Consuming dark tourism: A Thanatological Perspective

Despite increasing academic attention paid to dark tourism, understanding of the concept remains limited, particularly from a consumption perspective. That is, the literature focuses primarily on the supply of dark tourism; less attention, however, has been paid to the demand for ‘dark’ touristic experiences. This theoretical paper seeks to address this gap in the literature. Drawing upon the contemporary sociology of death, it explores the relationship between socio-cultural perspectives on mortality and the potential of dark tourism as a means of confronting death in modern societies. In so doing, it proposes a model of dark tourism consumption within a thanatological framework as a basis for further theoretical and empirical analysis of dark tourism.     

A typology of students based on academic entitlement

Two hundred ninety-three university business students were surveyed using an academic entitlement (AE) scale updated to include new technologies. Using factor analysis, three components of AE were identified: grade entitlement, behavioral entitlement, and service entitlement. A k-means clustering procedure was then applied to identify four groups based on the relative strength of the AE components: the model student, under the radar, instructor as servant, and the privileged. These groups were further characterized by additional demographic (i.e., parental income) and classroom variables (i.e., instructor response times). Findings can help business educators gain better insight into the AE construct and devise more effective instructional strategies.     

Managerial Selection Decisions in Multinational Corporations: Teaching International Business Using Problem-Based Learning

Companies face many challenges as they staff managerial positions in overseas operations, including decisions on whether to staff using expatriates, host-country nationals, or third-country nationals. We developed an exercise—designed to help students understand the differences between these three groups of employees—that requires students to develop a set of criteria that would form the basis for choosing the candidate they deem to be the best one. In addition, the exercise can serve as a springboard to discussion of the different training and compensation requirements for each of the three different types of employee. The steps involved in the exercise are presented together with suggestions for debriefing the exercise.     

Invasive species management in a spatially heterogeneous world: Effects of uniform policies

The spread of invasive species (IS) is an inherently spatial process, and management of invasive species occurs over spatially heterogeneous regions, but policy constraints can restrict management responses to be homogeneous across regions. Using a spatial bioeconomic model that includes a representation of invasive species ecology based on heterogeneous environments that are linked across space and time by human and ecological pathways, we compare optimal spatially heterogeneous policy to spatially uniform policy. We explore the magnitude and pattern of the policy differences with emphasis on the influence of different types of underlying heterogeneity across locations.     

Information-based trade

We study the possibility of trade for purely informational reasons. We depart from previous analyses (e.g. Grossman and Stiglitz (1980) [22] and Milgrom and Stokey (1982) [32]) by allowing the final payoff of the asset being traded to depend on an action taken by its eventual owner. We characterize conditions under which equilibria with trade exist.     

Schmerzen erkennen

Schmerzeinsch?tzung im Alter und bei Demenz - Menschen mit Demenz k?nnen h?ufig keine Selbstauskunft über ihr Schmerzerleben geben. Sie sind darauf angewiesen, dass die Schmerzen von anderen erkannt werden. Welche pflegerischen Instrumente erleichtern die Fremdeinsch?tzung von Schmerzen?     

Detecting Supply Chain Innovation Potential for Sustainable Development

In a world of limited resources, it could be argued that companies that aspire to be good corporate citizens need to focus on making best use of resources. User value and environmental harm are created in supply chains and it could therefore be argued that company business ethics should be extended from the company to the entire value chain from the first supplier to the last customer. Starting with a delineation of the linkages between business ethics, corporate sustainability, and the stakeholder concept, this article argues that supply chains generally have a great innovation potential for sustainable development. This potential could be highlighted with system thinking and the use of change management knowledge, promoting not only innovations within technology but also within organizational improvement. We propose process models and performance indicators as means of highlighting improvement potential and thus breaking down normative business ethics’ requirements to an opertionalizable corporate level: Good business ethics should focus on maximizing stakeholder value in relation to harm done. Our results indicate that focusing on supply chains reveals previously unknown innovation potential that seems to be related to limited system understanding. The assumption is that increased visibility of opportunities will act as a driver for change. Results also highlight the importance of focusing on sustainability effects of the core business and clearly relating value created to harm done.     

The greening of Swedish energy policy: A critique

This article discusses Swedish energy policy over the period 1973–1992 with a focus on its current energy objectives. Bans on energy sources are assessed as one of the challenges faced by Sweden in the 1990s. We raise questions about the future consequences of such draconian approaches to energy policy that inhibit societal learning. Bans on any fuel source only serve to handicap the economy and lead to a less flexible and more inefficient energy supply at a greater than necessary cost. With the Swedish economy on the verge of becoming more integrated with the rest of Europe, it is imperative to view its comparative advantage in electricity as the basis for its energy policy rather than the individual fuels that generate that electricity. Our goal has been to synthesize components among existing energy objectives to suggest logical implications for the future.     

A nonlinear long memory model, with an application to US unemployment

Two important empirical features of US unemployment are that shocks to the series seem rather persistent and that it seems to rise faster during recessions than that it falls during expansions. To jointly capture these features of long memory and nonlinearity, we put forward a new time series model and evaluate its empirical performance. We find that the model describes the data rather well and that it outperforms related competitive models on various measures of fit.