Road Travelers' Motivations and Loyalty: Train Versus Bus Services

ABSTRACT

Railroad and highway travel may differ not only in terms of their nature but also in terms of their appeal to travelers. Travelers may have different motivations to use either transportation mode in either inbound or outbound directions. Travelers may also demand different services or service traits of the provider in order to gain satisfaction in the short-term and/or become loyal customers in the long-term. This study uses a 2?×?2 design to compare train and a bus service between two cities 250 km apart in a country where these two means of transportation are equally essential. The study also compares the outbound and inbound routes in order to acknowledge additional differences in both the travelers' motivations and the customers' loyalty formation. The results show that travelers' motivations for choosing train or bus transportation differ based on whether they are leaving from or returning to the city that was the original point of departure. They also show that customers' long-term relationships with the provider significantly differ according to means of transportation and routes used. Characteristically, customers in the studied sample prefer train transport to leave and bus to return based on their idiosyncratic motivations of seeking value or money savings and their expectations of mutual loyalty. This research suggests practical consequences both for understanding travelers' motivations and customer loyalty formation and for managing policies regarding train and bus services competing for specific segments of travelers.     

Spread component costs and stock trading characteristics in the Spanish Stock Exchange. Two flexible fractional response models

This paper investigates relationships between the spread component costs (adverse selection, order processing and inventory costs) and stock trading characteristics in the Spanish Stock Exchange (SSE), taking into account the random nature of these costs. First, we analyse the statistical properties of estimated spread components in the market, which are obtained by using two statistical models to decompose the bid–ask spread. We then propose a fractional response regression model based on two flexible cross-sectional probability density functions with covariates which accommodate certain aspects of the empirical estimates, such as skewness and bounded distribution. Our model has two main advantages: (i) it can be implemented easily in a maximum likelihood framework; (ii) in contrast to linear regression models, it provides a useful estimate of the statistical significance of the parameters, and predicts costs not only at the conditional mean but also by using quantiles of the estimated conditional distribution. The empirical results corroborate the presence of statistically significant large order processing costs and smaller adverse selection and inventory costs in the SSE. These spread components have a skewed empirical distribution and the proposed fractional regression models represent the behaviour of these costs reasonably well, surpassing the linear regression model in various specification tests.     

Global Business Literacy in the Classroom: Developing and Applying an Assessment Framework

This study develops and applies a framework to evaluate undergraduate Global Business Literacy (GBL) learning outcomes, which is defined here as the ability to adapt and function in the global business context and to be knowledgeable about its core issues and trends. As a first step in a multi-stage research process, we used extant expatriate and global business education literature to develop a 58-item survey. Exploratory factor analysis of pre-test survey data from 166 seniors revealed five explanatory factors that we labeled self-efficacy (SE), willingness to learn (WTL), relationship development (RD), technical competence (TC), and self-awareness (SA). Next, we used the framework to complete a post-test study of the effectiveness of a classroom-based Global Business Colloquium at improving students' perceived GBL. A paired-samples t-test revealed mean increases/decreases in scores from Time 1 to Time 2 on four factors: SE, WTL, RD, and TC, but no significant difference in SA. We discuss future research directions and recommend potential pedagogical augmentation.     

Technical efficiency and productivity growth of entrant firms in the retail sector in Spain

This paper analyses efficiency and productivity growth in relation to size, and age and for both entrant and incumbent firms using a birth cohort approach for the period 1995–2003 for two sectors, non-specialized shop (521) and specialized shop (524) three-digit NACE. On the one hand, our results indicate the existence of statistically significant differences among entrant and incumbent firms by size. Also, we found differences according to the start up size in relation to membership of the birth cohort and activity sectors. On the other hand, productivity growth shows that, in general, the larger entrants in the non-specialized sector obtained higher productivity than did small firms. This phenomenon was not observed in the specialized sector, where firms worsened in productivity in most of the cohorts and we did not find significant differences in productivity growth between large and small firms. Efficiency changes tend to be a positive contributor to total factor productivity change, but technical change tends to be a negative contributor for both sectors. A deeper analysis of the efficiency changes (catching up) has shown that these improvements are generally attributed to pure technical efficiency and the scale.     

Market-oriented reforms,globalization and the recent transformation of Latin American innovation systems

Market-oriented structural reforms were implemented in Latin America under the expectation that the transition from an "inward-oriented", "state-led" growth strategy to one which was more "market-led" and "outward-oriented" was going to be rewarded by a sustainable long-term improvement in the region's rate of economic expansion and productivity growth. The competitive discipline imposed by a more open and deregulated economic regime was expected to induce faster innovation and technological modernization efforts from firms and individuals and, thereafter, a gradual but steady "convergence" to world-wide income and productivity standards. A global look at the region's performance throughout the 1980s and 1990s tells us that such a priori expectation was far from realistic. The paper examines why this has been so.     

Scale-perception bias in the valuation of environmental risks

The valuation of environmental risks is commonly approached with the utilization of stated preference methods such as contingent valuation. In these methods, money is utilized as the scale that reflects the individual's underlying utility function. However, this scale can vary across individuals due to different perceptions on what are the right or appropriate bounds for Willingness To Pay (WTP). In this article, we test for scale-perception bias and propose a correction method based on the utilization of anchoring vignettes that define different degrees of preference for the nonmarket good. The proposed method is applied to study the commonly found anomaly ‘probability neglect’, which is defined by the insensitivity to the probability levels in the valuation of environmental risks. The results show that probability neglect disappears when WTP responses are corrected for self-perception bias through the utilization of the anchoring vignettes approach.     

Replacement cycles,income distribution and dynamic price discrimination

This article analyses how income distribution, Intellectual Property Rights and other regulatory policies such as minimum quality standards determine pricing strategies in a dynamic context where a monopolist periodically introduces new generations or upgrades of a durable good. Discrimination through quality and screening in this article takes place in a context where consumers buy several versions of the durable good during their lifetime, instead of a single version as in Inderst’s (2008) or Koh’s (2006). It also differs from Glass (2001) in that an equilibrium may emerge in which different consumer types replace their durable generations with different frequencies. Our modelling is motivated by stylized facts from the last Brazilian POF (household budget survey).     

A Time Series Analysis of U.K. Construction and Real Estate Indices

This study assess the nonlinear behavior of U.K. Construction and Real Estate indices. Standard unit root tests show that both time series are I(1) processes. However, the empirical results show that the returns series for both indices deviate from the null hypothesis of white noise. Moreover, we have found evidence of nonlinearity but strong evidence against chaos for the returns series. Further tests show that the source of nonlinearity is rather different. Hence, the Construction index returns series displays weak nonlinear forecastability, typical of nonlinear deterministic processes, whereas the Real Estate index could be characterized as a stationary process about a nonlinear deterministic trend.     

Factors Influencing the Presence of Ethics and CSR Stand-alone Courses in the Accounting Masters Curricula: An International Study

Abstract

This paper provides a web-content analysis of the curriculum and subjects of the top accounting and auditing masters identified in the Eduniversal 2012–2013 ratings of the best business schools in the world. The main aim of this study is to analyze the influence exerted by different factors on the extent to which accounting programs are incorporating ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) stand-alone courses. The findings of this study do not offer a very optimistic outlook on the extent to which the accounting and auditing top masters ranked by the Eduniversal ratings are offering stand-alone courses related to ethics and CSR. Also, the findings suggest that the presence of ethics and CSR stand-alone subjects in the accounting and auditing masters analyzed is partially explained by the size and the cultural influence exerted by the geographical location.     

A stylized model of overrepresentation and quality in the Congress

Traditionally, overrepresentation has been used to explain the distribution of benefits across jurisdictions, leaving aside quality components. We present a model that demonstrates that in the dispute of limited federal benefits, although quantity is important, at the margin quality matters.