Many people are curious about what goes on behind the scenes at a funeral home. Add a live-in family to this scenario, and you'll Step Into Our Lives at the Funeral Home. Shh! Be quiet! There's someone at the door! Don't ever talk about anything you have seen or heard concerning someone's death outside the walls of our home. Mourning families need to know they can trust our integrity and our ability to keep confidentiality. For the author's family, these admonitions were ingrained in the children's minds at an early age. This book gives an insightful view of every facet of the funeral, from the time a death call is received until the funeral is completed. Stories of days in the ambulance business in conjunction with the funeral home are also related. The funeral director's role, the spouse's role, the children's role, and how the children thrived in an atmosphere of death are shared with the reader. How funeral directors cope with stress and how wives cope with their husbands during these times are revealed. Years later, following a tragic death, three people look back and share their stories of moving from despair to recovery. Interspersed through every chapter are stories and vignettes shared by many funeral directors throughout the Midwest, concerning the lifestyle for the family living in the funeral home and true incidents of specific funerals. Some stories are sad. Others are tragic. A few are humorous. Embracing faith, hope, and love is a primary requisite for healing. Intended audience: General readers of all ages, funeral home directors, hospice patients, mortuary students, and people who have had a loved one die by natural means or tragedy.

Improving Healthcare: A Dose of Competition systematically examines the American health care system from a competition-oriented perspective. The volume surveys the performance of each major sector of the health care system, and identifies impediments to more effective competition. Improving Healthcare examines such issues as competition v. regulation, public and private sector approaches to health care financing, cross-subsidies, licensure, provider market concentration, financial and clinical integration, payment for performance, quality, pharmacy benefit managers, direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals, certificates of need, mandates, unionization, the significance of organizational status (nonprofit v. for-profit), and the role of antitrust and consumer protection in health care. It offers concrete recommendations to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of the American health care marketplace.

This book brings together research on cooperative management from the agriculture and food sector. By examining issues from food-policy, trade and environmental perspectives and presenting both methodological and empirical work, it allows readers to develop a deeper understanding of collective management processes and cooperative initiatives, and provides a theoretical background for promoting research in the various sectors in which market communities operate. On a more global level the offers insights into how to building powerful tools for decision making, particularly at a time when agriculture and the economy alike are affected by a volatile political, social and economical environment and are forced to undergo major structural changes.

First Published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Within events management, events are commonly categorised within two axes, size and content. Along the size axis events range between the small scale and local, through major events, which garner greater media interest, to internationally significant hallmark and mega events such as the Edinburgh Festival and the Tour de France. Content is frequently divided into three forms - culture, sport or business. However, such frameworks overlook and depoliticise a significant variety of events, those more accurately construed as protest. This book brings together new research and theories from around the world and across sociology, leisure studies, politics and cultural studies to develop a new critical pedagogy and critical theory of events. It is the first research monograph that deals explicitly with the concept of critical event studies (CES), the idea that it is impossible to explore and understand events without understanding the wider social, cultural and political contexts. It addresses questions such as can the occupation and reclamation of specific spaces by activists be understood as events within its framework? And is the activity of activists in these spaces a leisure activity? If those, and other similar activities, can be read as events and leisure, what does admitting them into the scope of events management and leisure studies mean for our understanding of them and how the study of events management is to be conceptualised? This title will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students on events management and related courses and scholars interested in understanding the ways in which events are constructed by the social, the cultural and the political.

The book offers a comprehensive and integrated approach to the topic of tourism development and its contribution to the fight against poverty. Tourism development is credited to be a powerful source of regional development and improvement in developing countries, and the focus of the book is on the world's poorest areas and how tourism connects to the poor and unlocks opportunities to escape the poverty trap. This book takes a comprehensive and unique approach by combining a decade of research on the effects of tourism development on poverty reduction in Latin America. The book explores poverty and its impact on development at the macro and micro levels. Then, it goes on to focus on tourism development and its effects on growth, inequality, and poverty reduction and how these dynamic relationships affect the most vulnerable groups of society. The research also documents on how the poor perceive tourism development on their lives and if they see it as an important vehicle to help them escape from poverty. Lastly, the authors map the conditions under which tourism can reach the poor and how tourism can offer opportunities for impoverished areas and their residents. Combining tourism dynamics, development economics, poverty reduction, business practices, and a sustainable perspective, the book takes a broad look at this important issue. The book will be informative and valuable to a higher educational audience, including academia and researchers, as well as practitioners, policymakers, and international organizations, and graduate students.

Consumers are increasingly looking to invest in experiences rather than simply a product. With innovation research moving away from the traditional focus on manufacturing towards services, this book develops a much-needed integrated approach for improving analysis of both experience and service innovation. This impressive book makes a substantial and compelling contribution to research on the interdependencies between innovation, services and experiences. Split into clear and thematically separate categories, the contributors explore systemic innovation, practice-based innovation, technology and innovation, and experiences as a catalyst for innovation. Examples are taken from the tourism industry, entrepreneurial ventures, online gaming and digital services, to provide readers with a thorough overview of the extensive impact of these innovations. Using organizational, systemic, conceptual and empirical examinations of the experience and service economies, the authors identify how top class innovation research can be extended and integrated further with other research areas. Presenting a state-of-the-art analysis of the topic, this timely book will benefit teachers of innovation, the experience economy, and information systems. Researchers of business economics, and marketing will also find this an essential foundation volume for future research on topics of innovation in a globalizing world. Contributors include: J.O. Baerenholdt, C.A. Billing, J.R. Bryson, P. Corvo, P. den Hertog, F. Djellal, L. Fuglsang, F. Gallouj, N.N. Grunbaum, M. Janssen, J.F. Jensen, M.-F. Lee, R. Matacena, I. Miles, J.K. Moller, G. Nardelli, L. Rubalcaba, K. Sawatwarakul, A. Scupola, F. Sorensen, J.K. Sorensen, M. Stenger, M. Toivonen, L. Uljala

The Phillips ROI Methodology (TM) utilizes five levels of evaluation, which are essential in determining the return on investment. At Level 1 - Reaction and Planned Action, attendee and stakeholder satisfaction from the meeting can be measured. Almost all organizations evaluate at Level 1, usually with a generic, end-of-meeting questionnaire. While this level of evaluation is important as a "stakeholder" satisfaction measure, a favorable reaction does not ensure that attendees have acquired new skills, knowledge, opinions or attitudes from the meeting. At Level 2 - Learning, measurements focus on what participants learned during the meeting using tests, skill practices, role-plays, simulations, group evaluations, and other assessment tools. A learning check is helpful to ensure that attendees have absorbed the meeting material or messages and know how to use or apply it properly. It is also important at this level to determine the quantity and quality of new professional contacts acquired and whether existing professional contacts were strengthened due to the meeting. However, a positive measure at this level is no guarantee that what was learned or whether the professional contacts acquired will be used on the job. At Level 3 - Job Applications, a variety of follow-up methods can be used to determine if attendees applied on the job what they learned or acquired at the meeting. The frequency and use of skills are important measures at Level 3. While Level 3 evaluations are important to gauge the success of the meeting, it still does not guarantee that there will be a positive business impact in the organization or for the attendee. At Level 4 - Business Results, the measurement focuses on the actual business results achieved by meeting participants as they successfully apply the meeting material or messages. Typical Level 4 measures include output, sales, quality, costs, time and customer satisfaction. Although the meeting may produce a measurable business impact, there is still a concern that the meeting may cost too much. At Level 5 - Return on Investment, this ultimate level of measurement compares the monetary benefits from the meeting with the fully-loaded meeting costs as expressed in the ROI formula. All levels of evaluation must be conducted in order to determine the ROI of a meeting or event. The data collected should show a chain of impact occurring through the levels as the skills and knowledge learned (Level 2) are applied on the job (Level 3) to produce business results (Level 4).

Cities are staging more events than ever. Within this macro-trend, there is another less acknowledged trend: more events are being staged in public spaces. Some events have always been staged in parks, streets and squares, but in recent years events have been taken out of traditional venues and staged in prominent urban spaces. This is favoured by organisers seeking more memorable and more spectacular events, but also by authorities who want to animate urban space and make it more visible. This book explains these trends and outlines the implications for public spaces. Events play a positive role in our cities, but turning public spaces into venues is often controversial. Events can denigrate as well as animate city space; they are part of the commercialisation, privatisation and securitisation of public space noted by commentators in recent years. The book focuses on examples from London in particular, but it also covers a range of other cities from the developed world. Events at different scales are addressed and, there is dedicated coverage of sports events and cultural events. This topical and timely volume provides valuable material for higher level students, researchers and academics from events studies, urban studies and development studies.

Graduates undertaking the RICS Assessment of Professional Competence (APC) often find that, in addition to the general information provided by the RICS, guidance is needed on specific areas of their work as general practice surveyors. How to Pass the APC: Essential Advice for General Practice Surveyors has been built around the needs of general practice surveyors, and guides you through the APC process in line with your own competencies - including valuation, marketing, landlord and tenant, estate management, rating, and planning and development work, together with more specialist areas. The author highlights the essentials, showing you how to approach the presentation and interview, providing a bank of examples of real APC questions, together with illustrative responses to demonstrate how the interview process works. Accessible and easy to use, this book gives you comprehensive coverage of the fundamental elements and is a must read for anyone taking the APC.

The Retail and Food Services sectors play an important role in Singapore. They add to the vibrancy of the economy and contribute to the social well-being of Singaporeans. At the same time, they are often highlighted and scrutinised for their low productivity performance and high reliance on manpower. There is to date a lack of local literature that addresses the issues faced by the two sectors at the enterprise and worker levels.This timely book includes major topics in services productivity in the Singapore context, with emphasis on Retail and Food Services. Topics covered include the key productivity levers of the services sectors: holistic productivity measurement framework, effective entrepreneurship, manpower management, promotion by social media, marketing, costing process and accounting sophistication. These areas are explored through literature reviews and in-depth interviews with companies and consumers. The chapters also include recommendations for policy makers and industry stakeholders. Written in a simple and accessible manner, this book will serve as an insightful guide to researchers, policy-makers, industry practitioners and enterprises and those who are keen to learn from the Singapore experience.

Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. Over the last two decades, Service Innovation Studies (SIS) has achieved 15 distinct and important advances. This Research Agenda outlines these major developments, setting out the research priorities in the field. Faiz Gallouj and Faridah Djellal have drawn together an array of renowned contributors to create a multidisciplinary analysis of the topic that illustrates the strength of this research trajectory. International experts in the field of SIS consider the issue of innovation in services in relation to a number of major contemporary challenges, including environmental issues, social inclusion, economic development, gender, ethical issues, religion and public organizations. Moving from an overview of the 15 advances already made, this Research Agenda outlines the 15 main challenges that could structure research over the next decade, distinguishing between societal challenges, organizational and structural challenges, and methodological and didactic challenges. This is an enlightening book for both services and innovation scholars in the fields of economics, management science and public administration who wish to develop further research in SIS. Contributors include: F. Adrodegari, A. Bianchi, F. Djellal, B. Edvardsson, C. Gallouj, F. Gallouj, H. Lagunes, C. Lim, P. Maglio, G. Marin, T. Paschou, M. Perona, J. Reynoso, L. Rubalcaba, N. Saccani, M. Toivonen, B. Tronvoll, L. Wittel, A. Zanfei

Offers highly practical insights and advice to those wanting to plan weddings as a career choice. Written in an engaging and highly accessible style, this guide assumes no prior knowledge of the industry and is ideal for those just starting their careers. Packed full of case studies, activities, example forms, timetables, calendars, and helpful checklists.

Privacy, Due process and the Computational Turn: The Philosophy of Law Meets the Philosophy of Technology engages with the rapidly developing computational aspects of our world including data mining, behavioural advertising, iGovernment, profiling for intelligence, customer relationship management, smart search engines, personalized news feeds, and so on in order to consider their implications for the assumptions on which our legal framework has been built. The contributions to this volume focus on the issue of privacy, which is often equated with data privacy and data security, location privacy, anonymity, pseudonymity, unobservability, and unlinkability. Here, however, the extent to which predictive and other types of data analytics operate in ways that may or may not violate privacy is rigorously taken up, both technologically and legally, in order to open up new possibilities for considering, and contesting, how we are increasingly being correlated and categorizedin relationship with due process - the right to contest how the profiling systems are categorizing and deciding about us.

First Published in 1985. This is a collection of sixteen essays on the marketing of services industries covering such topics as professional services, banks, service firms, insurance services, freight transport, estate agencies, leisure, package holidays, urban public transport, tourism, customer service and also new technology in the industry.

In recent years, the study of creativity has shifted from analysis of culture as an end in itself to one of economic enhancement, and its capability to generate wealth and promote economic development. Increasingly, European cities and regions are using the arts to fuel wellbeing and reinvigorate economies after the comparative demise of more traditional industry and manufacturing. A growing literature is starting to highlight the innovation capacity of cultural and creative industries (CCIs) as they intersect the innovation processes of other manufacturing and services sectors with an innovative and creative output. Culture and creativity may be a strategic weapon to exit the present crisis and redefine an economic model of sustainable development. This book brings together a set of multidisciplinary contributions to investigate the kaleidoscope of European creativity, focussing on CCIs and the innovations connected with them. The two main questions that this volume aims to address are: How can we identify, map and define CCIs in Europe? And how do they contribute to innovation and sustainable growth? The volume is split into two parts. The first part deals with the definition, measurement and mapping of the geography of European CCIs according to a local economic approach, focussing on Italy, Spain, the UK, Austria, Denmark and France. This section surveys the different industrial typologies and spatial patterns, which underline a significant dissimilarity between the North and the South of Europe, mainly due to the difference between heritage-driven and technology-driven countries. The section concludes with a case study on a Japanese creative city. The second part collects some interesting cases of innovation generated in creative spaces such as cities of art or creative clusters and networks. This entails the study of innovations among creative and non-creative sectors (e.g. laser technologies in conservation of works of art and design networks in Italy) and across European and non-European countries (e.g. Spaghetti Western movies in the US or visual artists in New Zealand). Finally, an innovation capacity of culture that can regenerate mature sectors (e.g. the French food supply chain and Swiss watch Valley) or combine the creative and green economics paradigms (e.g. the green creative cities in North Europe) is analyzed. This book will appeal to academics, scholars and practitioners of urban and regional studies, cultural and creative economics and managerial and organization studies.

The growth of events and festivals has been significant over the last decade and a wide range of skills are essential to ensure those events are successful. This requirement has been instrumental in stimulating the creation of more tertiary education opportunities to develop events management knowledge. As the discipline develops, knowledge requires direction in order to understand the changing advances in society.
This is the first book to take a futures approach to understanding event management. A systematic and pattern-based understanding is used to determine the likelihood of future events and trends. Blue skies scenarios are applied throughout to provide a vision of the future of events, not only capturing how the events industry is changing but also important issues that will affect events now as well as the future. Chapters include analysis of sustainability, security, impacts of social media, design at both mega event and community level and review a good range of different types of events from varying geographical regions. A final section captures the contributions of each chapter through the formation of a conceptual map for a future research agenda.

Written by leading academics in the field, this ground breaking book will be a valuable reference point for educators, researchers and industry professionals.

This book explores how cultural policies are reflected in the design, management and promotion of the Olympic Games. Garcia examines the concept and evolution of cultural policies throughout the recent history of the Olympic Games and then specifically evaluates the cultural program of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. She argues that the cultural relevance of a major event is highly dependent on the consistency of the policy choices informing its cultural dimensions, and demonstrates how such events frequently fail to leave long-term cultural legacies, and are often unable to provide an experience that fully engages and represents the host community, due to their over-emphasis on an economic rather than a social and cultural agenda.

This book presents a general conceptual framework to translate principles of system science and engineering to service design. Services are co-created immaterial, heterogeneous, and perishable state changes. A service system includes the intended benefit to the customer and the structure and processes that accomplish this benefit. The primary focus is on the part of the service system that can reproduce such processes, called here a Service Machine, and methodological guidelines on how to analyze and design them. While the benefit and the process are designed based on the domain knowledge of each respective field, service production systems have common properties. The Service Machine is a metaphor that elicits the fundamental characteristics of service systems that do something efficiently, quickly, or repeatedly for a defined end. A machine is an artifact designed for a purpose, has several parts, such as inputs, energy flows, processors, connectors, and motors assembled as per design specifications. In case of service machine, the components are various contracts assembled on contractual frames. The book discusses Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Emergency Departments (ED) as cases. They illustrate that service machines need to be structured to adapt to the constraints of the served market acknowledging the fact that services are co-created through the integration of producers' and customers' resources. This book is highly recommended for those who are interested in understanding the fundamental concepts of designing service machines.

First published in 1979, Supplies Management for Health Services looks at the characteristics and problems of hospital suppliers and examines the way in which the hospital and the National Health Service deal with supplies problems and relations with suppliers. Beginning with a description of the National Health Service and its supplies' organisations and the role of the Department of Health and Social Security in this field, the book then reports on the detailed studies made over two years of the supplies' problems of ten London area health authorities and ten London manufacturers of medical equipment. The NHS situation is then contrasted with the supplies' situation in three non-health organisations and with the health supplies situation in France and West Germany. The final part of the book analyses the information obtained, proposes a means of assessing supplies systems, and evaluates the NHS situation. This is followed by the realistic proposals for reform, advocating a system similar to that used in British defence services, based on a central procurement agency, close cooperation with private manufacturers, and manufacture by government where necessary. This book will surely interest students of economics and global health.

Cultural heritage and contemporary arts benefit from being showcased in events. Arts-related events are each unique in reflecting local culture; they may be therefore spontaneous (street art and so on) or planned (i.e. studio tours or arts festivals). The Arts and Events explores the nature and complexity of managing arts events and fills a significant gap in the available literature. It investigates the history, development and management of arts events to offer much needed insight into creating economic, social and cultural capital. It therefore contributes to a greater understanding of how arts events can create a beneficial experience for the individual and the community as well as their future sustainable development. The title explores a broad range of events from around the globe including: inspirational events for building creative (social, cultural and human) capital; affirming events for encouraging links to cultural identity or heritage; pleasurable events that offer enjoyable recreational, leisure and touristic experiences; enriching events that create opportunities for personal growth and/or to sell products or experiences, and finally, celebratory events that enhance cultural diversity. This significant volume is a valuable source for researchers, policy-makers and managers of arts events around the globe.

Food and wine events have gained popularity internationally. Their importance in local economic development has grown, especially in Europe, as they are seen as a source of income for local economic systems, a way for creating new job positions and effective tools for promoting and increasing typical product awareness and demand. This book for the first time illustrates the positive and negative impacts of food and wine events from a stakeholder perspective by highlighting several critical aspects such as: (1) advantages and disadvantages of food and wine events; (2) best practice adoption for maximising benefits flowing from event creation; (3) community involvement and knowledge diffusion; (4) effectiveness in promoting local products and creating consumer awareness about products; (5) factors that promote or inhibit the success or achievements of wine and food events. Although the volume primarily focuses on events in Europe, comparisons are made to other regions in the world. Case studies are integrated throughout to illustrate the system of economic and social impacts linked to food and wine events, as well as best practices to achieve effective event management and maximize expected results. Written by leading academics, this timely and important volume will be valuable reading for all students, researchers and academics interested in Events, Tourism, Hospitality, Gastronomy and Development Studies.

Style: written for advanced students of events management, mapping out all strategic decisions and considerations in detail. Approach: written from the perspective of a practitioner who has worked as an events development consultant in over 30 countries. International and broad coverage: covers all aspects of events planning and development, supported by international case studies and examples to put strategic decisions into context.

Financial regulation has entered into a new era, as many foundational economic theories and policies supporting the existing infrastructure have been and are being questioned following the financial crisis. Goodhart et al s seminal monograph "Financial Regulation: Why, How and Where Now?" (Routledge:1998) took stock of the extent of financial innovation and the maturity of the financial services industry at that time, and mapped out a new regulatory roadmap. This book offers a timely exploration of the "Why, How and Where Now" of financial regulation in the aftermath of the crisis in order to map out the future trajectory of financial regulation in an age where financial stability is being emphasised as a key regulatory objective.

The book is split into four sections: the objectives and regulatory landscape of financial regulation; the regulatory regime for investor protection; the regulatory regime for financial institutional safety and soundness; and macro-prudential regulation. The discussion ranges from theoretical and policy perspectives to comprehensive and critical consideration of financial regulation in the specifics. The focus of the book is on the substantive regulation of the UK and the EU, as critical examination is made of the unravelling and the future of financial regulation with comparative insights offered where relevant especially from the US. Running throughout the book is consideration of the relationship between financial regulation, financial stability and the responsibility of various actors in governance.

This book offers an important contribution to continuing reflections on the role of financial regulation, market discipline and corporate responsibility in the financial sector, and upon the roles of regulatory authorities, markets and firms in ensuring the financial health and security of all in the future.

Applies Lean concepts to a high-variety, low-volume service business, which are more prevalent than high volume manufacturing companies. Illustrates all the Lean concepts in a real-world example that approached Lean management in the intended way-to support and develop people to continually improve processes in a respectful environment. Illustrates an effective organic change management process that grows the new culture rather than trying to force tools mechanistically on employees and assiociates. The vibrant graphic novel format visually brings the story to life. Co-Written by best-selling author Jeffrey Liker -- the world's expert on the Toyota Way.