Are lodging customers ready to go green? An examination of attitudes,demographics, and eco-friendly intentions

This study attempted to answer the following research questions: (1) Do eco-friendly attitudes affect hotel customers’ environmentally friendly intentions to visit a green hotel, to spread word-of-mouth about a green hotel, and to pay more for a green hotel?; (2) If so, which facet of attitudes has the greatest impact?; (3) How do their expressed intentions differ across gender, age, education, and household income?; (4) How do such expressed intentions differ based on the existence of previous experience staying at a green hotel? A total of 422 cases were used to answer the research questions. Findings indicate that customers’ green attitudes are, in general, significantly associated with their expressed intentions to visit a green hotel, to spread word-of-mouth about a green hotel, and to pay more for it. Gender differences in such intentions were found, and the intentions were affected by their previous experiences with a green hotel. However, the eco-friendly intentions did not significantly differ across age, education, and household income.     

Competency analysis of top managers in the Taiwanese hotel industry

The purpose of this study was to identify top managers’ competencies in hotel unit leaders perceived to be most critical for career development, and using the Fuzzy Delphi and Analytic Hierarchy Process methods to determine perceptions of the importance of various competencies in different dimensions. This study uses snowball sampling methods to collect data from 25 hotel top managers and uses qualitative and quantitative surveys, including interviews, questionnaire review and a questionnaire survey. A two-stage research design is adopted to understand the differences in perceived competency requirements better. The analytical results demonstrate the required competencies of top managers in the hotel industry, and divide them into generic and technical dimensions, 18 competency domains, and 107 competency indices. The top three most important competency domains are “leadership,” “crisis management,” and “problem-solving.” The proposed management competency framework provides an important implication for educators, practitioners, and researchers.     

Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior to green hotel choice: Testing the effect of environmental friendly activities

The present study proposed and tested Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model to explain the formation of hotel customers' intentions to visit a green hotel. The findings showed the TPB model has a good fit to the data and better predictive power for intention than the Theory of a Reasoned Action model. Based on theoretical support and suggested modification indices, a refined TPB model was developed. Consistent with the theory, the results of a structural equation analysis revealed that attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control positively affected intention to stay at a green hotel. Further investigation indicated the paths between these predictors and intention did not statistically differ between customers who actively practice ecofriendly activities and those who are not often engaged in environmentally conscious behaviors in their everyday lives. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

A fuzzy multi-criteria decision model for international tourist hotels location selection

The main purpose of this paper is to present a fuzzy multi-criteria decision making (FMCDM) model for international tourist hotel location selection. In this article we created 21 criteria for selecting the international tourist hotel location acquired from literatures review and practical investigations. And the methods of fuzzy set theory, linguistic value, hierarchical structure analysis, and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process are used to consolidate decision-makers’ assessments about criteria weightings. Finally, an empirical study for identifying the international tourist hotel location selection in Taiwan is conducted to demonstrate the computational process and effectiveness of FMCDM proposed by this paper.     

China's economic fluctuations and consumption smoothing: Is consumption more volatile than output in China?

This paper provides a fundamental study of China's consumption and output fluctuations. The most recent literature reports that, in the post-1978 period, detrended consumption is significantly more volatile than detrended output in China. This indicates the inability to impose consumption smoothing. However, in those previous studies, consumption of durables, which has some features of capital, as discussed in the real business cycle literature, was not separated from private consumption. This paper is the first to estimate consumer durables for China and their service values following the method introduced in Cooley and Prescott (1995). We adjust the consumption measure to make it consistent with the real business cycle literature, and find that consumption of durables is much more volatile than output, but non-durable consumption is less volatile than, and less correlated with, output that provides evidence that supports consumption smoothing in China.     

烷基酚聚氧乙烯醚应用在纺织品中对环境的影响

列举了APEO在纺织品中的一些应用和检测纺织品中其含量的检测方法。阐述了应用在纺织品中的APEO对环境的影响，并提出一些应对及补救措施。     

Roles of ‘small- and medium-sized enterprises’ in service industry innovation: a case study on leisure agriculture service in tourism regional innovation

This study combines service-dominant logic (SDL) with industry cluster theory to analyze the evolution of leisure agriculture service in Taiwan. The result shows that cooperation among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can increase customer willingness to participate in value co-creation. Customer-driven cooperation among SMEs drives SMEs to increase their competitiveness and thus overcome their disadvantages in resources and capabilities. Additionally, the four-stage evolution of leisure agriculture service is identified to help tourism SMEs understand their positions and suggest appropriate strategies for achieving sustainable development and it also reveals a shifting paradigm from goods-dominant logic to SDL in tourism industry.     

High commitment work system,transactive memory system,and new product performance

Although scholars find that the transactive memory systems can improve new product performance, few studies have empirically examined how managers can induce a transactive memory system in new product development teams with a set of systematic management practices. Based on the theoretical argument about human resource system in the strategic human resource management literature, this study proposes that implementing a set of coherent human resource management practices with workers in new product development teams can induce a transactive memory system in the team. Following previous scholars, this study calls this set of coherent human resource management practices as the high commitment work system. With survey data collected from 336 new product development engineers of 73 new product development teams in 73 firms, this study finds that transactive memory system mediates the positive relationship between the high commitment work system implemented with workers in new product development teams and new product performance.     

Dynamic Relationships in the Market for Ocean Grain Freighting Services

A vector autoregressive model containing ocean grain freight rates, grain shipments, idled tonnage, new carrier deliveries and fuel prices is used to evaluate dynamic linkages in the ocean grain transport market. Dynamic relationships are of particular importance in ocean freighting months because freighting services are often contracted several months before shipment. In addition, such markets may be slow to adjust to shocks because of significant short-run fixities in shipping services. Ocean grain freight rates are found to be responsive to fuel prices and new ship deliveries, but are not affected by demand shocks. Ship idling rates are found to be sensitive to fuel prices, grain shipments and freight rates. Significant adjustment lags are revealed.