Understanding Event Sport Tourism Experiences of Support Partners: A Research Note

The purpose of this research reflection is to set the stage for a more detailed research agenda in exploring event sport tourism experiences of support partners (SPs) during events. Using photo elicitation, the article presents a preliminary empirical case study. Visual materials were assembled by three female participants to interrogate how SPs experience “spectator space” and explore the processes that produced those experiences, an area of study that remains relatively unexplored in leisure research. Initial findings show how waiting to see the triathlete can be anxiety-provoking, but the release of emotion when smiles are exchanged constitutes core activities of being there. However, there are more questions than answers, and there is a need for further inquiry. Suggestions for future research on the impact of serious leisure on intimate others are given.     

Employee satisfaction and turnover intention: A comparative analysis between front-of-house and back-of-house employees in casino-entertainment venues

ABSTRACT

This study investigates job location and its relationship with employee turnover intention within the casino-entertainment industry. The researchers analyzed turnover intention at the supervisor and company level from the perspective of employees who hold front-of-house or back-of-house jobs in three Nevada casinos and their corporate office. The results of this research fill existing gaps in the academic literature related to turnover intention and provide beneficial implications for industry and academic practitioners. Organizations within the casino-entertainment industry may develop strategies related to the management of human capital that could provide fiscal and operational benefits.     

Flight Delays and Passenger Preferences: An Axiomatic Approach

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) defines a flight as “delayed” if it arrives 15+ minutes late. The DOT “flight counting” delay definition is used to rank airline/airport service quality. An obvious caveat of counting flight delays is that the duration of delay plays no role in the delay count. The purpose of this article is to propose an aggregate delay measure that is sensitive to the distribution of time delayed among passengers. The importance of this work is that our derived delay measure reflects passenger preferences rather than the arbitrary delay cutoff established by the DOT. We model passengers' preference ordering using the criteria that passengers prefer fewer, shorter, and more equal delay times.     

British relative economic decline revisited: The role of competition

This paper examines the role of competition in British productivity performance over the period from the late-nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. A detailed review of the evidence suggests that the weakness of competition from the 1930s to the 1970s undermined productivity growth but since the 1970s stronger competition has been a key ingredient in ending relative economic decline. The productivity implications of the retreat from competition resulted in large part from interactions with idiosyncratic British institutional structures in terms of corporate governance and industrial relations. This account extends familiar insights from cliometrics both analytically and chronologically.     

Trade openness and government size of small developing countries

This paper examines the causal effect that trade openness has on government size in small developing countries (SDCs). We use the construction of the trade cost variables based on Baltic Dry Index in primary goods as instruments of trade openness to address the endogeneity issue. We find that the increase in trade openness leads to an increase in government size: a 1 percent expansion in trade openness (trade GDP ratio) raises government consumption over GDP ratio by approximately 0.1–0.2 percentage points on average. Its quantitative significance emphasizes the importance of rethinking the costs and benefits of trade openness for SDCs.     

Strategic Research Partnerships: A Managerial Perspective

Private sector incentives to participate in research partnerships can be grouped roughly into two categories: cost-economizing incentives and strategic incentives. This paper summarizes the argument in two streams of thought that are often identified with these two sides: the transaction-cost/incomplete contracts approach and the strategic management approach. The paper recounts business motives to engage in research partnerships in each and points out that differentiating between more traditional economic perspectives (transaction costs, incomplete contracts) and strategic management/organizational theory perspectives (strategic networks, resource-dependent view, dynamic capabilities, knowledge-based view, organizational learning, options approach) may not be as sharp as one might suppose at first. The complementary nature of these perspectives should be encouraging for theoreticians looking for a more integrated model of collaboration.     

Gibbs posterior inference on value-at-risk

ABSTRACT

Accurate estimation of value-at-risk (VaR) and assessment of associated uncertainty is crucial for both insurers and regulators, particularly in Europe. Existing approaches link data and VaR indirectly by first linking data to the parameter of a probability model, and then expressing VaR as a function of that parameter. This indirect approach exposes the insurer to model misspecification bias or estimation inefficiency, depending on whether the parameter is finite- or infinite-dimensional. In this paper, we link data and VaR directly via what we call a discrepancy function, and this leads naturally to a Gibbs posterior distribution for VaR that does not suffer from the aforementioned biases and inefficiencies. Asymptotic consistency and root-n concentration rate of the Gibbs posterior are established, and simulations highlight its superior finite-sample performance compared to other approaches.     

The cell phone effect on motor vehicle fatality rates: A Bayesian and classical econometric evaluation

This paper examines the potential effect of cell phones on motor vehicle fatality rates normalized for other driving related and socioeconomic factors. The model used is non-linear so as to address both life-taking and life-saving attributes of cell phones. The model is evaluated using classical methods along with Bayesian Extreme Bounds Analysis (EBA). The use of both classical and Bayesian methods diminishes the model and parameter uncertainties which afflict more conventional modeling methods which rely on only one of the two methods. The results indicate the presence of both life-taking and life-saving attributes of cell phones on motor vehicle fatality rates depending on the volume of cell phone subscribers in existence.     

Product development with multiple partners: Strategies and conflicts in networks

This paper provides an insight into and discusses the variety of sources of conflict in linking multiple partners in a network to the product development process. Conflict issues are discussed in relation to focal company strategies for product development within networks. On the basis of three case studies representing three different strategic intentions and network situations, our findings suggest that the sources of conflict are related to the actors' definition and negotiation of the development task at hand. The study suggests that the ability to combine and find complementarities in the strategic intentions of the multiple participating actors is essential to accomplish innovation. The paper concludes that influential actors initiating or acceding to changes are crucial for reaching a positive outcome in joint product development.     

Research needs for assessing online value creation in complex consumer purchase process behavior

Consumers face considerable frustration when purchasing structurally and/or semantically complex high-involvement products online. Reliance on computer-mediated communications for their information needs may result in functional and emotional frustration from information overload and lack of personal trust. This paper proposes a responsive real-time information system as a proxy for a perceptive sales representative who assesses customer needs based on information exchanges and then offers appropriate responses. By tracking and analyzing a consumer's online activity, vendors can offer information relevant to the consumer's real-time needs, facilitating their purchase process. In essence, this is a real-time value co-creation process based on the consumer offering cues to vendors through their key strokes and mouse click activity. This allows for differentiated information offerings for inexperienced and more experienced consumers, creating value by dynamic information serving. Where appropriate value is created, consumers will experience less frustration and continue online, rather than possibly moving offline or to alternative vendors. In examining the bases of consumer information needs in complex purchases, this paper identifies the data required to enable a responsive dialog between vendors and consumers.