An investigation of problem-solving support and relaxation motivations on e-WOM

As a consequence of greater computer-mediated consumer-to-consumer communication within the firm's marketing communications, there has been a growing need to understand these digital interactions more explicitly. That is, we still know little about the exact extrinsic and intrinsic motivations that drive electronic word-of-mouth. The purpose of the paper is to better understand why members within community-based websites develop a need to exchange and/or develop a social bond within the community. Questionnaire data were gathered from 147 members of an online beauty forum in Australia. The findings highlight that those members seeking problem-solving support in combination with elements of relaxation will be more inclined to exchange with other community members and develop a social bond within that community. Marketing managers can capitalise these findings by strengthening problem-solving support systems and creating environments where community members can also relax and unwind to increase the exchange between members and also increase the social bonds within the community.     

Sustainable tourism planning and climate change adaptation in the Alps: a case study of winter tourism in mountain communities in the Dolomites

A vast body of literature suggests that the European Alpine Region is extremely sensitive to climate change. Winter tourism is closely related to climate variations, especially in mountain regions where resorts are heavily dependent on snow. This paper explores how to effectively integrate a climate change adaptation perspective with local discourses about sustainability and tourism, an increasing priority for policy-makers in the region and elsewhere. It reports on the development and application of a participatory decision support process for the analysis of adaptation strategies for local development of an Alpine tourism destination, Auronzo di Cadore (Dolomites, Italy). This experience significantly contributed to the idea that an efficient combination of modelling capabilities, decision support tools, and participatory processes can substantially improve decision-making for sustainability. The authors show that, in this case study, such a combination of methods and tools allowed for managing the involvement of local actors, stimulating local debates on climate change adaptation and possible consequences on winter tourism, encouraging creativity and smoothing potential conflicts, and easing the integration of the qualitative knowledge and the preferences of the involved actors with quantitative information. This contributed to an integrated sustainability assessment of alternative strategies for sustainable tourism planning.     

Why We Should Change Our Attitude Towards Distressed Firms

This article surveys ‘creditor‐friendly’ and ‘enterprise‐friendly’ bankruptcy regimes with a focus on the methodology underlying the filter test in distress, as reflected both in its academic treatment and in legal practice. I find that the test exhibits pro‐liquidation bias in designating liquidation of a firm with recovery potential as the Type II error, and in underplaying the benefits of a possible turnaround. Further influences militating against continuation include the power conferred on creditors through the balance sheet criterion and the undervaluation of intangible assets. I make the case for reversing such biases to establish a presumption in favour of continuation.     

Understanding Event Sport Tourism Experiences of Support Partners: A Research Note

The purpose of this research reflection is to set the stage for a more detailed research agenda in exploring event sport tourism experiences of support partners (SPs) during events. Using photo elicitation, the article presents a preliminary empirical case study. Visual materials were assembled by three female participants to interrogate how SPs experience “spectator space” and explore the processes that produced those experiences, an area of study that remains relatively unexplored in leisure research. Initial findings show how waiting to see the triathlete can be anxiety-provoking, but the release of emotion when smiles are exchanged constitutes core activities of being there. However, there are more questions than answers, and there is a need for further inquiry. Suggestions for future research on the impact of serious leisure on intimate others are given.     

Residents' place image: a cluster analysis and its links to place attachment and support for tourism

While there is a plethora of studies segmenting the lucrative tourism market, limited attention has been given to identifying potential segments of local residents based on their image of the place they live in as a tourist destination. This study aims to address this gap by (a) clustering local residents of a tourist destination based on their images of that place; and (b) identifying whether those image-based resident groups share similar/different levels of place attachment and intentions toward tourism (support for tourism, intention to recommend it to others). Analysis was based on a sample of 368 residents of Eilat, Israel. The findings suggest the presence of three resident groups with different images of Eilat – called Nature Aesthete, Appreciator, and Critical – and provide support that these groups exhibit dissimilar levels of attachment and intentions/behavior toward tourism. The Appreciator (residents with the most favorable image) were reported exhibiting higher levels of place attachment, support for tourism and were more likely to recommend their place to others as a tourist destination than the Critical (residents with the least favorable image). The implications of these findings to tourism theory and practice are discussed.     

Relationships of providing and receiving leisure social support to stress in older adults

Leisure has become a topic of interest in stress-coping research. This study examined the relationships between receiving leisure social support, providing leisure social support, leisure self-determination and leisure competence in older adults and their stress. A total of 639 community-dwelling older adults were recruited. Data were collected using face-to-face surveys, which included measures of leisure social support (receiving and providing), leisure self-determination, leisure competence and stress. Data were analysed using regression analysis. The results indicated that receiving leisure social support, providing leisure social support, leisure self-determination and leisure competence were significantly and negatively correlated with stress and that providing leisure social support was more significantly correlated with reduced stress than the other leisure factors. Implications of the results are discussed.     

A novel decision support model for satisfactory restaurants utilizing social information: A case study of TripAdvisor.com

Decision support models for satisfactory restaurants have attracted numerous researchers' attention. Many extant models do not consider the active, neutral and passive information in online reviews all at once. Moreover, they ignore the effect of interdependence among criteria on tourists' decision-making. To cover these defects, this study proposes a restaurant decision support model using social information for tourists on TripAdvisor.com. The model introduces fuzzy sets to denote online reviews and utilizes Bonferroni mean to consider interdependence among criteria. Furthermore, it uses a novel similarity measurement which can handle sparse data in fuzzy environments. To validate the model, we conduct a case study of TripAdvisor.com which compares the proposed model with four other models. The performance of each model is evaluated by the metric called the mean absolute error. The study shows that the proposed model can effectively support tourists' decision-making and it performs better than the other four models.     

Unraveling public support for casino gaming: The case of a casino referendum in Penghu

By integrating the social exchange theory (SET) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study unravels the factors associated with residents’ intention to support casino gaming development in Penghu in future referenda. Residents’ attitudes toward casino gaming development in their community were examined in the SET framework while their intention to support such development was investigated in the TPB framework. Despite that partisan difference did not have a significant interaction with TPB variables, past behavior exerted moderating effects determining residents’ intention to support casino gaming development through two TPB variables: subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. Implications are provided.

Abbreviations: ATTU: attitude; DPP: Democratic Progress Party; ECOI: perceived economic impact; ENVI: perceived environmental impact; INT: intention to support casino gaming development in future referenda; KMT: Kuomingtang; PBC: perceived behavioral control; PPB: perceived personal benefit; SET: social exchange theory; SN: subjective norms; SOCI: perceived social impact; TPB: theory of planned behavior     

农村老年人的生活状况与农村养老模式探析

随着人口老龄化的发展,老年人的社会保障问题日益引起关注,其中农村老年人的养老问题更显突出。本文从居住方式、经济状况、医疗状况、闲暇活动、养老方式与养老观念几个方面调查分析了农村老年人的生活状况,并以此为基础探讨了我国农村养老模式的现状与发展趋势。     

一种基于Radon变换的微表情识别算法

微表情是人们处在一些与平时生活环境不同的高强度环境下试图控制和掩饰的情感表现,也是一种不曾意识到的瞬时脸部表情,持续时间短,强度弱。为了提高其准确率,提出了基于Radon变换的微表情识别算法。首先,对数据库中的视频序列进行灰度归一化、尺寸归一化和二维主成分分析法（Two-dimensional Principal Component Analysis,2DPCA）降维预处理,使用光流法对降维后图像提取运动特征;然后使用Radon变换算法对光流图像进行处理,得到对应微表情的特征值和特征图像;最后使用支持向量机进行微表情分类识别。实验结果表明,使用Radon变换后得到的微表情特征图像得到了较好的识别效果,在微表情数据集CASME和CASMEⅡ上识别率分别为81.48%和82.17%,通过与选取的其他方法对比说明了该方法具有更好的识别性能。