Giving voice to heritage tourists: indicators of quality for a sustainable heritage experience at Petra,Jordan

ABSTRACT

The tourist experience should be placed at the heart of management and planning process to achieve the goal of sustainable heritage tourism. The concept of indicators and standards of quality, which emerged in the field of natural resources and outdoor recreation management as a conceptual framework for understanding visitors’ experiences, has been widely applied in nature-based parks rather than cultural heritage sites. This study applies the concept of indicators to heritage experience at Petra Archaeological Park in Jordan. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 29 tourists to understand the tourist experience at the park, and to formulate indicators of the tourism experience. Results suggest that cultural and natural scenic value, crowding, attractions accessibility, vendor persistence, and odor of animals waste are potential indicators for the tourism experience at the park. Related management implications and recommendations are also discussed.     

From iconic business leader to Russian icon museum founder: Bridging business and the arts across cultures

This case study portrays Gordon Lankton, a highly successful U.S. executive who, drawing upon the relationships he had built during two decades of doing business in Russia, succeeded in having Moscow's renowned State Tretyakov Gallery lend priceless icons to his new museum in a small Massachusetts town. We demonstrate how a charismatic and gently determined executive‐turned‐museum founder exhibited transformational leadership while bridging business and the arts across cultures. The case study includes an interview with Gordon Lankton and is followed by a commentary that features an interview with Kent dur Russell (the Museum of Russian Icons curator) and a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis of Lankton's leadership style. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Ambulatory care registered nurse performance measurement

On March 1-2, 2010, a state-of-the-science invitational conference titled "Ambulatory Care Registered Nurse Performance Measurement" was held to focus on measuring quality at the RN provider level in ambulatory care. The conference was devoted to ambulatory care RN performance measurement and quality of health care. The specific emphasis was on formulating a research agenda and developing a strategy to study the testable components of the RN role related to care coordination and care transitions, improving patient outcomes, decreasing health care costs, and promoting sustainable system change. The objectives were achieved through presentations and discussion among expert inter-professional participants from nursing, public health, managed care, research, practice, and policy. Conference speakers identified priority areas for a unified practice, policy, and research agenda. Crucial elements of the strategic dialogue focused on issues and implications for nursing and inter-professional practice, quality, and pay-for-performance.     

Changes in Perception and Behavior in Mixed Gender Teams

Leadership and conflict on male and female task teams of varying compositions are compared for groups constituted in the late 1960s/early 1970s and the mid-1980s. The data indicates substantial increase in the leadership activities of women in mixed sex situations, striking decrease in conflict on predominantly female teams, and impressive improvement in the ability of young men to work with women on analytical tasks.     

Uncertainty and monetary policy

The experience of monetary policy making in an uncertain environmenthas encouraged increased attention to the concept of model uncertainty,that is, uncertainty as to which is the best model. A particulardifficulty has been the need to operationalise the concept inorder to yield definitive policy recommendations. If this typeof uncertainty is unquantifiable, then a policy rule determinedby a single model may not in fact be the best approach; pluralismof method and the exercise of judgement offer a potential solution.A rigorous foundation for such an approach is available in Keynes'sphilosophical analysis of decision making under uncertainty.It is concluded that more analytical attention needs to be devotedto agents’ own model uncertainty, and to judgement. Butultimately the scope for synthesis between the model uncertaintyand Keynes uncertainty approaches rests on whether or not thesubject matter is such that knowledge of it is best representedby one formal model.     

Does Asian management research need more self-confidence? Reflections from Russia

This commentary on Klaus Meyer’s article, “Asian Management Research Needs More Self-confidence,” in the Asia Pacific Journal of Management (2006), discusses the need for Asian management research to look beyond the pressures for publication in top-tier, Western scholarly academic journals. We reflect on our nearly two decades of research on Russian management to illustrate many of Meyer’s ideas and insights in a different transition economy. We support his call for more context-specific research that can also offer contributions to global management knowledge as well as indigenous management practice.