Leakage,entrepreneurship, and satisfaction in hospitality

Tourism is a very important tool for economic development. However, its economic effects are mainly conditioned by the level of leakage. This work defines leakage, provides an original evaluation of the entrepreneurial environment in showing that it is the one with the lowest level of leakage, and creates a new framework. It also measures leakage in an innovative way using a quantitative approach. In addition, the paper explores and shows how leakage can affect critical business factors, such as customer and employee satisfaction. The empirical study uses structural equations and data from hotels in the Valencian Region (Spain) to show how important leakage is in making businesses more competitive. The results confirm the new model and are of interest for company managers and public organizations.     

Technical change: It should be positive and make sense!

We present the results of eight models that differ with respect to the time behavior of technical inefficiency and the presence of country heterogeneity. When taken into account, heterogeneity raises average technical change estimates, however technical progress rankings become counter-intuitive.     

Board independence, firm performance and ownership concentration: Evidence from Chile

What determines the composition of companies' boards in the context of high ownership concentration? Are independent directors important as an internal governance mechanism in companies with high ownership concentration? Do markets favor companies whose controlling shareholders use voting rights to elect professional directors?Using a four-year, 160-company panel data, and controlling for endogeneity, this paper addresses these three related questions, finding that an increase in the proportion of outside directors affects company value. The paper also finds that companies that present more exacerbated agency conflicts tend to incorporate professional directors to the boards, in an effort to improve corporate governance and ameliorate the agency problem.     

Socially responsible mutual fund exit decisions

This paper studies, for the first time, socially responsible (SR) mutual fund exits. We analyse a sample of 534 U.S. SR equity mutual funds in the period 2003–2017, in which 182 exit events occurred (53 liquidations, 109 mergers within the same family, and 20 mergers across different families). The results obtained indicate that both liquidations and mergers are more likely among smaller funds that suffer net money outflows in the previous year to the event. At the family level, mergers are more frequent in outperforming families with a larger number of funds, whereas liquidations occur in families with a lower number of funds. When comparing mergers within the same family with mergers across different families, we observe that the former share more drivers with liquidations than the latter. In addition, we observe that religious and environmental funds are more likely to suffer exit events than other SR fund types. Finally, other interesting findings point out that mergers financially benefit investors in merged SR mutual funds and the financial outcomes of acquiring fund investors are not jeopardized.     

Addressing privacy predicaments in the digital marketplace: A power‐relations perspective

The utilization and governance of the internet and adjacent disruptive technologies have created numerous challenges to ensuring consumer online privacy. This study employs the power–responsibility equilibrium theory to explore emerging online privacy issues in the data‐driven marketplace. This exploratory study, based on semi‐structured interviews, explains why online shopping consumers are increasingly worried about their privacy and why they behave in a manner that could be detrimental to the consumer–vendor relationship. The findings suggest that deficiencies of corporate privacy responsibility and regulatory protection have deprived consumers of privacy empowerment. These deficiencies have also accentuated perceived privacy contract violations to trigger privacy concerns and subsequent defensive responses. We identify enhancement of consumer privacy empowerment and assuagement of privacy contract violations as two separate mechanisms of addressing online privacy issues. We also highlight the importance of addressing power and responsibility dynamics for maintaining a healthy information‐exchange environment.     

The Euro System as a Laboratory for Neoliberalism: The Case of Spain

Since the 1970s, neoliberalism has evolved from ideology to political agenda, from political program to public policy, and from public policy to a system that replaces democratic control over economic policy with a system of elite economic management. This process of change has been possible due to the endorsement of a meta‐political theory that destroys democracy and legitimizes technocratic despotism, financial deregulation, the debasement of labor into a new proletariat, and the purging of constitutional politics. In this article, we analyze this profound transformation of social and legal relations in the “euro system” and, specifically, in the regressive policies that have emerged from the “crisis” in Spain, a peripheral country of the European Union. The problems in contemporary Europe are a direct consequence of the neoliberal version of European economic unity. Their solution will depend on the capacity of the member states to create a social Europe that strengthens institutional democracy and develops universal systems of social protection. This, in turn, will depend on the ability of citizens to remodel state institutions in accordance with new social goals that place life at the center.     

Fear Of Missing Out Scale: A self-concept perspective

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is an emerging topic in consumer psychology. However, the theoretical foundations of FOMO are underdeveloped and extant FOMO scales confine the construct to the context of social media. Without a theoretical foundation and a new FOMO scale, the future development of research on this promising phenomenon is limited. This article provides a new conceptualization of FOMO and a new FOMO scale. Using self-concept theory, the authors propose that FOMO is an emotional response to perceived psychological threats to one's self-concept. Because the self-concept involves a private and a public self, FOMO involves two dimensions: a personal FOMO and a social FOMO. Accordingly, a new scale was developed. The results of four studies support the validity and reliability of the two-dimensional scale. This new conceptualization and scale will enable consumer researchers to examine FOMO in a broader set of contexts, test the relationship between FOMO and related constructs, and develop a nomological network around the construct.     

BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE QUANTITATIVE METHODS APPLIED TO THE MEASUREMENT OF INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERS

Literature on methods for analysing interindustry interdependence and geographical concentration of firms began to multiply since the 1990s. The aim of this paper was to systematize the literature on methods and measures applied to the analysis of industrial clusters, as well as to identify trends in this knowledge field. The method used was bibliometrics, which consisted of a frequency evaluation of the publications and the relationship network between them. It was verified an exponential increase in the number of papers that composed this area, based mainly on the theories of New Economic Geography. Recently, the literature has focused on the geographic location in relation to interindustry linkages, and the frontier of knowledge has shifted from traditional methods of regional science to areas such as spatial statistics, econophysics and artificial intelligence. There are still relevant questions being explored, as Modifiable Area Unit Problem (aggregation bias), nevertheless, spatial anisotropy (directional bias) is still neglected and indicates a new research path.     

Sacrifice Ratios: Some lessons from EMU countries, 1960-2001

This paper estimates the sacrifice ratios based on the Phillips curve. Using annual data, we estimate individual and common sacrifice ratios for EMU countries. In addition, we test whether the sacrifice ratio is stable for the whole period, which includes years of both high and low inflation rates, such as those observed after the European integration.     

Online banking services: a meta-analytic review and assessment of the impact of antecedents and consequents on satisfaction

This paper provides a meta-analysis of the generalizations in the relationships between the antecedents and consequents of satisfaction with online banking services. In total, 118 observations were analysed, with a sample of 49,607 respondents in 39 published articles from studies indexed in ten databases (Jstor, Emerald, PsycINFO, Taylor & Francis, Elsevier Science Direct, Scopus, ProQuest, SciELO, Google Scholar and EBSCO). Specifically, for the data analysis, we used the correlation coefficient r (plus χ², f test, t test, z test and β values). The results showed that constructs related to uncertainty, as evoked by online devices, system performance, quality of device content and online banking device structures, are significant and positive antecedents of consumer satisfaction. We also found that satisfaction with online banking services promotes trust and loyalty. Finally, we also detected that the relationship between reliability, satisfaction and service quality is stronger among Western banking consumers.