Reconfiguring relations of accountability: Materialization of social media in the travel sector

Expanding use of Web 2.0 technologies has generated complex information dynamics that are propelling organizations in unexpected directions, redrawing boundaries and shifting relationships. Using research on user-generated content, we examine online rating and ranking mechanisms and analyze how their performance reconfigures relations of accountability. Our specific interest is in the use of so-called “social media” such as TripAdvisor, where participant reviews are used to rank the popularity of services provided by the travel sector. Although ranking mechanisms are not new, they become “power-charged”—to use Donna Haraway’s term—when enacted through Web 2.0 technologies. As such, they perform a substantial redistribution of accountability. We draw on data from an on-going field study of small businesses in a remote geographical area for whom TripAdvisor has changed ‘the rules of the game,’ and we explore the moral and strategic implication of this transformation.     

Mobilising for equality? Understanding the impact of grass roots agency and third party representation

Does mobilisation theory provide telling insights into the collective expression of gendered grievances? By analysing the dynamics of activism on pay inequality in the British local authority sector, this article offers a negative evaluation, calling for a deeper understanding of grass roots agency and third‐party representation beyond the workplace.     

Consommation d'énergie électrique et croissance économique en Afrique Centrale

L'objectif de cet article est de déterminer empiriquement la nature de la relation de causalité entre consommation d'énergie électrique et croissance économique pour cinq pays d'Afrique Centrale. La méthodologie utilisée repose sur un cadre multivarié théoriquement fondé et des récents développements en économétrie des données de panel des: tests de racine unitaire, tests de cointégration, estimateurs des moindres carrés ordinaires entièrement modifiés (FMOLS) et moindres carrés ordinaires dynamiques (DOLS) et du modèle vectoriel à correction d'erreur (VECM). Sur la période 1990–2015, les principaux résultats mettent en évidence une causalité bidirectionnelle entre la consommation d'énergie électrique et la croissance économique à la fois à court et à long terme. Celle‐ci reste stable même après contrôle pour le capital et le travail. Ces résultats constituent ainsi une base solide pour la formulation des politiques et des programmes énergétiques appropriées qui favoriseraient l'accès à l'énergie électrique et la croissance économique.     

Logistics Service Providers and Their Customers: Gaining Commitment Through Organizational Implants

The current research examines the following question: how can on‐site representatives (i.e., organizational implants) be used to generate greater interorganizational relationship commitment? The relationship marketing literature explores many facets of interorganizational relationships and commitment, but until now, it has not considered the colocation of employees from separate firms. Dyadic survey data were collected from logistics service providers (LSPs) and their customers. The paired dyads were then analyzed using path analysis. Results indicate that organizational implantation can lead to greater levels of outcome interdependence between the organizations, which can then generate greater levels of commitment from the LSP toward the customer. Results also suggest that organizational implantation can lead to greater levels of relational capital and responsiveness, which is shown to generate greater levels of commitment from the customer toward the LSP.     

When do informed traders acquire and trade on informational advantage? Evidence from Federal Reserve stress tests

Using Federal Reserve bank stress test announcements, we examine when option traders acquire informational advantage and when they exploit it. We find consistent evidence of informed options trading around announcements. However, when test results are announced in successive weeks we find high abnormal option volume, considerably positive abnormal returns and significant return predictability in the first week, but not the following week. This suggests that informed option traders are able to anticipate upcoming news events and skillfully process public information but it also suggests that trading on acquired information is conditioned on the level of information asymmetry in the market.     

Friends in high places: Government-industry relations in public sector house-building during Britain’s tower block era

Abstract

Britain’s high-rise public housing era is widely seen as a serious social policy mistake. We show that the problems associated with this housing format were known to policy makers at an early stage, while tower blocks were also substantially more expensive, both from the perspective of central, and local, government. Conservatives governments championed high-rise mainly owing to the political advantages of urban containment. Major building contractors then used their close links with (central and local) policy-makers to aggressively lobby for high-rise ?system building,’ as their expertise in this field enabled them to dominate the sector and exclude local competitors.     

Unintended Consequences: How Suppliers Compensate for Price Concessions and the Role of Organizational Justice in Buyer‐Supplier Relations

“You get what you pay for” is one of life's lessons that predominates in purchasing decisions individuals make in their personal lives. The results of this study suggest this lesson should also prevail among management when price‐related purchasing decisions in businesses are being made. An evaluation of over 1,700 purchasing instances across seven years of a longitudinal panel data set collected from Tier 1 production suppliers to the six major North American automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Nissan, and Toyota, found that suppliers compensate for price concessions and price reduction pressure from the OEM in the year following the concession, by reducing product quality, service support, and R&D expenditures associated with goods provided to the OEM. This industry is particularly relevant because it is highly adversarial, yet at the same time reliant on interdependence. The results show that supplier price concessions granted to an OEM led to compensatory supplier behaviors of reduced quality and R&D expenditures toward that OEM. Further, the results suggest that the organizational justice dimensions of distributive justice, procedural justice, interpersonal justice, and informational justice can ameliorate negative supplier compensatory activities. A buyer–supplier relational environment that engenders organizational justice tactics such as open and honest communication with suppliers provides suppliers the expectation of an acceptable return on business over the long term, provides help to suppliers to reduce costs, and builds supplier trust of the OEM had generally positive effects on quality, service, and R&D expenditures. From a management perspective, these results indicate there is a very real risk versus reward issue associated with pressuring suppliers for price reductions.     

The next frontier in tourism emotion research

Emotion is emerging as a central concept in tourism research, critical for the delivery of memorable tourism experiences. However, existing approaches in tourism do not adequately explain the process by which emotions are elicited. Recent advances in cognitive and neuropsychology demonstrate that emotions are elicited through an appraisal process, which occurs in the cortex of the brain. These processes produce chemical monoamine neurotransmitters that lead to bodily feelings, which in turn enable our brain to recognise emotions. This research note draws on Lövheim’s Cube, a self-report scale that provides a proxy indicator of the likely presence of monoamine neurotransmitters of serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline. Six images of the Great Barrier Reef were used as a stimuli in an online panel survey (n?=?1249). Results demonstrate that images used by tourism stakeholders are likely to produce stronger neurological reactions than images from an environmental non-governmental organisation. Combining recent advances in self-report methods with a neurocognitive approach has the propensity to offers additional insight into emotional reactions to visual stimuli. Further research should focus on the efficacy of utilising self-report measures with cutting edge psychophysiological techniques, such as ambulatory electroencephalography (EEG) to open the door to the next frontier in tourism emotion research.     

Black and white female body mass index values in the developing late 19th and early 20th century United States

When traditional measures for economic welfare are scarce or unreliable, stature and the body mass index (BMI) are now widely-used measures that reflect economic conditions. However, little work exists for late 19th and early 20th century women’s BMIs in the US and how they varied over time. Women’s BMIs stagnated throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After controlling for characteristics, African-American women had higher BMIs than lighter complexioned mixed-race and white women. Women from the Southwest were taller and had lower BMIs than women born elsewhere within the US. Alternatively, women’s BMIs did not vary by socioeconomic status.     

The returns to education in rural China: Some new estimates

We estimate the rates of return to education in rural China using primary survey data collected in 2016. Estimated average returns to education are 3.1 per cent. However, careful statistical analysis is required when estimating the returns to education. The paper demonstrates that when employment interruptions are accounted for, the measured returns to education rise. Our results also confirm that mismeasurement of the wage rate by using an hourly wage rate (versus daily or monthly earnings) raises the estimation of rates of return to education. Finally, our results suggest that the return to education is nonlinear in education levels but only when it reaches the tertiary level.