Using involvement for segmenting the adoption of e-commerce in travel

While the adoption of e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel is gaining momentum, higher levels of adoption can be achieved if greater knowledge of the market for e-commerce is obtained. This research uses two variables, involvement with computers for leisure purposes and purchasing leisure travel over the Internet, as a means of segmenting the market with regard to the adoption of e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel. A sample of residents of a suburban borough of Lisbon (Portugal) was surveyed and hierarchical clustering was performed on 225 usable questionnaires. The four resulting clusters of residents that emerged were quite different from one another in relation to the adoption of e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel and in supporting the internal and external validity of the clustering procedure. One segment that has not been reported in the literature before was identified, comprising those who have moderate involvement with both innovations (the moderate enthusiasts). Moreover, the results suggest that individuals in this cluster may be stronger candidates for the adoption of e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel that computer fanatics.     

ASEAN‐5 bond market development: Where does it stand? Where is it going?

Since the late 1990s' Asian crisis, ASEAN‐5 countries have expended considerable effort in developing their bond markets. However, the size of these markets relative to GDP has hardly changed. Can we explain this? And does it mean that domestic markets have not, in fact, developed? The article argues that bond market growth has been held back by a sharp fall in business investment, which has left firms with little need for bond borrowing. Even so, markets have developed in other ways, to such an extent that substantial amounts of foreign portfolio investment have begun to flow into ASEAN‐5 bonds. These developments have important ramifications. With the investor base growing and infrastructure investment likely to rise, ASEAN‐5 bond markets could expand rapidly, holding out the prospect that the region could finally achieve ‘twin engine’ financial systems in the near future.     

Accountability in Crisis: The Sponsorship Scandal and the Office of the Comptroller General in Canada

For much of the last 50 years, a key platform animating public sector reform in Canada and elsewhere has been that efficiency and effectiveness can be achieved by adapting private sector financial management methods and practices. We argue that the recent re-establishment of the Office of the Comptroller General (OCG) of Canada represents a key element of a program of strengthening financial accountability that has emerged within the Canadian Federal Government. Although this program is longstanding and is associated Canada’s implementation of new public management initiatives, it has recently drawn particular sustenance from the sponsorship scandal in Canada. We demonstrate that the reincarnated OCG, re-established amid a rhetoric of “modernization” and of “strengthening” accountability, has a wide-ranging mandate to enhance financial and audit controls, create financial standards, nurture professional development, and oversee government spending. We explore some of the consequences of this development and of the broader financial accountability mechanisms introduced in response to the Sponsorship scandal within the Canadian public sector.     

Combining Expert Systems and Hypertext: Opportunities and Obstacles

Hypertext discussions are occurring more frequently at expert systems conferences. Hypertext is not an expert system language or expert system shell, but instead it is simultaneously a method of storing and retrieving data. The growing interest in hypertext in the expert system domain is because the combination of hypertext capabilities and expert systems creates a compelling synergistic relationship (Oren, 1987). During a panel discussion at the Second International Symposium on Expert Systems in Business, Finance and Accounting, Bill Swartout compared traditional expert systems to hypertext by saying that the knowledge base (e.g. the production rules) of an expert system can be thought of as formal knowledge and hypertext can be thought of as informal knowledge. This article will demonstrate how this informal knowledge can add power to traditional expert systems by increasing the flexibility of the explanation facilities and thereby the appeal of the system to a broader range of users. The article also will discuss how expert systems can improve the functionality of hypertext systems by adding intelligence to traditional hypertext systems. This article is divided into three sections. The first describes basic hypertext concepts. The second section shows how hypertext can enhance expert systems and, conversely, how expert systems can enhance hypertext systems. The final section discusses some potential problems and concerns that must be considered when designing a hypertext system.     

Critical competencies and developmental experiences for top HR executives

This article describes the context and methodology used in formulating and validating a senior-level human resource competency model for professional development. The development and implementation of the architecture for the model, including the provision of various developmental tools and experiences, was undertaken by the Society of Human Resource Management, a professional association dedicated to the advancement of the human resource profession. The purpose of this effort is to specify benchmarks for professional competence building and to reposition the emerging role and processes associated with the human resource function in responding to the changing organizational and competitive challenges facing United States-based, multinational organizations. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Agency Structure and Firm Culture: OSHA, EPA, and the Steel Industry

We compare models of Occupational Safety and Health Administration(OSHA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcementand compliance for steel plants during the 1980s. We find thatOSHA and EPA respond similarly to plant-level compliance andmeasures of hazardousness, but differently to firm-level complianceand risks of plant closing, and we relate the differences tothe agencies' differing organizational structures. Plant-levelcompliance is affected by enforcement pressure, compliance costs,and the firm's overall compliance behavior in similar ways forthe two regulatory areas, but environmental compliance was alsosensitive to plant size and risk of closing. Finally, we findthat the likelihood that a plant was in compliance with oneagency seemed at most weakly related to whether it was in compliancewith the other, but that plants likely to receive enforcementattention from one agency were also more likely to receive enforcementattention from the other agency.     

Do bookmakers possess superior skills to bettors in predicting outcomes?

In this paper we test the hypothesis that bookmakers display superior skills to bettors in predicting the outcome of sporting events by using matched data from traditional bookmaking and person-to-person exchanges. Employing a conditional logistic regression model on horse racing data from the UK we find that, in high liquidity betting markets, betting exchange odds have more predictive value than the corresponding bookmaker odds. To control for potential spillovers between the two markets, we repeat the analysis for cases where prices diverge significantly. Once again, exchange odds yield more valuable information concerning race outcomes than the bookmaker equivalents.