The importance of foreign language skills in the tourism sector: A comparative study of student perceptions in the UK and continental Europe

There is little doubt that skills in the language of another country are invaluable when communicating with people from that country. This is nowhere more apposite than in the context of the cross-cultural interface between tourism enterprises and visitors. However, the need for such skills in the UK has gained little attention, even in the key area of tourism. UK-based research that has been undertaken reinforces this view and also established the attitudes and perceptions of tourism students to the study and development of foreign language (FL) skills. In contrast, other EU countries reputedly have a greater awareness of the need for these skills and commitment to developing them which leads to speculation that tourism students in continental Europe would have contrasting attitudes to their UK counterparts. Subsequent to review of the importance of FL skills in the tourism sector the findings of research undertaken to investigate this hypothesis are presented. Significant variations between UK and non-UK students are identified not the least of which is the comparatively weak attention given to FL skills development in the UK. In concluding, the implications of the findings are discussed and concerns raised over the need to address evident weaknesses in order to enhance career options and tourism management in the UK.     

Russian Railways Reform and the Problem of Non‐discriminatory Access to Infrastructure

Abstract Restructuring of the Russian railways system is well under way. Among the policies just now coming into practice are two that are standard in railways restructuring in other countries: the provision of access to the infrastructure by independent train operating companies, and assurances of non‐discriminatory access terms for such companies. However, 'discrimination'– in the traditional economic sense – is a standard and often welfare‐enhancing pricing strategy for the recovery of fixed costs in a sector, like railways, with declining average costs. If competition regulators are unable to distinguish between discrimination that harms competition and discrimination designed only to recover fixed costs, policy makers in Russia and elsewhere will face a choice between large government subsidies and large welfare losses. In these circumstances, other restructuring models should be considered.     

Roger boisjoly and the challenger disaster: The ethical dimensions

This case study focuses on Roger Boisjoly's attempt to prevent the launch of the Challenger and subsequent quest to set the record straight despite negative consequences. Boisjoly's experiences before and after the Challenger disaster raise numerous ethical issues that are integral to any explanation of the disaster and applicable to other management situations. Underlying all these issues, however, is the problematic relationship between individual and organizational responsibility. In analyzing this fundamental issue, this paper has two objectives: first, to demonstrate the extent to which the ethical ambiguity that permeates the relationship between individual and organizational responsibility contributed to the Challenger disaster; second, to reclaim the meaning and importance of individual responsibility within the diluting context of large organizations.Russell P. Boisjoly is Associate Professor and Chairperson, Department of Finance at the University of Lowell where he specializes in Corporate Finance. His research focuses on applications of finance to regulated firms, especially in trucking and electric utility industries. He has published a number of articles on capital structure, mergers, bankruptcy prediction, and ethics.Ellen Foster Curtis is Associate Professor of Management at the University of Lowell where she specializes in Business Policy, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Transportation. Her research focuses on labor relations, impacts of transportation deregulation, and ethical issues in business. She has published a number of articles on these topics, labor relations in the transportation industries, and ethics.Eugene Mellican is Chairperson of the Philosophy Department at the University of Lowell. He describes himself as a student of philosophy concentrating on issues in applied ethics.     

The bakers of Washington cartel: Twenty-five years later

Craig M. Newmark challenges the findings of a 1965 Federal Trade Commission decision and Economic Report that a price fixing cartel increased bread prices in the state of Washington from the mid-1950s to 1964. Newmark believes prices were higher during the cartel's existence because retailers in the west had higher margins and that bakers in the west had higher wages and higher normal profits than elsewhere in the country. Newmark ignores evidence that the cartel had set the higher retailer margins in Washington and that the labor costs and profits of Washington bakers were not higher than elsewhere. The Washington bakers had inflated distribution costs and excess capacity prior to the cartel's breakup. This result is commonplace when a cartel stimulates costly nonprice competition, so that the higher prices of the cartel members end up primarily in higher unit cost. Finally, Newmark claims that the reason prices fell in 1965 was the entry of a significant size price cutter, not the demise of the cartel. What Newmark characterized as a principal entrant was actually a tiny, two-man operation, with less than a 1.0 percent market share. The record shows that this entrant did not trigger the precipitous price decline occuring when the cartel was destroyed.     

Asymptotic and bootstrap inference for inequality and poverty measures

A random sample drawn from a population would appear to offer an ideal opportunity to use the bootstrap in order to perform accurate inference, since the observations of the sample are IID. In this paper, Monte Carlo results suggest that bootstrapping a commonly used index of inequality leads to inference that is not accurate even in very large samples, although inference with poverty indices is satisfactory. We find that the major cause is the extreme sensitivity of many inequality indices to the exact nature of the upper tail of the income distribution. This leads us to study two non-standard bootstraps, the m out of n bootstrap, which is valid in some situations where the standard bootstrap fails, and a bootstrap in which the upper tail is modelled parametrically. Monte Carlo results suggest that accurate inference can be achieved with this last method in moderately large samples.     

Importance for DEA of zeros in data,multipliers, and solutions

Some prominent literature in the DEA field has displayed the following three problems involving zeros: (1) The structural role of zeros in data has not necessarily been recognized; in fact, without explanation, arbitrary, small positive numbers have been substituted for such zeros. (2) It is not well recognized that the artificial, non-Archimedean construct is not necessarily needed to exclude zero multipliers and to identify positive slacks. (3) Because of degeneracy, optimal solutions are not necessarily unique; this lack of uniqueness is especially important in interpretation of the multipliers and slacks.The editor for this paper was R. Robert Russell.     

Brand equity in the business-to-business market

Brands have been developed by consumer companies but have been slow to develop in business-to-business marketing. This article explains the concept of brand equity in a specific industrial marketing setting. In addition, the sources of brand equity are investigated as well as the appropriate communications strategy and the relative importance of brand relative to other purchase criteria. The research method used was a conjoint analysis experiment. The subjects were decision-making unit (DMU) members of industrial companies in South Africa that purchase medium-voltage electrical equipment. Research results suggest that while brand equity has a role to play, price and delivery were more important. However, a price premium can be obtained when a company has high brand equity. Implications for managers are discussed.     

Corporate political activity: The good,the bad,and the ugly

Many executives mix business with politics, but to what end? Over the past 30 years, researchers have examined whether this practice leads to increased business performance, and have found conflicting results. Via meta-analysis, we reexamined these results and condensed them into one meaningful package. The good news is that businesses which mix business and politics generally receive handsome returns. The bad news is that engaging in political activity has risks and can hurt performance. The ugly news is that risks can be mitigated; however, the methods for doing so are likely to offend some firm stakeholders. Overall, we conclude that mixing business with politics is beneficial, although executives must pursue the practice with a hint of caution.