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A decision support system (DSS) is a flexible, interactive, computerized approach intended to support administrators in their decision making activities and which is capable of providing direct, personal support for complex, managerial decisions. This paper presents an overview of DSS's major characteristics which can integrate the intellectual resources of individuals with the capabilities of the computer to improve the quality of decisions. Following a discussion of its capabilities, the various components of a DSS (database, model base, hardware and user‐system interface) are examined as well as the development tools needed. Examples of the applications of DSSs in two universities provide insight into the benefits a DSS can bring to educational administration. Finally, the paper considers various development and implementation issues pertaining to a decision support system in academic administration.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an experiential learning framework for understanding how play can potentially create a unique ludic learning space conducive to deep learning.

The framework is developed by integrating two perspectives. First, from multidisciplinary theories of play to uncover the underlying play principles that contribute to the emergence of the ludic learning space are drawn. Then the formation of a ludic learning space through a case study of a pick‐up softball league where for 15 years, a group of individuals diverse in age group, gender, level of education, and ethnic background have come together to play are examined.

The case study suggests that play in a ludic learning space can promote deep learning in the intellectual, physical, spiritual, and moral realms.

This paper uses the play literature to inform the experiential learning concept of the learning space.

Rather than organize as traditional firms, many of today’s companies organize as platforms that sit at the nexus of multiple exchange and production relationships. This chapter considers a most basic question of organization in platform contexts: the choice of boundaries. Herein, I investigate how classical economic theories of firm boundaries apply to platform-based organization and empirically study how executives made boundary choices in response to changing market and technical challenges in the early mobile computing industry (the predecessor to today’s smartphones). Rather than a strict or unavoidable tradeoff between “openness-versus-control,” most successful platform owners chose their boundaries in a way to simultaneously open-up to outside developers while maintaining coordination across the entire system.

Capital structure decisions rely on a complex array of theoretical foundations and practical considerations. At the managerial level, it is impractical to base decisions purely on theory. While one can develop a perception of an optimal capital structure, the decision is often obscured by practical limitations to the theoretical base. In order to be useful to practicing managers, policies and decision techniques need to be efficiently accomplished and based on available information. This paper seeks to provide that practical framework.

This paper recounts the simple theoretical base for capital structure, highlights some of the problems encountered when applying the theory to reality, and suggests a framework for practical managerial decisions about capital structure. This exposition is especially useful in undergraduate business curricula, in particular for finance majors considering professional management as a career.

While application of traditional capital structure theory is often impractical, numerous tools are available for use by professional managers to make informed decisions about capital structure.

The conclusions from this paper provide a framework for current and prospective professional managers for making appropriate capital structure decisions in their management careers.

Proper managerial techniques and considerations for leverage and capital structure can potentially benefit society through more prudent use of debt, based on the variety of measures presented in this paper.

Topics discussed in this paper have been in development since the 1950s. The contribution of this paper is the creation of a framework for understanding and applying these topics, for pedagogical and management training purposes.

Social networking sites (SNS) are changing the methods of social connectivity – and what it means to be public. Existing literature hints at competing perspectives on how the public nature of these sites impacts users. The question of how the perceived publicness of SNSs influences users' self‐disclosure intentions is debated in the literature, and the aim of this paper is to answer this debate.

This paper theorizes competing perspectives on the role of publicness on self‐disclosure. Competing perspectives are tested using data collected via an online survey.

The study finds support for the perceived publicness of a SNS negatively influencing users' self‐disclosure intentions. Additionally, exploratory analysis of self‐disclosure items ubiquitous to most SNSs found that perceived publicness negatively influences users' intention to self‐disclose items related to users' likes and affiliations.

Variables of the study were self‐reported and, as such, are subject to the typical limitations of cross‐sectional, survey‐based research. Future research should seek to examine how perceived publicness and other variables impact self‐disclosure in SNSs over time.

Business models utilizing social networking technologies rely on users' willingness to engage in self‐disclosure. This research provides a theoretical link between the public nature of a social networking environment and users' willingness to self‐disclose. Highlighting perceived publicness as an important aspect of an environment could be one way to address the need to elicit and manage users' self‐disclosure.

The paper utilizes a unique, but established, method of competing hypotheses to understand the role of the public nature of SNSs.

The purpose of this paper was to determine the attachment strategies of prospective adoptive parents and any correlation between attachment and the defensive strategies they used when talking about loss of fertility. The study also examined whether attachment strategy of the applicants had a bearing on the decision by the local authority to place a child.

The sample was comprised of 48 respondents (21 couples) representing 84 per cent of all people who applied to one UK Social Services Department in a 12-month period. Placement of a child was reviewed two years following the assessment. The study used the dynamic maturational model version of the adult attachment interview (DMM-AAI), together with added questions on loss of fertility to assess the applicants’ attachment strategies together with unresolved loss and trauma and the DMM modifiers.

Unlike adoption studies using the Main and Goldwyn system, this study rated very few of the applicants’ AAIs as secure (13 per cent), 48 per cent were in the normative low-risk range and 52 per cent of the AAIs were coded in the more complex DMM insecure strategies. There was a significant bias towards marriages where the partners deployed opposite low-risk/DMM strategies (13 (62 per cent) of couples). Compared with data on non-clinical populations the AAIs showed a high level of unresolved loss or trauma (58 per cent). Using a six-way distribution (A1-2, C1-2, B, A3-4, C3-6 and A/C) there was an 87 per cent correspondence between discourse about loss of fertility and that about attachment, thereby supporting the established proposition that reproduction is part of the attachment system. Twenty one per cent of the AAIs were coded as “disorientated” and this is discussed in terms of conflict for adoptive of parents concerning the raising of a child who carries their own genes or those of strangers. A case is made to conceptualise negative impact of infertility in terms of unresolved trauma rather than loss.

This study adds to research showing that the DMM approach is more finely calibrated than the ABC+disorganised model with the latter likely over coding for security. The results emphasise that fertility and reproduction are legitimate subjects for attachment studies and that AAI discourse analysis is a valid methodology for future research. However coder agreement as to whether or not loss of fertility was resolved was only fair (64 per cent) κ. 0.25 (po0.33). More work is required in order to determine what constitutes unresolved loss of fertility and what impact, if any, this has on parenting an adopted child.

The practice implications are considered in a separate paper.

The findings are contentious in that they suggest a significant number (48 per cent) of adoptive parents have needs not dissimilar to other clients of psychological services.

This is the first DMM-AAI study with prospective adoptive parents and the findings show significant differences when compared with previous studies using the Main and Goldwyn AAI. It is also the first study to establish fertility as a legitimate area for attachment studies by using AAI discourse analysis.

In this chapter, I propose an integrative framework for theorizing and empiricizing about talent management, based on the notion of “talent philosophies.” I believe that current debates about whether talent management should be inclusive or exclusive create the risk that our field will become fragmented, thereby undermining its social-scientific legitimacy. Nonetheless, this debate is absolutely correct in identifying the tensions between inclusive and exclusive approaches to talent management as a phenomenon. This, however, creates issues for talent management as a construct for scientific inquiry, as we need clear definitions and measures to create a cumulative body of research as a community. I propose that the solution lies in an expansion of our vocabulary as talent management researchers and identify four constructs that can help us structure and categorize our collective work: giftedness, talent, potential, and strength. Each of these constructs map logically onto different talent philosophies and talent management practices. In establishing “unity in diversity,” I believe talent management could finally make the transition into a more mature field of academic inquiry – although clearly phenomenon driven – characterized in equal parts by construct clarity, rigor, and relevance.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a recent experiment in research coproduction in an evaluation of service planning at a London Mental Health NHS Trust. The paper aims to consider whether members of the research team who have themselves been users of mental health services are able to contribute to the research process as “experts by experience”, or if their experiential knowledge is “colonized” within the academic research team.

A qualitative, comparative case study approach was adopted, using structured observations and semi‐structured interviews. Researchers' reflective accounts and a reflective focus group were employed to explore the process of coproduction.

The paper concludes that, far from “colonising” expertise by experience, the experiment builds local capacity in research coproduction and usefully informs a service planning process that reflects the priorities and concerns of a range of stakeholders.

The paper describes a small, local experiment in research coproduction and so findings are limited in their scope. However, the study demonstrates an effective methodological approach to evaluating, empirically, the impact of coproduction on the health services research (HSR) process.

The paper demonstrates the potential for repeated exercises in coproduction to build capacity in collaborative approaches to both HSR and service planning.

The involvement of experts by experience is increasingly a policy requirement in the domains of both health service planning and HSR in the UK. There are very few empirical studies that evaluate the impact of that coproduction.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the growth of the early ski market and the marketing strategies that the Union Pacific Railroad took in promoting Sun Valley ski resort, one of the most popular early destination ski resorts in the USA.

The paper uses primary and secondary source material, including ski periodicals, national magazines and the manuscript collection of W. Averell Harriman, the Chairman of the Union Pacific Railroad during the creation of Sun Valley.

This paper finds that Sun Valley pioneered the western ski vacation by conducting careful market research into not only the snow and weather conditions of western mountains, but also into the habits and economic potential of skiers and winter tourists.

Scholarly work on skiing has primarily looked at the sport from the social and cultural perspective of skiers. Work on entrepreneurial objectives of ski resort designers has largely focused on the period after the Second World War. This is among the first works to analyze entrepreneurial activities and marketing strategies in the ski industry before the Second World War. As a result, the paper challenges the idea that big business only began to shape the ski industry during the Cold War. Instead, this paper shows that large corporations like the Union Pacific Railroad were influential in growing the ski market by building resorts that illustrated the importance of market segmentation to the success of ski areas. In this way, the paper challenges the popular idea that Sun Valley was merely a media sensation and shows that it was a carefully designed business that exhibited a nuanced approach to changes in the ski market.