Attractiveness of cultural activities in European cities: A latent class approach

Cultural tourism behaviour and destination preference was analysed for 19 European capital cities, utilising the level of participation in cultural activities (participation) and the level of enjoyment of those cultural activities (attractiveness). A latent class model with three classes described the association in the data satisfactorily. Class 1 was labeled “low participation and high attractiveness”, Class 2 was labeled “high participation and high attractiveness”, and Class 3 was labeled “high participation and low attractiveness”. The Class 2 respondents with high participation and attractiveness had the highest cultural capital, and could be considered ‘specific cultural tourists’, whereas the Class 3 respondents could be considered ‘general cultural tourists’. Class 1 respondents, with relatively infrequent participation but high enjoyment, are potentially most interesting in marketing terms.     

高盛错了吗？

高盛欺诈门事件使其客户荷兰银行和德国工业银行损失超过数十亿美元,但却使自己的另一位客户鲍尔森公司赚得盆满钵满,高盛真的做错了吗？     

Working Across Professional Boundaries: Primary Health Care and Social Care

Effective joint working between health and local authorities, and between health, social services and housing professionals, has long been recognized as vital to the provision of 'seamless' services for the most vulnerable members of society. Unfortunately, the history of formal joint working over the past 20 years has been largely a poor one. In this article the authors outline the findings from a recent study of working alliances across the primary health care/social care boundary. They examine how obstacles are being overcome and how, in some localities, the essential ingredients of inter-professional and inter-organizational trust are leading to the improved integration of services.     

The Content of Internet Advertisements and its Impact on Awareness and Selling Performance

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the different relationships consumers build with anthropomorphised devices and how these relationships affect actual and intended future usage. An exploratory, three-week empirical study of 39 informants using voice controls on their smartphone uncovered a diversity of relationships that the informants built with such devices. We complement anthropomorphism theory by drawing on extended-self theorising to identify three primary roles that emerge from consumers’ interactions with these devices. Our findings theorise the distinct ways in which consumers perceive the object agency of anthropomorphised smart devices and how these perceptions impact the consumers’ engagement and future use intentions.     

Health Systems and Health Reform in Europe

The organisation of health care differs widely across Europe. Access to services, financing schemes, incentives for better care, and administrative efficiency are challenges that are being dealt with in a variety of ways. Are insurance-based systems the best solution for balancing resources and services or are national health funds preferable? Does the introduction of competition fulfil high hopes for better service at lower costs? What are the relative advantages and drawbacks of central and local management of health care?     

Spatial competition and market power in banking

Banks in non-metropolitan areas compete in a spatially differentiated environment. Non-metro community banks have been insulated from increasing competition from metro banks due to their reliance on soft information in relationship lending. Proximity to borrowers, therefore, may be an important source of market power for non-metro community banks. This paper estimates a structural model of the supply and demand of banking services in which pricing power is allowed to depend explicitly on the distance between rival banks. A spatial autoregressive econometric model shows that approximately 38.0% of economic surplus earned by firms in non-metropolitan banking in the upper midwest is due to spatial market power.     

Consumer intentions to engage in s-commerce: a cross-national study

Social media has reached global proportions; yet, little is known about how consumers engage with firms in ways that lead to social commerce (s-commerce) – an emerging area of importance in the literature. This study addresses this gap and extends previous research by examining factors that influence consumers’ intentions to engage in s-commerce in four countries: Chile, Spain, South Africa and Australia. Specifically, this study develops and tests a model of consumers’ intentions to engage in s-commerce through brands’ Facebook pages incorporating personal variables (involvement in brands’ products and services, satisfaction with brands’ Facebook page), trust variables (message credibility of Facebook posts, trust in firms’ Facebook) and social variables (peer communication, social media dependency, online social interaction propensity) on predicting intentions to purchase products and services through brands’ Facebook pages if s-commerce was available to them. The findings show that the main drivers of s-commerce engagement are message credibility, trust in the brands’ Facebook, involvement, peer communication and online social interaction propensity, as influencers of consumer satisfaction with brands’ Facebook and social media dependency, which in turn drive intentions to engage in s-commerce. Contributing to theory and practice, these relationships are discussed for the four countries involved in the study.