Environmental Scanning Practices of Travel Agent Companies in Singapore

The success of tourism firms relies heavily on their ability to adapt to the changing external environments. Environmental scanning, as the acquisition and use of information about external events and trends, has received greater attention in the tourism management literature. This study investigated the environmental scanning initiatives of travel agent companies in Singapore through a questionnaire survey. In total, 42 completed forms were returned from 319 invited firms. The findings discovered a positive relationship between the scanning frequency and the perceived strategic uncertainty of task environment. It was also found that human information sources were used most frequently for collecting environmental information due to their highest reliability, while electronic sources were under-utilized probably due to lack of computer-based information system and awareness toward the importance of online information.     

Guilt, Shame, and Reparative Behavior: The Effect of Psychological Proximity

Research has paid scant attention to reparative behavior to compensate for unintended wrongdoing or to the role of emotions in doing the right thing. We propose a new approach to investigating reparative behavior by looking at moral emotions and psychological proximity. In this study, we compare the effects of moral emotions (guilt and shame) on the level of compensation for financial harm. We also investigate the role of transgressors’ perceived psychological proximity to the victims of wrongdoing. Our hypotheses were tested through a scenario based questionnaire on a sample of 261 participants. Analyses indicate that (1) guilt has a stronger effect on the level of compensation than shame; (2) psychological proximity influences the level of guilt, shame, and compensation; and (3) shame interacts with psychological proximity to predict compensation, whereas guilt mediates the relationship between psychological proximity and compensation.     

PROMETHEE Group Decision Support System and the House of Quality

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a multi-step method that monitors customer needs throughout a product development process. The House of Quality (HOQ) exercise undertaken in the first phase of QFD is considered as the most important, since customer needs must be accurately translated into a set of technical requirements for the final product. This paper provides a PROMETHEE group decision support system (GDSS) approach that integrates the design preferences of the QFD team. We highlight the selection and ranking of the technical requirements in the HOQ exercise, where a group of multidisciplinary decision makers (DMs) in a globally dispersed QFD team is required to input their individual preferences. Our approach advances the HOQ group decision making context in three important areas. First, it treats each criterion and DM as unique in terms of the preference function and threshold levels. Second, it seeks a multi-criteria approach for the HOQ process, where some DMs may play a more important role than others on a certain criterion. Third, sensitivity analysis through the Geometrical Analysis for Interactive Assistance (GAIA) plane provides valuable information about the conflicts, similarities, or independencies between the criterion and the DMs, respectively. A case on an automotive part illustrates the performance of the PROMOTHEE approach with GAIA.     

Behind the veil: an exploratory study of the myths and realities of women in the Iranian workforce

Despite significant advancements, women executives and professionals have continued to complain about the existence of a glass ceiling in the UK, the USA, Canada and other countries that espouse equal employment opportunities. Little is known about the role and plight of women in the workforce in Islamic countries. In general, Western societies perceive the participation of women in the workforce and their upward career mobility as very limited in Islamic societies. This article seeks to address this limitation in the field by unravelling some of the myths and realities pertaining to women in the Iranian labour force. Based on interviews with 12 Iranians, reality checks were performed on five widely held perceptions of the status of women in Iran, including women's participation in the labour force, appointment to managerial/professional positions, representation in higher education, segregation in the workplace, and Islam's attitude towards non‐Muslims. These issues are discussed in the contexts of foreign direct investment in Iran and other Islamic countries. Implications for international human resource management, including the assignment of women expatriates to Iran and other Islamic nations, are also addressed.     

Investigation of a New Hybrid Optimization Algorithm Performance in the Optimal Operation of Multi-Reservoir Benchmark Systems

Water Resources Management - Reservoirs’ optimal operation is a critical issue in the management of surface water resources. In the present study, after combining the whale optimization...     

Hydrological Assessment of the 1973 Treaty on the Transboundary Helmand River,Using the SWAT Model and a Global Climate Database

Exploitation of the water resources of the Helmand River has been challenging for Iran and Afghanistan. Debates on this issue finally led to a treaty in 1973 between the two countries, in which a total amount of 26 m³/s water from the Helmand River should be delivered to Iran in a normal (or an above normal) water year. The treaty also specifies that a “normal water year” means the year during which the total volume of water at the hydrometric station of Dehrawud (upstream of the Kajakai Dam) is 5661.7 million cubic meter (MCM). This paper aims to assess the long term hydrological conditions of the Upper Helmand River, to detect the occurrence of any non-stationary process in its streamflow time series and compare the possible changes with the content of the 1973 water treaty. Due to very date scarce situation of this region, the SWAT (Soil & Water Assessment Tool) model and CRU (Climatic Research Unit) global dataset were applied to create the long term time series. The results showed that there has been no significant change in annual mean flows in the Upper Helmand River basin. However, there is a consistent increase in monthly flows from November to February and a decrease of the flows in June and July. The monthly changes can be attributed to an increasing trend in temperature in the study area, earlier snowmelts during winter and less snow pack in summer. The applied methodology of this study is useful to cope with the region’s data scarcity and can be applied for similar studies requiring long term time series of hydrological variables.     

A new measure of association between random variables

We propose a new measure of association between two continuous random variables X and Y based on the covariance between X and the log-odds rate associated to Y. The proposed index of correlation lies in the range [\(-1\), 1]. We show that the extremes of the range, i.e., \(-1\) and 1, are attainable by the Fr\(\acute{\mathrm{e}}\)chet bivariate minimal and maximal distributions, respectively. It is also shown that if X and Y have bivariate normal distribution, the resulting measure of correlation equals the Pearson correlation coefficient \(\rho \). Some interpretations and relationships to other variability measures are presented. Among others, it is shown that for non-negative random variables the proposed association measure can be represented in terms of the mean residual and mean inactivity functions. Some illustrative examples are also provided.     

Development of a Non-stationary Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (NSPEI) for Drought Monitoring in a Changing Climate

In a changing climate, drought indices as well as drought definitions need to be revisited because some statistical properties, such as the long-term mean, of climate series may change over time. This study aims to develop a Non-stationary Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (NSPEI) for reliable and robust quantification of drought characteristics in a changing climate. The proposed indicator is based on a non-stationary log-logistic probability distribution, assuming the location parameter of the distribution is a multivariable function of time and climate indices, as covariates. The optimal non-stationary model was obtained using a forward selection method in the framework of the Generalized Additive Models in Location, Scale, and Shape (GAMLSS) algorithm. The Non-stationary and Stationary forms of SPEI (i.e., NSPEI and SSPEI) were calculated using the monthly precipitation and temperature data of 32 weather stations in Iran for the common period of 1964–2014. The results showed that almost at all the stations studied, the non-stationary log-logistic distributions outperformed the stationary ones. The AICs of the non-stationary models for 97% of the stations were lower than those of the stationary models. The non-stationary models at 90% of the stations were statistically significant at the 5% significance level. While SSPEI identified the long-term and continuous drought and wet events, NSPEI revealed the short-term and frequent drought/wet periods at almost all the stations of interest. Finally, it was revealed that NSPEI, compared to SSPEI, was a more reliable and robust indicator of drought duration and drought termination in vegetation cover during the severest drought period (the 2008 drought). Therefore, it was suggested as a suitable drought index to quantify drought impacts on vegetation cover in Iran.

     

Performance of Different Surface Incoming Solar Radiation Models and Their Impacts on Reference Evapotranspiration

Reference evapotranspiration (ET₀) from FAO-Penman-Monteith equation is highly sensitive to the surface incoming solar radiation (SISR) and therefore accurate estimate of this parameter would result in more accurate estimation of ET₀. In this study, the accuracy of three main approaches for SISR estimation including empirical models (Angstrom and Hargreaves-Samani), physically-based data assimilation models (Global Land Data Assimilation System-Noah, GLDAS/Noah, and National Centers of Environmental Predictions/National Center for Atmospheric Research, NCEP/NCAR), and a satellite observation model (Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring, CM-SAF) were evaluated using ground-based measurements from 2012 to 2015. Then SISR outputs from introduced approaches were implemented in FAO-Penman-Monteith equation for ET₀ estimation on daily and monthly basis. The Angstrom calibrated model was the most accurate model with a coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.9 and standard error of estimate (SEE) of 2.58 MJ. m^?2. d^?1, and GLDAS/Noah, Hargreaves-Samani, NCEP/NCAR, and CM-SAF, had lower accuracy, respectively. However, the lack of the meteorological data and required empirical coefficients are the main limitations of applying the empirical models, however, satellite-based approaches are more practical for operational purposes. The results indicated that, in spite of slight overestimation in warm months, GLDAS/Noah model had better performance with R²=0.87 and SEE?=?3.5 MJ. m^?2. d^?1 in case of lack of meteorological data. The accuracy of ET₀ derived from FAO-Penman-Monteith equation was directly depended on the accuracy of SISR estimation. The ET₀ estimation error was related to SISR estimation error with a fourth-degree function and had a linear relationship with SISR error at daily and monthly scales, respectively.     

Do political connections affect the role of independent audit committees and CEO Duality? Some evidence from Malaysian audit pricing

This study examines whether political connection to firms affects the association between audit committee independence and demand for higher quality audits. In line with Carcello et al. (2002), our findings show that there is a positive association between audit committee independence and audit fees thus supporting the hypothesis that more independent audit committees demand higher audit quality. However, we find that this relationship is weaker for politically connected (PCON) firms suggesting that the independence of audit committees in Malaysian PCON firms may be compromised. Additionally, we provide evidence that PCON firms that have CEO duality are perceived by audit firms as being of higher risk than CEO duality firms without political connection.