An examination of green intention: the effect of environmental knowledge and educational experiences on meeting planners’ implementation of green meeting practices

Environmental sustainability has become an important concern in staging meetings and events. This paper introduces the Convention Industry Council's Green Meetings Report and goes on to investigate whether prior knowledge and educational experiences related to environmental sustainability are influential factors in planners’ commitment to engaging in ecologically friendly behavior. Using a nine-point questionnaire, 278 delegates at North America's largest one-day event for meeting planners were sampled. Regression analysis showed that the intention to implement green meeting practices is positively influenced by both prior knowledge of and educational experience with greening practices. In particular, educational experiences were found to be a strong influential factor contributing to meeting planners’ intention to implement green meeting practices. By providing operational definitions of knowledge and education, it proves that knowledge gained by an unstructured format was less effective than the impact of education on green intention. Accordingly, this study not only highlights academic discussions on environmental knowledge-building through formal education but also derives managerial implications for the meeting and event industry by outlining ways to incorporate continuing professional education in sustainable meetings and events. A range of ideas for the content of that professional education is presented, along with the possibilities for e-learning.     

Effect of regulatory oversight on the association between internal governance characteristics and audit fees

We examine the relationship between internal governance, external audit monitoring and regulatory oversight for a sample comprising industrial companies and financial/utility companies subject to additional industry‐specific regulation. Our results indicate that the association between audit fees and board/audit committee independence and size are weaker for regulated companies. These observations are consistent with the notion that regulatory oversight partially substitutes the external audit as a monitoring mechanism. However, boards/audit committees with more multiple directorships demand a more extensive audit in the presence of regulatory oversight to protect their reputation capital. Our study enhances our understanding of the complex relationships among the major corporate governance elements.     

An assessment of convention tourism's potential contribution to environmentally sustainable growth

The tourism literature contains substantial discussions on how increasing numbers of attendees and conventions at a destination contributes to the local economy, but there is limited research on the environmental impact of the concomitant increases in air and other travel, and other activity increases in energy and other resource use. This research assesses the current environmental position of the convention industry in the United States and formulates suggestions for future direction in regard to “green” concepts by examining and comparing the perceptions, attitudes, and behavioral intentions of three groups of convention stakeholders: convention attendees, meeting planners, and convention suppliers. This empirical study recognizes the critical problem of inadequate understanding of the environmental impact of convention activities and the lack of knowledge regarding ecological convention practices. It shows that the perception of environmental impact among the three groups varies depending on which environmentally friendly practices are available to each group. It discusses the background to – and the implications of – the emotional formation of decisions and self-motivation based on positive attitudes and the strong intention to adopt green management practices agreed to by convention stakeholders.     

Dynamic Capabilities and Performance of Meeting Planners

As a new strategic management approach, dynamic capabilities theory leads meeting planners to adapt to rapidly changing environments in order to generate better performance and gain competitive advantages in the industry. Previous studies in management focused on dynamic capabilities of organizations, but this present study focuses on dynamic capabilities of individual meeting planners. The purpose of this present study is to determine key abilities that lead to dynamic capabilities of meeting planners, and to examine the relationship between the dynamic capabilities and job performance of meeting planners. Findings confirmed that resource reconfigurability and knowledge management were key abilities in dynamic capability, which directly impact job performance. This present study offers insight into how competitive advantage of meeting planners is achieved. Implications of the findings for theory and future research are discussed.     

Understanding Supplier-Selection Criteria: Meeting Planners' Approaches to Selecting and Maintaining Suppliers

Few attempts have been made to explain the change in perspectives in regard to meeting planners' supplier-selection criteria in relation to initial supplier selection versus meeting planner-supplier relationships. This article aims to examine the perspective differences using 15 modified supplier-selection criteria in an exploratory manner. Results of this study indicate that meeting planners' perspectives on the same decision factors can change in terms of selecting and deciding upon long-term relationships. The key findings would lead to managerial implications for sales personnel of both Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, and Exhibitions (MICE) industry suppliers and local convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs).     

The Constraints Experienced and Negotiation Strategies Attempted by Nonparticipants of a Festival Event

The leisure constraints and negotiation model was used to examine nonparticipation in a large festival event. A purposive sampling survey was conducted with 502 event nonparticipants. The results indicated that the hierarchical leisure constraints model is a useful framework for understanding the constraints to attendance at special events. Consistent with previous research on constraints to participation, structural constraints were the greatest category of constraint, followed by interpersonal and intrapersonal constraints. Further, nonparticipants who experienced intrapersonal constraints were least likely to attempt negotiations relative to time, partners, or finances. Additionally, this study compared the constraints of nonparticipants who were interested and disinterested in attending the event and found disinterested nonparticipants perceived greater intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural constraints than those interested in attending, suggesting that constraints create amotivation. Disinterested event nonparticipants were also less likely to negotiate constraints to participation, especially barriers related to lack of time and partners with whom to participate. Finally, interested nonparticipants who experienced intrapersonal constraints were less likely to attempt to negotiate constraints. This study broadens the scope of the constraints and negotiation discussion to include the context of a community festival event, as well as differences in constraints and negotiation between interested and disinterested event nonparticipants.     

Impact of brand recognition and brand reputation on firm performance: U.S.-based multinational restaurant companies’ perspective

Given the importance of a firm's performance, which is of significant interest to many groups of people including management, shareholders and governments, this study aims to examine the impact of brand recognition and brand reputation on firm performance within the U.S. multinational restaurant company context. The study findings suggest that brand reputation, in general, has a positive influence on a firm's value performance but no significant relationship with accounting performance. Brand recognition shows no significant relationship with both value and accounting performance measures controlling for the degree of internationalization of a multinational restaurant company.     

Economic screening procedures based on correlated variables

Summary Economic screening procedures for improving outgoing product quality based on screening variables are presented for the cases of one- and two-sided specification limits. It is assumed that the performance and screening variables are jointly normally distributed and that costs are incurred by screening inspection and misclassification errors. When all parameters are known, a closed-form solution is obtained for the case of one-sided specification limit and an approximate closed-form solution is derived for the case of two-sided specification limits. Methods for finding optimal solutions based on normal conditioned ont-distribution are presented for the cases of unknown parameters.     

Foodservice hygiene factors—The consumer perspective

Food safety is important to today's food industry operators as consumers have become increasingly concerned about risks related to food. Unlike foodservice operators or health inspectors, consumers can only rely on the visible cues, particularly those associated with food hygiene to judge the level of food safety in eating establishments. While previous research highlighted the influence of foodservice hygiene perception on consumer dining out decision, study examining the constructs of food safety cues that consumers employed is scant. This research aims to bridge the gap by exploring the topic from the consumer perspective. Results indicate that foodservice hygiene is one of the top three considerations when consumers select a dining place. Results of confirmatory factor analysis reveal a four-factor model encompasses staff and handling, food and location, premise and practices, and scent aspects. Further substantiation in different settings is needed for generalization purpose.