Reducing visitor car use in a protected area: a market segmentation approach to achieving behaviour change

This research uses a market segmentation approach to reducing transport-related environmental burdens from visitors, while maintaining economic benefit. The approach was tested in the Lake District National Park (UK). It aimed first to explore visitor transport behaviour using a social psychological framework, to understand what might best predict desired behaviour change (i.e. reduced visitor car use). Second, it developed and tested different types of marketing messages to reduce car use, based on persuasive communication theory, establishing marketing propositions appropriate to different visitor types and market segments. Third, it identified market segments with both a high propensity towards positive behavioural change and the highest economic contribution to the destination. The work is based on Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour and on persuasive communication. Three hundred and ninety completed questionnaires were obtained. The paper emphasises the importance of context in successful communication to influence behaviour and shows that a market segmentation approach to behavioural change can be successful. Complex patterns of visitor mobility and modal choice emerge. For example “New Explorers” and “Familiar Families” are most likely to reduce their car use (45% and 48% respectively) and less likely to perceive this as difficult.     

Spectral analysis of public utility returns

This study tests the practicality of using the capital asset pricing model to evaluate public utility returns. To this end, utilities are grouped into portfolios, in accordance with their industry classification and their prime regulatory authority. Then their relationship to a market index of unregulated securities is analyzed vis-à-vis the relationship between this index and several control securities believed, a priori, to be of commensurate risk. These relationships are analyzed in two steps: the first step investigates the real trend movements over time; the second, the association of the wide-sense stationary components of these return processes. Bivariate spectral analysis is used in the second phase of this investigation. This enables us to analyze the time lags between return processes, and to break up our estimates by duration of cyclical movement and compare the long-term and short-term estimates.We conclude that ordinary least squares estimates of utility β's lack value to either investors or regulators. This is due to the highly unstable relationship between utility returns and the market index and to the existence of a lag between these processes. One explanation for this finding is regulatory lag and the uncertainty (as well as the actual content) surrounding regulatory authority decisions.     

Leadership,power and racism: lifeguards’ influences on Aboriginal people’s experiences at a Northern Canadian aquatic facility

Using a Foucauldian and postcolonial lens, this case study examines the ways in which leadership styles used by lifeguards and supported by the structure, rules and regulations at a northern Canadian swimming pool influenced Aboriginal people’s experience of the facility. Participant observation, semi-structured interviews and a focus group were used to identify the ways in which Eurocentric lifeguard training, exercises of power, institutional racism and an absence of cultural competency can intersect to influence Aboriginal people’s use of a local pool and their considerations of lifeguarding as a potential employment opportunity. On the basis of these findings, the study suggests that the development and implementation of anti-discriminatory policies and procedures for swimming pools and the inclusion of cultural competency teachings in lifeguard training are necessary measures to enhance Aboriginal people’s experiences at northern swimming pools, to foster opportunities to become lifeguards and to augment Euro-Canadian lifeguards’ capacity to maintain a safe and welcoming aquatic environment in a cross-cultural context.     

Back to the cave or playing away? Gender roles in home-from-home environments

Abstract: This paper theorizes the gender roles that are played out in the alternative spaces acquired by purchasers of second homes in foreign rural environments. These homes are often constructed by their owners (both men and women) as bolt-holes, simple places of escape from normal routines; the lived reality is that they become arenas in which men often play at cave-building or peasant-style farming, while women find a different context for creative home-making, shopping and socializing, and the caring ethic of being involved with children, grandchildren and visitors. Both genders are freed from the constraints of their normal working lives, but the ambivalent nature of the context which is both home and holiday is one in which work is present, in the form of do-it-yourself or doing the domestic, while at the same time it provides opportunity for forms of ludic behaviour. Drawing from a series of unstructured interviews, I examine the consumption practices of second home owners and analyse the ways in which informants reflect on their activities and identities. The home-and-yet-away context allows the experiences and meanings of home and away from home to be explored from both genders’ perspectives, leading to conclusions about the dynamics of gender relationships in situations that combine routine and novelty.     

Do the Chinese “Keep up with the Jones”?: Implications of peer effects,growing economic disparities and relative deprivation on health outcomes among older adults in China

What are the health effects of unequal economic growth? What are the health consequences of ‘keeping up with the Jones’? Many developed countries (e.g., US and Japan) have experienced significant income growth between 1950s and 2000s but population survey shows that on average the population is not growing more satisfied with life. Theories that attempt to respond to these findings hypothesize that as income grows, people may spend more on conspicuous consumption because they compare themselves with others in their peer groups and care about their position in socio-economic distributions relative to others. Indeed, public health studies have found a relationship between income inequality and adult health outcomes in developed countries. Specifically, there seems to be a correlation between social hierarchy and mortality, as well as a correlation between social hierarchy and morbidity.China is a prime study site due to its growing spatial inequalities in the past decade. Though China has been committed to economic reform, different regions and cities have encountered very disparate rates of development and growth. In this paper, we utilize a set of panel data collected in China (China Health and Nutrition Survey 1989–2004) to examine the effects of peer groups, relative deprivation, and income disparities on individual health outcomes such as the probability of high waist circumference, body mass index categories, probability of hypertension, nutritional intake as well as health behavior such as smoking. We use a combination of multi-level mixed effects modeling as well as factor analysis to examine these effects and find significant and differential effects of income quartiles, peer groups, relative deprivation, and Gini coefficient on health.     

Examining the role of cultural exposure in improving intercultural competence: implications for HRM practices in multicultural organizations

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between the breadth and depth of cultural exposure (CE), intercultural sensitivity and intercultural competence to draw implications that can improve recruitment and staff development practices in organizations with a culturally diverse workforce. Findings from a survey (N = 214) in Australia support the notion that intercultural competence is a broader concept that requires a deep exposure to other cultures as compared to intercultural sensitivity. The findings suggest that breadth of CE has limited potential whereas depth of CE is more beneficial in improving an individual’s intercultural abilities. Implications are drawn based on the findings of the study such that organizations are able to recruit and develop employees who are truly interculturally inclined and can effectively navigate the challenges of working in today’s multicultural organizations.     

Group learning and performance: the role of communication and faultlines

Drawing upon group learning theory, we suggest that communication content and frequency as well as experimentation can be considered aspects of group learning behavior and explore their effect on group performance. We posit that communication content and frequency, as well as experimentation, positively influence group performance. Further, drawing upon the diversity construct of group faultlines, we hypothesize that faultlines moderate these relationships. Results provide mixed support for our hypotheses.