Kicking against tradition: women’s football,negotiating friendships and social spaces

This article examines friendships and social networks in the context of amateur women’s football. Studies of intimacies and friendships tend to situate women’s same-sex friendships around emotional support. The aim of this research seeks to account for more depth in understanding diversity in female friendships. The traditionally masculine (football) environment is peculiarly distinctive because it contrasts with traditional spaces found in private, domestic context that have traditionally associated with the formation and negotiation of ‘feminine’ friendship identities. Utilising 10 narrative interviews, the paper examines social and friendship networks in two main areas. Firstly, although non-traditional social groupings were evident, it was apparent that some participants had to negotiate a dual private/public role. Secondly, there were friendships based on sociability and these were integral to the connectedness of groups not defined by conventionally gendered roles, defined by emotional ties, but instead on collective interest focused around playing sport. These groupings are of interest because they are contrary to conventionality that frame emotional femininity, and foreground social activities that accentuate cultural complexities rather than confine friendship groups in terms of either masculine or feminine cultural practices. Drawing on the grounded experiences of female football players, we found that female friendships are much more layered and complex than represented in broader cultural discourse.     

Requests for zoo visitors to undertake pro-wildlife behaviour: How many is too many?

Recognising the potential conservation impact, zoos regularly ask their visitors to undertake pro-wildlife behaviour. This paper presents the results of two studies undertaken to address the question: how often during a visit should visitors be asked? Study 1 sought to a) determine individuals' personal thresholds and b) the point where the number of different behaviours requested began affect visitors' experiences. Study 2 sought the same, but focused on requests for the same behaviour. Results suggest that few respondents' personal thresholds were crossed (2.5% in Study 1 and 9% in Study 2). In neither study did many respondents (2.5% in Study 1 and 2.8% in Study 2) feel that the number of requests negatively affect their overall zoo experience. While there are caveats, we conclude that there appears little cause for concern about asking zoo visitors on multiple occasions to act in support of wildlife. Indeed, such requests may improve experiences.     

Ecotourism as a conservation tool and its adoption by private protected areas in Brazil

Ecotourism in private reserves combines the establishment of protected areas with an incentive mechanism to conserve biodiversity. Brazil's private reserve system is well-established but little is known about its links to tourism. This study puts the global private protected area into context and quantifies the extent to which ecotourism has been adopted as a sustainable land-use practice on private reserves in Brazil. Our findings demonstrate that small reserves do contribute to conservation and are used for ecotourism. The belief that large reserves are necessary for ecotourism and conservation is challenged. Only 4% (n = 45) of the 1182 reserves are engaged in ecotourism, mainly those within the Atlantic Forest biome and these are generally small in size (<50 ha). Reserves provide modest to basic accommodation as well as education and economic opportunities that include adjacent communities. Hiking and bird watching are the most popular activities but many reserves are threatened by poaching and invasive species. The low adoption of ecotourism appears due to a combination of factors, including lack of landowner interest, constraints imposed by regulations, logistics and anthropogenic threats. Nonetheless, there is potential to expand ecotourism within private reserves as 143 further private reserves are located near those already engaged in ecotourism.     

Unobserved firm heterogeneity and the size-exports nexus: Evidence from German panel data

This paper starts from the stylized fact that firm size and exporting tends to be positively related. Using large sets of establishment panel data for three different industries from official statistics, evidence is presented that the familiar picture of an export/sales ratio that increases (at a decreasing rate) with firm size vanishes if unobserved firm heterogeneity is controlled for in a fixed-effects fractional logit regression model. This finding is well in line with the fact that many small firms are “hidden export champions.” JEL no. F10, D21, L60     

Modeling technical progress and total factor productivity: A plant level example

Shifts in the production frontier occur because of changes in technology. A model of how a firm learns to use the new technology, or how it adapts from the first production frontier to the second, is suggested. Two different adaptation paths are embodied in a translog cost function and its attendant cost share equations. The paths are the traditional linear time trend and a learning curve. The model is estimated using establishment level data from a non-regulated industry that underwent a technological shift in the time period covered by the data. The learning curve resulted in more plausible estimates of technical progress and total factor productivity growth patterns. A significant finding is that, at the establishment level, all inputs appear to be substitutes.This paper was processed by N.R. Adam.     

Innovation and performance in the hotel industry

The growing competition in the hotel industry is one of the main challenges of this segment, which increasingly depends on the ability to innovate. Thus, this article aims to analyze the impact of innovation on the performance of employees and hotel organizations. This is an exploratory study, with a quantitative approach using a structured computer-administered questionnaire to 73 managers of hotel chains, located in Brazil, which correspond to 792 hotels. Data analysis used multiple linear regression method with SPSS software to find out the relationship between the factors of innovation (communication, processes, leadership, and strategy) and the performance of employees and hotel organizations. Results show that the factors of communication, leadership, and strategy directly influence the performance of the employees. However, only the leadership factor directly affects the performance of hotel organizations.