Determinants of the Use of the Internet as a Tourist Information Source

The modelling of usage behaviour of New Information Technologies is of great utility to managers who need to evaluate the probability of success in the introduction of these technologies. The present study empirically contrasts the capacity of Davis's Technology Acceptance Model 1989 to help understand the determinants of the intention to use the Internet to search for holiday information. The findings show that the above theory does explain the intention to use the Internet on the part of the tourist, but it should be expanded to take account of the tourist's satisfaction with previous experiences of searching for holiday information.     

Ethical Culture and Employee Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Person-Organization Fit

We build on limited research concerning the mediation processes associated with the relationship between ethical culture and employee outcomes. A multidimensional measure of ethical culture was examined for its relationship to overall Person-Organization (P–O) fit and employee response, using a sample of 436 employees from social economy and commercial banks in Spain. In line with previous research involving unidimensional measures, ethical culture was found to relate positively to employee job satisfaction, affective commitment, and intention to stay. New to the literature, ethical culture was also found to be associated positively with employee willingness to recommend the organization to others. These effects were observed even when perceptions of P–O fit were controlled. Importantly, ethical culture was also positively related to overall P–O fit, which in turn, partially mediated the relationship between ethical culture and employee outcomes. Our findings add to studies that focus on the importance of the degree of ethical congruence between the individual employee and the organization. They suggest that ethical culture, with its expected impact on virtuousness and emotional well-being, will positively influence outcomes independently of the degree to which there is a match between employee and organizational values.     

The geography of public services employment in Europe: concentration or dispersion?

It is widely known that the location of public services generates, directly and indirectly, important economic effects. The objective of this article is to examine the spatial distribution of employment in public services in 124 European regions in order to detect the existence of some pattern of spatial location. To do so we employ various exploratory spatial analysis techniques, such as the calculation of the Moran's I and the Geary's C statistics. The results obtained highlight the existence of remarkable differences among the European regions, and more concretely between the Scandinavian and the Mediterranean regions, differences that deserve further study.     

Internal market orientation and its influence on the satisfaction of contact personnel

To verify the dimensions, reliability and validity of internal market orientation (IMO) as a scale of measurement of internal marketing, and using it to measure the effect of internal marketing on the satisfaction of contact personnel. Interviews were carried out with all the cashiers of the 16 branches of a small, local credit institution. Because of the small sample size, partial least squares were used in the analysis of the data. The results show the validity and reliability of the IMO construct, formed by four of the five dimensions of the original scale. They also corroborate the causal relationships among the four dimensions, as well as the significant influence of the informal dimension of IMO on the satisfaction of contact personnel. The main limitation of this study is that it analyses a single financial entity, with the characteristics and behaviours that the latter has in its relationship with its employees. To achieve their organisational objectives, firms must adopt an orientation towards the employee, or internal marketing, on an equal plane to the traditional consideration of the external market. Also, the measurability of this internal orientation on the basis of the IMO scale makes available a valuable tool of planning and control in its implementation. This article verifies the validity and reliability of the IMO construct, and its influence on the satisfaction of contact personnel, in a different business sector and with a different research subject from those analysed hitherto by the literature. It also demonstrates the sequential type of relationship among the dimensions that form IMO.     

Climate perceptions and the customer orientation of frontline service employees

Satisfaction of customers' needs is particularly dependent upon the customer orientation of frontline employees. Understanding the drivers of such orientation is, therefore, a key issue in current research. Research relating perceptions of organisational values with the customer orientation of employees is rather sparse. This topic is approached by investigating the role of selected dimensions of psychological climate in promoting the customer orientation of frontline service employees. A structural equations model is developed and empirically tested, indicating that perceptions of customer, ethical, and innovation climates exert an indirect effect on the adoption of customer-oriented behaviours by frontline employees.     

The impact of the tertiarization process in Spanish economic growth from a regional perspective

The article focuses on the impact that the growth of the service sector has had on the economic growth of the Spanish regions. Thus, the study tries to define regional groupings in order to identify different modalities of regional growth. As a result of the cluster analysis, we propose the groupings and analyse the beta-convergence in per capita GDP and in terms of the degree of tertiarization in the Spanish regions. Taking these groups as our starting point, a data panel model with fixed effects is applied and the study concludes that mainly capital stock and capital productivity in market services explain to a great extent the growth in per capita GDP in the Spanish regions.     

Applicability of global value chains analysis to tourism: issues of governance and upgrading

Tourism firms are increasingly integrated in value chains that often operate across many different countries. As a result, the concepts and the methodology of the global value chains begin to be applied to the tourism industry. This paper aims to explore the applicability of this methodological approach for a specific service industry, such as tourism. It pays particular attention to the impact of different patterns of governance within global tourism value chains on the possible forms of upgrading. First, a set of regional case studies carried out on this subject leads us to identify the main patterns of governance in the Andalusian tourism industry. Secondly, an empirical analysis allows us to consider in which way upgrading can vary according to the governance patterns.     

Globalization and the Business Schools: Toward Business and World-Sustainable Leadership

Globalization is a force that produces deep changes in business and society. Business schools face great challenges and opportunities in educating future leaders who can work across countries and cultures. This article presents some strategic issues regarding the type of education that business schools should offer from a global perspective, aimed at developing business leaders/managers endowed with knowledge, values, and cross-cultural intelligence to seek progress for their communities, their businesses, and society at large. These goals must be achieved in a world of multilevel access to education and jobs with a more equitable array of opportunities for both developed and developing markets.     

The different roles played by venture capital and private equity investors on the investment activity of their portfolio firms

Venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) investors play different roles in their portfolio companies. We argue that this will translate in a recognizable difference in the investment sensitivity to cash flows of portfolio companies and its evolution after the first investment round. We hypothesise that VC, thanks to its ability in overcoming asymmetries in information, will entail a reduction in the financial constraints which hampered the growth of investee firms. We predict, instead, a greater dependency of investments to cash flow for PE-backed companies, driven by the renewed interest for growth of their management combined with higher leverage. We find evidence confirming our hypotheses on a large panel of Spanish unlisted firms in low and medium technology sectors, where both VC and PE firms are active.     

Exploring Individual Factors Affecting Business Students’ Willingness to Study Abroad: A Case Study From the Caribbean

Despite a low rate of student participation in study abroad programs in the Caribbean, there is insufficient research about the individual factors that help determine business students’ willingness to study or to participate in internship programs abroad. This study aims to explore business students’ attitudes toward study abroad. The positive perceptions of students toward study or internship abroad raises questions about individual factors for business students’ outflow to study or participate in an internship abroad. This study also explores business students’ preferences for short- and long-term international study or internship abroad, as well as certification programs in international business. Moreover, it provides some insight into the segments of business students that are more likely to support these programs.