Arctic ‘concessions’ and icebreaker diplomacy? Chinese tourism development in Iceland

This paper is based on a case study on a Chinese investment proposal in Iceland and sets out to explore the different ways in which actors from different backgrounds, with an extensive range of expectations and ideas of what a destination could and should be, produce and sustain ideas about tourism development. Our point of departure is how tourism represents a new globalised economic expansion possibly reflecting processes of empire building of days gone by. This research suggests that the conflicting worlds of Chinese investment plans, seemingly pregnant with imperial aspirations, core-periphery dichotomies, as well as contesting ideas of regional development, represent a need to begin re-thinking our understanding of tourism regional development from the perspective of what empires are.     

Executive compensation and goodwill recognition under IFRS: Evidence from European mergers

Based on principal agent theory we posit that managers account for a business combination opportunistically by recognizing goodwill in excess of its economic determinants. We examine the relationship between CEOs’ short-term cash bonuses and the amount of goodwill recognized in IFRS acquisitions. We find that with increasing cash bonus intensity managers recognize more goodwill. More detailed analysis indicates that this relationship is not a linear one. Instead, there seems to be a corridor in which CEOs are susceptible to the incentive given by bonus payments. In particular, the relationship seems to be fulfilled only for CEOs whose cash bonus is between 150% and 200% of their base salary prior to the acquisition. Our findings have an implication for companies that bonus caps should be introduced to limit CEOs’ bonuses to a given percentage of their base salary. By doing so, they may re-align shareholders’ and managers’ interests and avoid an increased impairment risk in the future.     

Experience and facilitating conditions as impediments to consumers’ new technology adoption

The recent proliferation of new technologies and impediments to their adoption has made predicting new technology adoption/use complex and challenging. This paper aims to compare the predictive ability of behavioural expectation (BE) and behavioural intention (BI) given such impediments. BE predicts an attempt to perform a targeted behaviour, whereas BI predicts the likelihood of actually performing a targeted behaviour. An online longitudinal experiment was designed to examine the effects of two contrasting sources of impediments to new technology adoption: experience (internal) and facilitating conditions (external). The results confirm the tendency of subjects, who responded to BI measures, to make overestimations when they think they have more control over the (internal) impediments, and to make exaggerated underestimations when they think they have less control over the (external) impediments. Moreover, it is found that subjects who responded to BE measures have a stronger adoption–use correlation compared to subjects who responded to BI measures regardless of the type of impediments encountered. This study offers a basis for marketers to increase the rate of consumers’ adoption/use of new technology such as mobile applications. The research identifies boundary conditions to the predictive ability of BE and BI in the context of mobile applications adoption/use.     

Back to basics in the marketing of place: the impact of litter upon place attitudes

Abstract

Attempts to apply marketing theory and principles to place have become a legitimate area of academic and ‘real world’ practice. However, place marketing does not typically incorporate all elements of the traditional 7 Ps, focusing far too often on just one of these – promotion. Besides this rather myopic approach, place marketing suffers from an overly strategic view of the world that ignores the meaning and lived experience of places to individuals, especially residents. The purpose of this article is twofold – first, we investigate the impact of litter on place attitudes. Litter is a common, but negative, element of place, which is intimately connected to the lived experience of a place but typically far removed from the positive promotional activity favoured by place marketing efforts and the study thereof. In this sense, the article reframes place marketing from a strategic to a micro-marketing endeavour. We found that exposing respondents to litter significantly lowers their place attitudes. Our second contribution is to demonstrate the relevance of classic marketing research approaches, such as attitudinal measures, to investigate litter and its impact on place evaluations, through quasi-experimental design (with 662 respondents). Through this, we extend the range of theory and method applied in place marketing – away from controllable promotional endeavours investigated through case-studies to a more holistic and robust interpretation of place marketing, which has a measurable impact upon the places where people live and visit.     

Monitoring Compliance with International Labor Standards: How Can the Process Be Improved, and What Are the Implications for Inserting Labor Standards into the WTO?

The Report of the National Academy of Sciences Monitoring International Labor Standards: Techniques and Sources of Information shows that assessing compliance can be carried out in a thorough, transparent fashion, allowing alternative evaluators to identify where they disagree in assessment. Drawing on the Report and written by the Chair of the Committee that produced it, this paper offers a short overview of the principal challenges in assessing compliance with the ILO core labor standards, and offers a simple framework for investigating compliance. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for trying to include labor standards in trade agreements.     

Addressing Uncertainty in Efficient Mitigation of Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The agricultural sector, as an important source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, is under pressure to reduce its contribution to climate change. Decisions on financing and regulating agricultural GHG mitigation are often informed by cost‐effectiveness analysis of the potential GHG reduction in the sector. A commonly used tool for such analysis is the bottom‐up marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) which assesses mitigation options and calculates their cumulative cost‐effective mitigation potential. MACCs are largely deterministic, typically not reflecting uncertainties in underlying input variables. We analyse the uncertainty of GHG mitigation estimates in a bottom‐up MACC for agriculture, for those uncertainties capable of quantitative assessment. Our analysis identifies the sources and types of uncertainties in the cost‐effectiveness analysis and estimates the statistical uncertainty of the results by propagating uncertainty through the MACC via Monte Carlo analysis. For the case of Scottish agriculture, the uncertainty of the cost‐effective abatement potential from agricultural land, as expressed by the coefficient of variation, was between 9.6% and 107.3% across scenarios. This means that the probability of the actual abatement being less than half of the estimated abatement ranged from <1% (in the scenario with lowest uncertainty) to 32% (in the scenario with highest uncertainty). The main contributors to uncertainty are the adoption rate and abatement rate. While most mitigation options appear to be ‘win–win’ under some scenarios, many have a high probability of switching between being cost‐ineffective and cost‐effective.     

Bribery and Corruption: the OECD Convention on Combating the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions

This article discusses the effects of the OECD Convention on Combating the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials, which was signed in 1997 and is due to be implemented by the signatory nation-states this year. The Convention represents the expansion of legal measures to combat the bribery of foreign public officials by individuals or corporations, and it has been accompanied by the Organisation of American States' Convention Against Corruption. Previously the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which applied only to United States individuals or corporations, 'stood alone in the world as a legal barrier to transnational bribery' (Low, Bjorklund and Atkinson 1998:245). This article proceeds in stages to evaluate implications of the Convention. Firstly the Convention is placed in the context of the increased focus on transnational business bribery in recent years. Second, the main points of the Convention are outlined. Third, the issues and problems posed by the Convention for business are discussed. Finally some themes regarding enforcement by the relevant authorities are outlined.     

Cost-utility analysis of levodopa carbidopa intestinal gel (Duodopa) in the treatment of advanced Parkinson’s disease in patients in Scotland and Wales

Aims: To carry out a cost-utility analysis comparing the cost-effectiveness of levodopa carbidopa intestinal gel (LCIG) with standard of care (SOC) in patients with advanced Parkinson’s Disease (aPD) unsuitable for apomorphine or deep brain stimulation (DBS). LCIG is the only treatment option in this small, but clinically important, population.

Methods: A Markov model with 25 disease states based on disease stage and off-time status plus death. Patients enter the model with aPD spending >50% of their waking day in the off-state. Patients progress through the model in 6-monthly cycles for 20 years to approximate lifetime treatment and capture long-term costs and effects of therapy. Inputs are based on LCIG clinical trials for clinical outcomes and health state utilities, the literature for health state transitions and use UK-based input data wherever possible (drug costs, disease/adverse event management costs, discontinuation rates, mortality rates).

Limitations: Data collection can be challenging in this small, elderly population with advanced disease, therefore some model inputs were estimated, rather than collected directly. It was assumed that a reduction in off-time was the only benefit after the first year of treatment with LCIG; this is a conservative approach, since there may be additional clinical benefits.

Results: There is a considerable incremental gain in quality adjusted life years (QALYs) for patients treated with LCIG of 1.26 QALY with an associated incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of £52,110. If the impact on caregivers is included, the ICER reduces to £47,266.

Conclusions: In cases where there is an orphan population, with no alternative treatment options, HTA assessments have a broader decision-making framework and the ICER is interpreted in this context. In the setting of a very small population, with considerable unmet need, LCIG represents value for money, as reflected by funding approval across the UK.