Attitudes of Tourism Students to the Environment and Climate Change

This paper reports on a global study of the attitudes of students studying in senior year and first-year postgraduate tourism and hospitality subjects to tourism and its relationship with the environment and climate change. The study determined that students are generally concerned about environmental degradation, feel knowledgeable about climate change, are concerned that it will become an even larger issue in the next 5 years and, generally, appreciate that tourism is a major contributor to carbon emissions. Moreover, some 70% had changed their behavior in the past 3 years to reduce their environmental impacts. However, specificity of knowledge about the causes of climate change was limited, which is symptomatic of a broader lack of detailed knowledge about environmental degradation, which in turn translates into rather generic behavior changes. Most significantly, less than 13% of students have changed their vacation patterns out of concern for the environment, with only a small minority intending to modify their travel patterns in the future.     

Capital building through gym work

This research employed Pierre Bourdieu’s model of capital accumulation to frame the benefits conferred by gym use. Thirteen participants from four gyms in Melbourne, Australia, were purposefully selected for in-depth interviews, where detailed case histories were solicited, and data were analysed using a narrative coding model. Results indicated that the two most highly valued forms of capital were bodily capital and psychological capital. All 13 participants cited gym work as the means by which they built a better looking and better functioning body. They also advised that gym work had strengthened their self-esteem and psychological resilience, which, in turn, enabled them to present themselves more confidently in their various social roles outside the gym. In contrast, these 13 gym users accrued low levels of cultural and symbolic capital through their activities, and contrary to previous studies, also secured little social capital from gym work.     

Technology agreements and industrial relations in Belgium

Belgium has a very developed system of national collective bargaining and as a result, it is one of the few countries with a national technology agreement. An analysis revealed that this agreement was not used very much. This article looks at the use and importance of technology agreements for unions.     

Selecting managers for transformational change

This article draws on the findings of a recent empirical study into the experience of managing change in ‘high velocity’, transformational change contexts. It argues that, with increasing empowerment, notions of the singular, mandated change agent may have to be juxtaposed with the idea of change being managed by a more diverse, multifarious ‘cast of characters’. If this is the case, effectiveness in change management may increasingly rest on the development and application of a systematic methodology for assessing the suitability and capabilities to perform in a change role. However, on the basis of the evidence presented, it would appear that selection decisions are being made on a largely subjective and arbitrary basis, and this may be creating wrong or misguided assumptions about an individual's suitability to perform in a change agent role. Additionally, the initial evidence suggests that the process of selection may be open to manipulation by some individuals whose personal aims and goals in the change process are not necessarily congruent with those of the organisation. This in turn may pose an element of strategic risk to the overall change process. The article then discusses some of the theoretical and practical implications facing those with a responsibility for selecting and managing the change managers.     

Community empowerment in vogue or vain?

Community is in vogue. But what does it mean and what could it mean, particularly for the residents of inner city areas and peripheral estates faced with poverty and deprivation and cut off from mainstream economic opportunities? This paper examines the concept of community drawing upon work recently undertaken on community involvement in City Challenge (Docklands Consultative Committee and Barrow Cadbury Trust, 1994). We ask the question, has urban policy really engaged with urban communities, and if not, how could it do so?

Urban policy has zigzagged from one set of initiatives to another. Whilst policy has been moulded over time to reflect differing government ideologies seeking to account for the root of the urban malaise, essentially many of Britain's inner cities are still facing the same deep-seated socio-economic problems, identified in the government's 1977 White Paper, A Policy for the Inner Cities.

Community involvement in these initiatives has had a chequered history. First, it was a starting point for tackling deprivation in the Urban Priority Areas, and then incorporated into the Community Development Projects of the early 1970s. In the 1980s urban communities reverted to a role as spectators to property-led regeneration. In the 1990s, the word “community” is being extensively employed in the urban debate.     

The halo effect in store image measurement

This research investigates the use of alternative rating procedures, familiarity, attribute importance and respondent sex on the magnitude of the halo effect present in store image, measurement. The results indicate that while there was little difference in the impact of the two measurements on the halo effect, both subjects’ familiarity with the store and attribute importance had an impact on the degree of halo effect present. Further, respondent sex interacted with attribute importance such that females were less subject to halo effects than males when important attributes were involved.     

Nuclear energy: Tenfold expansion or phase-out?

Today, consensus is strengthening that mankind ought to prevent atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from more than doubling, since such a doubling is likely to cause a significant interference with the planet's climate system, to which it might prove difficult to adapt. Nuclear energy possesses large disadvantages, among which waste, proliferation and safety. An expansion of nuclear energy would encounter great social, institutional and economic barriers. Because the 21st century requires a radical transformation of global energy production and consumption towards nonfossil fuels, however, it is one of the noncarbon emitting alternatives that, at present, deserve enhanced research and development efforts. If nuclear energy were expanded 10-fold, it could contribute significantly to mitigating carbon emissions: a 10-fold expansion of nuclear energy could avoid about 15% of cumulative carbon emissions over the period 2000–2075. Nuclear energy, however, can be no panacea for the problem of global warming. Even with a massive expansion, nuclear energy should be complemented by drastic fossil fuel decarbonization measures or the development of renewable energy resources. Preferably, a combination of both should be targeted and complemented by far-reaching efficiency and savings regimes. Since the risks for humanity resulting from climate change are high, it would be unwise to currently abandon any noncarbon energy resource, including fission. A central thrust of continued research and development into nuclear energy ought to be the design of satisfactory nuclear waste depositories and of safe reactors that are less susceptible to proliferation risks.     

The dual contributions of information instruments in return models: magnitude and direction predictability

By partitioning asset return prediction errors, we show explicitly the dual role of magnitude and sign prediction of return instruments. We demonstrate analytically that sign prediction directly affects heteroskedasticity in asset returns; increases in precision attenuate the heteroskedasticity. Our findings with monthly asset returns are consistent with earlier evidence and indicate that our proposed analytical model captures the sign predictive component of returns. Our results are supportive of a nonlinear return generating model that can be thought of as the product of a model, perhaps linear, for forecasting return signs and a model for forecasting return magnitudes.