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The supply of trade credit by small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) is the product of both customer demand and the possibility of strategic advantage, but is subject to risk. In the current financial climate the demand for trade credit may be heightened, leading to further increased risk. This paper seeks to evaluate current risk mitigation measures in the UK and considers how these might be improved.

The supply of and demand for trade credit and the inherent risks are explained by reference to the literature. Then, using both the academic and grey literature and data from a large‐scale questionnaire, the paper highlights the limitations of both regulatory and management approaches to mitigate the risks in the context of UK SMEs. Finally, the paper considers the prospects for improved management.

Trade credit may be a product of market demand or a desire to extract strategic advantage. Both regulatory measures and internal management regimes have failed to mitigate risks in the UK for SMEs extending trade credit.

The paper concludes that current UK regulatory regimes are unlikely to prove effective and that better management of trade credit may be imperilled by the power imbalances between SMEs and larger firms. The paper suggests areas for the improvement of trade credit management under the headings of policies, people, processes and practices within SMEs.

The paper demonstrates why, despite the risk, UK SMEs offer trade credit and consider how those risks might be mitigated.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that influence Malaysian manufacturing sector investment in accounts receivable (AR), an asset seen by many as one of the riskiest in any company’s balance sheet.

The authors test several theories, related to AR, using a cross-section of 262 listed manufacturing firms over a period of five years (2007-2011). Both fixed and random effect approaches are adopted to deal with potential heterogeneity across firms.

The results show that investment in AR in Malaysia are influenced by firm size, short-term finance, sales growth and collateral. Profit, liquidity and gross margins have no role in affecting the decision of trade credit granting to customers. The results are inconsistent with previous studies. Size and short-term finance have a negative, rather than positive, impact. Liquidity and gross margins have no, rather than positive, effect. While profit and sales growth are predicted to feature a U-shaped relationship with investment in AR, the former is insignificant while the latter is strictly increasing. The only factor found to be consistent with prior studies is collateral.

The results have two principal implications. First, policy makers should not take a holistic view of the trade credit market. Given that policy makers aim to improve liquidity and trade, they should design policies that are not only country specific but also sector specific. As is clear from our results, what holds for other countries or sectors may not necessarily be true for the Malaysian manufacturing sector. This has important implications for policy makers in emerging economies.

Investment in AR, in the Malaysian manufacturing sector, is impacted by many of the factors implied by either theory or empirical evidence. However, the main finding in this paper is that the Malaysian manufacturing sector is rather different. First, while liquidity and gross margin have been found to have a positive and significant effect on AR helping hand theory in prior studies, the results show that these two factors play no role in influencing the level of AR in the Malaysian manufacturing sector.

Unlike the experience in developed economies, firms in our sample that have access to short-term finance are less likely to grant trade credit. This suggests that the helping hand theory does not hold as far as the Malaysian manufacturing firms are concerned: firm that have better access to short-term finance in Malaysia do not use trade credit to pass on the benefit to their customers by granting them trade credit.

It is unclear why firms invest in AR given the high risks of uncollectability as well as tedious, time-consuming and costly legal process for debt recovery compared to firms from more developed economies. This paper examines the reasons business-to-business lending, through AR, is widespread in Malaysia and investigates the factors that affect this decision despite the risk involved. To our knowledge, this is the first study to date that looks at the factors that influence AR level in the Malaysian manufacturing sector.

A postal survey to determine UK medical directors’ (n = 491) attitudes on the importance of effectiveness information; their own access, awareness and use of a variety of sources for information on effectiveness, their own use of and views on the perceived usefulness of the Cochrane Library; their attitudes towards their own role in the local application of clinical governance. Respondents reported high levels of awareness and access to a number of sources of clinical/cost effectiveness information. Respondents regularly referred to paper‐based publications more than electronic databases (only 10 per cent regularly referring to the Cochrane Library). Respondents felt that the Cochrane Library could be improved by increasing the number and range of topics and clinical areas covered, and by improving access and availability.

Scholars often aim to conduct high quality research and their success is judged primarily by peer reviewers. Research quality is difficult for either group to identify, however and misunderstandings can reduce the efficiency of the scientific enterprise. In response, we use a novel term association strategy to seek quantitative evidence of aspects of research that are associated with high or low quality.

We extracted the words and 2–5-word phrases most strongly associated with different quality scores in each of 34 Units of Assessment (UoAs) in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021. We extracted the terms from 122,331 journal articles 2014–2020 with individual REF2021 quality scores.

The terms associating with high- or low-quality scores vary between fields but relate to writing styles, methods and topics. We show that the first-person writing style strongly associates with higher quality research in many areas because it is the norm for a set of large prestigious journals. We found methods and topics that associate with both high- and low-quality scores. Worryingly, terms associated with educational and qualitative research attract lower quality scores in multiple areas. REF experts may rarely give high scores to qualitative or educational research because the authors tend to be less competent, because it is harder to do world leading research with these themes, or because they do not value them.

This is the first investigation of journal article terms associating with research quality.

To assess whether interdisciplinary research evaluation scores vary between fields.

The authors investigate whether published refereed journal articles were scored differently by expert assessors (two per output, agreeing a score and norm referencing) from multiple subject-based Units of Assessment (UoAs) in the REF2021 UK national research assessment exercise. The primary raw data was 8,015 journal articles published 2014–2020 and evaluated by multiple UoAs, and the agreement rates were compared to the estimated agreement rates for articles multiply-evaluated within a single UoA.

The authors estimated a 53% agreement rate on a four-point quality scale between UoAs for the same article and a within-UoA agreement rate of 70%. This suggests that quality scores vary more between fields than within fields for interdisciplinary research. There were also some hierarchies between fields, in the sense of UoAs that tended to give higher scores for the same article than others.

The results apply to one country and type of research evaluation. The agreement rate percentage estimates are both based on untested assumptions about the extent of cross-checking scores for the same articles in the REF, so the inferences about the agreement rates are tenuous.

The results underline the importance of choosing relevant fields for any type of research evaluation.

This is the first evaluation of the extent to which a careful peer-review exercise generates different scores for the same articles between disciplines.

This work examines the interplay between power, status and style. Building on the dual role of power and status as two primary sources of social influence in contemporary consumer society, we propose that stylistic choices associated with greater status can imbue the wearer with greater feelings of power. We focus on a pervasive stylistic choice for women – whether to wear heels – and test two critical relationships regarding consumers' choice of heels that can act as a bridge between status and power. First, we propose that the stylistic choice of wearing heels increases wearers' perceived status (but not perceived power) – the heeled status-enhancement hypothesis, whereby (1) wearing heels increases wearers' perceived status (but not perceived power) among observers and (2) lacking power (vs having power or baseline) yields greater desire for heels over flats. Second, we propose that an increase in status stemming from wearing heels increases consumers' feelings and behaviours of high power – the status–power transfer hypothesis. Three studies confirm the use and perception of heels as status symbols and provide support for both hypotheses. We show that wearing heels (vs flat shoes) makes individuals feel and behave more powerfully by thinking more abstractly and taking more actions, two hallmarks of high power, but only when heels are worn conspicuously (i.e., the wearer knows the observer sees them). In addition, these effects are mediated by wearer's feelings of power and unexplained by perceptions of sexiness. Implications for the literatures on style, status, power and conspicuous consumption are discussed.

Since the late 1980s, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company has maintained a strong position in the nonstandard auto-insurance market (auto insurance for high-risk drivers). Progressive’s goals in the 1990s are to expand its insurance coverage to include standard and preferred customers (drivers with clean driving records and no accidents). The company never advertised before 1994; as a result, consumer awareness has been very low. Progressive faces strong competition in a varied insurance industry. Companies like Allstate, the nation’s largest underwriter of nonstandard auto insurance, and State Farm, with 21.1% total market share, present a challenge to Progressive as the company strives to make its products available to all drivers. The case focuses on building the company’s brand through advertising and enhancing product differentiation through technology. A teaching note is available to registered faculty, along with a video supplement to enhance student learning.

This paper aims to explore the reasons for the apparent failure of many UK firms to achieve the competitive advantages indicated in largely positivist literature through the management of their trade credit positions.

The paper utilises data from a set of semi-structured interviews with trade credit managers in firms and is the first substantial qualitative study of the intra-firm aspects of trade credit management in the UK. Through this approach, we explore the reasons why the theoretical promise of trade credit may or may not be realised.

The principal findings relate to the importance of three organisational attributes (skills/awareness, communication and structural position of the activity in the firm). That is, trade credit management should be regarded as a relational activity and not merely a narrow technical function. The paper finds that there is no generic formulation of these attributes that can deliver on the promise of trade credit identified in the extant literature. Rather, individual firms must adapt themselves to suit their circumstances.

This paper will be of interest to and is relevant for companies, accounting professionals and policymakers. Trade credit represents a significant area of commercial risk, and the problems experienced with its effective management have previously proved somewhat intractable.

This paper reports on the first substantial piece of UK work to look at the actualities of how trade credit is managed within firms and what the implications of this are.

This article gives an overview of using global positioning systems (GPS) in a popular activity, geocaching, as a teaching and learning activity. The authors provide background information and an overview of one social studies teacher’s first use of geocaching and share perspectives from the teacher and her students on its value in the classroom.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.