The pathfinder process in Northern Ireland

Government has many customers — not just the individual citizen, but also corporate customers from the private sector. Getting close to those customers will require changes in the nature of public sector culture. Below are two examples — the first from Northern Ireland and the second from Whitehall — of government departments which have tried to change the way in which they do things.     

飞向2000年

不列颠航空公司飞入新的千年,标志着不列颠航空进入自１２年前从国有企业转为私营企业后的第四个发展阶段。第一阶段,我们着重塑造作为一个服务型企业的形象,鼓励员工向旅客提供世界一流的服务,以确保公司的长久收益并逐步提高利润率。９０年代初期,海湾战争使得本来就由于世界经济低潮而不景气的航空市场雪上加霜,我们只得在这样不景气的市场中努力抗争。面对困境,我们发扬不列颠航空的最佳传统,紧紧抓住公司的世界形象,并致力于内部结构重组。第三个阶段是明确我们是成本竞争。１９９６年制定的公司效益计划明确,为了确保长久竞争力,必要…     

Cultural effects in East Asian strategic decision-making

This article asks whether Asian businesses take strategic decisions in distinctively Asian ways. It develops hypotheses about Asian decisionmaking from a consideration of theoretical cultural dimensions and empirical data in the literature. Contrary to expectations, an analysis of data from a survey of top Asian managers indicates that East Asian managers take decisions in a more rational manner relative to their Western counterparts. A distinction between social and cognitive dimensions of decision-making processes is suggested to explain some of these findings. Important unresolved questions are raised about the interpretation of cultural dimensions and about potential biases in empirical reports of East Asian decision-making characteristics. Implications for cultural differences research are discussed.     

The effects of pleasure and arousal on recall of advertisements during the Super Bowl

This study investigates whether pleasure and arousal levels of viewers watching a sports program affect advertisement recall. The results suggest that programs that evoke strong emotional reactions, such as the Super Bowl, may inhibit the recall of advertisements and brands. Specifically, these findings seem to support the Intensity (arousal) theory and may have important implications for advertisers who promote their products or services on sports‐related event programming. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Day tour itineraries: Searching for the balance between commercial needs and experiential desires

Little research has been conducted examining the factors that influence the development of day tour itineraries. While the literature suggests that a combination of commercial, operational, political and experiential factors contribute to itinerary development, this article argues that it is the business model chosen that affects it the most. Essentially two business models predominate: commission-based and noncommission-based. This study examines the impact of the business model on the selection of day tour itineraries in the Macau Special Administrative Region of China. It finds that experiential values are traded off almost entirely in the itineraries of commission-based tours, while a better balance between experiential and operational considerations drives itinerary choices for noncommission-based tours.     

Capital Structure and Corporate Control: The Effect of Antitakeover Statutes on Firm Leverage

We find that firms protected by "second generation" state antitakeover laws substantially reduce their use of debt, and that unprotected firms do the reverse. This result supports recent models in which the threat of hostile takeover motivates managers to take on debt they would otherwise avoid. An implication is that legal barriers to takeovers may increase corporate slack.