Sustainability and the authentic experience. Harnessing brand heritage – a study from Japan

This paper explores the influence of the formative brand heritage construct on perceived authenticity at repaired/reconstructed heritage sites, understood in relation to the Japanese practice of kintsugi (金継ぎ), thereby extending Kolar and Zabkar's consumer-based model of authenticity. It notes that variations of kintsugi occur in architectural heritage conservation worldwide. We establish relationships between brand heritage, cultural motivations, perceptions of authenticity, relational value, and consumer commitment, based on questioning 768 visitors to repaired and reconstructed Japanese heritage sites. Analysis using partial least squares found consumer preconceptions of brand heritage stimulating increased perceptions of authenticity at sites of limited historical provenance, thereby increasing visitor commitment to visiting. Heritage managers should use marketing strategies that effectively communicate a site's brand heritage prior to, during, and after the tourist experience. Even where the material components of the site are entirely reconstructed, this can lead to relational value, and improved consumer commitment. In sustainability terms, holistic brand marketing can increase site revenue, help conservation maintenance and, by increasing repeat visits, reduce footfall damage at other “unreconstructed” sites. Practical implications include better artefact and information presentation, ensuring synergy between site experiences and its purported values, especially through tour guide narratives and interpretation.     

The value of self-stated attribute importance to overall satisfaction

This paper provides insights into techniques used to determine the attributes that influence overall satisfaction. A survey of zoo visitors illustrates several key findings relevant for both managers interpreting survey results and researchers designing studies. First, the assumption of importance-performance analysis (IPA) that self-stated importance measures the influence of attribute performance on overall satisfaction is endorsed. Second, relative importance is shown to be vital as it improves the prediction of overall satisfaction from attribute performance while absolute importance makes it worse. Third, techniques using self-stated relative importance are shown to be superior to statistical techniques such as regression, however new techniques using both self-stated importance and regression are shown to be even better. These findings apply generally to tangible products in marketing and management as well as to tourism services.     

THE BROTHER‐IN‐LAW EFFECT*

When a firm is forced to pay abnormally high wages, hiring transfers rents. This effectively endows the employer with the ability to grant favors, and he may wish to do so even at some cost to efficient production. We refer to this as the brother‐in‐law effect. This article analyzes its consequences. When the brother‐in‐law effect is due to unionization, decisions regarding both the number and type of workers employed could be inefficient; overemployment could obtain even relative to the workforce that would be employed without unionization. We also identify cases in which nepotism improves efficiency.     

Statistical inference using the T index to quantify the level of comparability between accounts

The extent to which the accounts of companies are comparable is considered important to users and regulators. However, prior research has been restricted by a lack of appropriate statistical methods for testing comparability indices. This has made it difficult to assess the true level of comparability from sample data and to test research hypotheses such as whether the level of comparability (a) differs by policy, (b) differs by country, and (c) changes over time. This paper fills this gap by exploring the statistical properties of the T index. The T index generalises the H, C, I and various modifications of these indices and represents a unified framework for the measurement of the extent to which the accounts of companies are comparable. Formulae for the bias and standard error for any index under this framework are provided and proved. The bias is shown to equal zero or be negligible in most practical situations. Using historical data, the standard error is used to illustrate the accuracy with which comparability is estimated and to perform formal statistical inference using confidence intervals and p‐values. Furthermore, the sampling distribution of the T index is assessed for normality. Implications for research design and sample size determination are also discussed.     

An Integrative Approach to Tourism: Lessons from the Andes of Peru

This study compares the Andean communities of Taquile Island and Chiquian, Peru, which differ in their level of integration for their respective tourism sector. Integration was primarily defined by percentage of local people employed, type and degree of participation, decision-making power, and ownership in the local tourism sector. Principally social and economic aspects were measured and evaluated, recognising that considerable local support and participation in tourism decision making are linked to issues of ownership and control. It was found that higher levels of integration would lead to enhanced socioeconomic benefits for the community. A framework for community integration was developed that could help guide research, planning, development and evaluation of community-based tourism projects.     

The Scholarship of Teaching Economics

The authors report on the results of a telephone survey of 1,001 employees of seven large corporations conducted for the Business Roundtable as part of its public policy program. A set of 20 questions keyed to the Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics was embedded in the survey. A measure of economic literacy was constructed from the survey results. Greater economic literacy was associated with more overall education, more college economics coursework, high incomes, and being male. An examination of individual test questions revealed that previous college economics had substantial effects on employees' current economic literacy.     

Who moves? A logit model analysis of inter-provincial migration in Canada

This paper addresses the topic of inter-provincial migration in terms of the basic question: ‘Who moves?’. Panel logit models of the probability that an individual changes his or her province of residence from one year to the next over the 1982–1995 period are estimated using tax-based longitudinal data. It is found that moving is (i) inversely related to the home province's population size, presumably reflecting local economic conditions and labour market scale effects, while language also plays an important role; (ii) more common among residents of smaller cities, towns, and especially rural areas than those in larger cities; (iii) negatively related to age, marriage, and the presence of children for both men and women; (iv) positively related to the provincial unemployment rate, the individuals’ receipt of unemployment insurance (except Entry Men), having no market income (except for Entry Men and Entry Women), and the receipt of social assistance (especially for men); (v) (slightly) positively related to earnings levels (beyond the zero earnings point) for prime aged men, but not for others; and (vi) more or less stable over time, with men's rates declining slightly and women's holding steadier or rising slightly, indicating a divergence in trends along gender lines.