Contracting from East to West: Bridging the cultural divide

When contracting in a global environment, basic cultural differences increase the risk of misunderstandings. Culture generally provides the context for contract language and shapes the parties’ most basic assumptions regarding their respective rights and responsibilities. Businesses must recognize, respect, and reconcile cultural differences if they hope to contract successfully in the global environment. For U.S. and Chinese businesses to better understand how to successfully negotiate and carry out contractual relations with one another, they must recognize the differences in core cultural values between the two countries and develop strategies for reconciling these differences. Bridging these cultural differences adds value to business transactions and minimizes the risk of failure. To help managers recognize and understand cultural differences between the U.S. and China, this installment of Business Law & Ethics Corner focuses on five dimensions of the culture of the U.S. and China: individualism/collectivism, universalism/particularism, power distance, context, and direction. These aspects explain some of the major differences in viewing the law and approaching contracts. To help managers navigate these cultural differences, this article offers guidance regarding how to respect and reconcile cultural predispositions to achieve true synergies. By bridging these cross-cultural differences between the U.S. and China, managers can achieve the mutual expectations necessary to the long-term success of cross-cultural business transactions.     

Politics of national tourism policy in Britain

Although tourism is increasingly viewed as an important issue for governments, analysis of the politics of tourism policy is less developed than in other areas of leisure policy. This article attempts to link developments in British tourism policy to wider policy contexts. The historic development of tourism policy from private interest group formation, through government subsidy to statutory status reflects patterns evident elsewhere in leisure. Similarly, the subsequent shift from pluralism through welfarism to economic realism in leisure is clearly reflected in the changing role of the national tourist boards in the last 25 years. Although private interest groups in tourism have benefited considerably from government intervention in the past, it seems that government has become progressively less inclined to treat tourism as a special case in recent years. It is argued that application of theoretical perspectives developed in the field of leisure policy can help to illuminate the processes driving the development of tourism policy as well.     

Sustainability in the tour operator – ground agent supply chain

This research aims to identify, and critically understand, the key opportunities for and barriers against tour operators and their ground handlers sourcing and selling more sustainable tourism products. The study is framed in the literature of organisational culture and buyer–seller collaborations both downstream (sustainable supply chain management) and upstream (business-to-business marketing). Semi-structured interviews help to identify the tour operators’ barriers, opportunities and key decision-making criteria. The findings suggest that a supportive organisational culture is a prerequisite to success for companies that wish to scale up the volume of sustainable products they source and sell. Sustainability only sells when it contributes to an organisation’s ability to meet its requirement of quality of service, especially in relation to suitability of the products to its target markets and reinforcing professional and trustworthy relationships. For services that are keenly priced, and/or that have tight health and safety regulations, buyers and sellers often lack the motivation to consider sustainability requirements unless they are clearly valued and marketed. Business-to-business marketing requires suppliers to understand the relative importance of sustainability to each of their buyers and, in response, to develop appropriate arguments to explain the importance of sustainability within their buyers’ organisational needs.     

Adaptation and change in Queensland’s rangelands: Cell grazing as an emerging ideology of pastoral-ecology

Does the current global political economic framework, or more specifically, the cost–price squeeze associated with primary production, restrict the choices of Australian cattle graziers in moving to more sustainable practices? It has often been argued by primary producers and academics, alike, that current terms of trade have resulted in reduced profitability at the property level, and as such, have made it difficult for landholders to shift to practices which are environmentally sustainable. Whilst there is mounting evidence that this is case, there is also evidence that some graziers have been able to adapt to the prevailing market conditions through an ideological as well as ‘practice’ shift. Findings from qualitative research in Central Queensland, Australia, has highlighted how ‘cell grazing’ departs from the traditional or conventional aspects of grazing which can be described as productivist, to an approach closely approximating Lang and Heasman’s (2004) ‘ecologically integrated paradigm’ [Lang, T., Heasman, M., 2004. Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths Minds and Markets. Earthscan, London]. It is argued that cell grazing is, at present, a marginal activity that requires an ideological and cultural shift, as well as an investment in new infrastructure, however, current cell grazing activities may also demonstrate that beef grazing has the potential to be both economically and environmentally sustainable.     

A nested logit model of strategic promotion

This paper presents a test of the nature of the pricing and promotion game played by supermarket retailers in a large, U.S. market. Using a nested-logit modeling approach, the results show that retailers set discount depth and promotional frequency in a manner that is less competitive than Bertrand. We also find that the elasticity of substitution among competing stores is lower than among products within each store, but not equal to zero. Therefore, sales do cannibalize existing products, but can also build a significant amount of store-traffic. Relative to strategic factors, price promotions have their greatest impact on store-conditional product demand.

Factors that influence physicians' recommendation of hospice care: An exploratory study

Palliative care and an array of attending services for terminally ill patients are available through over 2,465 hospices in the United States today. Although the actual number of terminally ill patients receiving hospice care has increased over the past decade, there is a growing concern of underutilization. Research has reported that despite meeting eligibility requirements only twenty-five percent of terminally ill patients have been served by hospice. Further, with a median stay of thirty days, the patients as well as their attending families may not be able to receive the full benefits of hospice care. In an effort to address these issues of underutilization, this exploratory study examines the relationship between physicians' referral behaviors and their awareness and perceived importance of selected hospice services, and agreement with hospice philosophy. Physician demographics and practice characteristics that are related to referral patterns are also identified.     

'Because I need somewhere to vent': the expression of conflict through work blogs

Employee resistance has traditionally been analysed as an activity that occurs in the work organisation. In recent years, new Internet communication technologies, such as blogs, have expanded the possibilities for employees to express conflict. This paper explores how these developments can add to our understandings of employee resistance to the labour process.     

What Do Progressives Need to Know About Trade? Some observations on the competitiveness debate

In a recent book entitled Pop Internationalism Paul Krugman takes to task several prominent commentators who in recent years have published works decrying the loss of competitive position of the United States in an increasingly global economy. In particular, Krugman critically considers and rejects several arguments that he considers both wrong and dangerous. Among these are (1) the United States has lost, or is in the process of losing, its position of global technological leadership; (2) material standards of living in the US are threatened by the country's excessively liberal trade policies as compared with its trade partners; (3) stagnant or declining wages in the US are the result of trade with low wage Third World countries; (4) the US is in need of a new model and a corresponding policy approach that recognizes the changing structure of new global economic forces. The debate over the validity of the above assertions has been largely conducted between adherents of mainstream interpretations of international economic theory and policy. For Krugman the controversies are mostly a matter of a proper understanding of that theory along with an appreciation of the relevant data. The purpose of this paper is to offer an interpretation of the debate from a progressive left perspective. My position is that Krugman's critique of his imagined opponents on most issues is largely overdone and that there is actually substantive agreement among and between these mainstream views on most matters of trade and trade policy. More importantly, however, these same views, including Krugman's, are bounded by assumptions that are not supportable from a progressive left perspective. The title of the paper is an ironic twist on a title of one of Krugman's chapters, 'What do undergrads need to know about trade?'