Impact of Auditor Report Changes on Financial Reporting Quality and Audit Costs: Evidence from the United Kingdom

While substantial revisions to auditor reporting requirements are being implemented internationally, the impact of these reforms on financial reporting quality is unknown. We exploit the United Kingdom's recent auditor reporting changes and find that the United Kingdom's new reporting regime is associated with an improvement in financial reporting quality as proxied by significant decreases in absolute abnormal accruals and the propensity to just meet or beat analyst forecasts, and a significant increase in earnings response coefficients. As for audit costs, we do not find a significant change in audit fees or audit delay surrounding the implementation of the new reporting regime. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that new auditor reporting requirements are associated with a significant improvement in financial reporting quality without detecting a significant increase in audit costs.     

Destination Image of Taiwan From the Perspective of Hong Kong Residents: Revisiting Structural Relationships Between Destination Image Attributes and Behavioral Intention

Destination image plays an important role in how tourists make their travel and purchase decisions. This study examines the perceived image of Taiwan as a travel destination from the perspective of Hong Kong residents. The Hong Kong outbound tourism market is important for Taiwan. Using a self-completed questionnaire, this research examines the destination image of Taiwan among 213 Hong Kong residents. The results indicate that affective image is a stronger predictor of travel intention than cognitive image. Affective image also plays a mediating role in the relationship between cognitive image and behavioral intention. Hence, affective image is an important intangible quality for today’s destinations.     

Understanding the leadership perceptions of staff in China's hotel industry: Integrating the macro- and micro-aspects of leadership contexts

The objective of this paper is to understand the leadership perceptions of staff in China's hotel industry. This study integrates the macro- and micro-aspects of leadership contexts by identifying the contextual variables that affect leadership perceptions. In leadership research, industry setting, the hierarchical levels of an organization, and national culture are recognized as the contextual constraints that affect leadership perceptions, and these constraints were used in this empirical study. Four factors emerged from the factor analysis of a survey study: professionalism; integrity; masculinity or yang; and femininity or yin. A key finding indicates that both the industry setting and the hierarchical levels of an organization affect professionalism. Implications for the training and development of future international hospitality leaders and local staff are considered.     

Rethinking social impacts of tourism research: A new research agenda

Understanding the social impacts of tourism on communities is extremely important for government at all levels so that action can be taken to reduce the likelihood of a community backlash against tourists and tourism development. Given that the residents of many tourism destinations are a fundamental part of the tourism ‘product’, resident attitudes and behaviour have a sizable impact on the success or otherwise of a destination. Research on the social impacts of tourism on communities is substantial and ongoing and while advances have been made in the area, the research has not addressed some of the deep seated issues faced by tourist destinations. This paper provides a critique of the social impact of tourism literature, highlighting the inadequacies in the research that has been conducted to date, which then leads to the development of a new conceptual framework. The paper traces the key developments in social impact research and argues that the predominance of quantitative methods potentially limits our ability to gain a more in-depth understanding of the impacts and how they influence both the host community and tourists. The paper finds that the quantitative focus from previous social impact research has led to a narrow understanding of the issues surrounding social impacts and proposes a new research agenda based on ‘layers’ of social impact understanding through the use of ethnography or phenomenology. The paper concludes with recommendations to progress social impact research beyond simply describing the issues towards explanations of why they occur by suggesting that social impact research examine, in greater depth, the values and intrinsic characteristics of the host residents.     

Energy benchmarking in support of low carbon hotels: Developments,challenges, and approaches in China

Achieving effective and objective energy benchmarking for hotels is integral in fostering the sustainable development of the lodging sector. In this work, we reveal the major and minor streams of hotel energy benchmarking and ascertain that the most popular approach in benchmarking is normalized energy use intensity (EUI) based on floor level. Previous efforts to establish EUI indicators using subsystem average, data envelopment analysis (DEA), and regression technique are also studied. We propose that hotel energy benchmarking based on floor area is useful from the top-down management perspective. However, on a practical perspective, energy benchmarking based on facilities should be the first priority for hotel management or owners. Compared with the general energy benchmarking in the building sector, we find that the hotel sector lags behind in the adoption of computer modeling for benchmarking.     

What kind of marketing distribution mix can maximize revenues: The wholesaler travel agencies' perspective?

This study attempts to identify the variety of marketing channel efficiencies for marketing activities and sets up an optimal marketing distribution mix when using different distribution channels for wholesaler travel agencies. This research examines 12 large-scale travel agencies in Taiwan and offers seven direct and indirect distribution channels in order to establish an optimal marketing distribution mix and identifies the different forms of distribution involved. We also implement the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to prioritize the seven main marketing distribution channels of travel agency: websites, cable TV, radios, professional magazines, retailer travel agencies, strategic alliances, and newspapers. Five criteria are categorized as a distribution channel selection: overall cost of the channel, target audience respondent rate, impression rates, transactional capabilities, and gross profit of the channel. The results show that Taiwan's wholesaler travel agencies adopt the retailer travel agency as their highest priority of channel selection, while travel agency websites hold it as their second priority. Transactional capabilities, gross profit of the channel, and overall cost of the channel are the top three favorable choices among the five criteria considered. This study proposes an innovative hierarchy model of marketing distribution mix to a wholesaler travel agency practitioner when making decisions in order to effectively exploit the different distribution mix, to maximize performances and revenues, and to overcome the traditional experience based on the shortcomings of the selection.     

基于产业背景的金融控股集团协同机制研究

产业金控集团是当前我国产业资本借力资本市场发展实体经济的重要方式,但在 实际运行中存在协同机制不健全、协同效应发挥不足、产融结合的深度和广度不足等问题。本 文对国内外产业金融理论进行了文献综述,深入分析了产业金控集团产生的动因,指出了目前 产业金控集团在发挥协同效应中存在的不足。结合产业金控集团的优势和特点,从构建横向协 同机制和纵向协同机制的角度,探讨了完善产业金控集团协同机制的举措。     

Adoption of Online Grocery Shopping: Personal or Household Characteristics?

This article analyzes how sociodemographic characteristics impact the adoption of online grocery shopping, and relies on the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability (MOA) model to explore what these sociodemographics actually capture and how they are linked with consumer motivations. The researchers exploit a survey among 468 customers of Belgian supermarket chain Colruyt. Their logistic regression shows that while variables at the personal level do affect adoption of the online channel, consumers’ motivations to adopt in fact lie on the household level. In particular, the effect of age disappears or becomes less strong when it is combined with household characteristics. An examination of respondents’ self-reported motivations confirms that age does not only capture a person’s ability to use the technology but also its usefulness for that person’s household, in that age is correlated with the presence of young children and the working situation in the household.