Moving beyond positivism: reflexive collaboration in understanding agritourism across North American boundaries

Extant agritourism studies have employed positivistic methodologies and quantitative approaches. As such, these approaches have predominately concluded that economics motives the diversification in agritourism at the expense of uncovering the complexity of multiple factors involved. Captured in this paper are the experiences of two, independent North American (agri)tourism researchers who used interpretative research approaches, specifically interpretative phenomenological analysis and appreciative inquiry, for getting at a deeper understanding of the complexity of agritourism on family farms. Agritourism is revealed as a transitional process, and supporting farms getting into agritourism would best be accomplished through building business skills and entrepreneurial capacities. Likewise, networks are critical, especially farmer-to-farmer connections. Interpretative research methods uncovered a more holistic and complex understanding of agritourism. This perspective will better inform farmers, their families, as well as policy-makers when they design and implement new businesses, programmes, and policies in the best interest of farm families and rural communities.     

‘Absent fear’: Re-envisioning a future geography

This paper explores the significance fear plays, or does not play, in the practice of envisioning. Envisioning is seen as a powerful tool in the delivery of education for sustainable development, for it seeks to engage people in imagining and creating a better future. However, drawing on work undertaken with undergraduate students at the University of Glamorgan, South Wales, we argue that envisioning relies upon ‘absent fear’: it works to suppress, or make absent, fear as a valid response to present and future development. The presence of ‘absent fear’, we suggest, poses a barrier to fully engaging with the challenges and opportunities of a sustainable future, for it is difficult to conceive of a positive vision without first acknowledging and confronting our fears. It is in articulating fear, we observe, that people are more able to respond to the challenges of the future in hopeful and creative ways. Utilising work undertaken with our students this paper revisits envisioning and suggests the need to understand envisioning as a broader process of reflection and action.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Governance: Role of Context in International Settings

This research aims to explore the relationship between corporate governance and CSR: What are the major factors that play a direct role in the establishment of this relationship? How does context and institutional background impact upon the relationship between CSR and Governance? Using in-depth semi-structured interviews from two types of governance systems in three countries over three years, this study has demonstrated that in practice, within different settings, CSR is being used both as a strategy as well as a reaction to different drivers. We call this adaptive governance where governance can be defined as a flexible system of action incorporating strategic and monitoring activities that determines the way a company enacts its responsibilities to its shareholders and stakeholders and which is determined at any given time by the interrelationship of institutional drivers and behavioural norms. Governance systems and their interrelationships with CSR are demonstrated as fluid according to the national and institutional context, economic situation and industry impact. In the eyes of practitioners corporate governance includes both structural and behavioural factors as well as responsibilities and actions towards shareholders and stakeholders. Contextual factors that this research highlights to be important to the incorporation of CSR into governance include the economic environment, national governance system, regulation and soft law, shareholders, national culture, behavioural norms and industry impacts. Hypotheses on the impact of institutional contexts, industry impacts and economic situations on different types of CSR actions are proposed for further research.     

What the EU Can Learn from the American Experience with Unemployment Insurance

This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing unemployment insurance dialogue and debate by providing an overview of the equivalent program in the US and identifying valuable lessons from the American experience.     

Information systems project management in PMJ: A brief history

The Project Management Institute (PMI) plays an important role in the training, career development, and recognition of information systems (IS) project managers. Indeed, not only do IS professionals account for a large proportion of the PMI constituency, but PMI is also influential in the training of IS project managers. This study explores further the contribution of PMI to IS project management by means of its main publication outlet, the Project Management Journal (PMJ). To do so, the contents of the 39 IS project management articles published in PMJ during 1988–2005 were analyzed. The article focuses on the following dimensions: the relative importance of IS project management articles published by PMJ; the profile of the authors of IS project management articles in PMJ; the main issues, in terms of IS project management, covered by PMJ; and the major gaps, in terms of IS project management, in the coverage of this domain by PMJ.     

The Moderating Influence of Country of Origin Information Seeking on Homophily and Product Satisfaction

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the research was to investigate when consumers concurrently select a range of retail products online, what percentage of products need country of origin (COO) identification. Moreover, will COO information seeking positively moderate the relationship between homophily and product satisfaction. Participants were recruited through an online survey platform (MTurk). The results appear to be the first to quantify the number of retail products within a basket that need some form of country of origin (COO) identification. Electronic word of mouth (eWOM, e-reviews) has become an important factor in the purchasing process for consumers. When COO information is unavailable, consumers will search online reviews to determine the COO of products. When reading the e-reviews, consumers will also evaluate the reviewer and the similarities they share. If they are not similar (low in homophily) their satisfaction with the product is low. By contrast, when homophily is high, product satisfaction is high. Specifically, as homophily increases, an individuals' need for COO information seeking has a positive moderating effect on their perceived product satisfaction. Online retailers promoting their products could benefit from sales increases due to their ability to provide COO information at a low cost, which in turn, provides ease, peace of mind and purchase satisfaction for consumers.     

Industrial relations policy and managerial custom and practice

This article, using evidence from the air transport industry, extends the concept of managerial and supervisory custom and practice to management's industrial relations policies. It offers an understanding of management's role in industrial relations and the relationship between actions and rules.     

A Multi-Agent Coalition Formation Method Based on Preference Models

Coordination is one of the fundamental research issues in distributed artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems. Current multi-agent coalition formation methods present two major problems. First, some of these methods can be applied only to cooperative multi-agent systems; second, the algorithms proposed may fail in the formation of the coalitions. This article proposes two methods for problems of agent coalition formation in cooperative and non-cooperative multi-agent systems. These methods are based on agent preference models and on preference aggregation using the Choquet integral. Our first method based on the evolutionary system design (ESD) methodology proposed by M. Shakun is required for competitive multi-agent systems, whereas our second method is powerful for cooperative multi-agent systems where the agents can exchange their information.     

The CEO's Influence on Corporate Foundation Giving

Some scholars have argued that CEOs may have excessive influence on their foundation's trustees to give away a portion of company profits to charitable causes in order to gain access to elite circles or support the CEO's personal causes. This may result in charitable contributions that ultimately serve the personal interests of the CEOs without regard to corporate interests or social needs. We examine the extent that CEOs appear to direct charitable giving to be compatible with their own personal interests, and if CEO participation on the foundation board affects the relationship between CEO personal interests and charitable giving. Using a sample of 160 corporate foundations, our results showed that CEOs' interests, as measured by membership in different non-profit organizations, was associated with foundation charitable giving. This association decreased, but was not eliminated, when CEOs were absent from the foundation board. Implications of these findings for researchers and managers are discussed in regards to both agency theory and stewardship theory.