Rothschilds' strategies in international non‐ferrous metals markets, 1830–1940

The aim of this article is to analyse the strategies employed by the Rothschilds up to 1940 to gain control and limit competition in the international non‐ferrous metals markets. It examines how they opted for inelastic demand products of highly concentrated supply which lent themselves to market control (mercury, nickel, lead, and copper and sulphur) by taking administrative monopolies (mercury from the state‐owned Almadén mines in Spain) or by controlling the leading businesses of the respective markets (Le Nickel, Peñarroya, and Rio Tinto). The article also analyses how in some cases the family was able to gain worldwide monopolies, and how in other cases they promoted collusive oligopolies with the competition in any number of forms in their quest to maintain profitability and steer well clear of any competition.     

Seismic vulnerability assessment of historical urban centres: case study of the old city centre of Faro,Portugal

The necessity of implementing seismic vulnerability assessment procedures to the Portuguese building stock has become urgent as recent predictions indicate the possibility of the occurrence of an earthquake similar to the well-known 1755 Lisbon earthquake within the next 50 years. Obviously, at first instance, large-scale procedures should be used rather than more extensive and accurate methodologies suited for individual buildings assessment. Moreover, it is fundamental to operate in the most vulnerable areas in our built environment, typically, the historical urban centres. As it is recognised, it is within these areas, that old masonry buildings are generally concentrated, being both the most representative and vulnerable constructive typology. Comprising 354 buildings, the case study of the old city centre of Faro is herein presented aiming at analysing and evaluating the seismic vulnerability of its old masonry building stock. In order to achieve these objectives, a vulnerability-index-based methodology was used for the assessment of the seismic vulnerability of the old masonry buildings belonging to the historical centre of Faro (Ribeirinha area) carried out through detailed inspection and survey. The results obtained were analysed using a geographical information system tool. The integration of such vulnerability and loss results represents a valuable tool for city councils and/or regional authorities to plan interventions, on the basis of a global view of the site under analysis, leading this way to more accurate and comprehensive risk mitigation strategies which comply with the requirements of safety and emergency planning. The application of this large-scale scoring methodology has confirmed moderate-to-high values for the vulnerability of this particular area, which combined with its high seismicity, may be quite alarming.     

Error cascades in observational learning: An experiment on the Chinos game

The paper reports an experimental study based on a variant of the popular Chinos game, which is used as a simple but paradigmatic instance of observational learning. There are three players, arranged in sequence,each of which wins a fixed price if she manages to guess the total number of coins lying in everybody?s hands. Our evidence shows that, despite the remarkable frequency of equilibrium outcomes, deviations from optimal play are also significant. And when such deviations occur, we find that, for any given player position, the probability of a mistake is increasing in the probability of a mistake of her predecessors. This is what we call an error cascade, which we measure by evaluating the (heterogeneous) Quantal Response Equilibrium which better suits our data. We also check the robustness of our findings when we allow for belief heterogeneity by applying Kübler and Weizsäcker?s (2004) cognitive frame of limited depth of reasoning.     

Playing the trust game with other people’s money

We experimentally investigate to what extent people trust and honor trust when they are playing with other people’s money (OPM). We adopt the well-known trust game by Berg et al. (in Games Econ. Behav. 10:122–142, 1995), with the difference that the trustor (sender) who sends money to the trustee (receiver) does this on behalf of a third party. We find that senders who make decisions on behalf of others do not behave significantly different from senders in our baseline trust game who manage their own money. But receivers return significantly less money when senders send a third party’s money. As a result, trust is only profitable in the baseline trust game, but not in the OPM treatment. The treatment effect among the receivers is gender specific. Women return significantly less money in OPM than in baseline, while there is no such treatment effect among men. Moreover, women return significantly less than men in the OPM treatment.     

Weak cognitive image of cultural tourism destinations

The current study aims to take an in-depth look at the perceived image of an inland cultural tourism destination. This destination has traditionally had a weak image, making it important to study the components of this image and the factors influencing it in order to identify the best strategies for improving the destination’s positioning with respect to its image. This research is part of the ATLAS Cultural Tourism Research Project, which focuses on the image of tourist destinations. The basic questionnaire prepared by ATLAS and applied in a number of different countries is the key element of the survey. The results obtained show the different influences of factors such as information sources (distinguishing between induced, organic and autonomous sources), previous visits to the destination and the places visited during the tourist’s stay on the overall image of the city. This research will help public institutions to project the image of destinations in their target markets using precise information channelled through the appropriate media. In global terms we try to contribute to the study of factors influencing image formation in the case of inland cities not yet on the tourist map, but whose potential resources could make them obvious cultural tourism destinations. From this perspective, the influence of cognitive attributes in forming the image, as well as the atmosphere the tourist experiences in the city as a psychological attribute, have been studied.     

Cooperation versus competition in product innovation

This paper analyzes the optimal antitrust policy in the context of a patent race. In a simplified model, we identify the conditions under which allowing cooperation yields greater welfare than imposing competition. In view of our results, we discuss, critically, the current European policy towards R&D cooperation.     

Impact of Customer Orientation and ICT Use on the Perceived Performance of Rural Tourism Enterprises

This article sets out to highlight the importance of adopting customer orientation and information and communications technology (ICT) in tourism service delivery if the rural tourism sector is to succeed. A model is proposed and validated which encompasses the effects of customer orientation adoption and the use of ICT on the rural tourism sector, taking into account the enterprises’ financial results, improvements to the rural destination, and the more personal, intangible impact on the owner-manager. The major contributions of this work are in finding that customer orientation adoption that contributes to ICT use, and that both ICT use and customer orientation adoption contribute to better outcomes from rural tourism activity.     

An independent assessment of the unidimensionality,reliability, validity and factor structure of the LibQUAL+™ scale

This empirical study provides a thorough measurement analysis of the LibQUAL+? scale for measuring library service quality. In particular, the study assesses the unidimensionality of the scale, the scale's psychometric properties and its factor structure. Data were gathered using a self-administered questionnaire distributed to a sample of university library users: 189 in Canada and 374 in Mexico. Using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the study confirms the assumption of unidimensionality in only two of the three current sub-dimensions of the scale. The results of this study also show that the LibQUAL+? scale consists of four dimensions. The remainder of the CFA results in the study provides strong support for the general reliability and validity of the four-dimensional structure.     

Value co-creation via information and communications technology

The aims of the present work centre on determining whether co-created value constitutes a competitive advantage for firms, and whether it is capable of influencing consumer behaviour. Applying the service-dominant logic perspective, the work examines the firm's capabilities in the context of its business-to-customer (B2C) interactions, focusing on information and communications technology (ICT) as a particular driver of value co-creation. Taking this B2C perspective, ICT is measured, from the firm's point of view, and customer perceptions are analysed, using the variables ‘value co-creation’, ‘perceived value’ and ‘loyalty’. The sample consists of 100 service firms and 572 of their customers. The findings indicate that ICT capabilities have a direct effect on value co-creation, as does value co-creation on perceived value and loyalty.     

Emotional intelligence and caring behaviour in nursing

The research reported in this paper relates six dimensions of nurses' emotional intelligence (EI) with two dimensions of their caring behaviours. One hundred and twenty nurses self-reported their EI, and three patients of each one described their caring behaviours. The main findings are: (a) nurses' EI explains a significant but low unique variance of caring behaviours; (b) self-encouragement and self-control against criticisms are the best predictors; (c) high empathy can have positive or negative impact on caring behaviours depending on the way it combines with other EI dimensions.