Characteristics and Behaviour of Tourists Who Use Trails

This article documents the popularity of five types of trail-based recreation relative to other forms of recreation that tourists frequently participate in on their trips; identifies these trail users’ cross-participation in other outdoor recreation activities; and profiles the travel behaviour, media habits, trip planning behaviour, and demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of day hikers and snowmobilers as two particularly large trail user segments. Findings are based on data from a household telephone survey conducted in Michigan, surrounding states, and Ontario, Canada. Hiking/backpacking was found to be the most popular natural resource-based recreation activity that respondents participated in on pleasure trips taken during the past 12 months; other forms of trail-based recreation were significantly less popular; mountain bikers participated in nature-oriented recreation activities in Michigan at levels that were similar to those of hikers/backpackers; and snowmobiling appeared to be the focus of most pleasure trips on which this activity occurred, in contrast to day hiking, which appeared to be more of an ancillary pursuit.     

Let them talk! Managing primary and extended online brand communities for success

It is clear that customer-to-customer contact through informal social networking and more formal company-sponsored platforms, such as discussion forums, is an increasingly integral element in building brand communities. There are many benefits to this interaction, such as nurturing brand champions and ‘super users,’ and reduced service costs through customer-to-customer solutions for product problems. However, there are also hazards inherent in these largely unregulated communities, such as the potential damage of widely spread negative information, which may be based on fact or on malicious intent. Herein, we summarize the results of several years of research examining these communities in an attempt to understand why they succeed, what benefits can be extracted from them, and—in particular—how negative information emerging in these environments can be strategically managed. Based on a series of quantitative and qualitative studies, we identified several key drivers of online brand community success (i.e., intervention, conversion, value creation, and harvesting) and the different combinations of community players who must collaborate to achieve such success. Delving more deeply into the issue of negative information management, we find that the topic being discussed (i.e., core versus augmented product) and the validity of the claim greatly influence a firm's appropriate strategic response. Throughout this article, we offer managerial guidance on the most effective ways to develop primary brand communities that encourage loyalty, purchases, and positive word of mouth.     

Consumer Power: Evolution in the Digital Age

The predictions of growing consumer power in the digital age that predated the turn of the century were fueled by the rise of the Internet, then reignited by social media. This article explores the intersection of consumer behavior and digital media by clearly defining consumer power and empowerment in Internet and social media contexts and by presenting a theoretical framework of four distinct consumer power sources: demand-, information-, network-, and crowd-based power. Furthermore, we highlight technology's evolutionary role in the development of these power sources and discuss the nature of shifts in power from marketers to consumers in terms of each source. The framework organizes prior marketing literature on Internet-enabled consumer empowerment and highlights gaps in current research. Specific research questions are elaborated for each source of power outlining the agenda for future research areas.     

Boardroom centrality and firm performance

Firms with central boards of directors earn superior risk-adjusted stock returns. A long (short) position in the most (least) central firms earns average annual returns of 4.68%. Firms with central boards also experience higher future return-on-assets growth and more positive analyst forecast errors. Return prediction, return-on-assets growth, and analyst errors are concentrated among high growth opportunity firms or firms confronting adverse circumstances, consistent with boardroom connections mattering most for firms standing to benefit most from information and resources exchanged through boardroom networks. Overall, our results suggest that director networks provide economic benefits that are not immediately reflected in stock prices.     

The Effectiveness of a Buzz Marketing Approach Compared to Traditional Advertising: An Exploration

Marketers are now willing to go anyplace they can find a captive audience to espouse the virtues of their products. The success of the “buzz” marketing approach is linked to the consumer being lured into doing the advertising by spreading the message to others. This study compares students’ responses to a traditional advertising and a buzz approach. Using a factor analysis to identify variables, the results show that subjects perceive a buzz approach to be more influential than a traditional advertising. However, they do not perceive a buzz approach to be authentic. This finding is consistent with practitioners’ argument that, although a buzz approach may be effective in the short-term, once consumers recognize its selling intent, the program may have a “boomerang effect.”     

The influence of personality on active and passive use of social networking sites

Managers are more and more interested in social networking sites because they provide opportunities for strengthening relationships with customers as well as site content and service. Using social networking sites effectively, however, depends on understanding both the psychological attributes and social interactions of participants. This paper addresses these topics by presenting the results of a two‐study inquiry into the importance of two personality traits (consumer innovativeness and expressiveness) to active and passive use of social networks among Italian consumers. In Study 1 ( n = 753) it was found that innovativeness is positively related to active and passive use. Study 2 ( n = 277) revealed that self‐identity expressiveness and social identity expressiveness positively influence only active use. These results suggest that managers need to distinguish bet‐ween, and differentially encourage, joining and browsing such sites on the one hand and actively contributing to them on the other. Managers can also enhance the impact of their social networking sites by taking into account social and self‐identity expressiveness to increase affiliation and market share and by encouraging consumers to use these sites actively. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Minsky Goes to Buffalo—and Takes on the Economics Establishment

This essay is based on remarks presented by the author at The Fourth Bi-Annual Cross-Border Post Keynesian Conference, Buffalo State College, on October 9, 2009. It addresses the economic challenges facing Buffalo, New York, and countless other American cities, especially in the Northeast and Midwest; draws on the writings of Hyman Minsky to offer an interpretation of what many now call the Great Recession, which began in late 2007; and challenges the image of Minsky presented by mainstream economists and journalists, with special attention to a recent lecture by Paul Krugman. The essay closes by returning to Buffalo, where—as Minsky anticipated in the 1990s—the economic fate of working families depends largely on the outcome of a national struggle over the shape of future U.S. economic transformation.     

Can Federal Grants Mitigate Social Competition?

The European economic integration leads to increasing mobilityof factors, thereby threatening the stability of social transferprograms. This article investigates the possibility to achieveby means of voluntary matching grants both the optimal allocationof factors and the optimal level of redistribution in the presenceof factor mobility. We use a fiscal competition model a la Wildasin(1991) in which states differ in their technologies and preferencesfor redistribution. We first investigate a simple process inwhich the federal authority progressively raises the matchinggrants to the district choosing the lowest transfer and alldistricts respond optimally to the resulting change in transfersall around. This process is shown to increase efficiency ofboth production and redistribution. However, it does not guaranteethat all districts gain, nor that an efficient level of redistributionis attained. Assuming complete information among districts,we derive the willingness of each district to match the contributionof other districts and we show that the aggregate willingnessto pay for matching rates converges to zero when both the efficientlevel of redistribution and the efficient allocation of factorsare achieved. We then describe an adjustment process for thematching rates that will lead districts to the efficient outcomeand guarantee that everyone will gain. (JEL Classification:H23, H70)     

A direct test of hyperbolic discounting using market asset data

This paper introduces a framework that generalizes exponential discounting in a net present value model by including a quasi-hyperbolic discount parameter in the asset valuation equation. Using observed market asset data, a statistically significant quasi-hyperbolic parameter is obtained, thus rejecting exponential discounting.