Striking a Balance for Sustainable Tourism: Implications of the Discourse on Globalisation

Tourism, as a macro global force, is welcomed but often viewed with reticence as it can damage environments and bring about negative economic and sociocultural changes. For tourism to be sustainable, balance is integral. This paper questions the comprehension behind 'balance' using the discourse evident in globalisation studies. It argues that globalisation is not driven from 'out there'; external processes and activities interact with local conditions such that the outcomes of globalisation are moderated by processes that function at multiple layers. Understanding that power relationships interplay in a specific context and the organisational milieux in which the tourism experience is encountered help to elucidate the tensions that exist and throw light on the 'balance' that sustainable tourism aspires for. Whether the effects of tourism are expressed in terms of the economy, culture and heritage or the environment, understanding the global-local nexus credits local players with more control and enables a better understanding of the forces underpinning change and hence sustainability.     

An Evaluation of the Hong Kong Employees Retraining Programme

The Employees Retraining Programme, launched by the Hong Kong government in 1993, was promoted as the solution to structural unemployment resulting fromrapid structural transformation of the economy. However, our study of the labourmarket performance of a group of trainees who received training in 1994/5 showsno evidence of any positive effect on the earnings or employment rate of trainees one year after the completion of training in relation to various comparison groups. The apparent lack of success can be traced to low target efficiency and distorted incentives that result in over-utilization of retraining resources.     

Gauging potential sovereign risk contagion in Europe

This study adopts the CoVaR methodology to analyse the tail risk relationships among European sovereigns, which provide arguably important information for policymakers to identify countries that should come under close scrutiny during the current debt crisis.     

Risk perceptions across the current political spectrum in Finland: a study of party members

Political party member perceptions of risk continue to attract a great deal of attention in current public discourse and media coverage, yet little research exists in terms of a comparative analysis of Finnish political parties’ views on the issue. Party members are in many ways a highly significant social group, one that exercises a great deal of decision-making power in modern civil societies. This article provides a novel and up-to-date look into the key areas of perceived risk held by the members of Finland’s political parties, in addition to a comparison of inter-party differences and similarities. The analysis is based on a unique survey data-set of the members of Finland’s six major political parties (N = 12,427). Included are the Finns Party, Centre Party, Left Alliance, Social Democratic Party, Green League and National Coalition Party. Together, these represent the political spectrum in Finland. Risk factors included primary categories dealing with various national, institutional, cultural and economic issues. Also included in the analysis was a look into whether length of party membership affects risk concern for the included issues. Findings showed that national and external risks were more of a concern for the Finns Party, while the Left and the Social Democrats considered economic issues a greater risk than did others. Furthermore, economic risk was most concerning to the left while external risks were generally viewed in line with the current centre-right administration. Some notable differences between old and new party members were also found. Findings emphasize the importance of understanding how political party members differ in their views of various societal risks while providing new points of comparison between those parties toward improved clarity of the national political landscape.     

Pricing Discrete Dynamic Fund Protections

Abstract

The authors investigate the pricing of discretely monitored dynamic fund protections when the fund price follows a lognormal process or a constant elasticity of variance (CEV) process. A backward recursive pricing formula is derived. By employing a numerical technique that combines function approximation and numerical quadrature, the authors demonstrate how to complete each recursion level efficiently. Numerical experiments show that the results compare favorably with those obtained by other pricing methods.     

Factors influencing strategic alliance outcomes in a manufacturing supply chain: Role of alliance motives,interdependence, asset specificity and relational capital

Integration of various theories is essential to completely understand and explain strategic alliances in a supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework by integrating the features of transaction cost theory, resource-based theory, contingency theory, social exchange theory, and Kelley's personal relationship theory and test the framework through empirical research. The present study addresses the impact of strategic alliance motives, environment, asset specificity, perception of opportunistic behavior, interdependence between supply chain partners, and relational capital on strategic alliance outcomes. Besides, the study has also tested the role of relational capital as a central mediating construct. A sample of 2156 companies representing different industries in manufacturing in Malaysia was selected for the distribution of questionnaire. We tested the structural model using structural equation modeling (SEM). Based on the results, we conclude the following significant relationships: (1) strategic alliance motives and perception of opportunistic behavior on interdependence and relational capital, (2) interdependence on relational capital, (3) environment on strategic alliance motives, (4) relational capital on strategic alliance outcomes, and (4) the mediating role of relational capital. The current study adds significantly to the body of knowledge on strategic alliances and can help managers identify factors that influence the success of strategic alliances and provide a proper direction to develop robust and effective collaborative relationships between supply chain partners.     

A note on deficit analysis in dependency models involving Coxian claim amounts

In this paper, we consider a fairly large class of dependent Sparre Andersen risk models where the claim sizes belong to the class of Coxian distributions. We analyze the Gerber–Shiu discounted penalty function when the penalty function depends on the deficit at ruin. We show that the system of equations needed to solve for this quantity is surprisingly simple. Various applications of this result are also considered.     

Investors’ preference towards risk: evidence from the Taiwan stock and stock index futures markets

We apply the stochastic dominance (SD) tests proposed by Linton et al. (2005) and Davidson and Duclos (2000) for risk averters and risk seekers to examine investors’ preferences with respect to the Taiwan stock index and its corresponding index futures. We find that there is no first‐order SD relationship between Taiwan spot and futures. However, for second‐ and third‐order SD, we find that spot dominates futures for risk averters whereas futures dominates spot for risk seekers. The implication is that to maximize their expected utilities, risk averters prefer to buy stocks, whereas risk seekers prefer long index futures.     

Analysing liquidity and absorption limits of electronic markets with volume durations

This paper focuses on the liquidity of electronic stock markets applying a sequential estimation approach of models for volume duration with increasing threshold values. A modified ACD model with a Box–Tukey transformation and a flexible generalized beta distribution is proposed to capture the changing cluster structure of duration processes. The estimation results with German XETRA data reveal the market's absorption limit for high volumes of shares, expanding the time costs of illiquidity when trading these quantities.     

Development of human resource management in Vietnam: A semantic analysis

The present study offers a logical understanding of the development of human resource management (HRM) in Vietnam over the past 30 years. While previous studies have examined the adoption of HR practices, there remains a need to understand the current state of HRM development in Vietnam. Using a semantic analysis approach, we systematically analyzed the themes and concepts from 100 journal articles related to HRM in Vietnam, selected from academic databases between 1984 and 2013. The main study findings show that the development of HRM is associated with the key stages of economic development in Vietnam.