The Moderating Role of Strategic Integration in Performance Improvement Through Purchasing Social Responsibility in Thailand

This research aims to understand the performance of purchasing social responsibility (PSR) through moderating effect of purchasing strategic integration. The results show that PSR directly influences purchasing performance, while the relationship between PSR and purchasing performance is partially mediated by organizational learning. Moreover, strategic integration negatively moderates the relationship between PSR and purchasing performance. This study suggests that the adoption of PSR affects the operations of both buyers and suppliers in a supply chain that further encourage organizational learning and increases purchasing efficiency. The results also show that organizations may realize this effect of PSR practices but may focus on other purchasing practices, which affects purchasing performance. Copyright © 2018 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wildlife viewing: The impact of money-back guarantees

Wildlife sightings are not always guaranteed. To address this risk, tour operators often offer a money-back guarantee as a refund mechanism. However, studies have overlooked the influences of such refund mechanisms on tourists' tour participation decisions and tourism revenue. We conducted choice experiments to examine the impact of such mechanisms using a case of Amami rabbit tourism in Japan. We found that the guarantee significantly influences the tourists’ decision-making and tour revenue. In particular, we found that the expected tourist participation rate and tour guide revenue vary drastically depending on the probability of the rabbit encounter. The maximum expected revenue from the tour with a 90% chance was about 20 times larger than that with a 10% chance. This indicates that conserving wildlife to maintain the sighting probability raises tour benefits, creating a win-win situation by balancing conservation and tourism development.     

Bubbles for Fama

We evaluate Eugene F. Fama's claim that stock prices do not exhibit price bubbles. Based on US industry returns (1926?2014) and international sector returns (1985?2014), we present four findings (1) Fama is correct in that a sharp price increase of an industry portfolio does not, on average, predict unusually low returns going forward; (2) such sharp price increases predict a substantially heightened probability of a crash but not of a further price boom; (3) attributes of the price run-up, including volatility, turnover, issuance, and the price path of the run-up, help forecast an eventual crash; and (4) these attributes also help forecast future returns. Results hold similarly in US and international samples.     

Place attachment,host–tourist interactions,and residents’ attitudes towards tourism development: the case of Boa Vista Island in Cape Verde

A clear understanding of residents’ attitudes towards tourism development and its determinants is a crucial pillar for designing tourism development strategies to promote sustainable development. The literature on the influence of host–tourist interactions and place attachment on residents’ attitudes towards tourism development in developing countries is still scarce. To extend knowledge in this field, this study aims at developing and testing a structural model to examine direct and indirect causal effects of place attachment, host–tourist interaction, and perceived positive and negative tourism impacts on the residents’ attitudes towards tourism development in an island tourism destination – Boa Vista Island in Cape Verde. Results suggest that the residents’ attitudes are positively affected by place attachment, host–tourist interaction, and perceived positive impacts; and negatively affected by perceived negative impacts. Host–tourist interaction emerges as the strongest (direct and indirect) determinant of the residents’ attitudes towards tourism development. Moreover, although both positive and negative perceptions of tourism impacts have significant impacts on the residents’ attitudes, the influence of the former is stronger than that of the latter. The paper ends with relevant theoretical and practical implications to promote positive residents’ attitudes towards tourism development in Boa Vista.     

Assessing the welfare effects of congestion charges in a real world setting

The standard textbook analysis shows that drivers as a group lose from congestion charges. However, it omits taste heterogeneity, shorter travel times far out in the larger network arising from less blocking back of upstream links and the possibility for drivers to reschedule. Taking account of these factors, using a dynamic scheduling model with heterogeneous users we find that all three add significantly to the benefit of the Stockholm congestion charges and that drivers as a group benefit from these charges even without recycling of revenues. This paper also provides an update on the consumer benefits of the Stockholm charges.     

Integration of financial and management accounting systems: The mediating influence of a consistent financial language on controllership effectiveness

Two fundamental options exist for management accounting system (MAS) design: Either financial records can be used as a database for management accounting (integrated accounting system design), or the MAS can be based upon a separate system, i.e., a third set of books beside financial and tax accounting records. Since the 1990s, many German-speaking firms have changed from the second to the first option, which has instigated a highly controversial debate.Our paper contributes to this debate by empirically analyzing (1) whether the integration of financial and management accounting has a positive impact on controllership effectiveness, and (2) what causal inferences relate both variables. We use structural equation modelling for a sample of 149 dyads surveyed from German top 1500 firms. We identify no significant effect of the technical aspects of MAS integration, but a fully mediating influence of a consistent financial language on controllership effectiveness. Our results thus imply that consistency with financial reporting is an important property of MAS design from management's point of view.     

Promoting cost efficiency and uniformity in parcel delivery centre locations and service areas: a GIS-based analysis

This paper provides a systematic framework to determine local delivery centre (LDC) locations and service areas to reduce delivery costs and balance the allocation of parcel delivery loads to promote sustainable LDC development. Based on a case study of a parcel distribution company in Korea, this study proposes two strategies for LDC service area delineation within each terminal service boundary that either minimises the total delivery time or balances the allocation of delivery loads. This research contributes to improving cost efficiency and balancing delivery load allocations in planning LDC locations and service areas that can potentially promote the long-term mutual sustainable development of parcel distribution companies and their local delivery counterparts.     

The determinants of household recycling: social influence,public policies and environmental preferences

Our article aims at understanding the determinants of households’ selective waste-sorting behaviours, based on data from an original survey of 694 individuals in the French Provence–Alpes–Côte d’Azur region. The applied literature focuses mainly on countries with high recycling rates. We focus on a region with the lowest recycling rate in France, a country that recycles less than the European country average. We first apply polychoric principal components analysis to reduce the number of explanatory variables to a set of six factors. In a second step, we use a probit model to estimate the probability of waste sorting as a function of these factors. This model tests several hypotheses emerging from the recent literature on behavioural economics applied to households’ selective sorting. This literature pays particular attention to the social influence on recycling behaviour, which has been studied mostly by sociologists and psychologists. The results of our empirical analysis confirm some of the findings in the literature. However, they also highlight some unique features, such as social influences having a negative impact on recycling. This finding contrasts with most of the literature, which finds a positive relationship of social influence on pro-environmental behaviour.     

System dynamics modelling and forecasting health tourism demand: the case of Russian resorts

This article presents the results of the system dynamics modelling of the regional market of health tourism in the Krasnodar region of Russia. The research was based on various indicators characterizing the supply and demand for this type of tourism for years 2006–2012. The medium-term forecast made by constructed model shows a possible decrease in number of health tourists and income of sanatorium organizations. Price competition of inexpensive foreign resorts was a key factor influencing the market of tourist services; therefore ruble devaluation to US dollar may improve the prognostic indicators.