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This exploratory research aims to identify the effect of perceived stress level and self-efficacy on management quality and what practices and theories need to be enhanced to improve management quality under volatility business environments.

The study surveyed 291 working women, using the Perceived Stress Scale and the General Self-Efficacy Scale. Latent class analysis (LCA) for classifications of respondents, using categorical observed variables and MANCOVA, are applied to determine the relationship between stress and self-efficacy on the assigned classes.

The study suggests that in a highly volatile business environment, where stress is high, affecting management quality, managers as individuals fall into one of four classes that describe their techniques of coping with the stress, namely Uncommitted Experimenters, Try Anything, Intrinsically Motivated and Externally Motivated. Techniques of stress management classification are significantly related to the combined perceived stress and self-efficacy measures, with Externally Motivated respondents as the classification with a significant mean difference.

The main limitation of the study at hand refers to the sample size versus the number of potential factors of stress. This limitation highlights the need for further data gathering and research in this area, as stress is a critical factor of performance and often ignored in traditional management theories. Another limitation of this study is the lack of in-depth analysis of the use of meditation; its benefits and how to best use this practice in traditional work settings.

The outcome of the study could have significant implications for quality of management in business, private and social sectors by providing meditation as a tool for employees and stakeholders to handle stress in conflict zones.

Using stress management techniques might prove to be a low-cost tool for better quality management of human assets.

The authors study focuses on women in volatile economic turmoil, natural devastations, conflict areas and politically insecure environments. This socioeconomic segment was rarely scrutinized despite its direct effect on a large number of economies hosting a sizeable portion of the world’s population. Interesting potential results highlight the relationship between the respondents in the Intrinsically Motivated class and stress reduction for the benefit of management quality.

In recent years, sustainability considerations in the real estate sector have moved from being a niche market phenomenon to a mainstream trend. The movement has been accompanied by a shift in the industry’s perception of sustainable buildings. Traditional cost-saving goals are now complemented by a growing interest in the potential for sustainable buildings to tackle broader economic and social sustainability challenges as well as issues related to health and well-being. The real estate industry is increasingly expected to adapt its strategies to incorporate new and more stringent environmental and urban development requirements, to cater to shifting demographics, and to utilize new advancements in construction processes and materials. This chapter explores recent research on sustainable real estate and highlights some of the newest trends in the market. The chapter then examines how policy and technological advancements can enable real estate developers to tackle environmental, social, and economic sustainability challenges. This will be exemplified through a focus on carbon taxation and timber construction. Based on these case studies, the chapter illustrates how today’s sustainable real estate sector – marked by its move beyond a focus on cost savings – requires for building practices to be strongly rooted in global, sustainable development policies.

BUSINESS leaders recur again and again in their public utterances to the difficulty of obtaining enough recruits of suitable calibre. What they have in mind, as Mr. David Barran, chairman of Shell Transport, implied recently, is university graduates. ‘What I am really pleading for,’ he said, ‘is a stronger bridge between education and industry, starting as far back as the sixth form and extending across the student years at university, helping the graduate to choose a career that will employ his potential to the best advantage.’

The duties of the Public Analyst necessarily bring him more or less into contact with the members of his local authority. His work, like that of the other chief officers, is dealt with by one or more Committees before the results as a whole are submitted to the Council. The actual part played by the Committee or Committees depends on the will of the Council, and is in no way laid down by law. One thing is quite clear, namely, that the jurisdiction of the Committee and of the Council only extends the proceedings prior, and subsequent to the analysis of the samples. The nature of the analyses, the scientific methods employed, and the opinions based on the analytical results are entirely in the hands of the Public Analyst himself. The authority may not agree with him, and may not follow his advice, but unless there is very strong reason for doubting his competence, it is their duty to avail themselves of his expert knowledge and experience, and he is obliged to place his services at their disposal in these directions however inadequately he may be paid.

During the past twenty‐five years the importance of chemistry as applied to the practical affairs of everyday life has increased. In every Secondary School of repute, chemistry now forms an important part of the teaching. A large number of Technical Schools have been founded and at least partly endowed or assisted out of the Public Funds. Numerous Societies have been formed with the object of furnishing means and opportunities for discussing chemistry in its relations to arts and manufactures. Such facts are, in themselves, sufficient proof of the economic value of the science. Inducements are held out to the student to avail himself of the means offered on every side to adopt applied chemistry as a calling. We find teachers of chemistry asserting the claims of chemistry as the one science on which modern industry depends for its development. There is no industry, from biscuit manufacture to sulphuric acid manufacture, that does not find its chances of success certainly increased by employing scientific chemists to control the details of manufacture and its ultimate failure assured by its declining to avail itself of the resources of chemistry.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the relative effects of participation in cooperative education (co-op) and engagement in reflection upon previous work experiences on undergraduate students’ vocational self-concept (VSC) at graduation.

A cross-sectional survey of graduating students (n=1,483) from a Canadian university was used. Regression models and a mediation analysis were used to test the influence of co-op on VSC through the mechanism of reflection.

Results suggest that both co-op and reflection on previous work experiences have direct effects on VSC, and that reflection partially mediates the relationship between degree type and VSC.

This supports the role of work-integrated learning and self-reflection as critical determinants of students’ work-related learning outcomes, and co-op as a potential container in which reflection may occur.

Students should be given opportunity to reflect on their work-related experiences in order to strengthen their VSC. Institutions may integrate practices related to reflection in order for their students to reap the benefits of deeper learning.

This study represents an inaugural view of the potential links between self-reflection and the development of students’ VSC across both co-op and non-co-op degree types.

This paper aims to explore the development of the accountability ideals and practices of Quaker industrialists during the period 1840–1914.

The research employs a case study approach and draws on the extensive archives of Quaker industrialists in the Richardson family networks, British Parliamentary Papers and the Religious Society of Friends together with relevant contemporary and current literature.

Friends shed their position as Enemies of the State and obtained status and accountabilities undifferentiated from those of non-Quakers. The reciprocal influences of an increasingly complex business environment and radical changes in religious beliefs and practices combined to shift accountabilities from the Quaker Meeting House to newly established legal accountability mechanisms. Static Quaker organisation structures and accountability processes were ineffective in a rapidly changing world. Decision-making was susceptible to the domination of the large Richardson family networks in the Newcastle Meeting House. This research found no evidence of Quaker corporate social accountability through action in the Richardson family networks and it questions the validity of this concept. The motivations underlying Quakers’ personal philanthropy and social activism were multiple and complex, extending far beyond accountabilities driven by religious belief.

This research has originality and value as a study of continuity and change in Quaker accountability regimes during a period that encompassed fundamental changes in Quakerism and its orthopraxy, and their business, social and political environments.