Enabling the language of accessible tourism

The growing body of literature on “accessible tourism” lacks a critical scholarly debate around its specific language use and nomenclatures. To fill this gap, this paper provides a first examination of language. Language provides a unique capability to resist, strengthen and reframe identities of individuals and groups, yet can also reinforce, weaken and perpetuate dominant worldviews of disability. A content analysis examined previous accessible tourism literature with results illustrating that diversity exists amongst the varying terminologies adopted by scholars. Terms were employed loosely, inconsistently and interchangeably, euphemistically with erroneous understandings and nuances. The paper concludes with critical discussion about the power of researchers to (re) produce oppression through language that maligns and misrepresents, or to (re) conceptualise and (re) construct the world we live in with liberating language that facilitates positive social change.     

Outward foreign direct investment by Polish state-owned multinational enterprises: is ‘stateness’ an asset or a burden?

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are commonly associated with undue advantages due to preferential treatment by the state. Simultaneously they are often quoted as handicapped given the notorious state interference, management problems and agency tensions. They used to be regarded as a mainly domestic issue but in the context of globalisation and the fact that states enter treaties with new obligations, SOEs’ performance ceased to be solely a domestic problem, increasingly so as state-owned multinational enterprises (SOMNEs) emerge. This article presents the results of research on Polish SOEs’ outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). It offers an overview of overseas activities of nine major Polish firms with a state stake and aims to contribute to the conceptual literature on foreign investments conducted by SOMNEs. We distinguish between FDI by SOMNEs as specific – privileged (facilitated) or discriminated (hampered) – investments subject to the home country’s state power and the host country’s state perception.     

Assessing the effects of policies on China’s outward foreign direct investment

This paper discusses the determinants of China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) with a special focus on the role of government policy. In particular, we investigate the types of policies that are most influential in promoting OFDI. Our main contribution is to analyse, for the first time, China’s OFDI policies by means of quantitative indicators. We refine policies definitions and distinguish between Regulation Policies, Service Policies, Promotion Policies and Supervision Policies, and we develop a methodology for collecting, screening and coding policies; then we create new indices to capture different types of policies. We find that Regulation Policies, Service Policies and the general attitude of the government have significant effects on China’s OFDI at the national level.     

Board directors with foreign experience and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

This study examines the impact of board directors with foreign experience (BDFEs) on stock price crash risk. We find that BDFEs help reduce crash risk. This association is robust to a series of robustness checks, including a firm fixed effects model, controlling for possibly omitted variables, and instrumental variable estimations. Moreover, we find that the negative association between BDFEs and crash risk is more pronounced for firms with more agency problems, weaker corporate governance, and less overall transparency. Our findings suggest that the characteristics of board directors matter in determining stock price crash risk.     

A study on motivation differences among traditional festival visitors based on demographic characteristics,case study: Gol-Ghaltan festival,Iran

Villages and cities have a growing tendency to share their culture and nature with tourists by developing events. This article aims to identify motivational factors influencing visitors' attendance in traditional festivals and then analyzing significant motivation differences among visitors based on their demographic differences. The statistical sample is domestic tourists who visited the 8th Gol-Ghaltan Festival, Iran in 2015. The convenience sampling method has been used and 287 acceptable questionnaires were acquired. Factor analysis has determined six important motivational factors, including “Gol-Ghaltan and Family,” “Cultural Exploration,” “Socialization,” “Supporting Local Community and Heritage,” “Event Novelty,” and “Escape.” Most of these factors are coinciding with previous literature on cultural events except first and fourth factors. Results of T-test and ANOVA show that visitors in various demographic groups have significant differences in the motivational factors. Finally, in accordance with the findings of the research, practical suggestions are presented for managers and marketers of this event.     

Crowdsourcing-based semantic relation recognition for natural language questions over RDF data

ABSTRACT

Natural language query systems over RDF data need to rely on the semantic relations in query. First, we propose the new crowdsourcing model that used to produce semantic relations dataset. The model not only inherits completeness of the iterative model and accuracy of the parallel model, but also saves human resources. Second, we mine the rules of semantic relation recognition from the correlations between dependency structures and semantic relations. Third, we propose an algorithm of semantic relation recognition for natural language query over RDF data, and experiments demonstrate that it can recognize more semantic relations than existing methods.     

COMPARING PPP WITH TRADITIONAL PROCUREMENT: THE CASE OF SCHOOLS PROCUREMENT IN IRELAND

Advocates of public‐private partnerships (PPPs) argue that they can deliver public infrastructure more efficiently than traditional procurement through timelier completion and superior value for money. Despite these claims comparative analysis of the performance of both procurement methods has received scant attention in the PPP literature to date. This paper addresses this issue by providing an in‐depth, case‐based comparison of PPP versus traditional procurement in the schools sector in Ireland. Through detailed semi‐structured interviews with key stakeholders and an examination of the available documentation, we assess whether the key objectives of using PPP have been achieved. Overall, we find no evidence that PPP leads to faster delivery of infrastructure when the overall procurement process from contract notice to delivery is accounted for. In addition, we find only limited evidence to suggest that PPP results in better value for money.     

高等职业教育应担负起创新型人才培养的重任

培养创新型人才是高等职业教育的神圣使命,在创新型人才培养中,必须做好转变观念齐抓共育,创造条件加强实践,建立机制引导创新,以点带面不断完善,勇于探索不断创新。     

Productivity Growth in the Chinese Economy by Industry and the Role of Foreign Capital

I. IntroductionIt is well known that China’s reform and open-up policy initiated in 1978 had an extremelylarge impact on the Chinese economy. This policy represented an about-face against thetraditional self-reconstruction strategy that China had maintained since the founding ofthe people’s Republic in 1949. Although China’s economy temporarily fell into confusionfor a few years after the Tian-an-men incident in 1989, China continued to record high GDPgrowth. Moreover, after Deng Xiao…