Measuring the consumer benefits of improving farm animal welfare to inform welfare labelling

Policy makers in the European Union are envisioning the introduction of a community farm animal welfare label which would allow consumers to align their consumption habits with their farm animal welfare preferences. For welfare labelling to be viable the market for livestock products produced to higher welfare standards has to be sufficiently segmented with consumers having sufficiently distinct and behaviourally consistent preferences. The present study investigates consumers’ preferences for meat produced to different welfare standards using a hypothetical welfare score. Data is obtained from a contingent valuation study carried out in Britain. The ordered probit model was estimated using Bayesian inference to obtain mean willingness to pay. We find decreasing marginal WTP as animal welfare levels increase and that people’s preferences for different levels of farm animal welfare are sufficiently differentiated making the introduction of a labelling scheme in the form of a certified rating system appear feasible.     

Human resource management approaches in Spanish hotels: An introductory analysis

Although Spain is one of the most important tourism destinations in the world, Spanish tourism firms need to be more competitive in order to continue attracting citizens from other countries and human resource strategies can help. The present study aims to identify the specific human resource practices applied by hotels. The variables of interest are those related to human resource profile (number of employees, nationality and sex) and to human resource strategies (recruitment, hiring and training strategies). A survey of the hotel establishments in the Valencian Autonomous Region shows that a hard human resource approach prevails and that hotels apply the same human resource strategies regardless of their category or competitive strategy (universalistic approach).     

管理教练、权变奖励、组织公民行为与B2B顾客满意

本文构建了一个有关主管行为、组织公民行为和B2B顾客满意的概念模型并加以检验。研究发现（1）销售人员的组织公民行为对于B2B顾客满意具有显著正向影响；（2）销售人员组织公民行为对B2B顾客满意的影响受环境不确定性的正向调节；（3）感知的管理教练行为和权变奖励均对销售人员的情感性组织承诺和组织公民行为具有正效应；（4）情感性组织承诺是主管行为对员工组织公民行为影响的中介变量；论文最后阐述了研究的管理内涵以及未来的研究方向。     

Marketing resources and performance of exhibitor firms in trade shows: A contingent resource perspective

In spite of the fundamental nature of trade shows as venues for working on webs of vertical and horizontal relationships, the extant trade show literature neglected relationship and network context factors. Specifically, previous studies attributed superior trade show performance to internal resource conditions and hence failed to address the moderating influence of important contexts such as relationship assets and knowledge assets. This study adopts the contingent resource perspective and extends the literature by proposing that the main effect of trade show resources on trade show performance is contingent upon the firm's internal knowledge assets and its external relationship assets. Overall, the empirical evidence supports the contingency models. One major managerial implication for exhibitor managers is the need to adjust allocation of its trade show marketing resources according to market-based assets it possesses.     

Contingent payments in selection contests

The early literature on research contests stressed the advantages of a fixed prize in inspiring R&D effort. More recently the focus has moved towards endogenizing the rewards to research activity in these tournament settings, since this can induce extra effort or enhance the surplus of the buyer. We focus on a research contest as a means of selecting a partner for an R&D enterprise, in an informational setting in which the established providers of R&D services know more about each others’ relative capabilities than does the buyer/sponsor. An alternative use of our model is in choosing between prospective patentees where the Patent Trading Office has less information on the patents than the competitors. This asymmetry creates a source of inefficiency if a rank order contest is used as a selection device; we show how the contest can be modified to improve selection efficiency, while maintaining its simplicity (as only ordinal information is required). The modification that we suggest involves endogenizing the prizes that are awarded contingent upon whether a contestant wins or loses the contest. Furthermore, the payment system and the selection mechanism are detail-free. This paper is part of the project “The Knowledge-Based Society” sponsored by the Research Council of Norway (project 172603/V10).     

The theoretical structure of producer willingness to pay estimates

This article analyzes the theoretical underpinnings of producer willingness to pay (WTP) for new inputs. In addition to conceptualizing the producer WTP function, we derive its comparative statics and show how these properties can be used to estimate quantities demanded or supplied and price elasticities. We also discuss implications of the comparative statics.     

Joint estimation using revealed and stated preference data: An application using a national forest

We combine contingent behaviour with travel cost data to estimate the change in the recreational use value of a National Forest due to quality and price changes. Instead of the usual improvement scenario, a hypothetical deterioration in the conditions of the forest due to a fire is considered. A dataset containing five observations for each respondent enabled the estimation of three models for which the number of scenarios differed. The results show that visitors are sensitive to price and quality changes and that in the forest fire scenario the intended number of trips would be reduced and that respondents would experience a welfare loss. Signs of inconsistency between preferences expressed by revealed and intended behaviour were found. This research also provides some indications that strategic bias affects answers to price changes.     

体育锻炼与学生自尊发展关系的研究

自尊是个体对自身特点、个性、社会身份和行为的评价或感情反应。目前,西方锻炼心理学领域中,有关自尊理论的研究强调:一个人的自尊由不同的、具体的成分(如身体自尊、专业自尊和社会自尊等)组成。尽管影响个体自尊水平的因素很多,但体育运动确实是提高人们自尊水平的一条重要途径。由于身体自尊对研究体育锻炼参与的心理前因和效益具有重要意义,它的变化能引起整体自尊水平的同方向变化,因此,研究目前有关学生自尊及其与体育活动关系,却是深化学校体育改革的必然。     

不确定性、财务状态与财务行为

本文认为不确定性是主观和客观的不同状态,风险是主观认识偏离客观状态的结果。财务的功能就在于如何正确分析、识别财务状态,相机选择财务行为,使财务行为与财务状态保持动态协调一致,以保持财务政策的时间一致性。     

THE TERM STRUCTURE OF INTEREST RATES AS A GAUSSIAN RANDOM FIELD

A simple model of the term structure of interest rates is introduced in which the family of instantaneous forward rates evolves as a continuous Gaussian random field. A necessary and sufficient condition for the associated family of discounted zero-coupon bond prices to be martingales is given, permitting the consistent pricing of interest rate contingent claims. Examples of the pricing of interest-rate caps and the situation when the Gaussian random field may be viewed as a deterministic time change of the standard Brownian sheet are discussed.