Quality Assurance Certification for Hospitality Marketing,Sales and Customer Services

The article proposes that there is a need to extend quality assurance schemes to encompass marketing and customer services. The hospitality industry's involvement in the consideration of quality assurance schemes is discussed and the degree to which they have been accepted. An explanation of the Marketing Quality Assurance Scheme (MQA) is presented with detailed examples of the objectives to be met in assuring the quality of marketing, sales plans and customer service. The study concludes that quality assurance schemes for services and marketing are essential for the hospitality industry, in order to guarantee the quality of provision and to offer a bridge from quality assurance to the concept of Total Quality Management.     

Rentenreform — mit welchem Fokus?

The demographic imbalance is aggravating, and by 2060 the old-age dependency ratio will double to approximately 70%. This development has consequences for the state pension system: growing contribution rates to social security coupled with lower pension levels, but at the same time a higher retirement age. The German pension scheme is mandatory for all wage and salary earners, but since 2001, no reasonable indicator for measuring the pension level exists any more. As a consequence of this, old-age pension has lost its traditional function as a replacement for earnings. The recent pension reforms have dropped the pension level sharply. Further reductions have been announced with the consequence of increasing old age poverty. Against this background it is proposed to raise the pension level so that the pensioners can maintain their standard of living. But any pension reform involves issues of distribution between and often also within generations, which cannot be addressed without explicit equity criteria. Some authors consider the past reforms as a mistake, others suggest adjustments.     

Environmental Performance Focus in Private Family Firms: The Role of Social Embeddedness

The macro-level business ethics in Scholasticism contrasts with modern Anglo-Saxon Capitalism, which is very influential worldwide. Scholasticism, developed between the thirteenth and the mid-seventeenth centuries, deals with key elements of free market morality, including private property, contracts, profits, prices, and free competition. For over 500 years Scholasticism tried to understand economic phenomena and business activities and reflected on them from an ethical perspective. Scholasticism offered the crucial lesson of the centrality of justice and the role of practical wisdom in considering market morality. Justice is seen as both a virtue and a principle, and commutative justice (justice in exchanges) with the common good of society as the reference for the Scholastics, is regarded as being especially important.     

Hochwasservorsorge zwischen Staatshilfen und privater Versicherung

The recent flood events in Germany have demonstrated that the nation’s current system of private flood insurance is suboptimal. The article provides novel nationwide survey data on stated flood insurance penetration (suggesting that many households overestimate their own insurance coverage), damage compensation expectations (a significant share of the population expects governmental relief payments), and on the dissemination of private flood mitigation measures. Taking into account fundamental economic considerations and the empirical insights, the authors propose a limited compulsory insurance, covering only the most basic risks and leaving incentives for further private insurance and precaution.     

An experimental investigation of the effect of TV cooking show consumption on children's food choice behaviour

For several decades, television consumption has been crucial in the complex web of factors underlying the obesity epidemic. It has been suggested that if television cooking shows would endorse healthy eating styles, they may have positive effects on consumers’ eating habits. This study empirically investigated the consequences of exposing children (N = 85, aged 9–12 years) to an existing television cooking show episode endorsing the consumption of fruits and vegetables compared with exposure to a non‐food‐related science show. The measures included pre‐test and post‐test attitudes toward health/nutrition and fruits/vegetables, as well as state preferences for a list of healthy and unhealthy foods. At the end of the study, children were separately given the choice between a popular cookie and a piece of fruit as a reward; this was used as a behavioural measure. The results of a logistic regression on the behavioural choice measure showed that the mere exposure to one episode of the television cooking show significantly increased the odds that the children would choose a piece of fruit over a cookie. Repeated‐measures analyses showed that watching this single episode also decreased children's state appetite for unhealthy foods. State appetites for healthy foods and attitudes toward health/nutrition or fruits/vegetables did not change after watching the television cooking show episode. In sum, existing television cooking shows that endorse healthy eating positively influence children's food consumption in the short term and may have the potential to be used as platforms for nutrition education.     

The dramatic breakdown of the market orientation concept in the pharmaceutical industry: lessons from Vioxx

In this article we present an in-depth case study to better understand the underlying market orientation concept in relation to bringing new technologies to the marketplace. We use the case history of the anti-arthritis drug Vioxx, developed and marketed by the company Merck & Co. Inc that allegedly killed thousands of customers. The case shows how market orientation can take shape and how the key components may form an explosive cocktail prone to problematic behaviour rather than a synergistic set of orientations that creates value for customers. From the data covering 20 years, it is clear that a consumer orientation and competitor orientation, for example, are difficult to internalise and balance by employees. A competitive orientation seems to lead to tunnel vision regarding profit and market share outcomes. Implications for the fundamental market orientation concept, innovation management, together with management challenges are discussed.     

Emotional arousal and entrepreneurial outcomes: Combining qualitative methods to elaborate theory

This qualitative study of innovators in the superyacht industry blends longitudinal content analysis with narrative case vignettes to extend nascent theorizing about the antecedents and consequences associated with the arousal of entrepreneurial emotion. The empirically grounded framework induced through our research offers two key theoretical elaborations. First, it extends the existing set of theorized antecedents by highlighting the overlooked roles played by dramatic performances (staged or improvised) and ambient conditions (project, actor and venue considerations). Second, it calls attention to the consequences of emotional arousal for such entrepreneurial outcomes as generating novel solutions to specific problems encountered during the creation process, developing innovative end products, and fostering a general context for innovation.     

Anstieg der Altersarmut?

The development of old-age poverty has become an important topic in Germany. Contrary to most studies, a recent report written by the scientifi c advisory council at the German Federal Ministry of Economy asserts that old-age poverty will not become a large socio-political problem in Germany in the future. The authors of this paper warn against downplaying the problem of old-age poverty, and they plead in favour of further reliable research on the issue.