The role of values for voluntary reductions of holiday air travel

Recent research has shown that holiday air travel constitutes a typical value-action gap as many people continue to fly despite their concerns about climate change. However, some people do voluntarily reduce their holiday flights. Little is known so far about the role that values play in this decision. This paper examines this question based on semi-structured interviews with participants in local climate change and energy-saving projects. It finds that people who voluntarily reduce their holiday air travel are more ready than those who continue to fly to accept that their behaviour makes a contribution to climate change; that they feel a moral imperative to act regardless of its effectiveness in mitigating climate change; and that they distance themselves from socially dominant norms related to holiday air travel. This paper argues that these characteristics are connected to values of self-transcendence and self-direction, and that in this way values remain important for understanding and supporting low carbon behaviour.     

Assessing the effectiveness of empowerment on service quality: A multi-level study of Chinese tourism firms

This study tests relationships among three levels of empowerment—organizational, departmental, and individual—and simultaneously their cascading effects on frontline employees' service quality. Drawing on data from 1566 employee-supervisor pairs from 123 departments in 53 Chinese hospitality and tourism enterprises, results reveal a cascading mechanism across three levels of empowerment. Organizational empowerment climate influences employees' psychological empowerment through department psychological empowerment, and department psychological empowerment influences employees' service quality through individual psychological empowerment. Cross-level moderation analysis suggests that only within a high degree of organizational empowerment climate and service behavior-based evaluation does employees' psychological empowerment have positive effects on service quality. In response to the debate on the merits of empowerment programs in organizations, this study supports the usefulness of a cascading, contingency model of empowerment, and demonstrates full delineation of how and when empowerment across three levels influence frontline employees’ service quality.     

Does women’s participation in agricultural technology adoption decisions affect the adoption of climate‐smart agriculture? Insights from Indo‐Gangetic Plains of India

Increased participation of women in the agricultural technology adoption decision by farm households is one of the key indicators of gender empowerment in the agricultural sector. This study examines whether women’s participation in the household decision to adopt agricultural technology affects the adoption of climate‐smart agriculture (CSA), using data collected from 1,267 farm households from two Indian states of Bihar and Haryana. When we considered the sex of the household head (using a dummy variable for male‐headed vs female‐headed household) as a basis of analyzing the role of gender in the adoption of CSA, we found that women in Haryana had no role in the adoption of CSA. On the contrary, when we considered women’s participation in technology adoption decisions as a basis of gender analysis, we found that women’s participation in technology adoption decisions in Haryana is much higher as compared to Bihar. Consequently, the likelihood to adopt CSA is higher in Haryana than in Bihar. We also found that wealth, training, and access to extension and market positively influenced CSA adoption. Qualitative analysis shows that women farmers prioritize family food security rather than farm income, and therefore, they are more likely to focus on CSA to ensure food security.     

Board Effectiveness and the Voluntary Disclosure of Climate Change Information

This paper examines the relationship between board of directors' effectiveness and voluntary climate change disclosures. Since risk management and reporting fall under the board's responsibility, we relate board effectiveness to the firm's decision to voluntarily respond to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) annual questionnaire as well as the quality of disclosures about climate‐change‐related risks and strategies to mitigate them. Our results show a positive association between board effectiveness and the firm's decision to answer the CDP questionnaire as well as its carbon disclosure quality. The paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the determinants of voluntary climate change disclosures. Our findings highlight the importance of the board of directors' role in enhancing the transparency and relevance of voluntary disclosures of climate change business impacts. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Employee proactivity in hotels undergoing organizational change and development

ABSTRACT

Drawing from self-regulation and goal-regulation theories, this study focuses on employee proactivity in the context of a hotel that is undergoing change and development. Two hundred twenty eight employees from a hotel undergoing restructuring in Australia took part in this study. A survey instrument was developed and the data obtained from the survey were analyzed. Results show that employee proactive envisioning, employee proactive planning, and employee proactive enacting are positively and significantly interrelated. In addition, results show that organizational climate for innovation and leader vision are positively and significantly related to employee proactive envisioning and serve as situational correlates of employee proactivity. Implications for human resource management, particularly in the hotel industry, are discussed.     

Hospitality service climate,employee service orientation,career aspiration and performance: A moderated mediation model

This study tested a moderated mediation model involving hospitality employees’ service climate perception, service orientation, career aspiration and service performance. Using a sample of 500 frontline service employees in ten restaurants of a hospitality chain company in China, the study found that employees’ service orientation partially mediated the relationship between service climate and self-reported/supervisor-reported service performance. Furthermore, career aspiration moderated the mediation effect of service orientation between service climate and self-reported service performance. However, such a moderating effect was not confirmed when service performance was measured by supervisors’ ratings. The study highlights the importance of employees’ service orientation and career aspiration in hospitality human resource management practices.     

The Impact of Climate Change on the Pattern of Demand for Bottled Water and Non‐Alcoholic Beverages

To date, the majority of the research literature on the impacts of climate change has addressed the negative aspect, i.e. the risks associated with a future permanent modification of climate. Potential opportunities have received much less attention and are rarely transformed into monetary values. Furthermore, manufacturing is one of the economic sectors where the influence of climate change remains practically unknown, although the economic performance of some industrial activities depends directly on climatic conditions – bottled water and non‐alcoholic beverages (i.e. soft drinks and fruit juices) are among these. This paper aims to explore the link between weather and product sales in these sectors, and estimate in quantitative terms the potential impact of future climate change on their revenues. Historic data were explored through statistical analysis and appropriate regression models were developed. Models were applied for the historic (1961–90) and future climate (2021–50) and the difference in sales forms the expected quantified impact of climate change. The results indicate that significant opportunities may arise for some sectors from modifications in climate, provided their production infrastructure can meet the expected demand and their management strategies can successfully adapt to altered climatic conditions. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

What is Climate Change Policy Now Trying to Achieve?

Almost all advocates of international climate change policy hope and expect that the Climate Change Conference to be held in Paris in November–December 2015 will reach an agreement to reduce global anthropomorphic greenhouse gas emissions. Yet more than 25 years of international climate change policy has failed to reach such an agreement; emissions, far from having been reduced, have greatly increased. In the author's view, no such agreement will be reached in Paris. Anticipating this, Lord Stern, a highly influential figure in international climate change policy, has restated the case for continuing with this policy while relinquishing the objective of reaching such an agreement, though it had previously been claimed that this was essential to ‘save the world’. Advocating the continuation of climate change policy while disavowing a formerly acknowledged condition of its success seems to represent a further stage in the abandonment of rationality in climate change policy formulation.