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The purpose of this study is to evaluate the vulnerability of the important rangeland shrub, Atriplex leucoclada (Boiss) to both climate change and livestock grazing, within the Syrian rangelands as a representative landscape type of West Asia.

Ecologically based quantitative niche models were developed for both shrub species using maximum entropy and 13 spatially explicit GIS-based layers to predict current and future species distribution scenarios. Climatic variables varied over time in line with the predictions created from the HADCM3 global circulation model.

Results indicate that with grazing and climate change, the distribution of A. leucoclada will be reduced by 54 per cent in 2050, with the mean annual and minimum temperatures of the coldest month having the highest contribution in the model (28.7 and 21.2 per cent, respectively). The contribution of the grazing pressure, expressed by the overgrazing index, was estimated at 8.2 per cent.

These results suggest that the interaction of climate and increased grazing has the potential to favor the establishment of unpalatable species, while reducing the distribution of preferred plant species on western Asia rangelands.

Explores the question: “How am I, as a baby‐boomer collection development specialist, to prepare myself to collect the library resources over the next few decades?” This question was posed partially because the author is one of those “aging” librarians one reads about in the literature.

A collection manager explores resource formats that may be in demand to meet changing user expectations.

Many of these expectations are driven by technology and the advent and popularity of computer games. Librarians will need to look first at the functions users seek and then help them to match the format(s) that best meet these needs. Collection managers will have to identify a variety of resources, offer access across disciplinary lines and provide access, as much as possible, on a 24/7 basis.

All of the formats discussed, and more, will be part of future libraries’ collections. Not all formats or functions will be required by all of our users. However, there cannot be any doubt that function, rather than format, will dictate the look and feel of future library collections.

This paper aims to examine the customer-based and supplier-based trade credit gaps for USA firms from 1970 to 2020.

The authors' study examines USA companies from 1970 to 2020. The authors begin with an analysis of the trends in aggregate working capital, the capital's components and the trade credit gaps. Various regression models are used to estimate the impacts of identified firm characteristics and unidentified sources on customer-based and supplier-based trade credit gaps over time. The authors then decompose the impacts of firm characteristics to further understand whether changing firm characteristics and/or changing sensitivity to firm characteristics drive the variation in trade credit gaps.

There is a gradual reduction in the customer-based trade credit gap and a substantial expansion in the supplier-based trade credit gap. Though identified firm characteristics have dominant impacts on observed trade credit gaps, there is evidence of the effects of time and unobservable factors. The main source of changes in customer-based and supplier-based trade credit gaps lies in changes in sensitivity to firm characteristics. In addition, the authors find that firm age is the factor with the largest average effect on both trade credit gaps when examining the full sample period. However, different firm characteristics appear to be the key driver of variations in trade credit gaps over time and across the two types of trade credit gaps. The authors also find that financial distress has the least impact on both customer-based and supplier-based trade gaps. There are variations in the firm characteristics with the largest impacts when evaluating decade-long evaluation periods.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the customer-based and supplier-based trade credit gaps. The connection between trade credit and the trade credit's corresponding inventory (INV) component extends prior literature on the joint management of trade credit and INV. The authors analyze both identified firm characteristics and unidentified sources in the search for explanations of the trade credit gaps. Furthermore, the authors' study explores the channels through which firm characteristics affect different types of trade credit gaps. The authors' findings help identify relevant and irrelevant risk factors of corporate working capital policy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of role stressors (role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload) on change readiness and in turn their effects on the withdrawal process. In addition, it explores the moderating role of colleague support in the relationship between role stressors and change readiness.

Data were collected from health care workers (n=457) in a large Canadian hospital undergoing large scale change.

The results revealed that role ambiguity and role conflict had a significant negative association with change readiness. Change readiness was related to turnover intentions which was related to higher levels of absenteeism and actual turnover. Change readiness partially mediated the relationship between role ambiguity and turnover intentions but not for role conflict and role overload. Turnover intentions partially mediated the relationship between change readiness and actual turnover but not for absenteeism. Role conflict had a direct rather than an indirect effect via change readiness on turnover intentions. Finally, colleague support moderated the relationship between all three role stressors and change readiness.

Little is known about the limiting factors of change as well as the factors that protect against them. The authors identify role stressors as a limiting factor for change and highlight their impact on change readiness and the overall withdrawal process. The results, however, also show that some demands are more commonly experienced by health care workers thereby not posing a threat to their change readiness. Colleague support is identified as a coping mechanism for mitigating against the detrimental effects of role stressors.

This paper examines the evolution of the core academic leader development course at the United States Air Force Academy. The course serves as a key part of student leadership development integrated into all four years of a student’s education and their roles within the organization. The curriculum focuses on skills, character, and critical thinking in leadership contexts. The desired effect is to engage students where they are in their development and to train them in the practice of effective, professional team leadership within their teams and the larger organization. Assessment strategies such as reflection, journaling, self-assessment, and practiced application of course material are designed to fit into students’ leadership experiences so students apply what they learn in an immediate, relevant context.

A discipline is bound by some combination of a shared subject matter, shared theory, and shared technique. Yet modern economics is seemingly without limit to its domain. As a discipline without a shared subject matter, what is the binding force of economics today? The authors combine topic modeling and text analysis to analyze different approaches to inquiry within the discipline of economics. The authors find that the importance of theory has declined as economics has increasingly become defined by its empirical techniques. The authors question whether this trajectory is stable in the long run as the binding force of the discipline.

Are White and Asian job applicants advantaged in access to professional jobs relative to Black and Latinx job applicants at the initial screening stage of the hiring process? And, are the mechanisms of advantage for White applicants different than the mechanisms for Asian applicants? In this chapter, the author proposes a theoretical framework of “parallel mechanisms” of White and Asian advantage during hiring screening – that White and Asian applicants are advantaged compared to Black and Latinx applicants, but that the mechanisms of advantage subtly differ. The author focuses specifically on mechanisms related to two important factors at the hiring interface: referrals and educational attainment. The author applies the concept of parallel mechanisms to a case study of software engineering hiring at a midsized high technology firm in Silicon Valley. The author finds that at this firm, White applicants are advantaged at initial screening relative to Black and Latinx applicants due to average racial differences in applicant characteristics – namely having a referral – as well as differences in treatment by recruiters. For Asian applicants, average racial differences in possession of elite educational credentials, as well as racial differences in recruiter treatment, explain the racial disparity in callbacks. The author discusses the implications of parallel mechanisms of advantage for racial inequality in a multiracial context, and for organizational policy meant to address racial disparities during organizational hiring processes.

Healthcare innovations for bottom-of-pyramid populations face considerable risks and few economic incentives. Can entrepreneurial innovators provide new solutions for global health? This chapter examines how a technology enterprise built a collaborative network and supportive ecosystem making it possible to steer an innovation for TB patients through discovery, development, and delivery. Ecosystem resources were mobilized and upstream and downstream co-innovation risks were mitigated to commercialize a new diagnostic test. Detailed evidence on this innovation for TB care uses ecosystem analysis to clarify core issues in the context of joint value creation. The case study shows how resources from private and public partners can be leveraged and combined by the focal firm to build joint value and to lower execution, co-innovation, and adoption risks in healthcare ecosystems combating diseases of poverty.

Purpose – The chapter provides background for the reader, lending context to the aims of this book.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter begins by placing the study of biology and politics in a larger framework. It also compares and contrasts the biological perspective of politics with the mainstream view. Finally, the chapter orients the reader by providing a brief summary of the volume’s contents.

Findings – An introductory chapter would seldom provide findings. However, its goal is to provide the reader with context.