Tourism Codes of Conduct in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic Region

This article investigates the nature and use of tourism codes of conduct in the Arctic and sub-Arctic region within the context of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy and the recently created Arctic Council. The article also considers tourism codes in relation to the World Wide Fund for Nature initiative to develop Arctic tourism guidelines. The scale and nature of tourism activities in the region and the environmental and socio-cultural impacts of tourism are discussed. A selection of Arctic and sub-Arctic tourism codes of conduct is reviewed with particular reference to aims, authorship, audience and content. There is particular focus on visitor codes for Svalbard and visitor regulations in Canadas Yukon and Northwest Territories and tourism industry codes produced for use in Finland and Sweden. Comparisons are also drawn between the Arctic and Antarctic. A number of issues are highlighted in relation to the use, limitations and potential for codes of conduct and the article makes suggestions on ways on which some of these issues could be overcome.     

Customer Preferences for Frontline Employee Traits: Homophily and Heterophily Effects

Although previous research has underscored the significance of the personality traits of frontline employees (FLEs) in employee service behaviors, knowledge about customer preferences for FLE personality traits is lacking. This study responds to this gap in the literature, empirically assessing customers’ preferences for FLE personality traits. The main research objective is to investigate whether and how these preferences vary with the customer's own personality. The study proposes and tests a conceptual framework that reconciles two opposing theoretical perspectives—homophily and heterophily. The existing research in interpersonal psychology has only given limited support to the heterophily effect, whereas it has consistently evidenced the homophily effect. Moderator analyses indicate these effects are largely invariant across customer and service characteristics. Notwithstanding this, post hoc tests show that the level of preferred FLE traits is positively related to the level of customer traits. Equity theory helps explain these seemingly conflicting results.     

Challenges for land system science

While considerable progress has been made in understanding land use change, land system science continues to face a number of grand challenges. This paper discusses these challenges with a focus on empirical land system studies, land system modelling and the analysis of future visions of land system change. Contemporary landscapes are contingent outcomes of past and present patterns, processes and decisions. Thus, empirical analysis of past and present land-use change has an important role in providing insights into the socio-economic and ecological processes that shape land use transitions. This is especially important with respect to gradual versus rapid land system dynamics and in understanding changes in land use intensity. Combining the strengths of empirical analysis with multi-scale modelling will lead to new insights into the processes driving land system change. New modelling methods that combine complex systems thinking at a local level with macro-level economic analysis of the land system would reconcile the multi-scale dynamics currently encapsulated in bottom-up and top-down modelling approaches. Developments in land use futures analysis could focus on integrating explorative scenarios that reflect possible outcomes with normative visions that identify desired outcomes. Such an approach would benefit from the broad and in-depth involvement of stakeholders in order to link scientific findings to political and societal decision-making culminating in a set of key choices and consequences. Land system models have an important role in supporting future land use policy, but model outputs require scientific interpretation rather than being presented as predictions. The future of land system science is strongly dependent on the research community's capacity to bring together the elements of research discussed in the paper, via empirical data collection and analysis of observed processes, computer simulation across scale levels and futures analysis of alternative, normative visions through stakeholder engagement.     

MEDICARE AND INEQUALITIES IN HEALTH OUTCOMES: THE CASE OF BREAST CANCER

This article evaluates whether expanding Medicare to cover those between ages 55 and 64 will improve the health status of these near-elderly individuals. We compare the experiences of near-elderly and elderly women with breast cancer and pay special attention to those demographic groups traditionally thought to be disadvantaged. Using unique individual-level data from the National Cancer Institute, we find that expanding Medicare does not improve the probability that a black woman will have her cancer diagnosed early. However, if she does happen to be diagnosed early, a discretE-time hazard model of survival finds that the price effects of insurance will improve her odds of survival.     

Strategic Preemption in a Common Property Resource: A Continuous Time Approach

The threat of future entry affects the exploitation of common property resources in important ways. An incumbent has a strategic incentive to manipulate the resource stock to deter entry or to harvest more stock prior to entry rather than share the resource with the entrant. It is possible that the threat of potential entry can lead to the extinction of the resource even though actual competition would result in a steady state with a positive stock level.     

The effects of casino gambling on state tax revenue

A theoretical model of state tax structure implies that revenue enhancement due to the introduction of casino gambling is less likely in states where incomes taxes do not exist and where casino tax rates are lower than the corresponding tax rates on sales taxable and excise taxable goods. Further, it is clear that casino gambling is likely to adversely impact lottery tax revenues earmarked for education. Due to the cross-price effects of gambling, tax revenues will likely decline in states that introduce nontaxable casino gambling on Indian reservations. In the longer term, as casino gambling proliferates increasing competition among states, there will be negative revenue consequences due to fewer tourism and employment dollars.     

Individual ethical beliefs and perceived organizational interests

Two contrasting types of individuals were each predicted to agree, for different reasons, that conventional ethical standards of society need not be upheld if organizational interests appear to demand otherwise. The hypotheses were investigated using questionnaire responses from two samples (employed and student, total N=308). Clear support was obtained for the prediction that individuals inclined toward self-interest and behavior counter to conventional standards would agree with the preceding position. Partial support was obtained for the hypothesis that individuals who simply feel obligated to support an employing organization would also agree. While the latter's perspective may be somewhat narrow or perhaps even cynical, they do not seem to reflect the self-interest profile of the first group. This study also extends the groundbreaking work of Froelich and Kottke by exploring individual difference correlates of their promising ethics scale assessing the extent of agreement that organizational interests legitimately supersede more conventional ethical standards.Peter E. Mudrack is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management and Organization Sciences at Wayne State University's School of Business Administration, Detroit, Michigan, 48202, U.S.A.E. Sharon Mason is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management, Marketing, and HRM at Broke University's Faculty of Business, St. Catharines, Ontario, L2S 3A1, Canada.     

Creating Corporate Accountability: Foundational Principles to Make Corporate Citizenship Real

This paper explores the growing array of initiatives aimed at creating corporate accountability with the goal of attempting to uncover the foundation principles that underlie them and create a floor below which practices are ethically questionable. Using the Global Compact's nine principles and the work of Transparency International as guides, foundational principles seem to exist in the areas of human rights, labor standards, environment, and anti-corruption initiatives.     

Contents of Volume 29

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 29