Privatization,market competition,international attractiveness,management tenure and hotel performance: Evidence from Slovenia

This paper tests several hypothesis related to the impact of privatization, market competition, management tenure and international attractiveness on the cost efficiency of tourist hotels. We measure efficiency using the innovative Bayesian frontier methodology. The data involve a sample of Slovenian hotels which operate in a highly dynamic environment. From the results, it is clear that hotel efficiency is positively related to privatization and international attractiveness, and negatively related to longer management tenure. No significant link, on the other hand, is found between market competition and hotel efficiency. Further discussions of these findings and related managerial implications are provided.     

The influence of the political environment and destination governance on sustainable tourism development: a study of Bled,Slovenia

In the context of sustainable tourism development, there are many studies about the exchange process between residents and tourism, yet this issue is practically unexplored with respect to the political environment of tourism. Therefore, this paper introduces and posits that the political environment is a necessary enabler for implementing sustainable tourism. The authors extend the established three-pillar sustainability concept by adding in the political dimension. Then they surveyed how residents' positive and negative perceptions of tourism impacts determine their satisfaction with life in the tourism destination and thus their support for tourism in their community. The model was empirically tested within the context of the long-established Alpine destination of Bled in Slovenia. The findings confirm the importance of the political environment and question the sustainability of Bled's tourism development. It is suggested that the community has relatively weak destination governance due to the underdeveloped political environment. The survey expands and deepens the tourism sustainability debate by adding in the political environment and how it relates to the emerging growth of research on destination governance. The proposed model can be adapted and applied to any destination in order to improve its governance, including the implementation of sustainable tourism development.     

Variable neighborhood search heuristic for nonconvex portfolio optimization

Abstract

In this article we consider a portfolio optimization problem under multiple real-world constraints, such as: cardinality constraints, tracking error, active share, and turnover. We propose a heuristic based on variable neighborhood search (VNS) that effectively addresses additional constraints that introduce non-convexities. In the VNS-based heuristic, several neighborhood structures are introduced and fast local search is implemented. We develop a VNS portfolio rebalancing framework (VNS-PRF) with two rebalance strategies. Data sets provided by a financial investment firm are used to evaluate the validity and reliability of the proposed VNS-PRF. Computational experiments and different portfolio performance measures indicate that our approach is able to obtain solutions with competitive quality and can be applied on large-scale data sets.     

Mobile Dwelling Unit Developed by a Group of Mechanical Engineering Design Students

The increasing number of homeless people is one of the most burning problems of nowadays world. Society has to find the way to fight against it and provide help to those people that have no place to stay. For short-term interventions, the application of the mobile dwelling units seems to be the only possible solution. However, existing mobile dwelling units are rather limited to specific areas of application. A group of students faced this problem and decided to develop an alternative, more universal mobile dwelling unit that will fulfil a wide range of different technical and social requirements at a reasonable price. The paper describes a systematic approach to development of the mobile dwelling unit, which was performed as a part of the education process at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maribor. The project presented is interdisciplinary. In addition to the educational aspect that is emphasized in this paper, technical, economic and social aspects of the project have also a very important role. From educational point of view, the project was concluded successfully. Moreover, we believe our proposal for a mobile dwelling unit is both novel and suitable for general application. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

从个人收益对高等教育收费问题的思考

本文针对目前中国国情下高等教育,用经济学方法来分析高等教育消费和投资,力图从居民户于人收益角度来确定收费标准。规避从高校角度分析该问题的不易确定性,并提出相关政策和建议。     

Web-hosting market development status and its value as an indicator of a country's e-readiness

A country's e-readiness is essentially a measure of its business environment, a collection of factors that indicate how amenable a market is to Internet-based opportunities. An e-readiness assessment is based on several quantitative criteria, and among them the ICT market development indicators are considered as the most influential. Studies in the past have shown that the well-known indicators used for assessing the level of ICT market development in countries with emerging economy are not directly applicable. This paper provides another insight into the level of ICT market development in an emerging economy by analysing the adoption of web-hosting services in the country's business sector. The potential of such assessment to be as an indicator of the level of ICT development in a country is analysed. The underlying study of the web-hosting development was carried out as part of the European project WEBHOSTS. The approach applied and the findings were intended to be used as a decision support in locating and managing some of the risks in e-business development and potential investment by new entrants in a region that is accessing the developed part of Europe.     

关于企业资本运营战略的思考

从生产经营模式到资本经营模式的转变是目前我国国有企业面临的一次革命性的飞跃。资本经营实际上是企业发展到一定规模和一定阶段时通常要采取的战略选择 ,通过资本经营 ,企业可以改善自身的资本结构 ,吸纳外部资源 ,剥离不良资本 ,进行组织和制度创新 ,从而达到低成本高效益扩张的目的。本文运用系统科学的思想 ,对资本经营的基本理论及我国企业资本经营的现状进行阐述、考察和分析 ,试图提出发展我国国有企业资本经营所应该采取的对策     

川蔓藻的重要生态服务功能评述

川蔓藻是一种分布于全世界的沉水植物,对维持河口海岸湿地生态系统健康起着举足轻重的作用。但近几十年来川蔓藻正面临着人类活动带来的严重威胁,种群衰退严重。文章对川蔓藻海草床的重要生态服务功能进行了分析和评述,以期提高公众对川蔓藻重要性的认识,加强对川蔓藻的有效保护与管理。     

Innovate to Survive: The Effect of Technology Competition on Corporate Bankruptcy

This paper establishes a strong relation between technology competition and corporate bankruptcy. Using detailed firm‐level patent data, we show that: 1) the capability of firms to innovate predicts future bankruptcies better than the typical measures such as Z‐score and credit rating, 2) technology‐related bankruptcies are less sensitive to the business cycle and industry success, and 3) firms that go bankrupt as a result of technology competition experience larger declines in earnings and stock prices.