The selection of migrants and returnees in Romania

This paper uses census and survey data to identify the wage earning ability and the selection of recent Romanian migrants and returnees on observable characteristics. We construct measures of selection across skill groups and estimate the average and the skill‐specific premium for migration and return for three typical destinations of Romanian migrants after 1990. Once we account for migration costs, we find evidence that the selection and sorting of migrants are driven by different returns to skills in countries of destination. Our identification strategy for the effects of work experience abroad permits a cautious causal interpretation of the premium to return migration. This premium increases with migrants' skills and drives the positive selection of returnees relative to non‐migrants. Based on the compatibility of the results with rationality in the migration decisions, we simulate a rational‐agent model of education, migration and return. Our results suggest that for a source country like Romania relatively high rates of temporary migration might have positive long‐run effects on average skills and wages.     

Meeting planners’ use and evaluation of convention and visitor bureaus

The MICE industry represents one of the fastest growing segments of the tourism industry. Yet, it is only in recent years that the economic contribution of this industry segment has been recognized and the relationships among the various industry players have been examined in more depth. This study focuses on the relationship between meeting planners and convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs). Results of the study indicate that association meeting planners utilize CVBs more frequently than corporate planners. Meeting planners mainly use free rather than fee-based CVB services, with destination information and referral services being the most popular. The desire to deal directly with suppliers represents the major reason for meeting planners bypassing CVBs in their convention/meeting planning. Implications of the study results are discussed.     

Convention center facilities,attributes and services: The delegates' perspective

Convention centers are among the key players in the convention industry, make a critical economic contribution to the destination and present an important consideration in meeting planners' site selection process. Given the substantial investment in convention centers in recent years and the increased competition among them for business, an understanding of critical facilities, attributes and services is vital. This article assesses convention delegates' perceptions of the importance of select venue facilities, attributes and services. Furthermore, the performance of one of the top convention centers in Asia is assessed, identifying its strengths and weaknesses on the basis of an importance-performance analysis.     

The Politics of Socio-technical Intervention: An Interactionist View

In this article, we apply concepts from symbolic interactionism - a well-established tradition of interpretivist sociology - to investigate the social and political processes involved in a sociotechnical intervention. The intervention was designed to elicit operator involvement in an experimental trial of an advanced manufacturing system at an industrial site in Australia. The interactionist concepts of social worlds, boundary objects and trajectories are used to explore the interrelationships among the theoretical, practical and contextual elements of intervention. We believe that these concepts are flexible intellectual resources that can extend and enrich our understanding of the politics involved in the shaping of work and technology. Such an understanding is necessary if the fields of user participation and sociotechnical design are to move beyond the production of normative discourses and methods into effective interventions in the complex social environments in which technical decisions are made.     

Sales Response to Advertising

Advertising research still has to make a major contribution, both theoretically and practically, providing a satisfactory answer to the question: how does advertising influence sales? This article tackles the problem by providing a thorough analysis of the causal relationship between advertising and sales, the strength of the effects and the occurrence of time lags. Time series data for advertising and sales are related to each other in a quantitative model to provide an answer to the question of how advertising contributes to sales. The method presented is applicable to other related studies and information can thus be accumulated about the usefulness of the model.     

Service quality and blood donors — a marketing perspective

The National Blood Service, celebrating their fast half century, have responded to the increasing need for blood with the launch of their biggest recruitment drive ever, targeted at young adults with the goal of encouraging a life‐time habit of giving blood. Prerequisites for improving the effectiveness of donor acquisition and retention strategies are to understand who gives blood, the motivations for giving and for defection as well as the reasons why the majority of eligible donors do not donate. A literature review of blood donor characteristics and motivations sets the contextual background to the field study of some 240 students at a British University and a conceptual model which depicts the behavioural chain of blood donorship is drawn. The implications for donor acquisition, retention and defection management are then outlined. Service quality, solicitation of donor's views and communication strategies are discussed and we conclude with proposals for further research.     

An agglomeration payment for cost-effective biodiversity conservation in spatially structured landscapes

Connected habitats are ecologically more valuable than isolated habitats for many species. A key challenge when designing payments for biodiversity in fragmented landscapes is to increase the spatial connectivity of habitats. Based on the idea of an agglomeration bonus we consider a scheme in which land-owners only receive payments if habitats are arranged in an ecologically favourable configuration. We compare the cost-effectiveness of agglomeration payments to spatially homogeneous payments on a conceptual level. Our results suggest that positive efficiency gains exist for agglomeration payments. We use Large Blue butterfly habitat in Germany as a specific case study, and find the agglomeration payments may lead to cost-savings of nearly 70% relative to homogenous payments.