bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
From small acorns: Using a creative metaphor in postgraduate course design
Authors: Neal-Smith Jane , Page Nathan
Published: July 2024

The acceleration of online education especially during the COVID-19 pandemic has been well documented, and many educational institutions prepared online materials for their learners with great success. Existing fully online programmes, however, continued to operate and be developed as a matter of course. To expand the online Master’s portfolio at the University of York, a new Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme was proposed. The use of a visual metaphor in teaching is not uncommon; however, the metaphor of a tree allows a path to be traced from the roots/key themes to the fruit/key skills. The metaphor works as a template or map showing how programme learning outcomes are linked to module learning outcomes. The tree metaphor also has transferable applications such as embedding employability or decolonising the curriculum. Using the tree as a template enables future-proofing of the course’s integrity, because revisions can be embedded and linked at an ideas stage rather than in a more ad hoc manner. Examining the underpinning concepts which were derived from the University’s strategy, this paper explores the influences on the MBA’s programme design and how the inspiration and subsequent adoption of a metaphorical tree facilitated the construction of a relevant, creative and coherent programme.
More than a call centre: Creating a family-centric experience to increase access and revenue
Authors: Lee Connie , Lieberenz Scott , Mouton Brandon , Snell Christine
Published: July 2024

The journey towards centralising any business support function in any organisation is challenging and often marked by turf battles and the inclination to lean towards the status quo. For healthcare organisations, in particular, to move towards centralising any support function is to confront the complexities of a care delivery system. There is sensitivity with every part of the patient’s journey before the patient is seen at their appointment (with referral management, scheduling and financial clearance), to ensure that critical care needed is not delayed. Especially for organisations that have traditionally run a decentralised model with departments operating under their own rules, hearing the word ‘centralisation’ is often not well received and is met with resistance from faculty and staff. This paper provides an overview of one organisation’s journey towards building an efficient, centralised model, in a healthcare organisation managing complex subspecialities, and describes how the COVID-19 pandemic provided a platform to showcase the strength of centralisation, a transition into a remote work environment and a fast track for ambulatory operations to ‘buy-in’ to the centralised model. Although there is still a long road ahead to fully centralise services in the organisation, several successes and strategies (such as establishing dashboards, key performance indicators and a culture of performance accountability) will be shared to help lend ideas and insight to other organisations looking to move towards centralisation. Building a strong foundation that maximises efficiency while remaining resource neutral serves as a win for both the organisation and the patients and families served. Ultimately, the investments made to establish and optimise The Appointment Center at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has improved referral turnaround time, call abandonment rates, increased access, utilisation and revenue for the organisation.
Finding success promoting Berry College in a rapidly declining market: A longitudinal case study of a marketing campaign to reposition a college brand
Authors: Nazione Samantha , Clark Melissa , Rewis Nancy
Published: July 2024

Recent declines in college enrolment may cause colleges to revisit their marketing efforts. This paper details the process and evaluation of a marketing campaign grounded in the college's three value pillars (mentorship, student work, and preparing students for life after college) aimed at repositioning a college brand. The objectives of the marketing campaign focused on increasing student and parent awareness of the college, student diversity and quality student enrolment. The effect of COVID-19 on this campaign is also investigated through a survey with first-year students, asking them to identify top reasons for their enrolment at the college. Evaluation took place through enrolment and survey data. The results over a three-year period since the campaign launched show success in terms of increasing parent awareness, overall enrolment, students with high school GPAs of 3.6 or higher, and students of colour. Objectives regarding student awareness and increasing the number of male students have not been met to date. The survey conducted with first-years to help identify the possible effect of COVID-19 on the campaign did not find COVID-19 to be a leading cause of enrolment, as identified by students. Rather, two of the three value pillars of the college: student work, and preparing students for life after college, were identified as top reasons for enrolment. This research demonstrates the potential solid return on investment brand repositioning campaigns can yield. Future research is needed to understand causal relationships and rationales for males choosing not to attend college.
Innovation in retail payments: Challenges posed to regulators
Authors: Pimentel Rui
Published: July 2024

Retail payment systems have undergone significant changes in the last few years, taking into account several dimensions and perspectives. Innovative services have been continuously developed, shaping a range of new products offered by the market. The profile of the providers of these services has evolved, from an area of business traditionally confined to banks, to a landscape where new players, such as technology companies, have also started to operate.In this context, a new regulatory framework underpinning this new reality in the European landscape needs to be taken into account. In the European context, the creation and implementation of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA)1 is a clear example of the adoption of these changes, one of its goals being to open the market to new stakeholders, thus benefiting the consumer and increasing overall market competition. As a result, payment habits of end users have also been changing, with the younger generations likely to play a key role driving this process in the coming years. In parallel, regulators, most notably the European Commission (EC) and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB), have been paying increasingly more attention to these developments as a whole, of which issues related to the security of retail payments have also been gaining a prominent place in the agenda.
The EU’s new regulatory framework: The auditor’s perspective
Authors: Dennett Simon
Published: July 2024

The landscape of the European Union’s (EU) financial management has changed dramatically since the start of the financial crisis. Therefore, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) has had to adapt its approach and strategy to ensure that it could fully address the new European finance architecture in line with its mandate. This paper examines some of the most important changes implemented by the EU through the lens of the ECA’s special reports and finds that overall the European Commission has acted quickly in difficult circumstances, but the scale of the task means there is still much work to be done before this challenging episode can be consigned to history.
What progress is being made to accelerate interoperability and how can standards help increase transparency and reduce risk?
Authors: Mermigidis Irene
Published: July 2024

In the coming years the emphasis in our industry will continue to be on straight through processing and investment will continue to take place in the area of standardisation. This will be part of the reactions to the current economic conditions but also due to pressure from regulators that start to realise the role of standards in making business information accessible, transparent and comparable. There are already success stories on standards: Settlement and Reconciliation is one. However, in the area of corporate actions the challenge for the market players is considerable. This paper argues that the community has a weakness in the process and methodology of standards implementation since it seems to be unable to market the benefits in order to accelerate adoption of usage. Going forward, focus should shift in the concept of how ‘implementable’ a standard is. it is required, first, that the integrated standards and supporting development tools are in place to make the adoption smooth, and secondly the supporting tools are in place to make the decision-making process for institutions simple and self-evident. This would mean promoting the business justification and business case as a means of persuading senior management of their value.
Rebranding a corporate spin-off: Can a new brand name inherit global brand reputation?
Authors: Beise-Zee Rian , Wäfler Beat
Published: July 2024

Corporate brand name changes are often involuntary as a result of mergers, acquisitions and spin-offs. In these cases the rebranding campaign aims at transferring the substantial brand equity of its established brand name to a new brand name. On the basis of the case of the spin-off of Holcim’s subsidiary in Vietnam, this paper identifies the success factors of collateral rebranding. After the cement maker Holcim left the Vietnam market, it spun off its subsidiary, which needed to change its brand name. The ensuing rebranding campaign showed that a trusted global brand can be substituted with a new brand name without loss of brand premium. This paper identifies three key drivers of successful collateral rebranding of a global brand: a total focus on the message of consistency of the branded entity, a consistent tangible representation of the brand entity and a global positioning of the new brand. It proposes that perception of consistency of the brand entity can be communicated through the visual similarity of the old and new brands, the maintenance of distributors and facilities and the continuation of management and sales staff.
Creating meaningful customer experiences and campaigns in social media: Case study of O2 (Telefónica UK)
Authors: Lorenzon Kristian
Published: July 2024

This paper provides an overview of social media at O2, the commercial brand of Telefónica UK Limited and a leading communications company with over 23 million customers. It explains the approach adopted in management, governance and customer service. Four principles of behavioural economics are presented to inform how marketers can create meaningful social media experiences. The paper concludes with a case demonstrating how a social media campaign had a direct impact on sales of a new BlackBerry device at O2.
Preparing a Red Book valuation
Authors: Banfield Anthony
Published: July 2024

The ‘RICS Valuation – Global Standards, effective from 31st January 2020’, or ‘Red Book’ as it is colloquially known, sets out the procedures that must be followed by RICS registered valuers when carrying out valuations. Although there is no formal definition of a ‘Red Book valuation’, it is generally accepted to refer to a valuation in compliance with the current Red Book mandatory requirements. This paper sets out the basic requirements for producing a ‘Red Book valuation’. The reader should also refer to the Red Book, both global and national standards, for further details of requirements.
Payments innovation: A comparison of banks and non-banks and how they can learn from each other
Authors: Weichert Margaret M.
Published: July 2024

Payments innovation is a critical driver of economic development and is influenced by banks, non-banks and regulators. Different players have unique capabilities and strengths. This paper will explore how banks, non-banks and regulators can use these unique strengths to contribute to payments innovation. Non-banks play a key role in enhancing existing payment solutions and have a strong track record of identifying customer needs, embracing underserved populations and enhancing payments system efficiency. At the same time, banks also have a strong history of innovation that is sometimes overlooked. Banks control the core payments infrastructure, and bank-led innovation is required for changes to underlying payment systems. Regulators also have an important role to play in enabling payments system innovation without sacrificing safety and soundness. This is all the more important as, even as the pace of new technology evolution accelerates, most payments innovations will be based on a complex interplay between banks, non-banks and regulators. And, while different players may have unique roles to play, banks and non-banks can also learn from each other.
In praise of hybrids
Authors: Sharp Richard
Published: July 2024

In setting cost-based airport charges, there has been an extended debate on the relative merits of single till regulation (under which aeronautical charges are set to cover all costs less non-aeronautical income) and dual till regulation (under which aeronautical charges recover only aeronautical costs, with non-aeronautical income not taken into account). As non-aeronautical activities are often highly profitable, airlines typically strongly support single till approaches in order to benefit from these profits, while airports correspondingly typically support dual till. In this polarised arena, hybrid approaches tend to be portrayed by academics, airports and airlines as unsatisfactory second bests, lacking in rigour. In contrast, this paper explores the drawbacks in the extreme positions, and examines why hybrids may have significant practical advantages. In particular, a hybrid approach may reduce the setting difficulties and perverse incentives associated with single till, while offering the prospect of lower charges than dual till. The paper goes on to examine some of the practical implications of different approaches to deriving the commercial contribution and the benefits of hybrid approaches for transitional purposes. Overall, it concludes that hybrid approaches, despite their neglect, have major practical benefits and should form an important option in regulatory considerations.
The human factor in aviation security
Authors: Eldar Zamir
Published: July 2024

Terror organisations and terrorists have changed people's lifestyles and altered the priorities of societies. Considerable resources are necessarily invested in higher levels of security designed to deter attacks. These security efforts, which commence with intelligence activities, involve a range of strategies. Ultimately, they rely on the final line of defence at the airport and on the aircraft. In addition to the machines, which receive constant upgrading and are a continuing focus of public attention, more than 80,000 highly skilled, trained, reliable and motivated personnel are required in Europe to make judgments and intervene appropriately. Yet, throughout the aviation system, too often people ignore — at their peril — the basics of the human factor in providing effective aviation security. The security of the air transport system can only be as strong as its weakest link. This paper sets forth the steps needed to rearrange the priorities.
Airport accessibility for travellers with disabilities
Authors: Raman Supriya
Published: July 2024

Air travel has become an integral part of people's lives and everyone, including individuals with disabilities, should have an equal opportunity to participate in air travel. There are regulations that require airport operators to ensure that activities, programmes and services offered to the travelling public are accessible to people with disabilities. In addition to meeting regulatory requirements, the accessibility features incorporated at an airport serve also to improve the overall traveller experience at the airport. The Federal Aviation Administration ensures that airport operators are aware of their responsibilities under law and are meeting their obligations.
Strengthening brand positioning through price transparency in higher education
Authors: Duesterhaus Alan P.
Published: July 2024

Every organisation with a product or service is or should be concerned with its brand position. Within the higher education sector, virtually every college is faced with significant challenges with regard to its finances and enrolment. This case study provides the experience of Converse College in its decision to shift its brand position in the realm of price. Along with outcomes from implementing this shift in brand position, recommendations are provided. The case study provides practitioners with insights to adopt and pitfalls to avoid. For researchers there is an opportunity to look at how changes in brand position can affect customer perception of status good items.
From surviving to thriving: How to increase supply chain resiliency during tumultuous times
Authors: Porter Danaka
Published: July 2024

The past few years have highlighted that lean supply chains are both unreliable and lack resiliency; there is no longer any cushion or room for error, and they perform best with predictability. The increased instability caused by major global disruptive events has placed immense pressure on supply chains. Therefore, companies must adjust how their supply chains function. This paper seeks to answer the question: what can be done to increase supply chain resiliency and reliability?
Cyberattacks survival guide
Authors: Naveh Gadi
Published: July 2024

If your organisation experienced a cyberattack tomorrow, how would your defences cope? Would they keep your company‘s applications and data safe from harm, or would they fall victim to the attack? This paper highlights five of the most common threats that businesses experience, including polymorphic malware, man-in-the-middle attacks, cryptominers, DDoS bots and targeted intruders, and describes security techniques that can mitigate the impact of those threats. The paper goes on to describe five real cyberattacks that Check Point‘s Incident Response Team encountered on customers‘ networks and how each was remedied.
Industrial property disaggregations: Planning the new ownership regime
Authors: Hagy James
Published: July 2024

Companies may wish to sell one or more, but less than all, the lines of business being conducted at a significant industrial or manufacturing facility with a long operating history. The goal of creating separate ownership and operation for the two distinct operations in the future may be physically difficult or prohibitively expensive where the facility has been designed, constructed and maintained over many years as a single integrated whole. The lines of business may also rely upon one another for shared utilities, services, or even production resources where raw materials or processed components from one operation are necessary or cost-advantaged to the other. Executive management, corporate real estate executives, and outside lawyers and other professionals have much to consider in these scenarios, from the identification and assessment of the assets and operations to the menu of choices, including investment in physical separation, future shared or separate neighbouring ownership regimes, and a virtually endless set of variable terms for future rights and responsibilities, financial obligations, the allocation and management of risks, and the contemplation of eventual changes or even exits from the arrangement. This paper provides an overview of some of the starting points and considerations in embarking on such a project.
Re-envisioning public housing in Egypt using a social approach: The Case of Hurghada City
Authors: Diab Hatem , Aziz Noha Ahmed Abd El
Published: July 2024

This research paper tackles the relationship between public housing design and residents’ behaviours and needs. Two cases in Hurghada City, Egypt (El Shek Shahat and Abo Nawas) were analysed using various methods of observation; surveys, questionnaires, group discussions and behaviour maps. This study sought to investigate the reasons triggering high levels of deterioration and vandalism witnessed in those projects over the previous 10 years. The results point out defects in the land budget, service allocation and the unit area. Additionally, it was found that the residents’ needs and cultural backgrounds were not respected in the urban design, which provoked locals to illegally alter the environment, striving to fulfill their unsatisfied needs. Another factor affecting the rapid deterioration of housing was poor management and maintenance which escalated economic losses in these areas. This research presents a new perspective on designing and managing vital housing and ensuring a broad sector of the Egyptian community is considered in these projects to ensure the success of these projects and prevent vandalism and aggressive behaviours towards social housing.
Basel Committee’s fundamental review of the trading book: A commentary
Authors: Grody Allan D. , Fernandes Kiran J. , Hughes Peter J. , Steven Toms J.
Published: July 2024

In July 2009, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) issued revisions to the market risk framework. At the same time, the BCBS initiated a fundamental review of the trading book. The review’s intent was to evaluate comprehensively the overall design of the market risk amendment of 2004 and the update of 2009 including an assessment of the risk-quantification techniques adopted within Basel’s internal models-based and standardised approaches. The resulting document provides commentary on weaknesses identified in the prevailing Value-at-Risk (VaR) based capital adequacy regime, concluding that shortcomings resulted in materially undercapitalised trading book exposures prior to the crisis. As a consequence of the review, the BCBS is proposing that VaR be replaced by the Expected Shortfall methodology, thereby increasing the sensitivity of the risk regime to accommodate extreme events or ‘tail risk’. Given the nature and extent of the weaknesses reported in their paper, the wisdom of building on an evidently flawed regime in an incremental way is questionable. In this commentary on the BCBS’s proposals, the authors suggest that more fundamental revisions should be considered with a view to reinstating accounting in place of financial modelling, as the foundation on which capital adequacy should be determined and administered.
Where are the customers’ bots? The AI paradigm shift in retail banking
Authors: Birch David G.W. , Rutter Kirsty
Published: July 2024

Financial institutions are already using artificial intelligence (AI) to cut costs and deliver new services. Robo-advisers, chatbots and ‘copbots’ auto-detecting fraudulent transactions are increasingly common. These uses are undoubtedly valuable, but the business model is still the consumers being sold a financial product by a bank, whether by a call centre agent or a robot that impersonates a mortgage vendor. The big change in financial services will come when customers use AI to assess offers from financial institutions for themselves. They will have access to AI as powerful as the banks have, because Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon (and companies like them) will be giving it to them. And this will mean individuals will not be the customers: their bots will be. Since most retail financial services offer products that just service a need at a point in time (eg paying for parking) rather than create an extraordinary user experience or are too complicated for normal people to make informed decisions about (eg pensions), we might expect most consumers to abdicate in favour of intelligent agents operating under the new duty of care umbrella. This has been a subject of futurist speculation for some time, but the rapid growth of ChatGPT and its ilk means that banks now have an urgent need to develop strategies to take advantage of this significant change in the nature of the financial services in the mass market. This paper looks at the imminent confluence of open finance and AI to consider the consequences of giving bots access to consumers’ cash (through open banking, for example). This will mean a world of smart wallets, capable of making decisions on behalf of consumers. They will be capable of deciding what services to use, who to get them from and how to maximise their financial well-being, leaving their users to spend more time on human activities.
Get your diverse team to outperform: Navigating through affinity bias
Authors: Buzanowska Marzena , Rensel Mary
Published: July 2024

While gender and racial diversity of healthcare organisations has been increasing, and improvements in representation have been made, significant disparities still exist, especially with pipeline progression in organisational rank and leadership level. In addition, once under-represented minority individuals become a part of a team, obstacles continue to inhibit those individuals, in subtle ways, from being fully able to contribute to the teams. One such major unconscious process is affinity bias, which is our subconscious preference for people who resemble ourselves or belong to our social group, as well as distrust and negative attitudes towards those different from us or not part of our group. Subconscious heuristics drive our brain’s cognitive processes for efficiency with the goal of keeping us safe in an uncertain environment, and we need these heuristics in order to function. In highly advanced organisations, however, when relying on the strengths of diverse teams determines the organisation’s competitive edge and financial profitability, affinity bias can undermine the organisation’s performance, and it is crucial that leaders are skilled in navigating its pitfalls.
Urban rejuvenation through collective (en bloc) sales in Singapore: Property rights or property wrongs?
Authors: Christudason Alice
Published: July 2024

In land-scarce Singapore, which covers only 693 km2, the government is constantly grappling with the issue of judicious allocation of resources between competing uses. In order to generate more housing stock for an increasing population, which is expected to hit 6.5 million by 2027, the government actively promotes private-sector-led redevelopment and urban rejuvenation. One of the measures taken to facilitate such redevelopment involved the enactment of radical legislation concerning collective sales. In a collective sale, all owners of separate units within a development agree to sell their properties collectively and at the same time to a single buyer. Such a sale is feasible when the site has redevelopment potential. In the past, when a collective sale of a development was proposed in Singapore, there had to be unanimous consent among the property owners. Arising from legislative amendments in 1999, however, where just a majority of owners in a development agreed to sell their units, the unwilling minority would be required to sell theirs too. Not unexpectedly, this law was perceived as an abrogation of fundamental property rights in Singapore. It evoked much discontent, resulting in numerous cases being brought before the Strata Titles Board and courts. Myriad objections were raised by the minority, and several cases which came before the Strata Titles Board and the Singapore Courts are singled out in this paper for further discussion. They showcase the legal complexities that surround the central issue of how and to what extent the minority’s property rights can (or should) be safeguarded in the face of majority rule in collective sales. While the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario had already implemented 80 per cent majority rule for collective sales in 1969 and 1989, respectively, this paper provides an Asian perspective by focusing on the Singapore position and making reference to the position in Hong Kong, which not only faces similar land scarcity and urban renewal issues, but also has similar legislation. It cannot be gainsaid that one of the positive effects of the collective sale phenomenon in Singapore has been land maximisation and urban rejuvenation, but in the aftermath of this phenomenon, this paper posits that the sacrifice by the minority of their property rights has resulted in property wrongs.
Underdetermination and variability of the results in macro-to-micro stress tests: A machine learning approach
Authors: Denev Alexander , Angelini Orazio
Published: July 2024

We investigate the impact of the uncertainties surrounding the modelling process when conducting a stress test. These uncertainties are due to several choices left to the modeller with regards to, among others, the variables to select, the data samples used for the calibration of the different models and how these models are combined together. We run tests to quantify the impact of these sources of uncertainty by using as an example the Federal Reserve System’s Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (FED CCAR) 2016 scenario. We conclude that the impact could be non-negligible as it adds substantial variability to the final results. We employ Probabilistic Graphical Models — a machine learning technique — to corroborate our findings.
Adapting preparedness outreach to a virtual world
Authors: Plumer Ilyssa , Robinson Samantha , Toribio Tanya
Published: July 2024

Over the last two years, agencies have experimented with new systems and tactics to reach as many people as possible with critical preparedness information. This paper describes how COVID-19 forced FEMA Region 10 to adapt its public education and outreach strategy to a fully online space in order to keep the public informed about potential disasters. The paper discusses how the Individual and Community Preparedness team at FEMA Region 10 reaches thousands of people around the world by hosting regular webinars, live events, workshops and training sessions, and publishing a monthly newsletter. The paper also argues that if preparedness and response organisations are to evolve their outreach strategies and messaging plans and extend the reach of their messages, they must continue to adapt and to meet their target audience where they are.
A framework for successfully navigating a series of unfortunate events
Authors: Norton Myra W. , Robertson William G. ‘Bill’
Published: July 2024

The effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with a staffing crisis and looming macroeconomic shifts, have created a climate of fear, uncertainty and doubt among healthcare professionals, the likes of which we have not seen in generations. In order to navigate these troubled waters while still providing the highest levels of patient care, healthcare organisations must take a diligent, thoughtful and multifaceted approach that balances short-term needs with long-term strategic goals. The strategic steps taken by MultiCare Health System and Arena Analytics amid the COVID strain and labour shortages provide an instructive example of how companies can respond proactively to economic uncertainty by affirming their core mission, vision and values, focusing relentlessly on win–win outcomes and exercising a ‘now, near and far thinking’ approach.
Density and value: How much development can a regeneration project support and still make good places? Answer: It all depends on the local context
Authors: Alexander Anthony , Morton Andrew
Published: July 2024

The need to create sustainable communities requires an understanding of the conditions that affect their economic viability, particularly those of local services. Policy measures relating to housing density relate to this viability, but the creation of quality places means complementing this with an understanding of local context. Adapting density targets to local character is qualified in the UK Government's new, spatial planning oriented 'Planning policy statement on housing' (PPS3). Failing to respect local character in the modern era has led to insertions that have become dysfunctional over time. Additional considerations of spatial context that relate to economic viability include movement patterns. Flexibility of the urban form to unanticipated uses is another. All these interrelated factors are important considerations for sustainable communities and are discussed in the context of recent regeneration projects in the UK.
Establishing competency in sustainable procurement in the age of ESG reporting
Authors: Sheehy Catherine , Jacobs Josh
Published: July 2024

With the rise of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting and a growing number of activist investors demanding greater visibility into organisations’ true impacts beyond financial performance, sustainable procurement is increasingly essential. With an already daunting list of product and service criteria and considerations, however, many procurement teams are unsure how to effectively incorporate sustainability requirements into their existing procurement programmes. This paper explores the surge in sustainable procurement, outlines the critical factors for successful implementation and presents tools and resources instrumental for developing guidelines. This information gives procurement professionals a starting point to successfully establish sustainable procurement in their own organisations.
Detroit: Part 2 — The grandest bargain
Authors: Leary Margaret A. , Jackson Betsy
Published: July 2024

Founded in 1701 as a French fur-trading post, Detroit, Michigan, evolved from a port in the 18th century to a major manufacturing centre at the end of the 19th century. At the dawn of the 20th century, the city turned from making wagons and train cars to churning out automobiles and perfecting assembly line production. Detroit became the ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ during World War II and reinvented itself as Motown after the war. But starting in the mid-1950s, after two and a half centuries of continuous expansion, Detroit’s economy was decimated in a mere 65 years by racial tensions and ‘white flight’; loss of jobs, population, tax base and reputation; and municipal leadership unable to recognise and manage a tsunami of debt. And while the private sector began reinvesting in downtown in the late 1990s, the absence of competent public-sector leadership allowed the debt to bloom into insolvency. US law — unlike that of other industrialised nations — allows municipalities to declare bankruptcy to wipe out most debt. Although there are many financially distressed American cities, few have declared bankruptcy. Detroit’s is the largest to date and was made more complicated by the involvement of an ‘emergency manager’ — an intervener appointed by the Governor of Michigan and granted extra-governmental powers. The first article provided historical background, described public-sector bankruptcy, and introduced the most important players in the bankruptcy drama. This second part outlines the legal process of municipal bankruptcy; introduces the creditors who fought to preserve their financial position; discusses the threat to the Detroit Institute of Art’s collection; and describes the ‘Grand Bargain’ without which the bankruptcy would have descended into the mire of endless lawsuits. The final article will lay out the aftermath of this titanic drama — the effect on reinvestment, and the ‘lessons learned’ by the cast of players and the community as a whole — and describe the substantial obstacles that remain to creating a robust and sustainable future for Detroit in the 21st century and beyond.
Factors that affect mass fatality management and crisis standards of care: Lessons from the El Paso COVID-19 surge
Authors: Grimm Dee
Published: July 2024

This paper examines the substantial spike in fatalities that occurred in El Paso, Texas in late 2020 due to an unprecedented surge in COVID-19 infection. It also considers various explanations for the fatality surge, and the fatality management issues observed during the event. The paper suggests what lessons can be learned from this event, in particular those preventable causes that could be avoided in a future outbreak. The paper also examines the gaps in existing mass fatality management processes as they apply to planning for pandemics and mass fatality crisis standards of care.
Banking regulation, behavioural finance and the financial crisis in Europe: Looking to the Kindleberger-Minsky paradigm
Authors: Rannou Yves
Published: July 2024

Post-Keynesian analysis, such as that of Charles Kindleberger and Hyman P. Minsky, describes the kind of decision making that affects the state of the macroeconomy and examines the financial innovations that facilitated the recent real-estate boom and bust. According to a Minsky process of sustained increasing financial fragility, the subprime crisis is responsible for a full-scale bout of systemic instability and debt deflation. The present paper builds on the Kindleberger-Minsky paradigm by showing how the present period of financial distress in Europe is due to stochastic asset price dynamics with herding and financial constraints in the decisions of heterogeneous agents. Using simulations, the paper shows that the crisis is due to agents' wealth distribution dynamics, selling because of financial constraints after the bubble has peaked due to the switching behaviour of agents. It suggests that central banks, notably the European Central Bank, could act in response to asset price movements only in the presence of sharp financial market corrections. The paper concludes by suggesting short-term solutions to the current crisis, as well as longer-term policy to prevent a recurrence of its destabilising effects.
Social media advocacy framework in action: Focusing on the student journey to inspire real world engagement at Quincy College
Authors: Huynh Daniela , Johnson Katy Spencer
Published: July 2024

Quincy College embraced a simple missive and mission in 2017: engage more, delight more and build a network of advocacy across students, staff and faculty. What did this mean for the marketing and communications team at Quincy College? Creating social media campaigns, amplifying community resources, highlighting the student journey beyond classroom and orchestrating delightful experiences that add value both online and in-person. Therefore, in effect, creating a community that is omnipresent, blending the digital space of social media and the real-world campus experience. At every step, Quincy College sought to inspire in-person interactions and build a network of advocates across students, staff and faculty. As a two-year commuter college, Quincy College sought to analyse the typical ‘day in the life’ of a student. Identifying the specific milestones in the student journey helped inform the Quincy College social media strategy. Defining these commonalities provides a point of intersection for students at Quincy College across a diverse population. This paper discusses how to build strategies and campaigns utilising a social media advocacy framework, create social media content within the context of the student journey, utilise community collaboration and enable the greater higher education community to be a voice of advocacy.
Client reporting: Responding to the key drivers of automation, customisation and globalisation
Authors: Ellis Peter
Published: July 2024

Investment management is becoming a more global business. New markets for investment management services are emerging that, in time, could become more important than the established ones. These new markets offer significant potential for investment managers but to realise this potential, investment managers will need to develop more globally integrated operating models. Product manufactured in one part of the world will need to be delivered effectively and efficiently to clients on the other side of the world. Distribution channels, client servicing models, and operational processes will all become more complex. In general, complexity and efficiency do not sit well together. Therefore, it is not clear whether the processes and systems typically found within investment management firms will be able to scale up to meet the demands of globalisation. This paper looks at some of the challenges that client reporting functions will face trying to deliver customised client reports, efficiently, to a global client base, and at the role that outsourcing and off-shoring could play.
From Silicon Valley to Vesuvius Valley: Dismantled industrial farms to a knowledge-and-creativity hub in Naples, Italy
Authors: De Falco Stefano
Published: July 2024

San Giovanni a Teduccio, a downtrodden suburb of Naples, Italy, is a far cry from Silicon Valley, USA. The crumbling apartment buildings, the walls covered in both graffiti and death notices and the ubiquitous clothes lines hung outside people’s windows do not leave the impression that this neighbourhood is a centre for high technology. And yet it is this spot — a corner of the sprawling city that never quite recovered after a major food-packing factory shut its doors in the 1980s — where the Apple chief executive, Tim Cook, hoped the best and brightest young minds in the world would come to train to be leaders in the new app economy. This hope has been met; in fact, the iOS academy is now in its second year and over 50 per cent of its students are foreign. This paper analyses the new creative climate in Naples, from the city’s recent Fordist past to the present day. Specifically, the analysis will support the theme of creativity, which is nowadays recognised as a fundamental factor for innovative cities, and this theme’s relationship with the concept of resilience in an urban context. This study includes survey-based research from the eastern part of Naples to support the arguments in this article.
Teachers’ digital competences as a key factor for the digital transformation of education
Authors: Softić Sandra Kučina
Published: July 2024

Many factors influence teachers’ attitude toward using information and communications technology (ICT) and e-learning and their implantation in the educational process. Teachers are reluctant to embrace new things if they are not acquainted with them or do not have complete information. Those who have some knowledge and experience in the application of ICT and e-learning are more open to their integration. The COVID-19 pandemic was unexpected, and no one was prepared for it, especially those teachers who did not use ICT and e-learning. In a short period of time teachers had to embrace digital technologies in order to ensure continuation of educational processes. In surveys carried out during the pandemic, teachers find that their digital competences have increased based largely on the use of ICT and e-learning technologies. Two years after the start of the pandemic, surveys are showing that teachers have good knowledge of e-learning applications in the educational process, but they need professional development in the use of ICT and e-learning more than in digital pedagogies. Yet, their use of ICT and e-learning technologies during the pandemic is predominantly in videoconferencing tools to ensure the continuation of live lectures, and in the use of learning management systems (LMS) for dissemination of information about the course, learning materials and communication. Research results indicate that there are no significant changes in the use of LMS since before the pandemic. Experience gained during the pandemic is not in online education, but mostly in emergency remote teaching whereby teachers used basic technologies in order to ensure the continuation of educational processes. It can be concluded that lack of digital competence influences teachers’ readiness for use of digital technologies and their perception of the possibilities and benefits digital technologies can bring to education. It can also explain why teachers are going back to classroom teaching or an online/classroom hybrid as an addition to teaching and learning. Teachers’ digital confluence can significantly influence the process of digital transformation of education, as competent teachers will be able to provide high-quality education. It has become evident that digital technologies are unavoidable in the educational process and their implementation is important for enhancing its quality. Accordingly, teachers’ continuing professional development must become an integral part of their career, not just an opportunity for those who are interested.
Connecting Senior Managers and Certification Regime requirements with operational risk
Authors: De Villiers Getz Liezl
Published: July 2024

The asset management industry often faces an interesting question: How can firms demonstrate good risk culture? While a concentrated focus has revolved around establishing and building robust risk management models, firms are now evolving into the next level of demonstrating how risk culture revolves around the models developed. Senior Management and Certification Regime (SMCR) is intended to play a pivotal role in evidencing good risk culture at firms if appropriately integrated with risk management. As the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) states, the SMCR aims to:
• ‘encourage a culture of staff at all levels taking personal responsibility for their actions; and
• Make sure firms and staff clearly understand and can demonstrate where responsibility lies’.
If SMCR, governance and risk management are not integrated, it can result in wasting resources and time that could otherwise have been spent to grow the firm. This paper provides a solution in achieving such an integrated model. Please note this paper does not detail the regulatory steps (eg application forms, regulatory approvals or statements of responsibilities documented in role profiles) to be completed by firms. It rather discusses how SMCR can be integrated in practice into risk management.
Understanding and managing future risk: Case study on managing supply chain data
Authors: Hoeksema Michael
Published: July 2024

Data management is essential to ensure any company’s supply chain is avoiding unnecessary risk and delivering the lowest possible cost. Small to mid-size companies may not have the resources to operate available software tools; however, this analysis remains critical to their success. This paper discusses Knape & Vogt Manufacturing’s solution to managing its supply chain data. The solution was the creation of a commodity matrix that allows for data from multiple sources to be combined for analysis in key areas. By evaluating the supply base, the company is able to better understand the division of spend within a commodity and begin work to mitigate risk within a commodity supply base. Evaluating suppliers on a macro level provided the ability to make more informed sourcing decisions and identify opportunities for supplier improvement. Furthermore, it provided the ability to review the supply chain at a part level to work to resolve identified issues and develop cost savings opportunities. This micro level of evaluation included analysis of lead time, minimum order quantities (MOQ), economic order quantities (EOQ), safety stock, price breaks and total cost of ownership (TCO) calculations. As a final component to the commodity matrix, a quote evaluation tool was created to bring consistency in how suppliers are being evaluated through the organisation. The commodity matrix resulted in the ability to easily apply the fundamental principles of supply chain management.