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To explain a No-Action letter recently issued by the USA Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) permitting persons who qualify as “M&A Brokers” to facilitate the sale of private companies without registering with the SEC as broker-dealers, subject to a number of restrictions.

Explains how persons engaged in merger and acquisition activity have historically been required to register with the SEC, summarizes the conditions to the relief for the newly defined M&A Broker, explains what an M&A Broker can and cannot do, lists 10 criteria an M&A Broker must meet to obtain relief from registration, recommends policies and procedures for companies planning on taking advantage of the exemption from registration, and explains comparable UK legislation that applies to financial advisers advising on investments or arranging deals for M&A transactions.

While many questions and considerations remain, including how this guidance will play out in respect of various state law regimes, the M&A Broker designation has the potential to relieve some of the burdens of registration for advisors specializing in private business combinations.

Practical guidance from experienced securities and financial services lawyers.

It is a feature of suburbanised towns and villages in the proximity of larger towns or cities, that the former patterns of rural travel behaviour change significantly. The nature of travel behaviour is mutable as a consequence of rural planning policy where small towns and villages are influenced by government area plans. Northern Ireland offers numerous examples of this phenomenon; and, as part of a wider investigation on sustainable development, this paper reports on a prototype study that assesses the pertinent views of residents within one suburbanised village under the remit of a defined area plan. Primarily, it describes the overall modelling strategy with an emphasis on:

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  differences, in respect of travel behaviour, between newcomers and established residents, and

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  pull factor weightings that illustrate why a suburbanised village is chosen by its residents.

differences, in respect of travel behaviour, between newcomers and established residents, and

pull factor weightings that illustrate why a suburbanised village is chosen by its residents.

More particularly, the paper discusses the merits and demerits of using a simplified hierarchical cross impact technique in modelling the perception of residents in their choice of dormitory settlement. In supporting this technique, the application of the Gaussian neighbourhood consensus function (Dodd, 1993) is introduced as an opinion profiling device.

The purpose of this paper is to understand why structures of learning underpin the creation of competencies that allow firms to compete more successfully in dynamic markets. The paper seeks to challenge the idea that, in the absence of learning, capabilities are the main source of competitive advantage.

First, the paper discusses the relationships between competencies, learning, and dynamic markets. Second, a preliminary analysis is conducted of the learning routines of 118 top sales managers. The results are compared with three different structures of learning, allowing conclusions to be drawn about learning in dynamic markets.

The study illustrates that a number of dynamic learning routines are not evident in the sales environments of dynamic markets. The findings suggest that firms are not well placed to renew routines from inside‐out and to respond to market dynamics. The patterns of integration among individuals and groups, however, seem to be well represented, reflecting higher‐level learning routines.

The empirical findings offered here are of a preliminary nature. Future researchers might usefully apply the typology of learning structures to examine in more detail the empirical links established. Studies might also examine organisational learning in a variety of industrial and consumer‐based contexts.

The idea that learning structures (rather than capabilities themselves) are the basis of competencies that enable a firm to better respond to dynamic markets is a useful and novel approach.

The purpose of this paper is to segment primary male grocery shoppers based on store and product attribute evaluations. A rich profile for each segment is developed. These developed contemporary shopper typologies are contrasted against earlier works.

Data of 280 male grocery shoppers was attained by a survey questionnaire. Factor analysis, cluster analysis and ANOVA were employed to develop specific segments of male shoppers.

Four distinct cohorts of male shoppers emerge from the data of eight constructs, measured by 46 items. One new shopper type, not found in earlier typology literature, emerged from this research. This shopper presented as young, well educated, at the commencement of their career and family lifecycle, attracted by a strong value offer and willingness to share the family food shopping responsibilities.

Research outcomes encourage supermarket retailers to implement targeted marketing and rationalized operational strategies that deliver on attributes of importance.

This research makes a contribution to segmentation literature and grocery retail practice in several ways. It presents the first retail typology of male supermarket shoppers, employing a cluster analysis technique. The research provides insights into the modern family food shopping behaviour of men, a channel in which men are now recognised as equal contributors. The research provides the basis for further gender comparative and cross‐contextual studies.

The following report was brought up by Dr. P. Brouardel, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, President of the Commission, and was submitted for the approval of the Congress:

Concern about the use of zero-tolerance policies for discipline has led to a search for alternatives such as training in early-warning signs of aggressive behavior and strategies for effective classroom management in schools. This chapter examines the effectiveness of the provision of alternatives to out-of-school suspensions (OSS) in reducing the use of exclusionary discipline for minor misbehavior and the school characteristics associated with these provisions.

This analysis uses the 2008 panel from the National School Survey on Crime and Safety to explore this question for approximately 1,000 high schools. The analysis is a probit regression analysis to examine the association between the provision of alternatives to OSS, school characteristics, and the use of OSS for low-level suspensions. This analytic approach provides wide generalizability for the findings, though it does also limit an ability to identify individual school- or student-level effects.

Findings based on probit regression analysis suggest that structural characteristics of schools – beyond student characteristics – are only somewhat related to variation in the use of OSS for low-level infractions and, on average, the availability of alternatives to OSS do not strongly decrease the frequency of OSS for lower-level infractions. These findings are important in the current era of discipline policy scrutiny where schools and policy-makers are searching for alternatives to traditional suspension practices in a limited empirical evidence base.

While these alternatives hold great promise, little is known about their effectiveness in addressing behavior problems and/or reducing OSS. More importantly, even less is known about the characteristics of schools likely to enact alternatives.

This paper will be focused in one of the stages included in a reference framework proposed for the improvement of the warranty management. Particularly, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a multi‐criteria decision‐making method that will be depicted throughout this document and applied to a particular case study.

Once the warranty program objectives and strategy are defined, the referred stage here considered will be the Criticality Analysis. Those decisions and actions taken from the warranty program will involve the possibility of a certain deviation from business objectives in terms of profit losses, redirection of resources, possible delays etc., or the use of assembly pieces as spares, among others.

The application is required of a technique which helps systematically to decide which assets should have priority related to the management of the warranty program, in accordance of course with the existing program strategy.

The paper will show how this method can help and improve the decision‐making related to some aspect of the warranty management, obtaining as a result a criticality matrix, which offers a prioritized view of warranty issues, which allow us to align after sales actions with the business targets.

This paper aims to explore different aspects related to the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which can influence in the management of warranty assistances. In the process of warranty management for a specific product, many decisions and actions appear presenting a great impact on the total cost of the product warranty service. The paper contains an example study where AHP concepts are applied in a simple way in order to provide a practical application view of the theoretical development, useful to after sales managers as a decision‐making tool.

Actual situations evidence how adopted decisions can change the decision constraints of the system where the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is being applied. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide a dynamic view of the AHP method, considering the criteria and alternatives as temporary variables and finally obtaining not only one good choice for a specific moment but a more comprehensive picture of those alternatives resulting more important for the business, according to strategy and over time.

With this purpose this paper starts with a short literature review and the general characteristics of the AHP method. Afterwards, the paper presents the problem that appears frequently in actual situations which justify the development of this research. Once described, the uncertainty appeared after the AHP implementation, the proposed methodology called dynamic analytic hierarchy process (DAHP) is presented.

Finally, this paper shows a case study and concludes with the main points of the research suggesting applications and further extensions.

The value of this paper is the description of a DAHP as a tool that can facilitate decision making related to some of the critical aspects in maintenance or post-sales area, permitting the alignment of actions with the business’ objectives.