Influences on coastal tourism demand and substitution behaviors from climate change impacts and hazard recovery responses

Climate change impacts can negatively affect tourism demand and, subsequently, local economies by disrupting access and altering physical conditions, including those from adaptation and recovery efforts. Research is needed that helps destinations become more climate ready, including studies of decision factors that influence trip-taking behaviors. This paper presents findings from a discrete choice experiment to determine how physical and economic changes could affect visitation behaviors to a vulnerable coastal destination, the Outer Banks region of North Carolina, USA. We embedded our experiment within an on-site visitor survey to reveal thresholds of negative changes to coastal attributes that tourists are willing to tolerate, and also examined tourists’ willingness to substitute their future trips to the region. Transportation-related changes had the highest relative importance among the four selected attributes. The likelihood of three types of spatial substitution, spurred by not being able to access the destination, were consistently related to residency but less consistently related to place meanings, visitation history, and other demographic variables. Study results can inform climate change planning within coastal zones to minimize negative impacts to tourism demand, such as the need to develop creative revenue streams to maintain resilience in communities that rely on occupancy taxes.     

刍议跨国并购交易中的几个关注因素

在全球经历了五次并购浪潮后，越来越多的中国公司希望通过跨国并购的形式寻求海外投资机会，实现跨越式发展。有鉴于此．中华咨询与美国波士顿商学院联合进行了跨国并购领域的专项研究，     

Community gardening and health-related benefits for a rural Victorian town

Community gardens are growing in popularity as a strategy to effectively deal with population health at a local level. There is a need to gather information about the health-related benefits of community gardens for people living in a rural locale. This paper discusses the health-related benefits of rural community gardens. We adopted a qualitative approach to examine these issues. Ten participants, eight females and two males, aged between 50 and 82, who have participated in a community garden located in South Gippsland, Victoria, for a minimum of 12 months, took part in this study. Semi-structured interviews that lasted between 30 and 60 min were conducted to explore the perspectives and lived experiences of the participants. Thematic analysis was utilised to analyse the data. We situate our discussion in this paper within the therapeutic landscape theory. Findings indicate that there is a range of health-related benefits associated with participation in rural community gardens, including physical, nutritional, social and psychological. Despite these benefits, the participants wished to see some improvements that could attract more people in rural areas to participate in community gardens. Given the paucity of research available regarding rural community gardens, future research should continue to develop an understanding of these rural sites, especially given the ever-growing popularity of community gardens Australia-wide.     

An exploratory study of managerial compensation in the restaurant industry

ABSTRACT

Set within the human capital framework, the focus of this exploratory study is to investigate how individual and industry attributes affect the earnings of salaried restaurant managers in the United States. Previous compensation studies in the restaurant industry have almost exclusively focused on executive compensation and its relationship to a firm's financial variables. Given the size of the industry, it is important to investigate compensation practices at various levels of its leadership. The findings show that relevant work experience, gender, education, race, and property size are significant attributes effecting restaurant managers’ compensation. Practical implications are provided.     

Institutionalizing Ethics in Institutional Voids: Building Positive Ethical Strength to Serve Women Microfinance Borrowers in Negative Contexts

This study examines whether microfinance institutions (MFIs) that serve women borrowers at the base of the economic pyramid are likely to adopt a written code of positive organizational ethics (POE). Using econometric analysis of operational and economic data of a sample of MFIs from across the world, we find that two contextual factors—poverty level and lack of women’s empowerment—moderate the influence of an MFI’s percentage of women borrowers on the probability of the MFI having a POE code. MFIs that serve more women borrowers are more likely to adopt a POE code, especially in negative contexts (where women borrowers face poverty and disempowerment and are therefore susceptible to abuse). This study provides evidence that MFIs can build positive ethical strength in negative contexts.     

Style consumption: its drivers and role in sustainable apparel consumption

This study proposes style consumption (SC) as a way to foster sustainable apparel consumption. In doing so, we identify explanatory and outcome variables of SC and also examine gender differences in these variables. Based on an online survey with 586 consumers, we find that frugal apparel consumption (FAC), fashion consciousness (FC) and ecologically conscious consumption (ECC) enhance the likelihood of SC. SC in turn increases environmental apparel purchase (EAP) and sustainable apparel divestment (SAD). The results also suggest significant gender differences both in motivational and behavioural variables included in the model. Specifically, females are significantly higher than males in FAC, FC and ECC. The tendency of SC, EAP and SAD were also higher for females than males. In addition, we find that gender is a significant factor mediating the effect of FC and that of ECC on SC.