Conjoint Analysis of Tourist Choice of Hotel Attributes Presented in Travel Agent Brochures

The purposes of this study are to demonstrate how it is possible to determine which attributes are the most important in the final choices of tourists who use a travel agent brochure as a source of information and how these attributes influence perceived value in a pre‐purchase stage. We conduct the study in three phases: (i) a qualitative study, (ii) an experiment using choice‐based conjoint analysis by means of a fractional factorial experimental design and (iii) another experiment using a full factorial derived from the same design. Results suggest advertisement size, a hotel's starred rating and price influence perceived value at this stage. The presence of a positive combined effect of price and advertising was found. Implications and directions for future applications are offered, focusing particularly on marketing services. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Technology Vision: a scale development

Researchers have cited significant gaps in our knowledge regarding the early stages of vision formation in the radical innovation context and have emphasised the importance of further investigation in this area. As such, this paper aims first to build on the extant literature on organizational, project and Market Vision in order to construct a measure for Technology Vision through theory construction, scale development and modeling. The second goal is to help firms to better understand what the underlying components of Technology Vision are in order to offer themselves the best possible chance of success with the development of radically new, high‐tech products. Based on samples of firms involved with radical innovation research and development in high‐tech sectors in North America and the United Kingdom, conceptual and measurement studies conducted herewith suggest there are five factors related to Technology Vision: Technology Vision benefits, Technology Vision efficiency, Technology Vision magnetism, Technology Vision specificity, and infrastructure clarity. The paper concludes with an examination of the implications of these components of Technology Vision and discusses the need to understand its relationship with Market Vision and the performance of the firm.     

Regional relationships between inherent coffee quality and growing environment for denomination of origin labels in Nariño and Cauca,Colombia

International markets are increasingly signaling demand for quality-differentiated coffee, which the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) proposed to exploit to identify those regional coffees that would fulfill the requirements to be classified as denomination of origin. The objective of this study was to develop and implement a sound, robust and repeatable approach with and for the FNC to identify regional causal relationships between coffee quality and environmental characteristics as bases for labels of denomination of origin. Environmental differences between coffee-growing areas in the departments of Cauca and Nariño were statistically significant for several characteristics, including the number of dry months, annual precipitation and diurnal temperature range. The dominant varieties (Caturra and Colombia) did not show major differences in quality attributes, and were pooled for the analyses with the environmental data. There are significant differences in biochemical and sensorial product characteristics between the two departments. The spatial patterns in product characteristics exhibit a non-random, regionally-changing structure that is related to those in the environmental data. The generated results provided ample evidence to support the application for regionally-based denominations of origin. Recommendations were derived to help mainstreaming the developed approach and thereby facilitate policy decisions for its use in other geographies and with other crops. Furthermore, the importance of systematic interdisciplinary institutional collaboration for large-scale denomination of origin projects was corroborated for food policy dialogue and decision making. It seems plausible that producers of high-quality products within other commodities are likely to follow the FNC in seeking denomination of origin for their goods. The presented approach is crucial to facilitate policy.     

The CBI Industrial Trends Survey — A Statistical Note

As the high tariff barriers of the inter-war period have been gradually reduced over the past twenty years, non-tariff factors have taken on an increasingly important role. One of the more notable of these factors is a country's level of excise taxes. Since these taxes are applied to both imports and domestic production, it is obvious that a given percentage change in excise taxes will have a smaller influence on trade than an equal percentage change in tariffs. Nevertheless, excise takes can be used to some extend as a substitution for tariffs. Hence, it would seem desirable to determine the degree to which such substitution will affect the volume of imports.

The role of taxes and tariffs in trade models has been considered in a number of theoretical discussions. ^{1 1} The effects of commodity taxes on the terms of trade and on domestic welfare have been analysed by MUNDELL, (1960), and by FRIEDLAENDER and VANDENDORPE (1968). However, virtually no effort has been made to examine the relationships among excise taxes, tariffs and imports in order to determine the extent to which countries can use excise taxes as a device to counterbalance the movement toward freer trade through the aegis of G.A.T.T. This study will attempt to rectify this omission.     

Understanding the drivers of organizational innovations

Organizational innovations involve the implementation of significant changes in business practices, the workplace organization, and external relations. The article reports an analysis of organizational innovations' objectives and adoption in 240 Spanish healthcare businesses. Statistical tests find a dynamic behavior in healthcare organizations with 40.8% having developed an organizational innovation in the period from 2007 to 2009. The main objectives pursued are related to improved knowledge sharing and innovation skills. Results also reveal a close relationship between organizational and product/process innovations. Specifically, healthcare companies developing new organizational methods to improve innovation skills and knowledge sharing are more successful in adopting product and process innovations.     

Travel Arrangements and the Distribution Behaviour of New Zealand Outbound Travelers

This paper contributes to the literature on tourism distribution by examining the distribution behavior of 547 New Zealand outbound travelers segmented by the way in which they have made their travel arrangements: package tourists, independent travelers, and an intermediate group, package plus. The results reveal differences among the three segments in terms of travel characteristics, information search, booking, and purchase, but not profile attributes or the influence of distribution on destination or product choice. Variations are also found in channel behavior across the four different sectors examined: transport to and at the destination, accommodation, and attractions, and activities.     

Pretesting TV Commercials: Methods,Measures, and Changing Agency Roles

Abstract

Research directors with the largest 200 agencies and advertising executives with the largest 200 advertisers were surveyed to examine their views on the current state of TV commercial pretesting. One-hundred and one agency researchers and 89 ad executives returned completed questionnaires (adjusted response rates of 52% and 49.7%), which asked them 23 closed-ended questions about (1) the methods and measures used to pretest TV commercial executions; (2) the perceived role of the agency versus the client in the selection of pretest methods; and (3) perceived changes in the role of the agency research department in TV commercial pretest research. Of those responding, 18 percent of the agency researchers and 19 percent of the advertising executives indicated that their agencies do not pretest TV commercials for assigned brands. Based on the responses of the 83 agency researchers and 72 advertising executives whose agencies pretest commercial executions, the findings suggest that the role of the agency research department has changed over the past 10 years. Most notably, there has been a proliferation in the use of qualitative methods and measures in TV commercial pretest research.     

The academician–practitioner gap in advertising

The existence of the academician–practitioner gap is readily acknowledged and widely discussed in the marketing/advertising literature. This paper analyses key writings on the nature of the academician–practitioner rift and proposes a new approach complementing the literature. The review identifies five prevailing explanations why miscommunication between academicians and practitioners exists: (1) the failure of academic knowledge dissemination systems; (2) problems with the knowledge content and knowledge form academicians produce; (3) counterproductive academic organisational systems; (4) questions of philosophy of science; and (5) practitioners’ inability and unwillingness to process academic information. The study concludes that one potential explanation is entirely missed in these accounts: the possibility that practitioners’ knowledge about how advertising works is an autonomous construct, which has its own rules and deep structure, and resists simple assimilation attempted by academicians. The study also complements the existing literature by basing the review on firm theoretical grounds: the authors apply the influential sociological theory of professionalisation. Finally, future directions for research investigation are suggested, which moves the predominantly normative discourse into the empirical world.     

Remittances,monetary institutions,and autocracies

ABSTRACT

How do remittances affect the choice of exchange rate regimes? Previous research shows that remittances, by easing the ‘impossible trinity’, increase the probability of governments adopting fixed exchange rates. However, that research overlooks the conditioning effect of monetary and political institutions. We argue that remittances, by altering recipient governments’ incentives to use monetary policy counter-cyclically, make central bank independence a credible anti-inflationary tool in less credible regimes; that is, autocracies. Thus, autocracies that receive remittances do not need to rely on fixed exchange rates. In this way, remittances open policy alternatives for developing autocracies. Statistical tests on a sample of 87 developing and transitional countries between 1980 and 2010 support our argument.     

An evaluation of the performance and suitability of R × C methods for ecological inference with known true values

Ecological inference refers to the study of individuals using aggregate data and it is used in an impressive number of studies; it is well known, however, that the study of individuals using group data suffers from an ecological fallacy problem (Robinson in Am Sociol Rev 15:351–357, 1950). This paper evaluates the accuracy of two recent methods, the Rosen et al. (Stat Neerl 55:134–156, 2001) and the Greiner and Quinn (J R Stat Soc Ser A (Statistics in Society) 172:67–81, 2009) and the long-standing Goodman’s (Am Sociol Rev 18:663–664, 1953; Am J Sociol 64:610–625, 1959) method designed to estimate all cells of R × C tables simultaneously by employing exclusively aggregate data. To conduct these tests we leverage on extensive electoral data for which the true quantities of interest are known. In particular, we focus on examining the extent to which the confidence intervals provided by the three methods contain the true values. The paper also provides important guidelines regarding the appropriate contexts for employing these models.