University choice: which attributes matter when you are paying the full price?

This article presents the results from a longitudinal study of students' choice of university in England. Students were surveyed initially when applying for university (Wave One) and then again when they were about to embark on their chosen course (Wave Two). The results from Wave Two demonstrated a high degree of consistency with the Wave One findings: course and university reputation are far more important and fees are relatively unimportant. However, a key result across both waves was that patterns of utility for students with no parental experience of university were significantly different from students whose parents had attended university. The utility associated with different levels of entry qualifications, of fees and of university and course reputation, differed between social groups. The study suggests that the benefits of going to a highly rated university may be undervalued in families that have no direct experience of higher education. In addition, whilst females are more significantly put off by universities with low entry requirements, the qualitative attitudinal statements included in the follow‐up study seem to indicate that so‐called ‘softer’ factors may also influence their choice.     

Crossing the chasm with beacon products in the portable music player industry

Firms competing in new product categories face great technical and market uncertainty as they try to move from early adopters to mainstream markets (83, 93 and 111). While the management literature identified several factors that may contribute to adoption, the role of specific product models has been understudied. To address this gap, we studied portable digital music players (MP3 players) from 1987–2006 and tested the role of specific product models in market takeoff, convergence and product category evolution. We introduced the concept of beacon product, defined as a specific product model that has great appeal to customers and sends a strong signal about what they want.     

Important overlooked IVs in spatial models

Spatial models often contain additional endogenous variables as regressors. The complete system determining these variables is typically not known to the researcher, and so maximum likelihood or Bayesian estimation methods are precluded. This leaves instrumental variable estimation. In all likelihood, the system may contain certain forms of nonlinearities. These nonlinearities might arise because of endogenous weighting matrices, functional form differences in the endogenous variables, etc. The existence of such nonlinearities strongly suggests the use of nonlinear forms of the instruments. Issues of this sort were pointed out in Kelejian and Piras (Spatial econometrics, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2017) and Kelejian (Lett Spat Resour Sci 9(1):113–136, 2016). However, thus far Monte Carlo results relating to efficiencies gained by the use of nonlinear instrumental variables are not available. This is unfortunate because these efficiencies can be quite extensive. The purpose of this paper is to fill this void.     

The Destination Marketing Organization as an intelligent agent: Evaluating engagement in knowledge management practices

DMOs have been increasingly called upon to adopt the role of knowledge management, becoming intelligent agents with the capacity to gather, assess, and disseminate information among internal and external stakeholders. While knowledge management has remained a prominent topic in the literature, its application within the field of tourism management has been limited. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to ascertain to what extent DMOs have engaged in knowledge management practices through a nation-wide survey of 30 Canadian DMOs. The results demonstrate that, while DMOs have made progress toward becoming intelligent agents, there remains a long way to go.