What’s so Mysterious about Mystery Shoppers? Understanding the Qualifications and Selection of Mystery Shoppers

Mystery shopping are a method of quality management that is utilized often in a variety of businesses. A holistic definition of a mystery shopper is, however, unclear. Literature relating to mystery shoppers was reviewed and analyzed through content analysis, to develop criteria which can be used to define a mystery shopper. The various traits identified were divided into personal traits, training elements, company considerations. The results of the paper provide a thorough analysis of the various traits that constitute a mystery shopper.     

Effects of personality traits on visitors attending an exposition: the moderating role of anxiety attachment

Expositions or “expos” are large consumer trade shows representing a catalyst for on-site direct spending by visitors attracted to these events that are promoted by destination marketing organizations, governments, communities, and businesses. The purpose of this study was to develop and test a new research model involving the analysis of five specific personality traits representing pleasure visitors attending an annual expo to provide more meaningful information for destination marketing professionals. This study then examined the effects of how visitor personality traits play upon expo attachment, satisfaction, and revisit intention using anxiety attachment as a moderator. Results revealed the relationships between expo attachment and satisfaction, attachment and revisit intention, and satisfaction and revisit intention were significant. Also, anxiety attachment was shown to moderate the relationships between all visitor personality traits and expo attachment. Accordingly, this study provides theoretical insights for future tourism research and offers new promotional implications for expo practitioners.     

Efficiency and incentive compatibility in differential information economies

Summary. We introduce several efficiency notions depending on what kind of expected utility is used (ex ante, interim, ex post) and on how agents share their private information, i.e., whether they redistribute their initial endowments based on their own private information, or common knowledge information, or pooled information. Moreover, we introduce several Bayesian incentive compatibility notions and identify several efficiency concepts which maintain (coalitional) Bayesian incentive compatibility. Received: March 25, 1996; revised September 5, 1996     

Long-run impacts of trade shocks and export competitiveness: Evidence from the U.S. BSE event

This paper examines how comparative advantages of major beef exporters changed following the 2003 bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) outbreak, which significantly disrupted the U.S. beef trade until approximately 2007. Using longitudinal data on beef export values and constructed revealed comparative advantage measures, we show that while some measures of the long-run impacts of BSE on U.S. beef export competitiveness have returned to pre-2003 levels, the U.S.’s comparative advantage has not. We also examine a hypothetical scenario of no BSE event in 2003 and predict that in the absence of the BSE outbreak, the U.S. beef sector would have been increasingly more competitive by 2017 than it actually was. Long-term trade competitiveness may not simply return to normal even after a short-term disruption.     

The effects of policy funds on the financing constraints of small- and medium-sized enterprises in South Korea

This study investigates whether small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) policy funds in South Korea are effective in reducing financing constraints faced by the SMEs. We find that investment-cash flow sensitivity decreases after public loans are granted, and furthermore that this decrease in the sensitivity is greater for younger and smaller firms. These results are consistent with the certification effects hypothesis.     

Sustainability evaluation of rapid routes for buses with a network DEA model

This study establishes a network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to evaluate the sustainability of public transportation services targeting rapid routes for buses in the Seoul metropolitan area. A network DEA-based optimization model is formulated to evaluate the sustainability of the public transportation service. By considering public transportation services from both the operators’ and users’ perspectives, this model produces results that reflect the interaction of three sustainable transport service properties, i.e., efficiency, equity, and environmental impacts. It is identified that the expansion of median bus lanes and the conversion of conventional buses into compressed natural gas vehicles could improve the sustainability of the public transportation services in the Seoul metropolitan area. Some limitations and future research agenda also are presented.     

Exporting and Upgrading of Product Portfolio: Evidence from Korea,Japan and Indonesia*

This paper examines the effect of exporting on ‘product portfolio upgrading’ in a plant, using plant–product matched datasets for Korea, Japan and Indonesia. First, we find that a substantial part of aggregate shipments growth is explained by net adding of products for all three countries. Second, export starters are more likely to add products and to change product shares in plants than never exporters. Third, added products tend to have higher product quality than dropped products. Therefore, our results imply that the entry to export markets plays an important role in product portfolio upgrading: the process of reallocation from lower‐attribute to higher‐attribute products.     

Test of random versus fixed effects with small within variation

Comparisons of within and between estimators using the conventional Hausman test may be subject to statistical problems if the within variation is not sufficiently large. Adopting an alternative asymptotic approximation, we propose a modification of Hausman test that is valid whether the within variation is small or large.