Theme park revenue management with a dual admission policy

There are several efforts to increase the revenue of theme parks. One of them is to divide admission policy into normal and express admission. If a certain customer buys express admission ticket with more expensive price, it is possible to reduce the excessive waiting time by using the exclusive waiting line for some or all the attraction’s rides. In this study, decision-making elements such as the price of the express admission ticket, maximum allowed number of express admission ticket per day, and the type of rides which can apply the express admission ticket are investigated to maximize the revenue.     

Boom‐Baby CEOs,Career Experience,and Risk Taking: A Natural Experiment Using Chinese CEOs’ Growth Paths

China's economy represents a unique experimental environment, in that it has undergone a successful transformation from a planned to a more open system. Leveraging this natural experimental setting, this study examines the impacts of CEOs’ formative experiences on their risk‐taking behavior. Two events likely constitute formative experiences for CEOs: economic reforms that commenced in 1978 and their prior career experiences. In turn, CEOs’ risk tolerance attitudes likely reflect the influences of these significant events. The results show that CEOs who experienced economic reforms in their early adult life exhibit higher risk‐taking likelihood and greater risk tolerance than those who grew up during the planned economy era. Furthermore, firm performance achieved by CEOs’ risk taking is significantly better when CEOs originally started working in and then remained within business sectors.     

Signaling for more money: The roles of founders' human capital and investor prominence in resource acquisition across different stages of firm development

We use signaling theory to explain how new ventures effectively signal future prospects to acquire external resources. Based on a sample of 235 new ventures drawn from a unique dataset combining multiple sources, we examine the signals of founders' human capital (i.e., education, industry experience, and founding experience) and investor prominence and their influence on the amount of external funding received across two stages of venture funding. We find that founders' founding experience and education have the greatest effects for acquiring first-round financing, but in later stages, only the signaling effect from education remains. Furthermore, we find important interactions between founders' human capital and investor prominence in the second round of funding. By utilizing lagged funding information, we show that different types of signals have a dynamic and temporal impact on new ventures' resource acquisition, including the persistence of some signals and the temporariness of others.     

A Dynamic Analysis of University Agricultural Biotechnology Patent Production

This article examines the factors that account for agricultural biotechnology patenting success among universities using a dynamic count data model. It builds a theoretical and econometric model to capture the inherently dynamic and nonlinear process of technological innovation, wherein a feedback mechanism from previous success partially determines current patent counts. The econometric estimates reveal the importance to agricultural biotechnology patent production of land grant infrastructure, quality faculty, patent-oriented technology transfer offices, as well as dynamic feedback effects.     

Does A Firm's Entry or Exit Affect Competitors’ Value? Evidence from the REIT Industry

We analyze 483 entry and 439 exit events of publicly traded real estate investment trusts (REITs) and find that changes in the number of REITs in the market affect rival REITs’ stock performance. We also partition the sample by the modes of entries and exits as well as by REIT asset type in order to disentangle alternative explanations. Overall, our evidence indicates that the supply effect still matters for stock prices even after considering signaling and price pressure explanations.     

Effective Luxury-Brand Advertising: The ES–IF Matching (Entity–Symbolic Versus Incremental–Functional) Model

This study draws on the psychological tenets of implicit self-theories, which differentiate between individuals with entity versus incremental orientations, to deepen our understanding about how consumers evaluate luxury-brand advertising appeals. Our findings show that entity theorist consumers are more attracted to the symbolic value appeals of luxury brands, whereas incremental theorists are more attracted to functional value appeals. Furthermore, we show how consumers' implicit self-theories can be purposively primed by managers with the textual elements of a luxury-brand advertising message to increase its effectiveness, which provides useful implications for designing and executing effective luxury advertising.     

Environmental Strategy and Competitive Advantage: The Role of Small‐ and Medium‐Sized enterprises' Dynamic Capabilities

Drawing on the resource‐based theory and institutional theory, we develop a framework to explain the processes by which the environmental strategy of small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) contributes to their competitive advantage. We test our assumption using data collected from 214 UK‐based SMEs in the technology sector. We find that the effects of environmental strategy can lead to development of their marketing competence, as well as research and development (R&D) competence, which ultimately contributes to superior financial performance. We also find that a reciprocal causal relationship exists between SMEs' marketing and R&D competences. Combined, we reveal the presence of a serial multiple mediation relationship between SMEs' environmental strategy and financial performance through marketing competence and then R&D competence, or vice versa. Our study offers important academic and managerial implications, and also points out future research directions. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

“You know that's a rip-off”: policies and practices surrounding micro-enterprises and poverty alleviation in South African township tourism

Supporting the development of small tourism businesses has been seen by policy-makers as a valuable means of alleviating poverty in South African townships. This perspective has been endorsed by several “responsible” tourism businesses and academics. Following a literature review, this paper reports the findings of an empirical study that examined the practices of 80 micro-business owners and the factors that shape their behaviour in two South African townships. In spite of significant visitor numbers, it finds that their narrow social networks, the imbalances of power between them and intermediaries such as travel agencies and tour operators, ideas of Ubuntu and Umona, and complex family and ethnic ties all represent barriers that prevent them from developing their businesses and sharing in the material gains available through tourism. This analysis has important implications for local policy-makers and those advocating responsible tourism. For the former, it suggests a cessation of current initiatives in favour of greater regulation and alternative forms of investment. For the latter, it implies a need to reassess the utility of advocating responsible tourism to consumers in a context where they do not understand the dynamics which fashion what is on offer or the implications of their choices.     

Change of U.S.‐Russia relations after the September 11 terrorist attacks

This paper analyzes the changes of U.S.‐Russia relations after September 11. The analysis deals with the issues relating to both military and economic cooperation. In particular, this article focuses on examining the impact of the terrorist attacks on U.S.‐Russian relations. Specifically, the paper discusses the results of the visit of U.S. President Bush to Russia and its impacts on the relations between the two countries. First, the paper analyzes the U.S. position toward Russia under the Bush Administration before the terrorist attacks. Second, it looks at how Russia perceived and took advantage of the terrorist attacks to improve its relations with the United States. Third, it explores the nature of the quasi alliance between the United States and Russia. And finally, it examines the possibilities and limitations of the long‐term cooperation agreement between the U.S. and Russia from an economic and military perspective.     

Cointegration relationships and hedonic pricing of differentiated commodities: an application to price dynamics in the US dairy sector

This study investigates the implications of hedonic pricing for price dynamics of differentiated commodities. A conceptual model of hedonic pricing is developed under a Leontief technology, showing how commodity prices reflect the underlying value of their components. Implications for the existence of cointegration relationships among commodity prices are derived. An application to the pricing and dynamics of selected US dairy commodities is presented. It provides evidence on the role of component valuation in the dynamics of dairy commodity prices in the short run as well as in the long run. Distinguishing between market regime and government regime (when the government price support is active), the analysis finds significant differences in dairy price dynamics between the two regimes.