Small producers,supermarkets, and the role of intermediaries in Turkey's fresh fruit and vegetable market

A wide range of empirical studies show the extent to which the rise of supermarkets in developing countries transforms domestic marketing channels. In many countries, the exclusion of small producers from so‐called dynamic marketing channels (that is, remunerative ones) has become a concern. Based on data collected in Turkey in 2007 at the producer and the wholesale market levels, we show that intermediaries are important to understanding the impact of downstream restructuring (supermarkets) on upstream decisions (producers). Results show first that producers are not aware of the final buyer of their produce, because intermediaries hinder the visibility of the marketing channel, thereby restricting a producer's choice to that of the first intermediary. Econometric results show that producers who are indirectly linked to the supermarkets are more sensitive to their requirements in terms of quality and packaging than to the price premia compensating the effort made to meet standards. Therefore, the results lead us to question the role of the wholesale market agents who act as a buffer in the chain and protect small producers from negative shocks, but who stop positive shocks as well, and thereby reduce incentives.     

Exploratory study of understanding hotel employees’ perception on work–life balance issues

This paper explores hotel employees’ perception on work–life balance issues. In-depth interviews and self-administered questionnaires were used to collect the data. Factor analysis discovered seven factors: (1) enough time-off from work; (2) workplace support on work–life balance; (3) allegiance to work; (4) flexibility on work schedule; (5) life orientation; (6) voluntary reduction of contracted hours to cater for personal needs; and (7) upkeep the work and career—the determinants perceived by employees to attain “better” work–life balance in the dynamic hotel environment. Adopting an employee-centric and integrative approach are the critical success factors for implementation of a work–life balance program.     

Preferred shopping destination: Hong Kong versus Singapore

Visitor shopping is an important contributor to the economy of Hong Kong as it accounts for more than half the total visitors' expenditure. Owing to its significance, and strong competition from Singapore, Hong Kong must re‐examine the city's attraction to shoppers. The tourism and retail industries of Hong Kong must formulate effective strategies to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the shopping environment in both cities. This study surveys 309 international visitors about their shopping expectations and perceptions of Hong Kong and Singapore in 15 attributes. Results were analysed by SPSS software (Statistical Package for Social Science) using the techniques of frequencies and paired t‐tests. Singapore outperforms Hong Kong notably in many areas, such as language ability, attitude and efficiency of service staff. The findings indicate an urgency for Hong Kong to strive harder. In conclusion, the article provides some recommendations for the city to re‐establish its reputation as the ‘shopping paradise’ of the Asia Pacific region and to meet the challenge of Singapore as the preferred shopping destination. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Macroeconomic sources of foreign exchange risk in new EU members

We address the issue of foreign exchange risk and its macroeconomic determinants in several new EU members. We derive the observable macroeconomic factors—consumption and inflation—using the stochastic discount factor (SDF) approach. The joint distribution of excess returns in the foreign exchange market and the factors are modeled using a multivariate GARCH-in-mean specification. Our findings show that both real and nominal factors play important roles in explaining the variability of the foreign exchange risk premium. Both types of factors should be included in monetary general equilibrium models employed to study excess returns. To contribute to the further stability of domestic currencies, the new EU members should strive to implement stabilization policies aimed at achieving nominal as well as real convergence with the core EU members.     

Emotional prototypes,emotional memory usages,and customer satisfaction

In this study, we investigated the positive and negative emotion concepts in the prototype perspective and then tested them on customer satisfaction. By studying 612 customers in luxury restaurants, we found that two levels of customer emotions (i.e. positive and negative emotions) as a super-ordinate level, 4 positive emotions (i.e. contentment, happiness, love, and pride) and 5 negative emotions (i.e. anger, fear, sadness, shame, and disgust) as a basic level, and 49 specific emotions as a subordinate level are significantly related to customer satisfaction. We also examined the moderating role of emotional memory (EM) usage in the relationship between consumers’ emotions and their satisfaction. We found that product (food and beverage)-related EM strengthens and service-related EM usage weakens the relationship between customers’ negative emotions and their satisfaction. Interestingly, we found that positive and negative emotions are significantly related to customer satisfaction regardless of experience and store-related EM usage.     

Perceptions,attitudes, and behaviors toward sustainable fashion: Application of Q and Q‐R methodologies

While sustainability has increasingly attracted the attention of scholars and practitioners, consumer attitudes and behaviors toward sustainable consumption have not yet been elucidated. The decision‐making process around sustainable consumption involves diverse and complex considerations including some forms of compromise (tradeoff). In addition, sustainability is a broad and subjective concept, and is not a primary attribute of a product Impacting the choices of consumers. Therefore, it is necessary to apply new methods to overcome the limitations of conventional evidence‐based research. This research uses Q and Q‐R methodologies to identify consumers' subjective viewpoints toward sustainable fashion and to present socio‐demographic differences across segments of sustainable fashion consumers. Study 1 uses Q methodology to interview 26 consumers and to identify four types of decision makers: doubtful egoists, single‐minded bystanders, wavering intellects, and opinion leaders. Study 2 uses Q‐R methodology to verify the psychological and socio‐demographic variables among 328 consumers. The research provides useful suggestions for selecting and approaching target consumer segments in the sustainable fashion industry.     

Non-Asian Tourists' preferred attributes: a choice experiment

This study aims to identify non-Asian tourists' preferred attributes for a one-day Seoul tour package by examining theoretical frameworks of values related to tourists' heterogeneity of choice behaviors. The study applies a choice experiment (CE) to capture the systematic heterogeneity of preferences in a non-Asian tourist group and examines whether different individuals' value orientations relate to heterogeneous preferences regarding the tour packages. The CE derives the preferences as a form of marginal willingness to pay (MWTP), a pecuniary value for additional units of the attributes. Historical/cultural destinations displayed the highest MWTP value of all tour sites in Seoul, which was estimated to be $74.32. The results also show that a respondent who emphasizes “money and enjoyment” and “authenticity” values is more likely to choose a tour package that includes more opportunities to visit shopping and historical/cultural sites, respectively.     

“You know that's a rip-off”: policies and practices surrounding micro-enterprises and poverty alleviation in South African township tourism

Supporting the development of small tourism businesses has been seen by policy-makers as a valuable means of alleviating poverty in South African townships. This perspective has been endorsed by several “responsible” tourism businesses and academics. Following a literature review, this paper reports the findings of an empirical study that examined the practices of 80 micro-business owners and the factors that shape their behaviour in two South African townships. In spite of significant visitor numbers, it finds that their narrow social networks, the imbalances of power between them and intermediaries such as travel agencies and tour operators, ideas of Ubuntu and Umona, and complex family and ethnic ties all represent barriers that prevent them from developing their businesses and sharing in the material gains available through tourism. This analysis has important implications for local policy-makers and those advocating responsible tourism. For the former, it suggests a cessation of current initiatives in favour of greater regulation and alternative forms of investment. For the latter, it implies a need to reassess the utility of advocating responsible tourism to consumers in a context where they do not understand the dynamics which fashion what is on offer or the implications of their choices.     

Measuring business cycles: Empirical Mode Decomposition of economic time series

This paper continues discussion on the issue of time series decomposition by presentation of the Empirical Mode Decomposition technique. This technique outperforms well-known time-series filters by providing a deeper insight into the structure of time series.