What does luxury really mean to millennial consumers?

The aim of this study was to determine how millennial luxury consumers define luxury based on a holistic systems theory perspective. The human ecosystem and its components were used to fully investigate the system of the millennial luxury consumer. A mixed methodology was used by conducting interviews and then a consumer survey. Based on the findings from this research, the definition for luxury based on the view of the millennial luxury consumer is as followed: Luxury is the characteristics of the product themselves, addresses the consumer's personal needs, and addresses the consumer's social needs. This study suggests that the ecosystem of the millennial luxury consumers, including its environments and interactions, helped in constructing their definition of luxury. This definition delivers millennial luxury consumer insights for luxury retailers and may provide strategic adaptations to help attract and retain millennial luxury consumers, while also supporting business sustainability in a challenging retail environment.     

Fairness in business: Does it matter,and what does it mean?

Fairness is a value that is touted and typically reinforced from childhood onward. Its association is universally positive. But does fairness have a place in business? Does it extend to the realm in which profit is emphasized? This Business Law & Ethics Corner delves into the matter and provides guidance for decision makers regarding fairness and its implications for business.     

Making Big Strides in the Middle East

China produced and sold approxi- mately 7.05 million vehicles in 2006,a number that makes it seem that Chinese auto manufacturers have never been worried about how to sell such a large number of autos.While completely satisfying the domestic market,most Chinese automakers such as Chery,Geely and Hafei,have also extended their sales networks to other developing countries.The Middle East     

What is business in America?

This paper, presented at the Conference on Value Issues in Business at Millsaps College, is divided into three parts. The first sketches the logic of the evolution of U.S. business and suggests reasons for its remarkable success. The second assesses the power of U.S. business in modern society, both from an economic and political perspective. The third attempts to formulate the underlying philosophy of U.S. business using ideals such as the work ethic, entrepreneurism, democracy, and equality. Some of these ideals, the paper suggests, are irreconcilable. Thomas J. Donaldson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University of Chicago. His publications in the area of business ethics include numerous articles and two books, Ethical Issues in Business co-edited with Patricia Werhane, and Corporations and Morality.     

What Role for the EPAs in the Caribbean?

The aim of this paper is to consider the possible implications of an EPA between the EU and the Caribbean. The focus is on the Caribbean economies, and on the question of what form of EPA might be pro‐development and pro‐poor for the region. The discussion outlines the specificities of the Caribbean region, and some of the economies therein as well as detailing the key analytical issues which need to be considered. The empirical analysis focuses on examining patterns of trade by product and geographical source at a highly detailed level of disaggregation. The analysis suggests that future EPA arrangements are more likely to lead to significant trade diversion as opposed to trade creation or trade reorientation. MFN liberalisation would serve to minimise trade diversion, but in turn is likely to lead to greater adjustment costs. If the EPAs are to be pro‐development and pro‐poor than maintaining/increasing levels of market access to the EU, and ensuring appropriate levels of assistance and aid will be critical.     

BHA : What role for the GM in the 21st century?

In order to identify the key issues facing the industry, the British Hospitality Association (BHA) has just conducted a survey on the Role of the General Manager in the 21st century in conjunction with the Master Innholder and American Express. The findings were announced on 20 January 2004.In the last few years the hsopitality has become ever more complex with increasingly demanding owners and     

When does the internationalization process begin? Problematizing temporal boundaries in international business

Recently there has been greater interest among international business researchers in studying processes and their temporal dimensions. We examine one such dimension by problematizing when processes are deemed to commence or end. Reperiodizing the start and end points of a process under study affects the theoretical conclusions about the process itself. We develop a methodology for reperiodization and apply it to an empirical study into the internationalization process of a type of new venture: the spinoff firm. Our conclusions specify the theoretical insights gained through reperiodization, demonstrating how this research strategy can be used to study processes in international business.     

What is in it for Me? Middle Manager Behavioral Integrity and Performance

We propose that middle managers’ perceived organizational support enhances their performance through the sequential mediation of their behavioral integrity and follower organizational citizenship behaviors. We test our model with data collected from middle managers, their direct subordinates, and their direct superiors at 18 hotel properties in China. The current study’s findings contribute to the existing literature on perceived organizational support and behavioral integrity. They also add a practical self-interest argument for middle managers’ efforts to maintain their word-action alignment by demonstrating that middle manager behavioral integrity positively affects middle managers’ own task performance ratings, both directly and via its positive effect on subordinates’ organizational citizenship behaviors.     

Exports and governance: Is the Middle East and North Africa region different?

This paper aims to analyse whether better governance rewards economic performance and facilitates the integration of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region into the world economy. In comparison with other regions in the world economy, MENA countries suffer from important institutional deficiencies, which generate insecurity and difficult international transactions. Despite this fact, the relationship between trade and institutional quality in MENA countries remains unexplored. A gravity model of trade augmented with governance indicators is estimated for the exports of 19 MENA countries, their 189 trading partners and for all exporters in the period from 1996 to 2013. The main results indicate that improvements in five of the six governance indicators increase exports from MENA countries, whereas better governance in destination countries does not affect MENA exports. Instead, each of the six governance indicators used has a positive effect on bilateral trade for the entire sample of exporters (189). Moreover, the effect of country‐pair similarity in governance indicators suggests that a similar level of regulatory quality and rule of law in exporting and importing countries increases exports from MENA countries. Similarities in voice and accountability also foster exports for the average exporter, but not for MENA exporters.     

What does the new long-run monetary policy framework imply for the path ahead?

Business Economics - Following a lengthy review, the FOMC recently revised its long-run monetary policy strategy statement, largely in recognition of the persistent threat the effective lower bound...     

What Future for the EU in the Global Trading System?

The recent phase of globalisation could be characterised as “wider”, whereas the next phase to come will be “deeper”. This new phase is likely to prove bumpier than the previous one, as the issues now at stake will have more to do with values or ethics, the interpenetration of which will be both economically necessary and politically difficult. In the medium term, the growth of the European economies will become more dependent on external trade, and thus these policy challenges will need to be addressed.     

Do National Cultures Matter for External Audits? Evidence from Eastern Europe and the Middle East

Journal of Business Ethics - This study aims to examine the relationship between national cultural dimensions and the probability of a firm being externally audited. It uses a large set of...     

Hotel guest satisfaction among business travelers: What are the important factors?

In their quest for improved quality, hospitality industry managers often face two major obstacles: (1) They do not know what aspects the guest considers to be important when evaluating the hotel experience, and (2) they do not have reliable and valid instruments for measuring quality perceptions. The objective of this study was to examine both of these obstacles. By employing LISREL analysis to two alternative models of hotel guest satisfaction, we found that the majority of variation in overall satisfaction can be explained by the intangible and tangible dimensions of three departments of the hotel: reception, the housekeeping department, and the food and beverage department. Further, tangible aspects of the housekeeping department and intangible aspects of reception were found to have the strongest effect on overall satisfaction. This calls for a more focused approach to service quality management than the total quality management literature generally recommends. Managers are advised to concentrate attention and resources on the aspects that have the highest importance for obtaining overall satisfaction. Because of the small amount of research in this area, the study must be regarded as preliminary and exploratory. Recommendations for further research are presented.     

Consumers’ value perception and value construction: the case of bottled water in the Middle East

This study illustrates how consumers realize the concept of value creation when making quick selections for a commodity in the Saudi market. Data were collected through a self-administered survey to customers; 1,045 completed and usable responses were received and analysed. The proposed model was tested through structural equation modelling using AMOS 22. Results indicate that product design and brand trust affect electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM), and product design, brand trust, and e-WOM influence consumers’ value creation. However, e-WOM does not mediate the relationship between product design and consumer value nor does it mediate the relationship between brand trust and consumers’ value creation. This study focused on one product (bottled water). Caution must be exercised in generalization of the results to other products/countries. Theoretically, this study extends the perception of value creation on a commodity and the influence of trust on perceived value. Although this study is based on a sample of Saudi Arabian consumers that is oversampling the age group of young consumers, it extends the rare empirical evidence base on the perception of value creation in the bottled water market, and the influence of trust on perceived value. The results suggest that firms could benefit from altering the design of their bottled water products to create higher perceived value and higher brand trust, differentiating themselves further from competition. The study contributes to the existing literature on consumers’ perceptions of bottled and branded water, taking into account e-WOM communication, and providing rare evidence on brand trust from outside of Europe and North America.     

Where does business research go from here? Food-for-thought on academic papers in business research

This essay focuses on some of the adverse practices in business research publications. First, business researchers seem to have lost touch with business practice and to narrow the target group to fellow academics only, reducing the production of useful knowledge. Second, the objectives of business research publications narrow to impact and citations. This view leads to a strict focus on path-breaking theories and a denigration of replication and qualitative studies. Third, an obsession with the .05 significance level and corroborating findings leaves researchers with full file drawers of unpublished papers and could leave journals with a high rate of type I error papers. Fourth, complex, lengthy articles, the importance of carefully crafting a story around the research and a variety of style guidelines make business researchers less productive than they could be. Finally, a blind reliance on ISI's impact and citation scores may not do justice to a researcher's real contribution.