A lifestyle analysis of female consumers in greater China

This study compares the lifestyles of female consumers in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China, which together make up Greater China. The investigation revealed that significant differences exist among the three groups of female consumers in nine different areas. These are (a) women's role and perception, (b) family orientation, (c) home cleanliness, (d) brand consciousness, (e) price consciousness, (f) self-confidence, (g) addiction to work, (h) health consciousness, and (i) environmental consciousness. Although the women studied in the three groups were found to be heavily influenced by Confucianism, they were also affected by western culture to varying degrees. Thus, the three groups were found to have a mixture of traditional and modern values. Hong Kong women were found to favor a more modern view of the role of women than their counterparts in China and Taiwan. However, women in China, especially the younger ones, were quickly adopting new values and Western ideas. The authors foresee that female consumers in Greater China will become increasingly similar in their lifestyles in the near future. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Redundancies in Chinese State Enterprises: A Research Report

This article examines how the problem of surplus labor isbeing dealt with in some of China's state-owned enterprises. Primarily using interview data from the period 1995-1997, as well as published sources, the article looks at the main methods employed by large state-owned enterprises to reduce the level of surplus labor in their workforce. It also considers how smaller state-owned enterprises are coping in an era where mergers, closures, and bankruptcies are becoming much more common as a means of dealing with loss-making firms, resulting in widespread redundancies in the state-owned enterpriseworkforce. The article illustrates that the potential political repercussions of job losses, as well as direct intervention by local authorities, continue to hinder the freedom of enterprise management to adjust employment levels in the interests of efficiency and productivity. The article also notes the importance of how decisions about downsizing and redundancy are communicated and justified to employees if resistance and social instability are to be minimized. The employment treatment of production workers will be considered separately from that of cadres, since these two groups are subject to different employment regulations and political constraints.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Operationalization Challenge for Global Tourism Organizations

Tourism businesses have increasingly sought to contribute to society through corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Larger tourism organizations normally seek to institutionalize CSR under their corporate CSR policy and strategy that is common for their whole organization. This presents challenges for organizations with global operations. This article examines the operationalization of CSR policy by hotel properties in coastal destinations in Thailand. The research found that stakeholders other than the hotels played pivotal roles in the implementation of CSR programs and that there was a preference for involvement by hotels in local projects, over those situated elsewhere in the country or internationally. These hotels tended to partner with other non-hotel stakeholders to execute their external CSR programs and for these to be directed at social issues rather than environmental issues. Overall it was concluded that there are limits to the extent that corporate headquarters may direct the implementation of CSR.     

Participant crowding and physical contact rates of whale shark tours on Isla Holbox,Mexico

Whale shark tourism is a growing niche market within the marine wildlife tourism sector. Increased visitation and declining whale shark numbers at some tourism sites worldwide raise questions over the long-term sustainability of this industry. This study examines the social and potential biological impacts of “swim-with” whale shark tourism on Isla Holbox, Mexico. A total of 397 tour participants completed a self-administered questionnaire regarding perceived crowding, reported encounters and encounter norms, as well as self-reported physical contact rates with whale sharks. Relatively high physical contact rates suggest that tourism may cause some harm to sharks. Users who encountered more swimmers than their norm felt significantly more crowded and were more likely to perceive the industry as having a negative impact on the sharks and surrounding environment. However, the results suggest that the number of boats in the whale shark viewing area may have a greater influence on crowding than number of swimmers. Management interventions to improve the sustainability of the industry include improved interpretation and guide intervention, achieving higher compliance with existing guidelines, and limiting the number of boats allowed in the whale shark viewing area.     

Sales force modeling: State of the field and research agenda

Inspired by Erin Anderson’s contributions to sales force research, this paper focuses on research that utilizes quantitative models to investigate important questions in sales force management. The purpose is to summarize several significant developments in knowledge over the last 40 years and identify major opportunities for impactful theoretical, empirical, and decision model-based research in the future.     

Profiting in the info-coms industry in the age of broadband: Lessons and new considerations

Who profits in the info-coms industry in the broadband age, and how? This paper looks at this question by considering broadband as quite a broad phenomenon, including both the most important focus in the current evolution of the Internet, high speed access, and the new services created. We focus on two key stylized facts: SF1: “R&D and patent licensing are increasingly high in this industry, but the initiators of innovations have greatly changed over time”, and SF2: “Small, facilities-less companies contributed to the development of the Internet industry, but have generally performed badly as the industry has matured and broadband use has become widespread”. The paper uses the approach developed by Teece (1986) which analyses strategies of integration, collaboration, licensing and public policy in the presence of technological innovation. These organizational strategies, in practice, are not all profitable and, as Teece correctly stressed as a general principle, their success appears to depend to a great extent on whether they are initiated by innovators or imitators, and how they are articulated within a) regimes of appropriability, b) dominant design issues, and c) complementary assets access. The paper analyses the robustness of Teece (1986), which over the last twenty years has greatly influenced research in economic organization and business strategy on the issue of profiting from innovation, in its ability to provide a framework appropriate to the changes that have occurred in the broadband industry. The paper draws some lessons, and provides some new considerations related to the robustness of Teece's framework. The framework appears robust on SF1: innovators globally have won, though some of them (the best innovators) were acquired by imitators. On SF2, again the innovators have won, but the only success strategy (vertical integration) was only attainable for the largest ISPs/IAPs. We conclude, therefore, that there are many lessons that can be drawn from Teece's framework, though further work should be done on two essential topics: deeper analysis of the sources of technology provision, and investigation of the role of firm heterogeneity.     

Using identity structure analysis (ISA) to investigate female entrepreneurship

The process of founding a business is for most people a period of transition entailing taking on a new role. Such a transition will often result in a change of values and beliefs. For some women, values ascribed to the entrepreneur will conflict with conventional feminine values. Previous researchers have classified women in accordance with their degree of attachment to entrepreneurial values and conventionally defined masculine-feminine values (Goffee and Scase 1985, Cromie and Hayes 1987), but to date there has been little attempt to examine the process of change in women's values and beliefs as a result of business start-up.

This paper reports on the first attempt to use Identity Structure Analysis (Weinreich 1980/1986/1988) to investigate entrepreneurship: in this case, specifically female entrepreneurship.