Tourism experiences vs. material purchases: Effects of eudaimonic consumption motive on consumers’ reactions to invidious comparisons

Due to easy travel information access, tourists nowadays are susceptible to invidious post-purchase comparisons (e.g. realizing a better deal after purchase), which may compromise their satisfaction and further hurt the business. To understand this less-tapped issue, particularly in a context closer to reality where people spend limited discretionary income on both tourism experiences and material possessions, this study investigates to what extent people are disturbed by invidious comparisons in tourism experiential versus material consumptions. Drawing on the experience recommendation theory and eudaimonia-hedonia literature, we propose the presence of eudaimonic consumption motive as a critical determinant of resistance to invidious comparisons. Moreover, the implicit eudaimonic motive is the key contributor to the greater resistance of tourism experiential purchases to invidious comparisons than material purchases. Findings from two experimental studies supported these propositions. This study bridges and expands both experience recommendation and eudaimonia literature, while also informs approaches for alleviating invidious comparisons.     

An integrated model of travelers’ pro-environmental decision-making process: the role of the New Environmental Paradigm

This study integrated Value-Belief-Norm and Modified Norm Activation Model into a theoretical framework to identify the role of the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) in tourists’ pro-environmental decision-making process. Results of the structural model from 484 sample travelers provide a comprehensive view of travelers’ pro-environmental decision-making process. Findings highlight that the integrated model captures a conceptual foundation by better-predicting travelers’ pro-environmental behaviors with the NEP playing a critical role in facilitating predictive power improvement. This study expands the literature on the NEP in the environment and tourism research and suggests destinations for incorporation of the concept into developing promotional campaigns.     

Looking at Your World Through Your Customer'S Eyes

Abstract

There has been a great deal of discussion about firms moving away from transactions towards building long-term relationships with key customers. This is especially true in business-to-business markets and with larger companies with major customer accounts. But what is the reality of the situation? What do we find when we move beyond the rhetoric of relationship marketing to examining the extent of customer focus in large firms? This paper describes a major empirical study of some of the world'S largest B2B buyer-seller alliances in five countries representing each element of the Triad-England, France, Germany, Japan, and the U.S. We find that there are significant gaps between how customer focused manufacturers think they are and how customer focused their key customers perceive them to be. Further, these gaps vary by country and region. We explore the reasons for these differences in the context of cross-cultural organizational theory with implications for the strategic management of cross-national buyer-seller alliances.     

Labor Market Regimes,Family Policies,and Women's Behavior in the EU

Using the EU-SILC database (2005–06) for twenty-four European countries, this article develops a comparative perspective on labor market situations of women and mothers with very young children in relation to labor market institutions and policies (especially childcare and leave schemes). Using multilevel multinomial logit models, our results show firstly the heterogeneity of national arrangements of women's labor market integration in Europe (including among new member states). Secondly, our results show the links between some national policy variables and women's behavior, despite the fact that individual factors explain labor market situations the most. Women's employment is positively related to formal childcare and to characteristics of national labor market regimes. The use of informal childcare is associated with lower women's employment rates, which might be explained by a substitution effect. The employment rate of mothers with very young children is positively related to public childcare and negatively to parental leave.     

Sharing the wealth: social comparisons and pay dispersion in the CEO's top team

The antecedents and consequences of pay dispersion are studied using theory that focuses on the social comparisons that occur among members of the CEO's top team. Results from a sample of large public firms indicate that when members of this elite group were similar on a variety of dimensions, and thus likely to compare their pay, the board allowed less dispersion. In addition, pay dispersion was negatively related to company performance, particularly when it exceeded what could be justified by characteristics of the industry, firm, or team. But the strength of that relationship depended on how uniformly members of the team would benefit from subsequent performance gains. Specifically, the negative effect was particularly strong in firms where major differences in compensation—that is, some executives were given significantly more stock options—combined with a volatile stock price to provide only a few team members with the opportunity to realize very large financial gains in the future. The study demonstrates that the social‐psychological factors that affect comparisons among members of the CEO's top team impact the board's pay setting process, which in turn affects pay dispersion, and ultimately firm performance. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

河北省与全国先进省市的商贸流通比较研究

在我国商贸流通加快发展的大环境下，通过对2009年河北省商贸流通与全国先进省市商务流通的数据比较和计算．采用定量分析和比较研究的方法．得出河北省商贸流通与全国先进省市商贸流通的差距．并针对这些差距对河北堵的商务流通的发展提出相应的建议对策．旨在加快转变河北省经济发展方式．促进河北省商贸流通业的发展．形成较为完备的服务业体系。     

United Kingdom residential price expectations and inflation

Summary

Investment in residential real estate provides both a durable and non‐durable asset which is eroded by inflation. Fisher hypothesized that if man had perfect foresight he would adjust the interest rate to counterbalance the effect of changes in inflation. Although performing creditably in the long run, residential property does not respond instantaneously or regularly to changes in the level of inflation in most places.     

Posterior model probabilities via path-based pairwise priors

We focus on Bayesian model selection for the variable selection problem in large model spaces. The challenge is to search the huge model space adequately, while accurately approximating model posterior probabilities for the visited models. The issue of choice of prior distributions for the visited models is also important.     

政府会计国际比较:发现与启示

文章首先从会计确认和计量、财务报告、预算报告等方面,比较了盎格鲁-撒克逊国家和欧洲大陆国家的地方政府会计体系,发现国际背景下公共会计系统的主要特征仍然是会计多样性;接着从法律体系、公共部门组织、公共财务报告的特定目标、会计职业界的兴趣和构成等方面分析了会计多样性的原因和本质;最后,基于我国公共管理领域改革的现状,就如何建立并完善我国的公共部门会计体系提出建议。