Tourists’ happiness: are there smart tourism technology effects?

The purpose of this study is to develop a research model demonstrating tourists’ value-seeking processes through the tourism services and travel experiences of a destination. The model suggests that tourist happiness is assessed by tourists’ perceived experiences, which are formed by two motivational values: smart tourism technology (STT) and destination value. Despite a large quantity of research attention on destination tourism, the relation between tourists’ destination experience and STT has been less enthusiastically studied. Therefore, this study proposes to test an integrated model with attributes of STTs and destination values that contribute to tourists’ life happiness. The results of this study, from a survey of 191 foreign tourists in Seoul, South Korea, indicate that tourists are likely to put more value on what they perceived from their destination travel experiences than what they perceived from their experiences with STT services when they evaluate their overall happiness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Young Americans' ethnic identity toward disaster advertising: The effects of disaster location and message types

The purpose of this study is to examine young American donors' perspectives toward disaster ad messages. Attitude toward helping others, social responsibility, ethnic identity on donation behavior, attitude toward ad, and advertising effectiveness were examined using 2 experimental variables (disaster location and message types). The findings explain that the constructs are positively related to each other and the 2 experimental variables significantly influence young Americans' attitudes toward ads and advertising effectiveness. In addition, young Americans expressed stronger feelings concerning attitude toward charity ads, and a higher level of advertising effectiveness was demonstrated when the disaster occurred domestically. Further, emotional messages were considered more persuasive than factual messages. As managerial suggestions, when charities work for domestic disasters, emphasizing patriotism and an emotional message can increase the positive attitude toward ads and advertising effectiveness. On the contrary, when charities work for international disasters, the messages should focus on diminishing distinctions between in‐group and out‐group perceptions.     

Personalisation–privacy paradox: The effects of personalisation and privacy assurance on customer responses to travel Web sites

Personalisation refers to individualizing products, services, and contents according to customer interests and preferences. In order to deliver appropriate personalised offerings, firms inevitably need to collect rich customer data profiles. Prior research suggests that personalised services lead to positive customer responses such as increased willingness to disclose personal information and make purchases. However, another stream of research emphasizes negative outcomes of personalisation – namely, privacy concerns surrounding the use of personal information and associated negative effects on behaviour. The objectives of this study are twofold: (1) to examine how privacy assurance affects proximal outcomes of personalisation, such as perceived usefulness and privacy concerns; and (2) to identify the role such outcomes play in predicting customer behavioural responses, such as willingness to disclose personal information and make purchases. Our findings show that enhancing privacy assurance increases the perceived usefulness of services and decreases customer privacy concerns. Moreover, customer behavioural responses are positively related to the perceived usefulness of services and negatively associated with privacy concerns. However, despite the positive effects on perceived usefulness and purchase intentions, personalisation has no effect on privacy concerns and intentions to disclose personal information.     

Rural tourism quality of services: fundamental contributive factors from tourists’ perceptions

Despite the importance of quality of services in the rural tourism sector, it is somewhat surprising that little study has been done to delve into the fundamental contributive factors that contribute to quality of services from the tourists’ perceptions. This is the first known study undertaken with a view to understand the fundamental contributive factors (i.e. climate change, carrying capacity, relaxation environment, and community support) from the environmental perspectives that link with quality of services in rural tourism destinations. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed to the tourists who visited four study sites from Borneo Heights, Sarawak, and 215 were returned and used for analysis. To assess the developed model, SmartPLS 2.0 (M3) is applied based on path modelling and then bootstrapping. Interestingly, the findings revealed that tourists are more concerned about the changing of climate and relaxation environment at the destination. They also agreed that community support plays a significant role in the development of quality of services in the rural tourism. This study further discussed on the implications of the findings, limitations, and directions for future research.     

The role of perceived behavioural control in the constraint-negotiation process: the case of solo travel

This study extends the leisure constraint-effects-mitigation model to the perceived behavioural control (PBC)- constraint-negotiation model by adding PBC. Three competing models were tested to determine which model best fits the data. Results suggested that PBC mediates the relationship between motivation and negotiation, and there is a direct path from motivation to participation. Findings contribute to deepening and broadening the theory of leisure constraint negotiation because the new variable was successfully added to the original model and the model was extended to new settings (i.e. solo travel and non-Western).     

CEO political ideologies and pay egalitarianism within top management teams

Research summary : We examine the influence of CEO and compensation committee liberalism on top management teams (TMT ) pay arrangements. Given that politically liberal individuals tend to value egalitarianism, we test whether firms with liberal CEO s tend to (1) reduce pay dispersion among non‐CEO executives; and (2) reduce pay gaps between CEO and non‐CEO executives, and whether compensation committee liberalism moderates these relationships. We find some evidence of a direct effect of CEO liberalism on TMT pay arrangements as well as some interaction between CEO and compensation committee liberalism on the pay arrangements. This study provides a better understanding of the antecedents of TMT pay arrangements and empirical evidence showing the influence of values at the top of organization . Managerial summary : Do the values of the CEO and compensation committee influence the pay of other top managers? Our study provides evidence that political ideology affects top manager pay. We examine whether CEO liberalism produces more egalitarian pay arrangements among top managers, and whether the liberalism of the compensation committee affects that relationship. We find that CEO liberalism reduces differences in the total pay among top managers, but does not influence the difference between CEO total pay and the total pay of top managers. We also find that compensation committee liberalism strengthens the negative influence of CEO liberalism on differences in total pay among top managers. Finally, we find that CEO liberalism reduces the difference between CEO bonus pay and the bonus pay of other top managers . Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nonparametric Estimation of Oligopsony Power in First‐Price Auction

This paper proposes a nonparametric procedure to estimate market power for first‐price auction data and applies the procedure to cattle procurement markets. Most previous studies have used parametric methods, which require specific functional forms for retail demand, input supply and processors’ cost equations. However, researchers often find that market power estimates from parametric methods are sensitive to the choice of functional forms and specifications. An application to data from cattle procurement experiments shows that our nonparametric approach greatly outperforms commonly used parametric methods in estimating the degree of market power. While parametric estimates are sensitive to functional form specification and are at least 90% smaller than ‘true’ market power indices, estimates from our nonparametric procedure deviate from the actual value by no more than 25%.     

Impacts of Market Reform on Spatial Volatility of Maize Prices in Tanzania

Maize is one of the major staples and cash crops for many Tanzanians. Excessive volatility of maize prices destabilises farm income in maize‐growing regions and is likely to jeopardise nutrition and investment in many poor rural communities. This study investigates whether market reform policies in Tanzania have increased the volatility of maize prices, and identifies regional characteristics that can be attributed to the spatial price volatility. To achieve the objectives, an autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity in mean (ARCH‐M) model is developed and estimated in this study. Results show that the reforms have increased farm‐gate prices and overall price volatility. Maize prices are lower in surplus and less developed regions than those in deficit and developed regions. Results also show that the developed and maize‐deficit regions, and regions bordering other countries have experienced less volatile prices than less developed, maize‐surplus and non‐bordering regions. Our findings indicate that investments in communication and transportation infrastructures from government and donor countries are likely to increase inter‐regional and international trade, thereby reducing the spatial price volatility in Tanzanian maize prices in the long run.     

Who shapes network neutrality policy debate? An examination of information subsidizers in the mainstream media and at Congressional and FCC hearings

Recognizing policy-making process as a communicative process, this study examines who has subsidized information relating to the net neutrality policy debate. Empirical data has been collected from net neutrality stories published in four national newspapers, as well as from hearings by Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), during the period of February 2004 through January 2009. Study findings reveal that corporate interests have played a significant role in subsidizing information on net neutrality, both to the public through the mainstream media and to legislators through Congressional hearings. Furthermore, study results show that experts played a larger role in defining net neutrality through the mainstream media and FCC hearings than they did through Congressional hearings. Finally, the role of advocacy group representatives was more apparent at Congressional hearings than via the other two available information channels.