An assessment of the psychometric properties of the Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS10) with a U.S. public accounting sample

Utilizing a convenience sample of 305 professional staff from seven public accounting firms, this study examined: a) the factor structure of the Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS10; Cohen & Williamson, 1988); b) the invariance of its factor structure; c) the scale's reliability; and, d) its convergent and divergent validity. Our analyses support a structure with two primary factors, (General Distress and Ability-to-Cope), which load on a single second order factor, Perceived Stress, regardless of gender. Spearman–Brown reliability coefficients, item-total correlations, and coefficient alphas each supported the reliability of the items loading on the full scale as well as on each of the two primary factors. Collectively, these findings provide compelling evidence in support of the PSS10 as a perceived stress measure for accounting professionals. However, more research is warranted to investigate the efficacy of a reduced six-item version of the instrument.     

Cost structure and productivity growth of the Taiwanese international tourist hotels

This study investigates the cost structure and economic implications of the Taiwanese international tourist hotel industry. A multi-product translog cost function with three inputs and three outputs is estimated using seemingly unrelated regression estimation and three-stage least squares. A balanced panel dataset consisting of 47 international tourist hotels in Taiwan over the period 1997–2001 was obtained from Taiwanese Tourism Bureau and used to estimate the cost function. The results show that both scale and scope economies exist in the Taiwanese international tourist hotel industry. In addition, productivity growth is positive over the study period. Managerial and policy implications for the Taiwanese international tourist hotel industry are also discussed.     

Measuring experienced emotions during service recovery encounters: construction and assessment of the ESRE scale

The role of emotions is increasingly gaining attention as a central element in understanding customer evaluations of service failure and recovery experiences. Despite the importance of emotions for service organizations, however, empirical investigations of customers’ emotional response to service recovery encounters remain scarce. A reason for this has been the absence of a valid and reliable measurement instrument for analyzing and comparing the emotions associated with different recovery experiences. Addressing this issue, the current paper presents the development and validation of a new scale specifically designed to measure experienced emotions during service recovery encounters (ESRE). The results show that the ESRE scale is a valid and reliable instrument, which should be helpful for empirically studying the role of emotional responses to service failure and recovery encounters.

The effect of advertising on brand awareness and perceived quality: An empirical investigation using panel data

We use a panel data set that combines annual brand-level advertising expenditures for over three hundred brands with measures of brand awareness and perceived quality from a large-scale consumer survey to study the effect of advertising. Advertising is modeled as a dynamic investment in a brand’s stocks of awareness and perceived quality and we ask how such an investment changes brand awareness and quality perceptions. Our panel data allow us to control for unobserved heterogeneity across brands and to identify the effect of advertising from the time-series variation within brands. They also allow us to account for the endogeneity of advertising through recently developed dynamic panel data estimation techniques. We find that advertising has consistently a significant positive effect on brand awareness but no significant effect on perceived quality.

中国—东盟关税同盟区的贸易效应分析

东盟的未来取决于和中国经济一体化的程度,这是一个不争的事实。本文通过一般均衡分析模型、贸易创造和贸易转移模型、竞争效应模型、规模经济效应模型对中国东盟关税同盟区的贸易效应进行了前瞻性的分析和探索,旨在为加深中国东盟经济一体化进程提供理论上的支持。     

连锁企业规模扩张的理论思考

连锁商业是一种规模经济较为明显的商业组织形式。连锁企业在发展中普遍具有规模扩张的本能，通过规模扩张来实现规模经济效益。但是，我国连锁企业的规模的扩张存在一些问题，尤其是某些基本概念混淆不清，这造成了实践中的许多偏差。因此，本文通过对连锁企业规模扩张进行理论梳理，重新界定连锁企业的规模扩张，分析探索其内在规律，以便提供对我国连锁企业规模扩张的有益启示。     

The effect of concentration and market power on food prices: evidence from Finland

This research examines empirically the relationship between economies of scale, concentration, and market power in food retailing. With unique, local market data available Finland, the analysis could investigate the impact of both local concentration and industry-wide concentration (which can be interpreted as multimarket contact) are taken into account in the evaluation of grocery retail competitiveness. The results show that the main factor affecting market power is the size of the retail firm. Larger share grocery retailers, for both the local and the national markets, carried higher mark-ups. At the same time, no firm-level scale economies were found from these larger firms. I conclude from these findings that the main purpose of large grocery retail mergers is to gain market power not efficiency.     

To Go Or Not To Go? Ethical Perspectives on Tourism in an ‘Outpost of Tyranny’

For many years, the actions of Myanmar’s military government have provoked domestic discontent and strong condemnation overseas. The government is encouraging tourism in an attempt to legitimize its actions whilst generating valuable foreign currency. However, a number of organizations are urging people to avoid travel to Myanmar and thus prevent the military junta from obtaining the hard currency and global legitimacy it needs to survive. In this article, the ethical arguments for and against tourism in Myanmar are discussed, and for the first time the ethical perceptions of tourists themselves are explored. The study applied the Multidimensional Ethics Scale to a group of 376 Myanmar visitors, finding that respondents were generally in favor of tourism in Myanmar, but were uncomfortable with the ethical implications of their visit. Simon Hudson is an Associate Professor in the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary. He has a marketing degree from Brighton, England, an MBA from California, and a PhD from Surrey, England. Prior to working in academia, he spent several years working in the tourism industry in Europe, and six years running his own business. Dr Hudson has published numerous journal articles and book chapters from his work, and has three books to his name; Snow Business, Sport & Adventure Tourism and Tourism & Hospitality Marketing.     

论中国保险公司的规模经济

保险公司只有达到一定规模才具有国际竞争力.保险公司的最佳经济规模在不同的时期受保险市场主体的多少、国家的保险产业政策等多种因素影响.我国保险公司与全球著名大型保险公司规模相比有较大差距,因此,规模经济对于提高中资保险公司的国际竞争力具有特殊的现实意义.中资保险公司可通过上市扩充资本金、并购、组建保险集团等途径实现规模经济.     

关系利益影响顾客满意和忠诚的机制研究--中介与调节效应检验

文章通过检验感知价值的中介效应和转移成本的调节效应,分析了关系利益影响顾客满意和忠诚的作用机制,结论如下：信任利益和社会利益两个维度显著正向影响顾客满意和忠诚,但特殊待遇利益维度对顾客满意和忠诚的影响不显著;感知价值在信任利益维度对顾客满意的影响以及社会利益维度对顾客满意和忠诚的影响中起到部分中介作用,在信任利益维度对顾客忠诚的影响中起到完全中介作用;转移成本正向调节信任利益维度对顾客满意和忠诚的影响以及社会利益维度对顾客忠诚的影响。即当顾客感知到较高的转移成本时,他们更倾向于对现有的关系状况感到满意,也更倾向于继续与企业维系现有关系,对企业更加忠诚。