Strategic groups in the hospitality industry: Intergroup and intragroup performance differences in Alicante, Spain

The hotel sector is currently immersed in a very uncertain, highly competitive environment, due to which it needs information for the correct management of its establishments. This information can be obtained from the classification of hotels in strategic groups. The present empirical research presents strategic groups in the hospitality industry as a useful tool for the planning and implementation of strategies by hotels that helps to determine their competitive strategies and advantages. This research paper additionally shows how the levels of performance between the hotels belonging to each group can be evaluated from strategic groups. In this study, the tool is applied to the hotel sector of the Spanish province of Alicante, a very important geographical area in the context of international tourism. The dimensions resource commitment and tourist activity scope have been used to define the strategic groups.     

Financial Instruments and Promotional Banking in the EU are Growing — But is this Justified?

Institutions and the European Investment Bank are at the forefront of EU investment policy. Their role is expanding and it is now a widely-held position that an improvement in the economy will not eliminate the need for their intervention. The proposals for the 2021–2027 MFF launch more financial instruments and present ‘InvestEU’ as a larger more powerful version of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI). However, promotional banking is often misunderstood and so is the actual size of promotional banking in Europe in which InvestEU will operate.     

The Structure of Problem Structuring Conversations: A Boundary Games Approach

One of the questions associated with facilitated problem structuring is how the micro level of actors’ multimodal communications, contributes to the emergence of a macro level, framing the possibilities for action in a workshop. This paper shows a way to study this macro level, building the visualization of the conversations’ structure starting from a boundary games theory micro analysis of the interactions. Our empirical evidence comes from following a group of academic consultants working to define a value proposition for their activity. We focus on analyzing two out of nine workshops that were felt diametrically opposite in terms of facilitation and achievements. Moving from the micro towards an upward level, three configurations building the structure are identified—shifting, branching and converging. The work carried out allows us to: (1) visualize the structure of conversations in a problem structuring context, (2) highlight the role of multimodal communications in building the conversations and (3) construct an interpretation bridging the micro and macro readings of a workshop. This knowledge is useful for facilitators guiding the dynamic of a workshop and for researchers looking forward to understanding how micro level interactions build higher levels of the social phenomenon of intervention.     

Biosimilars in North America

ABSTRACT

The United States (US) is the world leader in the development of biopharmaceutical products. These new drugs, numbering about 200, are now losing patent protection and imitators are entering the market of comparable drugs, called biosimilars. According to a popular belief, these producers of biosimilars (erroneously called copycats) are everywhere, except in the United States. In North America, on both sides of the US border, the increase in the number of biosimilar producers is evident. In addition, although the US federal government tries to erect barriers against the entry of foreign-made biosimilars in the country, many states are lobbying the federal government and allowing the use of biosimilars. And biosimilars represent a very convenient ladder for emergent and industrial countries to learn the enigmatic routines of the pharmaceutical industry. Where this segment of the industry will be located is another matter.     

The Informational Role of Product Trade‐Ins for Pricing Durable Goods

This research theorizes that sellers of durable goods can utilize inferences about the buyer's willingness to pay based not only on her decision to trade in the old good but also on its characteristics. We find empirical support for this theory using transaction data for new car purchases. The results support the notion that dealers infer a higher willingness to pay and charge higher prices to consumers who trade in a used vehicle than to those who do not. We also find that dealers charge even higher prices to those consumers who trade in used cars that are similar to the new one.     

The importance of the firm and destination effects to explain firm performance

An interesting question in tourism management is why tourist firms obtain different performance levels. Firm performance in the tourism industry depends mainly on the destination where the company operates (location or destination effect), and on firm internal resources and characteristics (firm effect). The purpose of this paper is to determine the relative importance of the firm and destination effects using a multilevel approach and hierarchical linear models. The findings show that both effects impact significantly on firm performance, and also that the firm effect is more important than the destination effect. We equally provide some insights about the relationships between these two levels with the aim of building bridges between them.     

A two-way causal chain between tourism development and quality of life in a small island destination: an empirical analysis

This study postulates that tourism development (TD) and residents' quality of life (QoL) may have an intrinsically reciprocal relationship. The possible connection between TD and QoL is investigated in the island of Aruba, with economic development as a mediating variable. This investigation contributes to the literature by emphasizing the active role of QoL in the relationship with TD through a subjective well-being approach, and by expanding our understanding of the development concept. The study also advances the scope of tourism theory by presenting new propositions. The methodology consists of applying exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses combined with structural equations modeling. The results suggest that TD has a direct and indirect impact on QoL, and that QoL has an indirect effect on TD, via economic development. These findings provide new insights on the dimensions that shape the link between TD and QoL.     

A Pearson's test for symmetry with an application to the Spanish business cycle

In this paper, we look for asymmetries in the Spanish business cycle. To that end, we firstly propose an easy nonparametric testing procedure to test for symmetry based on a Pearson's chi-squared statistic, which we call P-test. Then, we test for two popular forms of asymmetry, deepness and steepness, using a battery of nonparametric tests. In addition, we analyse possible complementarities between the tests used in this paper, and we compute p-value adjustments for multiple tests.     

Impacts of technology readiness on emotions and cognition in Brazil

This study proposes and tests an extended model for consumer adoption of high technology products in a Latin American country (Brazil) by integrating concepts present in the consumer behavior literature: the Consumer Acceptance of Technology model (Kulviwat et al., 2007) and the technology readiness construct (Parasuraman, 2000). The proposed model considers the relationships between cognitive and affective constructs with technology readiness. By means of structural equation modeling conducted on a sample of 435 young consumers, the results indicate significant relationships between the constructs assessed, showing that consumers' cognitive and affective evaluations of new technologies are significantly influenced by their technology readiness. The effects of technology readiness over affective assessments were greater than those relative to cognitive evaluations regarding high-tech innovations. Nonetheless, the results may reflect specific characteristics of Brazilian (and other Latin American) consumers, who are usually more emotive than those of more rational cultures.