Re-visiting Luang Prabang: transformations under the influence of world heritage designation

This article examines the influence of a growing global tourism industry on the World Heritage City of Luang Prabang, Laos and more specifically the role played by the built environment in the transformations that have followed in the wake of its designation as a World Heritage City in 1995. Paradoxically, as increasing numbers of tourists seek to experience the extraordinary milieu of Luang Prabang, the physical and cultural landscapes that undergird this milieu are increasingly transformed by the pressures of global tourism. Using observations of tourists and residents, photographic documentation and comparison to United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) archival materials, we show that regulations intended to preserve the heritage of Luang Prabang, have valorized a particular aspect of the city's history while effectively erasing others. As a result, the built environment of the city has been transformed into a tourist landscape. Simultaneously, the intangible heritage, the everyday life and experience of local populations are undermined as the built environment is transformed into tourist-focused landscapes. This case study illustrates, and continued UNESCO concerns over development in Luang Prabang indicate, it is not enough to create a policy designed to protect the physical environment without simultaneously working to protect the embedded socio-cultural dimensions of heritage tourism destinations.     

On the relationship of hope and gratitude to corporate social responsibility

A longitudinal study of 308 white-collar U.S. employees revealed that feelings of hope and gratitude increase concern for corporate social responsibility (CSR). In particular, employees with stronger hope and gratitude were found to have a greater sense of responsibility toward employee and societal issues; interestingly, employee hope and gratitude did not affect sense of responsibility toward economic and safety/quality issues. These findings offer an extension of research by Giacalone, Paul, and Jurkiewicz (2005, Journal of Business Ethics, 58, 295-305). Lynne M. Andersson, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Human Resource Management at the Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her teaching and scholarship focus on the dark side of business organizations; in particular, she’s been examining some social maladies that are arguably associated with late capitalism (cynicism and incivility) as well as the role of social activism in countering capitalist barriers to sustainability. Robert A. Giacalone, Ph.D. is Professor of Human Resource Management at the Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His research interests focus on the impact of workplace spirituality and changing values on business ethics. He is currently Co-editor of the Ethics in Practice book series. Carole L. Jurkiewicz, Ph.D. is the John W. Dupuy Endowed Professor and Women’s Hospital Distinguished Professor of Healthcare Management at Louisiana State University. She has published numerous research articles, books, and news articles on the topics of organizational ethics, leadership, and behavior.     

Single-payer health care systems: the roles and responsibilities of the public and private sectors

Health care systems all over the world are experiencing some change as they look for a new balance between supply and demand. This article provides context for the U.S. health care financing debate by examining the health care systems of five other countries: Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, China and India. The authors show that, with few exceptions, countries around the world have seen an increase in both government and private health care spending between 1998 and 2002. The authors also demonstrate that employers throughout most of the world are becoming more, rather than less, involved in the funding and delivery of health care to employees and their dependents-even among nations with so-called single-payer health systems.     

Japanese FDI5 and the Transfer of Japanese Consumer Electronics Production to Malaysia

The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of Japanese consumer electronics companies within Malaysia. Research between January and April 1994 revealed the interdependence of a production network not only in Malaysia but within the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, and serves to illustrate the integration of trade and investment in Malaysia's industrial development. While, undoubtedly, the surge of Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) into Malaysia's electronics industry between 1986 and 1990 has had enormous positive effects upon infrastructure development and employment creation, the results of this study question whether Japanese FDI is now contributing to the much needed structural up-grading of this industry. Central to this discussion are the underlying strategies of Japanese multinational corporations (MNCs) which have relocated in Malaysia.     

‘Thinking and feeling’ products and ‘utilitarian and value-expressive’ appeals in contemporary TV advertising: A content analytic test of functional matching and the FCB model

Brand equity is now receiving significant attention, both as a result of changes to international accounting standards relating to intangible assets and as a result of the renewed focus on the impact of marketing communications on brand performance. This paper reports on an investigation of the perceptions of senior marketing and advertising agency personnel regarding (1) the importance of brand equity as a valuation and performance measurement tool and (2) whether financially based brand equity measures and marketing-oriented measures can be translated into a single composite measure of brand equity/value. The findings reported herein indicate that, although financially based brand equity valuations have been a low priority in the past, there is increasing interest in this area and in the evaluation of the long-term impact of promotional activity as part of a wider drive for marketing accountability.     

The Organization,Operation, and Outcomes of Actually Existing Markets: A Suggested Approach for Empirical Analysis

Public policies have become embedded with market‐based mechanisms to radically transform essential goods and services markets. This article proposes a framework for empirical analysis of these markets. Key theoretical propositions are distilled to 12 distinctive properties of markets. These properties foreshadow a set of questions to interrogate a market's structure, operation, participants, behaviors, rules, and price setting to generate a substantive, realistic picture of outcomes. This “analytical grid” of questions is applied to four Australian essential goods and services markets. The findings unequivocally demonstrate a very different picture of markets from that promulgated by mainstream neoclassical economics and public policies.     

Product Differentiation and Upstream-Downstream Relations

This paper examines the relationship between a differentiated downstream market and a specialized upstream market. We analyze three different types of vertical relation between the upstream and downstream sectors when the upstream market supplies specialized and complementary inputs to a downstream product-differentiated market. The first is the benchmark case of decentralized markets, the second is a network of alliances among upstream suppliers, and the third is partial vertical integration. We identify the perfect equilibrium for a symmetric model in each case and show that there is no simple relationship between the degree of connection between upstream and downstream firms and profitability. The key factor affecting prices and the relative profitability of the different market organizations is the degree of product differentiation among the downstream firms, because it affects the intensity of competition among upstream suppliers. We show that vertical foreclosure is not an equilibrium strategy.     

Age Discrimination: Converging Evidence from Four Australian Studies

Given that most Australian states have gone further than most U.S. states in their age discrimination legislation, it is of interest to research the types and extent of age discrimination in the recruitment and selection process in a jurisdiction that prohibits all discrimination based on age (not just against those 40 years or over). Four studies examining different parts of the process and the perspectives of different players in the system were conducted. Each study and each methodology detected converging evidence of ongoing age discrimination, from the language used in job advertisements to messages delivered by recruitment consultants to self-reports of employers to the experiences of job applicants.     

Generic Product Advertising, Spillovers, and Market Concentration

We examine the decision to advertise a homogenous good. We show that the likelihood of inefficiently low advertising rests heavily on how one models the mechanism by which advertising affects demand. Regardless of this mechanism, however, there is always a lower bound of concentration below which no advertising occurs even when welfare-enhancing. In such cases, mandatory programs will raise welfare if they induce entry, although producer surplus may decline. Our model also provides an explanation for the stylized fact that advertising intensity first rises and then falls as concentration increases.