Formal Rehabilitation Procedures and Insolvent Firms: Empirical Evidence on the British Company Voluntary Arrangement Procedure

The British Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) is a relatively new debtor rehabilitation process intended to help financially troubled companies, particularly SMEs, resolve their difficulties without being forced into liquidation by secured creditors anxious to recover their funds. This paper is based on a survey conducted by Milman and Chittenden for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants that is the largest and most comprehensive on the subject of British CVAs. It has three principal objectives: (i) to outline the defining characteristics of CVAs; (ii) to analyse the relationships between CVA performance and contextual factors; (iii) to provide policy recommendations based on those findings. Among other things we find that CVA success is most closely associated with sound fundamental prospects for recovery and supportive creditors. Our principal recommendation is that ways should be found of lowering the fixed costs of CVAs to make the procedure feasible for a larger number of small firms.     

Attendees’ needs and service priorities in a large convention center: Application of the importance–performance theory

The study identified attendees’ needs and service priorities when attending an exhibition at a large convention center. Data was collected using self-administered questionnaires from 566 subjects attending five different exhibitions. The results indicated that overall cleanliness of the convention center, a well-maintained facility, and helpfulness of guest services personnel were top priorities for attendees regarding the convention center's facility services. Attendees also attributed high importance to the following features of the convention facility: directional signage within the convention center, availability of high quality lodging near the convention center, sufficient restrooms throughout the facility, and ability to get cell phone signal. Furthermore, statistically significant differences were found between the level of importance and performance of the majority of the facility services and features of the convention center. Implications for decision makers regarding these importance–performance gaps are discussed.     

Social impacts of tourism : Host perceptions

This study investigates the pergeptions of the residents of Nadi, Fiji, towards the impacts of tourism. A survey of 199 households revealed that residents (most of whom were dependent on the industry for their livelihood) supported the current magnitude of tourism and favored its expansion. Despite this very clear and generally positive view, the respondents identified specific negative and positive impacts that, in their view, affected the community. The results suggest that residents of communities dependent on tourism can clearly differentiate between its economic benefits and the social costs, and that awareness of certain negative consequences does not lead to opposition towards further tourism development.     

Optimal bilateral trade of multiple objects

We study a private-values buyer–seller problem with multiple objects. Valuations are binary and i.i.d. We construct mechanisms that span the set of all Pareto-efficient outcomes. The induced trading rules for objects are linked in a simple way.     

Retention Factors of Tipped Hourly Employees in the Casual Dining Restaurant Segment: Exploratory Research in Central Florida

ABSTRACT

Hourly employee retention has been a major area of concern for casual dining restaurant operators. The current exploratory research employed a self-administered questionnaire asking 96 tipped casual dining restaurant hourly employees from 12 different restaurants in the Central Florida region of the United States to rate the importance of 21 employment characteristics of their job and their actual experience with these employment characteristics. The findings revealed that the most important employment characteristics were: flexible working hours, consistent working hours, and nice people to work with. These findings differed from a similar previous study done in 2004 with quick service restaurant employees who rated nice people to work with, humane approach to employees, and hourly wages as the most important employment characteristics. The current study showed statistically significant differences between the level of importance and actual experience attached to 18 of the 21 employment characteristics, which could explain some potential areas of misperception between hourly employees and managers in the industry. These variations can consequently help to explain the high turnover and low retention of employees in the tipped positions in the casual dining restaurant industry. Implications for management are discussed.     

The Symbolic Role of Postcards in Representing a Destination Image: The Case of Alanya,Turkey

The study adopted a qualitative approach to investigate the role of postcards in representing a destination image as evidence for their travel. A total of 15 postcard racks in Alanya, Turkey were sampled in a variety of sales outlets, using an observation and content photography techniques. The postcards were sorted into four groups according to their levels of authenticity and contextual representation of the tourist's experience at the destination. The analysis yielded a conceptual framework of four types of postcards: realistic, refurbished reality, misleading, and fantasy. The study concluded that only a small proportion of the postcards represented authentic and true images of Alanya, while the majority of the postcards provided ambiguous, unclear, and confusing images of the destination. Recommendations for developing more realistic images to be featured on postcards are discussed.     

Evaluating the guest experience at theme parks: an empirical investigation of key attributes

The study identified and documented a consumer‐oriented attribute inventory for evaluating theme parks. Data were collected from 608 Central Florida residents, domestic and international tourists who identified and ranked the level of importance of 41 attributes and park characteristics when visiting a typical theme park. Further analysis of the data using factor analysis identified seven key constructs that summarised important areas of concern when consumers evaluate theme parks. The majority of these factors were related to guest experiences such as (i) entertainment variety and quality; (ii) courtesy, cleanliness, safety and security; (iii) food variety and value for money; (iv) quality of theming and design; (v) availability and variety of family‐oriented activities; (vi) quality and variety of rides and attractions; and (vii) pricing and value for money. Implications for theme park owners, operators and marketing executives were discussed in light of the increasing demand for distinctive guest experiences while visiting theme parks. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exploring experiential consumption dimensions in the theme park context

Although theme park products play a significant role in experiential consumption, there is a lack of attention on the components of theme park experience in the experiential consumption framework. Therefore, the current study was conducted to develop a scale to measure theme park visitor experience by applying Schmitt’s [(1999a). Experiential marketing: How to get customers to sense, feel, think, act, and relate to your company and brands. New York, NY: Free Press] five strategic experiential modules of SENSE, FEEL, THINK, ACT, and RELATE. The scale was tested on an online sample of 400 US residents who visited at least one theme park in the past twelve months. Three different analyses were used to test the reliability and validity of the 5-factor experiential consumption model. First, principal component analysis to identify the number of meaningful factors revealed a 4-factor model structure. Second, confirmatory factor analysis to test the psychometric properties of the measurement and structural models supported the 5-factor model structure, with a few convergent and discriminant validity issues, particularly on the ACT factor. Third, partial least squares analysis with both formative and reflective specifications fully supported the 5-factor model structure with a minimal concern on the convergent validity of the ACT factor. Theoretical, managerial, and methodological implications regarding visitor experience in theme parks are discussed.     

Contagion of self-fulfilling financial crises due to diversification of investment portfolios

We look at two countries that have independent fundamentals, but share the same group of investors. Each country might face a self-fulfilling crisis: Agents withdrawing their investments fearing that others will. A crisis in one country reduces agents’ wealth. This makes them more averse to the strategic risk associated with the unknown behavior of other agents in the second country, increasing their incentive to withdraw their investments. Consequently, the probability of a crisis there increases. This generates a positive correlation between the returns in the two countries. Since diversification affects returns in our model, its welfare implications are non-trivial.     

Partnership dissolution with interdependent values

We study partnership dissolution when valuations are interdependent and only one party is informed. In contrast with the case of private values (Cramton, Gibbons, and Klemperer, 1987), in which efficient trade is feasible whenever initial shares are about equal, there exists a wide class of situations in which full efficiency cannot be reached. In these cases, (i) the subsidy required to restore the first best is minimal when the entire ownership is allocated initially to one of the parties, and (ii) ruling out external subsidies, the second‐best welfare is maximized when one of the parties initially has full ownership.