Evidence of a low-carbon tourism paradigm?

The global tourism industry has benefited from exceptional growth; however, a number of challenges have the potential to seriously undermine the industry's future aspirations. This research uses social representation theory to understand how the social group of tourism experts makes sense of the phenomena of “tourism growth”, “low-carbon tourism”, “peak oil” and “risks for tourism”, and whether representations are indicative of different underlying paradigms. A total of 101 experts from various tourism professions and key demographics were interviewed using the free associations method. The findings reveal distinct representations of the four phenomena, but also significant linkages between them, in particular in relation to the global economy, transportation, energy supply and sustainability. Further, whilst experts appear grounded in the Dominant Social Paradigm of consumerism and neoliberal capitalism, there is evidence of alternative views that question some of the fundamental assumptions of the growth paradigm. In particular, when asked about low-carbon tourism and peak oil, experts advanced associations that indicated an Alternative Paradigm. A broader paradigm shift originating from within tourism, however, alone is unlikely.     

Peak Oil: a hidden issue? Social representations of professional tourism perspectives

Peak Oil, the peaking of global oil production, is a collective risk highly relevant to the tourism sector. Public discourse on Peak Oil, however, is limited. To better understand what “sense” tourism experts make of Peak Oil, and provide a platform for future debate and action, this research used the theory of social representation to explore core and peripheral elements that constitute Peak Oil representations and help tourism stakeholders to conceptualize and address this issue. Using free association methodology, 101 tourism experts worldwide provided up to five words and three mental images describing their thoughts and feelings about Peak Oil. The analysis highlights the importance of economic impacts and alternative energy sources, as well as anchoring effects to more established concepts such as sustainability and climate change. Notably, each of the four professional sub-groups approached (academics, consultants, government and industry representatives) had markedly different core beliefs. There was no agreement on whether Peak Oil was concerning or not, and whether action is required by the tourism sector to address negative impacts. This was particularly evident with the industry sub-group. Future research and policy implications are outlined, including the role of the media, and its responsibility to facilitate this discourse.     

The role of employee HR attributions in the relationship between high‐performance work systems and employee outcomes

Although research has shown that the use of high‐performance work systems (HPWS) is associated with employee outcomes, our knowledge of the meanings employees attach to HPWS systems and how these shape employee outcomes is still limited. This study examines the signalling impact of enacted HPWS on HR well‐being and HR performance attributions, and how these influence happiness‐ and health‐related outcomes. Using multilevel data (1,065 employees nested within 150 work units) obtained from multiple sources (line managers and employees), our results show that coverage of HPWS was positively associated with the two HR attributions. In addition, HR well‐being attributions were associated with higher levels of commitment and lower levels of job strain. HR performance attributions were associated with higher levels of job strain. The findings of this study highlight the importance of taking into account how employees attach meaning to enacted HPWS in order to predict employee outcomes.     

The EU’s migration and development policy: New approaches in economics for more effective public aid

Among the EU member states, increasing immigration has led to a recent debate over changes to European refugee and migration policies. The desire among the poor to escape from a hopeless economic and social situation in their home countries is the most common impetus for their migration. As the EU is the world’s biggest donor of public development aid, new approaches in European development politics are much needed to increase the effectiveness of this aid and to create a sustainable improvement of the economic situation among the poor. This article focuses on a new approach to implement more efficient and cost-effective development strategies that include individual time preference as well as insights from behavioural and experimental economics.     

Changes in REIT Liquidity 1988?C2007: Evidence from Daily Data

In this study, we present panel-data evidence on REIT liquidity and its determinants over the 1988?C2007 period. We focus upon liquidity measures that do not require micro-structure data (1) to facilitate use of our results as benchmarks for comparisons with results from international markets for which micro-structure data may be unavailable, (2) to provide benchmarks that do not require access to costly (and voluminous) micro-structure data. We find that REIT liquidity improved during the early and mid-1990s, deteriorated during the late 1990s, and then improved dramatically during 2000?C2006, with the notable exception of 2007. Liquidity improved the most for REITs traded on the NYSE, and was an order of magnitude better than liquidity of REITs traded on the AMEX or NASDAQ. We link the deterioration in liquidity observed in 2007 to the investment portfolio of a REIT. We find that the percentage bid-ask spread is highly correlated with the measure of price impact proposed by Amihud (2002). We provide panel-data evidence on the key determinants of the percentage bid-ask spread that largely confirms the results reported by Bhasin et al. (1997) for 1990 and 1994: the percentage spread is a positive function of the volatility of stock returns, and a negative function of dollar volume turnover, share price and market capitalization. Finally, we provide evidence that these results obtained using daily closing bid- and ask-prices are not qualitatively different from those obtained using market micro-structure data. This suggests that we can use liquidity measures based upon readily available daily return data rather than being forced to rely upon market micro-structure data.