.

The results reported in this research are based on cross sectional data. It is likely that the result may be different if the issue is examined over a relatively longer period.

The study showed that monitoring intensity of the large shareholders can be captured through their number and not simply through their shareholding. It also confirms the suggestion in previous studies that audit committees’ members protect themselves from depletion in human capital, litigation and reputational risk by buying more audit related services from their auditors.

The study empirically examined the impact of multiple large ownership structure on audit pricing and thereby extends the practical and theoretical understanding on the monitoring roles of large shareholders as well as the audit committees.

The gap between higher learning practices and business expectations in terms of preparing engineering, technology, and business students is significant. This paper offers an innovative approach toward narrowing that gap. The approach offered stresses an open system orientation and partnerships between business and education. This approach was utilized successfully, resulting in win‐win outcomes for both business and higher education. The results of a mini‐case study are presented and their implications are discussed.

The purpose of this research is to find out the influence of the roles of Research and Development (R&D) laboratories of Multinational Corporations (MNCs); and of employee‐related characteristics on future career preferences of knowledge professionals in these laboratories. Career preferences include managerial, technical, project‐based and entrepreneurial paths.

This study draws on a large scale study of 921 professionals employed in 70 R&D units of MNC subsidiaries operating in Greece. Four ordered probit regression models were run with employee career preferences forming the dependent variables.

Two R&D laboratory roles (Support Laboratory and Locally Independent Laboratory); and age and education of the employee stand out as predictors of career preferences of examined professionals.

Notwithstanding that this is a study that took place in a country with an advancing economy, it is seemingly the first that incorporates the roles of R&D laboratories as potential predictors of career paths. Moreover, the idiosyncrasies of the Greek national context are provided as possible explanations that justify why some hypotheses based on prior literature were not supported.

MNC knowledge professionals employed in R&D units are a special group of employees whose career paths may be different from those of other groups. Thus, MNC management should tailor‐make career preferences for them.

This research is one of the few empirical studies providing evidence on career paths of employees in MNC R&D units; and suggests possible predictors that have not been put forward hitherto.

Traces the growth in the use of economic value added (EVA, previously known as residual income) and uses two previous research studies to assess some claims for its merits. Compares EVA’s ability to explain stock returns with that of earnings before extraordinary items (EBEI) and cash flow using 1984‐1993 US data; and finds EBEI is most closely related. Examines EVA’s incentive effects on management investing, financing and operating decisions and shows that, although EVA users decreased new investment, increased dispositions of assets, increased share repurchases, used assets more intensively and increased residual income, market reactions to this were weak. Suggests possible reasons for this and concludes that EVA may align management incentives with shareholders’ interests but this does not necessarily increase shareholder value.