Relationship quality between exhibitors and organizers: A perspective from Mainland China's exhibition industry

Despite the fact that many destinations around the world have invested significant resources to build large-scale exhibition centers and host exhibitions to gain both economic and non-economic benefits (e.g., Jago and Deery, 2010), there is a paucity of research on exhibitions in general, and on the relationships among key stakeholders in particular. This study aims to address this research gap by investigating the relationship between exhibitors and exhibition organizers in view of its potential to significantly affect the success of a particular exhibition, and in the broader context the success of exhibition destinations. A survey collected 616 responses from exhibitors exhibiting at nine trade fairs in four cities in Mainland China. Study findings confirmed that exhibitors’ relationship quality with organizers is a second-order construct composed of four factors: (1) service quality and relationship satisfaction, (2) trust and affective commitment, (3) communication, and (4) calculative commitment. Furthermore, perceived relationship quality differed significantly, depending on key characteristics of organizers and exhibitors. Potential reasons that might contribute to these differences are explored and implications are discussed.     

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.     

Corporate Environmental Strategies Towards Sustainable Development

Many companies have adopted some form of environmental programme to manage their relationship with nature. However, a company's environmental achievements tend to be disconnected from its general operations; consequently, these achievements are ineffective. The purpose of this article is to employ a conceptual approach to explore ways to compose effective corporate environmental strategies. From a resource perspective, the flow of material, knowledge and experiences, relationships, communication, and cooperation and control are discussed as strategy aspects central to an effective environmental strategy. Using these five strategy aspects we show how three different strategies with different contents and directions can be assembled. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Anticipating Long‐Term Stock Market Volatility

We investigate the relationship between long‐term US stock market risks and the macroeconomic environment using a two‐component GARCH‐MIDAS model. Our results show that macroeconomic variables are important determinants of the secular component of stock market volatility. Among the various macro variables in our dataset the term spread, housing starts, corporate profits and the unemployment rate have the highest predictive ability for long‐term stock market volatility. While the term spread and housing starts are leading variables with respect to stock market volatility, for industrial production and the unemployment rate expectations data from the Survey of Professional Forecasters regarding the future development are most informative. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Condominium Townhouse Investment

This accounting case involves the evaluation of various alternatives based on a real‐life personal property investment. The Condominium Townhouse Investment (CTI) case uses introductory management accounting concepts and analyses to introduce students to the case method of learning. The main concepts reinforced are relevant costs and revenues, including differentiating between opportunity and sunk costs. Students are not only asked to define and identify these items, but to consider choices centered on the decision alternatives in their role as accountants in public practice. This case is especially valuable because it offers students the chance to become engaged in an analysis and decision‐making situation that they can relate to both personally and professionally because, one day, they themselves are likely to become involved in a home ownership decision. The case focuses on real estate as a personal business investment, and requires both qualitative and quantitative analysis, with more emphasis on the qualitative aspect. In addition, the teaching notes include methods and strategies for students to use in an introductory managerial accounting class or level‐1 MBA class.     

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.     

Immigrants' Adaptation and Interracial/Interethnic Interactions in Natural Environments

ABSTRACT

This study examined the role of leisure in natural environments in immigrants' adaptation, with a particular emphasis on facilitating interracial/interethnic interactions. Berry's adaptation framework was used as a theoretical framework. The project used in-depth individual interviews with 70 immigrants from China, Latin America, Morocco, Turkey, Ukraine, and Vietnam residing in the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland. The findings showed that recreation in natural environments promoted immigrants' psychological adaptation by helping to improve psychological and emotional well-being, develop feelings of attachment, strengthen social ties, and build memories and family traditions. The sociocultural adaptation was increased when immigrants learned about the culture of the host countries. The natural environments were not particularly conducive to establishing interactions with strangers but were convenient settings for interacting with families and members of the ethnic community.     

Rationalising Inappropriate Behaviour at Contested Sites

This paper examines how tourists justify inappropriate behaviour at contested cultural heritage sites through an analysis of weblogs of people who climbed Uluru, Australia. The climb is increasingly seen as being inappropriate, culturally insensitive and socially unacceptable. Yet it remains open and up to 150,000 people participate each year. Park managers and traditional owners are trying to demarket it with the hope that falling consumer demand will ultimately result in its closure. The study revealed three types of climbers: those who reject the Aboriginality of the place; those with different value sets who see nothing inherently wrong with their actions; and a large group who is aware that its actions may be inappropriate and who, therefore, need to invoke some sort of neutralisation technique to rationalise their decision. This latter group is more likely to respond to behaviour modification messages and should be the main target of future demarketing activities.     

Proactive and politically skilled professionals: What is the relationship with affective occupational commitment?

The aim of this study is to extend research on employee affective commitment in three ways: (1) instead of organizational commitment the focus is on occupational commitment; (2) the role of proactive personality on affective occupational commitment is examined; and (3) occupational satisfaction is examined as a mediator and political skills as moderator in the relationship between proactive personality and affective occupational commitment. Two connected studies, one in a hospital located in the private sector and one in a university located in the public sector, are carried out in Pakistan, drawing on a total sample of over 400 employees. The results show that proactive personality is positively related to affective occupational commitment, and that occupational satisfaction partly mediates the relationship between proactive personality and affective occupational commitment. No effect is found for a moderator effect of political skills in the relationship between proactive personality and affective occupational commitment. Political skills however moderate the relationship between proactive personality and affective organizational commitment.