Defining and measuring informal employment in South Africa

There is limited consensus on how to define informal employment in South Africa, but in the South African and international literature the three most common ways of capturing informal employment are the enterprise, employment relationship and worker characteristics approaches. This paper reviews the methods used by Statistics South Africa to measure informal employment before and after the introduction of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey, and other recently proposed methods. It then investigates the congruence, if any, between five measures of informality used in 2009. It finds that 94.7% of the self-employed are informal according to at least one definition, but only 62.6% according to all five combined. In addition, these two proportions are only 67.7% and 6.9% respectively in the case of informal employees. Econometric analysis is conducted to further investigate the differences between these measures.     

浅谈近年来南通家纺产品发展趋势

家纺业是南通的支柱产业之一。简单介绍了南通家纺产业的发展历史,分析了南通地区家纺产品的发展现状,并结合近年来我国家纺产品的发展趋势,总结了南通地区家纺产品艺术化与功能化相结合的发展趋势。     

Publishing in the primary leisure journals: Insight into the structure and boundaries of our research

Abstract

This study is a systematic empirical analysis of the structure and boundaries of leisure research as reflected by 2,628 citations used in six volumes of Journal of Leisure Research and Leisure Sciences. Four indicators were used to describe the structure of leisure research: the contributions from other fields, the type of citations used, the number of leisure sub‐topical areas, and the age of the citations. Leisure research has extensive ties with at least six fields and intensive attachments to three fields. As a result, citations are diversified by field and by many leisure research specialty areas. Journals and books constitute the majority of citation types, and the accumulation of recreation/leisure literature has shown substantial growth since the late 1950s. The proportion of sources originating in the recreation and parks field is growing but is still at relatively low levels in comparison with other fields of inquiry.     

Youth unemployment in South Africa revisited

One of the most pressing socio-economic problems of the South African economy is high youth unemployment. Recent studies only briefly examined how youths have fared since the transition by comparing the 1995 October Household Survey with a Labour Force Survey, and hardly investigated whether the discouraged workseekers are different from the unemployed. This paper re-examined youth unemployment trends in the 2008–12 Quarterly Labour Force Surveys, before comparing the characteristics of discouraged workseekers and narrow unemployed. Whether different policies are needed to boost youth employment in each group is also discussed.     

Relationships and Factors Influencing Convention Decision-Making

Abstract

This paper examines the views of key decision-makers in the convention industry as part of a CRC for Sustainable Tourism research project. In particular, it examines the relationships between the main participants, the key factors for a successful convention and the emerging trends within the industry. In order to explore these influences, the research method used structured interviews with international convention associations, professional conference organizers (PCOs) and international delegates. In-depth telephone interviews were conducted with nine international associations from Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as eight PCOs, all of whom facilitate international conventions within Australia. Nineteen international delegates were also interviewed at two international conferences. The findings from these interviews suggest that the decision-making process for conventions is influenced by a complex set of relationships between the three sets of interviewees. The study revealed that the relationships between the convention bureaus and convention centers were very important. The interviews confirmed the findings of previous studies regarding the key success components for a convention, but also pointed to emerging trends in the convention sector that will impact upon success in the future. These trends included the increasing number of female conference delegates, the increased need for Internet facilities for conventions, and the high priority placed by convention participants on the safety of the convention destination.     

近十年国内购物旅游研究综述

自20世纪90年代末以来,我国购物旅游得到不断发展,对其研究也在逐渐增多。通过文献整理,将研究内容归为供给角度的文化视角下购物旅游商品开发和经济视角下购物旅游市场开发研究;需求角度的购物者的感知风险、满意度、行为和体验等研究;供需角度的双向研究以及购物旅游相关方向研究。由此可见,未来购物旅游的研究视角会不断创新且研究方法将会更加注重定性与定量相结合,研究领域也将不断的细化。     

50 Years of research on organizing the purchasing function: Do we need any more?

Research on organizing the purchasing function has seen the rise and fall of different topics, for example the buying centre. And although the increasingly strategic role of purchasing still possesses practical challenges to its effective organizational setup, one has to question whether, after 50 years, there really is a need for more research in this specific domain.As starting point to answer the question, 212 articles published since 1962 are reviewed to provide a comprehensive overview of existing insights. Via content analysis, we inductively establish 12 specific research areas dealing with distinct aspects of purchasing organization.Then the need for further research is assessed by combining those findings with relevant business trends that induce practical challenges in each research area and, consequently, also the need for future research. We conclude that almost all research areas will remain relevant in the future, but need an adjustment of their focus.     

中国应对全球治理和多边主义挑战的实践和理论意义

当前,世界经济增长乏力,国际政治和安全挑战增加,科技冷战和集团对抗的阴影加重,全球治理和多边主义面临美国单边主义及世界范围的民粹主义和保护主义等社会思潮的叠加冲击,国际形势的不稳定性和不确定性急剧上升。中国从国际关系的方向、目标和道义高度认识和提倡多边主义,形成了对多边主义主要内涵、基本路径的科学认识,多边外交理论不断丰富发展。与此同时,中国在全球治理的有效实施、体系变革、内涵更新和国际努力方面贡献了中国智慧和中国方案。展望未来,中国和国际社会作为利益攸关方,需要长期坚持和创新多边主义,增强全球治理的实践和理性认识,共同克服困难和应对挑战,更加积极有效地建构新型国际关系和人类命运共同体。     

Mountain bike tourism in Austria and the Alpine region – towards a sustainable model for multi-stakeholder product development

This paper interrogates the polarized and heated discussions about mountain bike tourism in Austrian forests, with several organizations favoring permitting biking on all forest roads, using claimed tourism development opportunities, while other stakeholders including hikers, hunters and landowners wish to restrict development. An international literature review on the value and impacts of mountain biking shows that both sides have oversimplified complex cases. The paper draws on 12 in-depth interviews with Austrian tourism destination and mountain bike experts to find ways forward. Results suggest that in Austria, bike tourism will increase in the future, supported by new bike technology, including electric bikes and new hand-held route information technology. It notes the complexity of the market for mountain and other forms of cycle tourism, and the pressing need to create not more trails but more sophisticated tourism products, including appealing and well-maintained trails plus attractive leisure infrastructure (bike rental, service and repair facilities, attractive localities, accommodation suited to the mountain bikers’ needs, etc.). Collaborative planning with all stakeholders, better trail construction standards adapted to differing preferences, needs and environmental conditions as well as clear standards for monitoring are prerequisites of an Austrian strategy for sustainable cycle tourism development and management, which can be replicated elsewhere.     

Top Incomes in Chile: A Historical Perspective on Income Inequality, 1964–2017

We present a novel series of Chilean top-income shares covering half a century, mainly based on income-tax declarations and the National Accounts. Such a time frame of analysis is still rare in the literature of developing countries. We distinguish between a fiscal-income series (1964–2017) and an adjusted series (1990–2017). The former covers individual income, while the latter also includes corporate undistributed profits, which affects both levels and trends. The fiscal-income estimates start with low levels and a decreasing trend over the 1960s. They then increase rapidly during the dictatorship years (1973–89). The series ends with a high, yet slowly decreasing, concentration for most of the recent democratic period (1990–2017). By contrast, the adjusted series has followed a U-shape since the return of democracy, contradicting the established consensus on falling inequality over the period. Furthermore, Chile ranks among the most unequal countries in both the OECD and Latin American countries over the period.