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The sheer volume of decisions taken within the public sector procurement process prevents perfect and complete information being obtained and applied to every best value tender analysis that is carried out. As such, uncertainty must be accepted as a feature of the best value decision‐making process. This paper reports research which is developing a methodology for utilising the uncertainty component in best value tender analysis in order to create a more transparent decision making process. The main output of the research is the production of a robust support tool which aids the multi objective decision making process within the public sector of the UK construction industry by provoking rational discussion with respect to; the industry’s key performance indicators (KPIs), the client’s attitude to risk and provides a transparent audit trail of the decisions taken. The underlying rationale for the support tool is based on a combination of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Multi‐Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) and Whole Life Costing (WLC). The paper demonstrates the practical utility of the methodology of the tool through a tender decision process.

A number of studies have highlighted the problems and challenges that have been encountered with the analysis of best value and partnering tenders carried out in the UK public sector. One of the principal issues is that client organisations and decision makers have to assess numerous diverse quality attributes as part of the contractor selection process. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of research, which aimed to identify the core factors, which could be used to differentiate bids in the context of social housing.

A questionnaire was sent to a cross‐section of stakeholders within the social housing sector asking the respondents to rank the importance of 35 attributes with respect to selecting a successful contractor. The responses were subjected to principal component analysis to detect a structure in the relationship between the attributes and classify the attributes into a set of factors.

The results indicate that the 35 attributes could be grouped together and reduced to ten core factors.

Application of the results could enable the stakeholders to streamline the tender analysis procedure allowing the high volume of tenders to be dealt with more effectively and efficiently.

It is not expected that client organisations would limit their tender analysis to the ten core factors only. They are not intended to be prescriptive and the paper only provides a starting point in using them in the choice of contractor selection quality attributes.

To assess patients' attitude towards information leaflets, their understanding of the given information, and the time factor involved in an out‐patient clinic set‐up.

A total of 50 patients who received depot preparation of Methyl Prednisolone as local injections in an out‐patient hand‐clinic were given 15 minutes to read the patient information leaflet and were simultaneously asked to answer a questionnaire.

Patients want to be informed and are willing to spend more time and effort on information leaflets. Their ability to grasp and retain the relevant information is highly variable. Excess of information, poor presentation/format, lack of time, irrelevant data are factors which seem to adversely affect the effectiveness of information leaflets.

This study gives recommendations to those providing patient care. Emphasises the need for a careful review of all written information with respect to patients' better understanding of the treatment they will receive for the condition being treated.

I examine patterns of making or deferring strategic repatriations that firms can use to either meet analysts' forecasts or defer to maintain future reported earnings flexibility. First, I examine the extent to which firms repatriate earnings from high foreign tax subsidiaries to decrease US tax expense, resulting in increased net income and lower cash taxes. Using federal tax return information, I find evidence that firms strategically repatriate these earnings to meet or beat current analysts' forecasts. Next, I find evidence that firms that are able to obtain current year tax reductions defer these repatriations in an attempt to build cookie-jar reserves. Lastly, I find that firms do not disclose high foreign tax repatriations (HTRs), even when required by SEC rules. This study contributes to the earnings management, tax avoidance, and disclosure literature by examining a discretionary tax planning strategy.

The goal of this study is to examine the association between managers' sexually-oriented behavior in publicly traded firms and subsequent stock market reactions. Both sexual harassment and nonharassing sexually-oriented behavior (i.e. workplace romance) are associated with negative shareholder reactions. The authors also examine factors that may alter the stock market reaction and those that may reduce the risk of lawsuit in sexual harassment cases.

Information about incidents of sexually-oriented behavior was collected from media reports and content coded. An event study with a stock market reaction was used to measure the impact of disclosed sexually-oriented behaviors. Logistic regression was used to assess the relationship between incident characteristics and sexual harassment lawsuits.

Disclosure of managers' sexually-oriented behavior is associated with a negative stock market reaction. Interestingly, the reaction was not more severe for sexual harassment disclosures compared to nonharassing behavior (i.e. workplace romance). Results also suggest that terminating a manager prior to disclosure of an event is negatively related to a harassment lawsuit.

The authors report this as the first study to focus on the stock market reaction of sexually-oriented harassing and nonharassing behavior of managers. This work complements research that documents the negative impact of sexual harassment on individuals by demonstrating these behaviors are associated with loss and risk at an organizational level.

Over the past few decades, mainstream and independent films have increasingly represented kinky sexual behaviors of their characters, in ways that are frequently inaccurate, inappropriately titillating, and intentionally extreme. This chapter examines the representation of kinky sex lives in two groundbreaking (although extremely violent) offerings of exploitation cinema: director William Friedkin's 1980 film, Cruising, one of the first feature-length Hollywood movies to portray the sex lives of gay men in New York City's leather bars and sex clubs; and director Brett Leonard's 2005 film, Feed, one of the first feature-length independent offerings to explicitly explore the phenomena of fat fetishism and feederism. Both works are noteworthy for openly depicting nonnormative sexual activities and ways of being targeted primarily to mainstream audiences, at historical moments when doing so was quite rare. At the same time, this analysis demonstrates how both films, because of their exploitative approaches to their subject matter, ultimately communicate that the individuals and sexual activities they represent are “deviant” ones that must be contained or even eradicated in a civilized society.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

Most years, several AIB members are elected as AIB Fellows on account of their excellent international business scholarship, and/or past service as AIB President or Executive Secretary. The Fellows are in charge of electing Eminent Scholars as well as the International Executive and International Educator (formerly, Dean) of the Year, who often provide the focus for Plenary Sessions at AIB Conferences. Their history since 1975 covers over half of the span of the AIB and reflects many issues that dominated that period in terms of research themes, progresses and problems, the internationalization of business education and the role of international business in society and around the globe. Like other organizations, the Fellows Group had their ups and downs, successes and failures – and some fun too!

“Praxis” is the stated goal of Radical Humanist scholarship. But, this has been a goal without realization, and without method. To our knowledge there is no record of the realization of this goal in a management context. This paper reports our effort to develop a method to achieve praxis – “dramatism” as suggested by the work of Kenneth Burke, our “field test” of dramatism in a business setting, and the extent of our “success.” Our partial success points to refinements in the method, as it applies to Critical Theory agenda. We conclude by re‐examining our understanding of praxis, questioning our purposes, and discussing the power of the method to affect the researchers.