Increasing employability in the emerging tourism sector in Mozambique: Results of a qualitative study

Mozambique’s tourism sector could play a key role in the country’s socio-economic development, especially in the region of Cabo Delgado where the demand for tourist services is expected to increase. Nonetheless, several constraints (e.g. the lack of adequate training) are hindering the capacity of local people to take full advantage of this opportunity. Qualitative research has been performed in order to align vocational training programmes with the needs of the emerging tourism sector. Local and foreign key informants were interviewed in order to gain a better understanding of training needs and to gain insights into developing training programmes that can enhance local people’s employability. The main findings highlight the lack of symbolisation of tourism and its correlates from local communities. Therefore, rather than just delivering technical skills, training programmes should also promote a ‘culture of tourism’ and a more favourable attitude towards ‘working in the tourism sector’.     

Sounding “Different”: The Role of Sociolinguistic Cues in Evaluating Job Candidates

An increasingly diverse labor pool has increased the likelihood that HR recruiters will encounter job seekers who speak with different dialects. Prior studies have investigated the effects of applicant dialect on employment selection outcomes. In this article, we merge this research with stereotyping, “modern racism,” and sociolinguistics literatures to formulate propositions surrounding two questions of interest: (1) Do prospective employers categorize job applicants using sociolinguistic cues? and (2) If so, what impact does this categorization have on evaluations of applicant employability? We believe this research can provide significant insights into HR practice as discriminatory behaviors change and adapt to fit social norms, particularly in employee recruitment and selection contexts. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The demographic cycle and optimal schooling choices

A model is developed that enables the authors to estimate the effects of demographic cycles on both earnings and schooling. The model is tested using data from the 1991 Korean Occupational Wage Survey. The results indicate that cohorts following large birth cohorts in the cycle choose relatively less formal schooling compared to pre-peak cohorts, and that post-peak cohorts also have lower incomes. This result concerning South Korea is consistent with findings from previous studies concerning the United States.     

Regional Income Inequality and Welfare in China: A Dominance Analysis

Inference-based dominance analysis is applied to micro data containing comprehensive measures of rural and urban incomes in seven major regions of China. Ordinal inequality rankings are estimated for Lorenz curves of household income, per capita household income and square root equivalences scale adjusted income. Regional inequality is shown to be sensitive to the treatment of household size. The lack of reliable regional cost of living measures leads us to propose that entire food expenditure share quantile distributions be used as indicators of differences in well-being within and across regions. The results indicate that statistical rankings of Lorenz dominance and food share dominance are very different indicators of regional disparities in income and welfare in China. One urban region is shown to have been in the unenviable position in 1988 of being at the bottom of the Lorenz dominance ranking and tied for last in terms of food share dominance.     

A useful scope for marketing

The debate over the nature and scope of marketing is far from settled, but the desire for change among marketers is apparent. It is urgent that marketers determine what the scope of their field should become as a necessary first step in developing an adequate definition. The effort so far has been somewhat haphazard with a variety of authors-extolling the virtues of their viewpoint. This article represents an attempt to add order to the search for a useful scope for marketing. To achieve this purpose, four norms are developed which seem suitable for testing the scope and definition of marketing. They include the level of abstraction norm, the norm of correspondence, the pragmatic norm, and the norm of simplicity. These four norms are first used to test two extreme positions and then to test a third compromise definition of marketing.     

Differences in large and small firm responses to environmental context: strategic implications from a comparative analysis of business formations

Despite growing recognition of some strategic advantages held by small firms, little comparative research has been performed on the advantages and disadvantages accruing to firm size. In order to delineate the differential responses of small and large businesses to their environmental context, we perform a comparative analysis of the impact of industry structural characteristics on the formation of large and small businesses in a large sample of U.S. manufacturing industries from 1977 to 1987. The results suggest that small businesses possess certain resources that allow them to overcome some barriers which create greater difficulties for their larger counterparts, as well as allow small businesses to exploit certain industry opportunities more readily than larger ones. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changing Sources of Household Income,Poverty, and Sectoral Inequality in Sri Lanka, 1990–2006

Comparing dynamic changes in household income and poverty among urban, rural, and estate sectors in Sri Lanka from 1990 to 2006, this study finds that a shift of household income away from farm to nonfarm sources is accompanied by a significant improvement in household income and reduction in poverty, particularly in the rural sector. Major contributing factors are the rise in returns to labor, in general, and educated labor, in particular, due to the development of the nonfarm labor market. Persistently low income among estate households can be explained primarily by the limited availability of nonfarm employment opportunities and the low education levels of working members.     

Dynamics in ICT cooperation networks in selected German ICT clusters

High innovation capability is indispensable for generating economic growth in developed economies. Cooperations in the innovation process are entered into by companies for reasons of risk diversification or costs and often considered to be an efficient strategy to increase a company’s knowledge basis. Regional economic literature very often believes that regional agglomeration of companies, i.e. cluster formation, will also lead to increased local networking, i.e. also to cooperations between companies or between company and research institutes in the innovation process. A social network analysis of the two German ICT regions performed with patent data was able to show that cluster formation coincides with a dynamic increase of cooperations measured by joint patent applications. However, the cooperations are characterized by integration of extra-regional companies and research institutes rather than being intraregional.     

The Higher Earning in America: Are 529 Plans a Good Way to Save for College?

This article studies whether 529 plans are an effective way for most people to save for college. The 529 plans were created in 1996 to help low- and middle-income American families save for college. Since this time they have adopted more tax advantages and grown substantially as a result. While total balances in 529 plans now exceed $250 billion, less than 3.0 percent of households have a 529 plan. And the majority of 529 plan accounts are held by the wealthiest households. Low- and middle-income households receive little tax savings from investing in 529 plans, and some states count these plans against financial aid. Also, 529 plans are complicated, rules vary by state, and fund management fees tend to be high. Thus, 529 plans are not the panacea to college affordability.