What do Airbnb hosts reveal by posting photographs online and how does it affect their perceived trustworthiness?

The use of sellers' personal photographs online is ubiquitous in sharing economy platforms such as Airbnb. This paper addresses two questions. First, what type of personal photos do hosts choose to post on Airbnb? Second, which of the characteristics of their photos affects their perceived trustworthiness? We answer these questions by building a structural equation model of the relation between the characteristics of the photos and the perceived trustworthiness of the hosts. The antecedents of trust in this model were defined based on insights from psychology regarding first impressions. We found that the hosts' visual characteristics (e.g., gender) as revealed in their online photographs affect their perceived trustworthiness both directly and indirectly via attractiveness. We also found that image characteristics, which are not related directly to the traits of the host in the picture (e.g., photograph quality), play a significant role in trust inference. Interestingly, the hosts' choices of their personal photos suggest that they may not be aware of these effects.     

The Relative Importance of Social and Personal Norms in Explaining Intentions to Choose Eco‐Friendly Travel Options

Changes in current travel patterns are important in order to move towards a more sustainable future of tourism. This paper reports findings from a study (N = 762) investigating the relative importance of social and personal norms in explaining intentions to choose eco‐friendly travel options. Personal norms showed the strongest association with behavioural intentions and further mediated the link between injunctive social norms and behavioural intentions. Overall findings indicate that social and personal norms seem both related to travel choices but that a particular emphasis should be given to the role of personal norms. Further implications of these findings are discussed. © 2015 The Authors. International Journal of Tourism Research Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Cooperation for Publication? An Analysis of Co-authorship Patterns in Leading Accounting Journals

This paper examines patterns, antecedents, and effects of (international) cooperation in accounting academia based on 7105 papers published in 15 leading accounting journals. In particular, we investigate the dissemination of different forms of cooperation, identify author characteristics that are related to the propensity of cooperation and analyze whether cooperation is associated with research performance (in terms of research impact and output). We find that scholars from Asian countries tend to be more heavily involved in international cooperation than researchers from most European countries and the USA. A Ph.D. from a leading school, a scholar's previous publication experience and a past appointment as editor or editorial board member are positively associated with the propensity for cooperation, while a researcher's current affiliation has only limited impact. Surprisingly, our findings show that cooperation is not related to a greater research impact as measured by citation numbers per paper. Finally, we find a significant negative relationship between a scholar's share of co-authored papers and his or her research output in leading accounting journals as measured by the weighted numbers of papers per author.     

A Bayesian analysis of market information linkages among NAFTA countries using a multivariate stochastic volatility model

NAFTA has arguably been the most important and elaborate free-trade agreement in history, providing a blueprint for potential new agreements. So far, the evidence is mixed as to whether NAFTA has been successful in terms of its economic impact. We fit a multivariate stochastic volatility model that directly measures financial information linkages across the three participating countries in a trivariate setting. The model detects significant changes in information linkages across the countries from the pre- to post-NAFTA period with a high degree of reliability. This has implications not only for measuring these linkages but also for hedging and portfolio diversification policies. An MCMC procedure is used to fit the model, and the accuracy and robustness of the method is confirmed by simulations.     

The impact of changes in household vacation expenditures on the travel and hospitality industries

Two large tourism industries, travel and hospitality, are strongly affected by changes in household demand for vacations. In recent years, rising income and declining prices per unit of quality have led to changes in patterns of household vacation consumption. To understand the impact of these changes on the travel and hospitality industries, we develop a theoretical model distinguishing between travel and on-site expenditures and apply it to Israeli data. We find that under certain circumstances, the changes in income and prices are responsible for a shift toward multiple, short vacations. This trend can be a boon to the travel industry but a disadvantage for the hospitality industry. Both industries are expected to face a rise in the demand for high-quality products.     

Are we all environmental tourists now? The role of biases in social comparison across and within tourists,and their implications

From a management and research perspective, it is important to get a better understanding of what influences tourists in their decision to choose environmentally friendly travel options, and how these are related to social cognitive processes. This paper reports findings from two separate studies investigating the role of biases in social comparison, with particular reference to tourists' perception of their personal roles as environmentally friendly tourists, and especially tourists’ views of the environmental attitudes of other tourists. Samples of N = 1607 and N = 2076 tourists, respectively, were obtained for two studies in Western Norway. Results indicate that tourists perceive themselves to hold more pro-environmental attitudes than other tourists (i.e. “typical tourist”, “average tourist”, “tourists”). This suggests that there are differences in the perception of the self and others when it comes to social comparisons concerning issues of environmental sustainability. The findings also suggest that tourists hold overly positive views of themselves generally concerning issues of environmental sustainability and that their environmental attitudes reflect perceived desirable standards. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed from a social psychological perspective, and implications for tourism managers and researchers noted.     

Socially desirable responding: the case of self-reported values in tourism surveys

This study explored associations between socially desirable responding and self-reported values in tourism surveys. Measures of egoistic values, altruistic values, and biospheric values were significantly associated with self-deception/assertion of positives, but neither with self-deception/denial of negatives nor with impression management. Researchers and marketers may take into account that self-reports of personal values could be distorted by tendencies for self-deception to some extent.     

NOTE ON “EQUIVALENCE OF CASH FLOWS WHEN COMPOUNDING OCCURS LESS FREQUENTLY THAN THE CASH FLOWS”

The present worth (PW) and future worth (FW) decision criteria are to be found in virtually all current engineering economy textbooks. Although the relationships between the internal rate of return (IRR) criterion and PW has been widely discussed in the literature, there remains some misunderstanding as to similar relationships between PW and FW. Of particular importance is the interest rates at which PW and FW are maximized. It is shown here that the maximizing rates are not necessarily equal. This leads to the seemingly peculiar result that a change in the discount rate may decrease the PW while at the same time increasing the FW, or vice versa. Numerical, mathematical and intuitive arguments are presented.