Using Local Cuisines when Promoting Small Caribbean Island Destinations

This study compares how four Caribbean small islands—Aruba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Martinique—use their authentic cuisines to promote their destinations. Brochures, catalogs, websites, and other promotional materials for each destination were content analyzed. Although all four destinations seem to use their authentic cuisines for tourism promotion, key differences exist among these islands in their marketing and promotional strategies. Martinique appears to use its local cuisine most aggressively, using a combination of locally prepared foods, cocktails, rum, fruits, and vegetables to visually portray this aspect of the country's heritage. Jamaica, in contrast, uses mainly fruit and vegetable imagery. The study findings suggest a need for these four Caribbean island destinations to develop expertise in culinary tourism, followed by promotion through brochures, catalogs, websites, and other marketing materials.     

A green economy indicator framework for tourism destinations

This paper presents a green economy indicator framework for tourism destinations which has been developed in the case study destination of Bali, Indonesia. Whilst the term “green economy” can have many interpretations, here it refers to the global strategy framework surrounding Rio+20, as well as the policies and strategies being developed by tourism destinations as a response. Many uncertainties remain about the effectiveness of these efforts and how they may be measured. For lesser developed countries in particular, reliable data is often difficult to obtain and this study uses a case study approach to identify the relevant, and measurable, indicators in this context. First, a nominal group technique was applied to identify the green economy issues for local tourism stakeholders. The indicators were then selected based on the green economy literature and a review of the available secondary data for the destination. Data on greenhouse gas emissions from tourism was identified as one of the critical gaps and an estimate is provided to show how this could be obtained and monitored. While this indicator framework was developed specifically for Bali, the case study may be relevant for many other island destinations in the lesser developed world that are experiencing rapid tourism growth.     

Demokratische Internet-Öffentlichkeit? Ein Vergleich der öffentlichen Kommunikation im Internet und in den Printmedien am Beispiel der Humangenomforschung

The importance of the internet has increased significantly in recent years. The easy access of this »new« medium sparked many hopes for a democratization of the public sphere and of public debate: Many authors argued that the internet will make actors and interpretations of topics visible to those parts of the broader public who are usually marginalized in »old« mass media. In an empirical analysis, we compared print media coverage and internet communication to assess these claims. For the case of human genome research — i.e. a bioscientific topic that reseived extensive media attention in Germany —, we analyzed which actors were given public standing and which frames came to the fore. In contrast to the claims mentioned above, our findings indicate that the debate in the internet does not differ to a significant extent from the offline debate in print media. We could not find a more egalitarian, democratic communication in the internet.     

An industrial policy: What does it mean?

Whatever industrial planning the U.S. has done has changed direction according to which party is in power and what theory of causation is currently popular. Before making another decision which can fundamentally alter the relationship between business and government, policymakers should consider in advance the implications of what they are doing.     

How do internal capabilities and external partnerships affect innovativeness?

How do a firm’s internal capabilities and external partnerships contribute to its product and process innovativeness? How do their impacts differ? Based on the theoretical framework of exploitation and exploration, we develop an integrative model linking the impact of both internal capabilities and external partnerships on product and process innovativeness. Survey responses from Taiwanese biotechnology firms indicate that research and development (R&;D), marketing, and manufacturing capabilities have different effects on product and process innovativeness. Of the four types of external partnerships, only partnerships with universities and research institutes seem to add value, whereas partnerships with suppliers, customers, and competitors do not contribute to innovativeness. Moreover, marketing capability and customer partnerships have a positive interaction effect on product innovativeness, while manufacturing capability and supplier partnerships have a positive interaction effect on process innovativeness.     

Double vision: Insights about the origin and interpretation of multiple IRRs

The ability of a project's internal rate of return (IRR) to quantify its economic return has been questioned by many scholars over the past 60 years, most recently by Magni (2010 Magni, C.A. (2010) Average internal rate of return and investment decisions: a new perspective. The Engineering Economist, 55(2), 150–180. [Google Scholar], 2013 Magni, C.A. (2013) The internal rate of return approach and the AIRR paradigm: a refutation and a corroboration. The Engineering Economist, 58(2), 73–111. [Google Scholar]). Although IRR is a plausible—albeit imperfect—measure of a project's economic return when the cash flow stream is conventional, IRR can be an untenable measure of an unconventional project's economic return. The goal of this article is to identify a simple, intuitive explanation of IRR, one that can be applied to any cash flow pattern. To do this, the article shows how a project's IRR systematically changes when it first crosses from the conventional into the unconventional realm (i.e., a small cash outflow is appended to a conventional cash flow stream) and then as it becomes progressively more unconventional. This process reveals that the most robust economic interpretation of IRR—for both conventional and unconventional projects—is that a project's IRRs are external benchmarks that divide the set of all plausible discount rates into positive and negative net present value (NPV) ranges, rather than internally generated returns. Because it can be difficult to estimate a project's cost of capital with precision, this information can help guide the sensitivity analysis of a project.     

How measurement systems act as employee motivators

A research project funded in part by APICS studied the relationship between measurement systems and how they motivate company performance. The research involved surveys, interviews, and a case project. This article will be a status update of the findings of this research.