Contingent valuation in Korean environmental planning: A pilot application to the protection of drinking water quality in Seoul

This paper describes the application of the contingent valuation (CV) or willingness to pay (WTP) survey technique to a problem of public policy evaluation in Seoul, Korea. Matters of principal interest include: the definition of the problem and policy — protection of Seoul's drinking water supply from disruption by slugs of contaminants in the source river (the Han); adjustments to standard CV techniques and assumptions required by the cultural and physical reality of Seoul; the representativeness of the spatially-drawn sample; estimation of the willingness to pay equation as a check on theoretical validity; and the policy implications of the results. The bottom line is asserted to be that CV may be especially valuable in countries such as Korea that have serious environmental problems and a history of not producing data that might be used in alternative (indirect) benefit estimation exercises. Further, it appears that if care is exercised in adjusting to local reality, the method can be made as successful as it has been in the U.S. and northern Europe.Assoc. Res. Fellow, Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements, Seoul, Korea; and Professor of Economics and of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University, respectively. The authors gratefully acknowledge the advice and assistance of their colleagues, Professors Georgine Pion and Junsoo Lee; and the financial support of the Korean Environmental Protection Agency. The usual disclaimer, of course, applies.     

Discriminating between wealth and information effects in event studies in accounting and finance research

This article examines the power of tests of given size to detect and distinguish between wealth (i.e., mean) and information (i.e., variance) effects in event studies. We find that an Estimated Generalized Least Squares (EGLS) mean-effects test is consistently more powerful than the test based upon the average standardized residual and is as powerful as a nonparametric rank test. Unlike the test based upon the average standardized residual and the rank test, the EGLS test is well specified even when the event affects the variances of the prediction errors. We also find that conventional parametric tests to detect changes in the variance of the event-day average abnormal return are misspecified when the null of no change is true. We analyze the reasons this occurs and suggest a rank procedure that produces tests of the correct size under the null. Our evidence suggests that the critical factors allowing researchers to distinguish between wealth and information effects are an estimation procedure incorporating the heteroskedasticity inherent in market model prediction errors and an explicit test for event-day variance changes.     

Destination competitiveness through the lens of brand positioning: the case of Australia's Sunshine Coast

The purpose of the paper is to provide a collaborative practitioner/academic interpretation of a destination's competitiveness through the lens of brand positioning in the domestic short break drive market. A 173 item questionnaire, which was mailed to a systematic random sample of 3000 households in the target market, attracted a 17% useable response. The paper compares how one destination, the Sunshine Coast, is positioned in its most important market, in relation to the brand identity intended by the destination marketing organisation (DMO). Key constructs were brand salience, brand associations and brand resonance. The Sunshine Coast was found to hold a leadership position in the minds of consumers, and the results indicated a strong level of congruence between actual market perceptions and the brand identity intended by the DMO. There were strong associations between brand salience, brand associations and brand resonance. The findings provided the destination of interest with both a measure of past marketing effectiveness as well as positive indicators of future performance. The paper represents collaboration between a tourism practitioner and a tourism academic, and attempts a contribution to the emerging literature on destination competitiveness through the lens of positioning theory.     

Capitalizing on the cultural and linguistic diversity of mobile talent: lessons from an Australian study

Abstract

To date, acknowledgement of where culturally and linguistically diverse talent is located in organizations has been largely neglected in scholarship, policy and practice. As such, we have limited understanding of whether or not we are ‘capitalizing’ on the capabilities of culturally and linguistically diverse workers and, the implications of not doing so. Accordingly, the paper sheds light on the cultural and linguistic diversity (CALD) of the talent pipeline and senior leadership suite in multinational professional services firms located in Australia by surveying over 4000 staff members. The paper presents how we identify, measure and evaluate CALD in a meaningful way by drawing on insights offered by talent management and diversity management researchers, which informs the development of a unique methodological tool to survey respondents. As such, in addition to the empirical contribution, the paper also contributes to a broad field of scholarship while signalling lessons for senior managers and policy-makers.     

Epidemiology of yoga-related injuries in Canada from 1991 to 2010: a case series study

The aim is to describe the epidemiology of yoga injuries presenting to select Canadian emergency departments (EDs). Those who presented with a yoga injury to a Canadian ED participating in the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program and had completed a data collection form between 1991 and 2010 were included. Demographic and injury characteristics were tabulated and injury profiles of children were compared to adults. Sixty-six individuals (48 female, 18 male) who sustained 67 injuries were included. The median age was 19 (intraquartile range: 13, 32) and 73% of individuals were injured after 2005 (p = 0.0003). Sprain was the most common injury (23/67, 34%) and the most common body region injured was the lower extremity (27/67, 42%). Significantly more children were injured while being instructed than adults (p = 0.003) but more adults required treatment (p = 0.023). Although yoga-related injuries presenting to an ED are not common, the number of injuries are increasing.     

Should there be more showers at the summer music festival? Studying the contextual dependence of resource consuming conventions and lessons for sustainable tourism

Summer music festivals that involve a few days of camping have often been linked to sustainability agendas. Yet relevant studies have so far overlooked how these events can themselves serve as experiments in less resource consumptive living. Building on a wider interest in the cultural evolution of cleanliness norms, this paper explores how attendees come to use water in personal washing at two UK festivals. Through survey, observation and interview research, it examines how current festival goers respond to the disruption of their usual washing regimes, paying particular attention to how a combination of social and infrastructural cues serves to encourage the emergence of a temporary new cleanliness culture. Doing so highlights the value of seeing human resource consumption as a matter of dynamic collective convention more than fixed personal preference since these respondents were seen to embrace a new relationship with washing that was otherwise deemed unthinkable. This leads to a broader discussion of how visitor needs and the social world are most usefully studied by both future festival organisers and the wider field of sustainable tourism research.     

Dual price and quantity aggregation

In his seminal 1959 paper (in Econometrica), Gorman developed conditions for price aggregation in the context of income-constrained utility maximization. Price aggregation is defined as the existence of group income allocation functions with price indices and income as arguments. This paper develops and proves propositions about quantity aggregation that are dual to the Gorman results. These dual structures contain interesting asymmetries. The quantity aggregation concepts should be useful in the study of organizational structures characterized by decentralized shadow price (demand price) determination.     

Multi-channel store image and the effects on purchase intention

Consumer practices of purchasing goods and services through multiple channels versus a single channel have become common and reflect a change in purchase behaviours. This study identifies six dimensions of the multi-channel store image and proposes that they have positive effects on purchase intention and consumer characteristics moderate the relationship. A survey questionnaire was developed and administered to shoppers of two bookstores in Taiwan. A structural model tested the direct effects of the multi-channel store image on purchase intention, and that the moderating effects of consumer characteristics. The results suggest that four of the six dimensions – financial concern, psychosocial concern, time and convenience, and usefulness influence purchase intention. Consumer characteristics (age, gender, education, occupation) did not moderate the relationship.