Goal programming: Planning process of tourism organizations

The complex rapidly changing environment faced by tourism organization officials makes tourism planning extremely difficult. Goal programming can aid the tourism planner in appraising the goal attainment potential associated with proposed tourism marketing program alternatives. By changing priorities of goals, budgetary limitations, and organizational constraints, the policy maker can test the effect of changes before they are implemented. By utilizing goal programming, a tourism organization can more systematically evaluate the nature and relative importance of organizational goals, critical constraints affecting the organization and marketing program alternatives.     

Using geographic information systems to revisit enduring rivalries: The case of Israel

This article derives from a project which has developed a major reconceptualization and revision of how borders may be seen and measured through the use of GIS. This reconceptualization permits an investigation of the specific qualities of borders in terms of opportunity and willingness: ease of interaction and salience, respectively. Data generated by the GIS reconceptualization ‐ both maps and numerical measures ‐ are used to look at the nature of the contiguous borders that link enduring rivalry dyads, with a specific focus on Israeli borders. Even as a first‐cut, the GIS‐based reconceptualization is demonstrated to be of use by highlighting areas of opportunity and/or salience and informing policy choices.     

How the object of knowledge constrains knowledge of the object. An epistemological analysis of a social research investigation

A theoretical social epistemology, arguing for a 'relationalrealism', is developed as part of the internal work of the researchprocess in a social science investigation. It is suggested thattheorising the nature of knowledge interactions is fruitfulboth in developing an epistemology of the discipline and inenhancing theoretical analysis of empirical research. The paperargues that five different aspects of object constraints emergefrom the case study: structural characteristics (the 'maze');relations of force internal to the object; boundaries betweenknowledge systems; relations of scale; and 'interference' generatedby knowledge instruments.     

The possibility of reversing the trade pattern with internationally-diffused localized technical progress

This paper considers the impact of localized technical progress (gains in technology which are confined to specific capital—labor ratios) on the pattern of trade. It is shown, in the context of a two-sector model, that technological improvements which are localized to particular techniques can cause factor intensity reversals so that, even if production functions are internationally identical, the pattern of trade between nations may depend not only on relative factor endowments but also on the relative magnitudes of technical progress in each sector.     

Quantiles, expectiles and splines

A time-varying quantile can be fitted by formulating a time series model for the corresponding population quantile and iteratively applying a suitably modified state space signal extraction algorithm. It is shown that such quantiles satisfy the defining property of fixed quantiles in having the appropriate number of observations above and below. Like quantiles, time-varying expectiles can be estimated by a state space signal extraction algorithm and they satisfy properties that generalize the moment conditions associated with fixed expectiles. Because the state space form can handle irregularly spaced observations, the proposed algorithms can be adapted to provide a viable means of computing spline-based non-parametric quantile and expectile regressions.     

Is there chronic excess supply of labor?: Designing a statistical test

We devise and implement a statistical test of the hypothesis that the labor market has chronic excess supply. We find that the data reject this hypothesis.     

An Analysis of the Factor Structure of Jones’ Moral Intensity Construct

In 1991, Jones developed an issue-contingent model of ethical decision making in which moral intensity is posited to affect the four stages of Rest’s 1986 model (awareness, judgment, intention, and behavior). Jones claimed that moral intensity, which is “the extent of issue-related moral imperative in a situation” (p. 372), consists of six characteristics: magnitude of consequences (MC), social consensus (SC), probability of effect (PE), temporal immediacy (TI), proximity (PX), and concentration of effect (CE). This article reports the findings of two studies that analyzed the factor structure of moral intensity, operationalized by a 12-item Perceived Moral Intensity Scale (PMIS) adapted from the work of Singhapakdi et al. [1996, Journal of Business Research, 36, 245–255] and Frey [2000, Journal of Business Ethics, 26, 181–195]. The two items that were purported to measure CE were dropped due to their inability to effectively tap into the characteristic proposed by Jones. Factor analyses of the remaining 10 items supported a 3-factor structure, with the MC, PE, and TI items loading on the first factor, the PX items loading on the second factor, and the SC items loading on the third factor. These factors were labeled: Probable Magnitude of Consequences, Proximity, and Social Consensus. The authors conclude that moral intensity consists of three characteristics, rather than the six posited by Jones.