The Importance of Quality,Satisfaction, Trust,and Image in Relation to Rural Tourist Loyalty

In the past decade, tourism firms have become aware of the great benefits of maintaining a solid base of loyal customers. Because rural tourism is a relatively new phenomenon in some countries, the main antecedent of tourism loyalty remains infrequently studied in rural lodgings. In this work, a structural equations model is explored, with PLS technique, giving relevance to the interrelationships among image, quality, satisfaction, and trust and among these variables and the tourists' behavior variables. Instruments are identified and exploratory research was undertaken among rural tourists of the main rural lodgings in two border regions of Spain and Portugal. The results confirm image as a direct antecedent of perceived quality, satisfaction, trust, and loyalty for rural tourism, too. The analysis also confirmed that quality has a positive influence on satisfaction and loyalty, and trust has a positive influence on loyalty. Image is shown as a key factor to rural lodging managers. This study may help rural tourism managers to develop and implement effective relationship marketing strategies.     

The value of the ‘swap’ feature in equity default swaps

When equity default swap (EDS) contracts were first included in a rated collateralized debt obligation (CDO) deal, some critics doubted the originality of the product. In fact, EDSs are equivalent to already existing binary barrier options on equity, except the premium is not paid upfront, but over time, and conditional on the trigger event not having occurred. Therefore, as opposed to existing options, the buyer of an EDS: (1) postpones payment for protection, and (2) purchases not only protection against a sharp drop in the price of equity, but also the right to cease payments in case the barrier is hit. This paper derives the closed-form pricing formula for equity default swap spreads under the Black–Scholes assumptions, and then quantifies the fraction of the EDS spread actually due to the ‘swap’ feature of the contract for plausible parameter values. It is found that the extra spread due to the swap nature of EDSs is economically significant only for high volatility, high trigger levels, and long time-to-maturity. The impact of interest rates on the value of the ‘swap’ feature is almost exclusively due to the postponement of payments.     

The cyclicality of consumption,wages and employment of the public sector in the euro area

This study empirically examines the business cycle behaviour of public consumption and its main components, the public wage bill (including its breakdown into compensation per employee and public employment) and intermediate consumption, in the euro area aggregate, euro area countries and a group of selected non-euro area Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (Denmark, Sweden, the UK, Japan and the US). It looks across a large number of variables and methods, using annual data from 1960 to 2005. It finds robust evidence supporting that public consumption, wages and employment co-move with the business cycle in a pro-cyclical manner with 1–2 year lags, notably for the euro area aggregate and euro area countries. The findings reflect mainly the correlation between cyclical developments, but also point to an important role of pro-cyclical discretionary fiscal policies.     

Interest rates,expectations and the credibility of the Bank of Spain

The purpose of the paper is to pinpoint the date of the change of monetary policy regime which occurred in Spain during the year 1984, when it moved away from controlling monetary aggregates towards interest rate targeting. The most likely date for the change is estimated and, surprisingly, there is evidence that agents learned about the new intermediate target quite rapidly.A week after the change, the term structure of interest rates showed how market agents attributed much more informational content to interest rate changes than they had previously. Two types of transitions are tried: a one-step and a gradual logistic swithing function.     

Breaking new ground: base-of-pyramid service research

Two-thirds of the world's population lives in poverty, a global problem that researchers from a wide variety of disciplines study. Yet there is a fundamental lack of service research pertaining to this huge segment of society, commonly known as the base of the pyramid. This segment offers a rich source of information that could help break new ground in service research, by exploring services in contexts in which its current concepts, models, theories, and generalizations might not apply the same way. This article starts by exploring key contributions in base of the pyramid literature and identifying the main perspectives from which extant knowledge has developed. By revising existing service research priorities to identify useful intersections with base of the pyramid perspectives, this study offers new grounds deriving five research streams that reflect the integration of base of the pyramid research perspectives with service research priorities. Finally, this article details the emerging area of base of the pyramid service research using one of those research priorities, namely, transformative service research, in an effort to specify the relevant objectives, scopes, differences, and similarities and thereby identify common grounds for future service research at the base of the pyramid.     

Does knowledge explain trust behaviors and outcomes? The different influences of initial knowledge and experiential knowledge on personal trust interactions

This paper examines the influences of initial knowledge and experiential knowledge on trust behaviors and trust outcomes, respectively, at an interpersonal level. We use an experimental dynamic trust game, and our results show that (1) the initial knowledge that exists a priori between a trustor and a trustee helps to explain the trustor's trust behaviors toward the trustee, and (2) the experiential knowledge gained directly by a trustor during a specific trust interaction with a trustee influences the trust outcome, i.e. the difference between the original expectations of the trustor and the subsequent trust behaviors. Our results contribute to human resource literature by clarifying the specific influences of different types of knowledge on interpersonal trust relationships (e.g. between managers and employees) and by supplementing the traditional notion that trust within a firm develops slowly by showing that personal expectations have an immediate and important influence on trust output.     

The booster function and the entrepreneurial quality: an application to the province of Seville

The objectives of this paper are two-fold. First, to elaborate a theoretical model that shows the characteristics of an entrepreneur of quality and the factors that influence them. Second, to apply the model to entrepreneurs in the province of Seville, one of the least developed areas in the European Union. The purpose is to show the importance of entrepreneurship for business success and, more importantly, in economic development. In summary, the model shows that entrepreneurs of quality possess an intrinsic motivation and, as consequence of this, they adopt some energizer behaviours, such as the capacity for innovation, ambition and co-operation with others. The model also takes into account factors that influence these characteristics, including the personal context of the entrepreneur, such as experience, education and family, and the global context, such as productive opportunities, socio-cultural factors and political-institutional factors. In the analysis of the entrepreneurs of Seville, the paper mainly focuses on the motivation and the energizer behaviours and their interdependence. The empirical findings indicate that the model is valid.     

Barriers to innovation through public procurement: A supplier perspective

Public procurement is increasingly viewed as having important potential to drive innovation. Despite this interest, numerous barriers prevent the public sector from acting as an intelligent and informed customer. This paper seeks to understand how barriers related to processes, competences, procedures and relationships in public procurement influence suppliers? ability to innovate and to reap the benefits of innovation. We address this by exploiting a dedicated survey of public sector suppliers in the UK, using a probit model to investigate the influence of structural, market and innovation determinants on suppliers? perception of these barriers.     

Tourism image, evaluation variables and after purchase behaviour: inter-relationship

Numerous authors have pointed out the influence of tourism image on consumer behaviour. Tourism image will also exercise some influence on the quality perceived by tourists and on the satisfaction obtained from the holiday experience. This paper focuses on the relationship between the image of a destination as perceived by tourists and their behavioural intentions, and between that same image and the post-purchase evaluation of the stay. We will also examine the relationship between quality and satisfaction and between these variables and the tourist's behaviour variables. We place the accent on a joint analysis of these relationships, using a structural equation model. The results of the empirical study show that tourism image is a direct antecedent of perceived quality, satisfaction, intention to return and willingness to recommend the destination. The role of image as a key factor in destination marketing is thus confirmed. With reference to the other relationships, on the one hand, it is confirmed that quality has a positive influence on satisfaction and intention to return and that satisfaction determines the willingness to recommend the destination. However, the influence of quality on ‘willingness to recommend’ and the influence of satisfaction on ‘intention to return’ cannot be corroborated. In this sense, further research could be necessary.     

Urban destination loyalty drivers and cross-national moderator effects: The case of Barcelona

The objective of this paper is to analyze the loyalty of tourists to urban tourism destinations, studying the differences existing on the basis of nationality of origin. The review of the academic literature identified perceived value and satisfaction as antecedents of loyalty. A theoretical model was constructed which was tested empirically with a total of 927 surveys of Italian and American tourists in the city of Barcelona. In the study of the data, structural equation models (SEM) were used, by means of a multi-group analysis. The empirical results show that the causal relationships among perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty and the moderating effect of nationality are partially confirmed. This study contributes to better knowledge of the processes that lead tourists to be loyal to an urban tourism destination.