Political hazards and entry modes of Chinese investments in Africa

Africa has achieved the fastest growth rate of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) recently. Yet heightened political hazards present substantial challenges to foreign firms in Africa. This study examines the entry strategies that firms may take to mitigate such hazards by exploring the relationship between political hazards and entry mode choices in Africa. We further consider how an investing firm’s host country experience and foreign aid provided by its home country government to host countries in Africa can influence this relationship. In a sample of listed Chinese firms’ investments in Africa from 2000 to 2014, we find that Chinese firms tend to use the joint venture mode when political hazards are high in an African country. This relationship is weakened when they accumulate host country experience and when the Chinese government’s foreign aid to an African country increases. Our findings point to firm-level strategies to mitigate political hazards as well as instruments available to home country governments to help their multinational firms operating in host countries characterized by unstable political environments.     

Digital sport entrepreneurial ecosystems

The entrepreneurial ecosystems literature has increasingly explored network relationships between different stakeholders, as well as the role of context. This article addresses the challenge of including a sport context in the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature thereby contributing to the sport entrepreneurship literature by bringing insights from entrepreneurship ecosystem research. In‐depth interviews of football stakeholders in the sport entrepreneurship ecosystem are conducted in terms of understanding the emergence of digital sport start‐ups. The issues raised help explore the changing nature of digital entrepreneurial ecosystems to take into account new sport technological advances. Mixed embeddedness theory is used as the conceptual foundation to understand sport digital entrepreneurial ecosystems. Key management practices are identified in terms of sport start‐ups participating in entrepreneurial ecosystems. The article concludes by making suggestions for future research.     

Are lodging customers ready to go green? An examination of attitudes,demographics, and eco-friendly intentions

This study attempted to answer the following research questions: (1) Do eco-friendly attitudes affect hotel customers’ environmentally friendly intentions to visit a green hotel, to spread word-of-mouth about a green hotel, and to pay more for a green hotel?; (2) If so, which facet of attitudes has the greatest impact?; (3) How do their expressed intentions differ across gender, age, education, and household income?; (4) How do such expressed intentions differ based on the existence of previous experience staying at a green hotel? A total of 422 cases were used to answer the research questions. Findings indicate that customers’ green attitudes are, in general, significantly associated with their expressed intentions to visit a green hotel, to spread word-of-mouth about a green hotel, and to pay more for it. Gender differences in such intentions were found, and the intentions were affected by their previous experiences with a green hotel. However, the eco-friendly intentions did not significantly differ across age, education, and household income.     

Meanings of leisure for older people: an Australian study of line dancing

In Australia and in many parts of the world, older people participate in line dancing. Our phenomenological study explored whether attending a regular line dancing class might offer a group of older people opportunities for active and successful ageing. Our research investigated the meanings and practices fostered in a community line dancing class in Melbourne. We gathered data via an interview with the teacher of the group, observation of a class and two focus group interviews with 25 members. Data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis that is reported thematically under headings of: Belief in the efficacy of line dancing, Physical and emotional benefits, YouTube clips as instructional reinforcement and promotion, and Socialising. The findings show that participation in the class offered older student’s opportunities for dance and music engagement, active and successful ageing, health and well-being, social connection and purposeful leisure. The teacher of the class modelled serious and successful leisure and advocates for dance as holistic training for older people. We position our participants on a continuum of leisure engagement that ranges from the casual to the serious. Further research is required to support arguments for the efficacy of dance as a leisure pursuit for older adults.     

Equal access to hospitality services for guests with mobility impairments under the Americans with Disabilities Act: Implications for the hospitality industry

The hospitality operator's obligation to comply with the ADA has provided the necessary impetus to ensure that hospitality services are provided in a non-discriminatory manner. The ADA requires modification of hospitality policies and procedures to ensure that guests with disabilities are provided services in a manner equivalent to those provided to able-bodied guests. This article provides the hospitality operator with a framework for training front-line employees and offers recommendations for analyzing how current policies and procedures could be modified in a way that limits potential liability as well as more effectively meets the needs of guests with mobility impairments.     

Environmental factors of food literacy in Australian high schools: views of home economics teachers

This study set out to examine environmental factors impacting on the food literacy of adolescents. It utilized data from a nation‐wide survey of home economics teachers regarding their experience of food literacy education in Australian high schools. Content analysis and the ANGELO framework were applied to analyse free‐text comments from 78 of the respondents that were collected as part of a more extensive data set. The analysis of environmental factors revealed three enablers and ten barriers that could influence food literacy education delivered by high schools in Australia. High schools are well positioned to improve adolescents’ food literacy through a comprehensive, hands‐on approach in home economics. However, many environmental barriers were reported that could influence food literacy education in Australian high schools such as: lack of teaching materials and facilities, and human resources; the perceived inadequacy of the Australian school curriculum; non‐supportive school canteens; and negative role modelling. This study points to the need to eliminate or reduce these environmental barriers impacting on the capacity for effective food literacy education in high schools to help adolescents increase their food literacy and thereby support them in making informed food choices.     

Linking Ethics and Risk Management in Taxation: Evidence from an Exploratory Study in Ireland and the UK

Ethical dilemmas involving tax issues were identified by members of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants as posing the most difficult ethical problem for them (Finn et al., Journal of Business Ethics 7(8), pp. 607–609, 1988). The KPMG tax shelter fraud case proves that the tax profession has not gone untainted in the age of numerous accounting and corporate scandals, such as the Enron débacle (Sikka and Hampton, Accounting Forum 29(3), 325–343, 2005). High-profile scandals serve to highlight the problems caused by differences in ethical judgement among accountants and tax practitioners and the issue of ethics has been brought publicly to the forefront of the profession. Nevertheless, the nature and dimension of ethical issues in tax practice have been largely unexplored (Erard, Journal of Public Economics 52(2), 163–197, 1993; Marshall et al., Journal of Business Ethics 17(12), 1265–1279, 1998; Frecknall Hughes, Unpublished PhD Thesis, The University of Leeds, 2002). This research aims to contribute to the debate on ethics in tax practice by reporting interview data on tax practitioners’ perceptions of ethics in the jurisdictions of Ireland and the United Kingdom and exploring the link or equation of ethics with risk management.     

The Persistence of Dominant‐Firm Market Share: Raising Rivals' Cost on the New York Stock Exchange

To explain the persistence of dominant New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) market share in stock trading of listed securities from 1992 to 2002, we develop a dominant‐firm price leadership model and hypothesize that NYSE specialists raised the costs of rival market makers. The model predicts that natural and induced cost advantages will determine the NYSE's market share vis‐à‐vis the regional exchanges, electronic trading systems, and NASDAQ dealers. Empirically, NYSE market share increases with economies of scale and scope, abnormal price volatility, high asymmetric information, and with trading practices that raise rivals' costs, such as failure to display limit orders that bettered the existing quotes.     

The Direct Contribution of FDI to Productivity Growth in Britain, 1997–2008

This paper considers the contribution of foreign‐owned plants and firms to aggregate total factor productivity (TFP) growth in Britain for 1997–2008 using data from the Annual Respondents' Database. The contribution of different sub‐groups is further decomposed to show the role of continuing plants vis‐à‐vis reallocations in output shares. TFP is calculated using system GMM estimation. Taking into account the smaller initial size of the foreign‐owned sector in 1997, foreign‐owned plants contributed relatively more to aggregate productivity growth than UK‐owned plants over the period. This strong performance is mostly the result of reallocations of output shares towards high productivity continuing plants and the opening of high productivity plants.