Study on the Degree of Importance of Convention Service Factors

ABSTRACT

As customers come to understand that service is one of the most important industry products, identifying customer needs and providing what they want will be essential to a successful approach in service-related industries. In consideration of the increased importance of service in the convention industry, this article identifies convention service factors and provides statistical analysis based on data from the actual industry. The results of this research will enhance an understanding of the factors used by customers to evaluate the quality of convention service and help planners improve their performance in the planning of conventions.     

Examining strategies for maximizing and utilizing brand prestige in the luxury cruise industry

The purpose of this research was to examine the antecedents and consequences of brand prestige in the luxury cruise industry in order to provide luxury cruise managers with practical strategies for maximizing and utilizing brand prestige. Based on the existing theoretical background, it was hypothesized that eight types of cruise experience factors influence the formation of brand prestige: food quality, service quality, staff/crew attractiveness, entertainment, ship facilities, ports of call, programs/places for children, and cabin quality. In addition, it was proposed that brand prestige can result in three managerial outcomes: well-being perception, customer brand identification, and brand loyalty. A conceptual model was developed and tested using the empirical data collected from 330 U.S. luxury cruise passengers. The results showed that all of the proposed hypotheses were statistically supported. The key theoretical/managerial implications that were derived from the analysis are presented and discussed in the last part of the article.     

Does conspicuous decoration style influence customer's intention to purchase? The moderating effect of CSR practices

Using an experimental research design, this study examines the main effect of conspicuous hotel decoration style on consumer purchase intention, and tests the moderating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and the mediating role of image perception on the relationship between conspicuous decoration style and purchase intention with Chinese consumers. The results indicate that decoration style had a critical role in explaining Chinese customers’ purchase intention. Specifically, a low conspicuous decoration style led to stronger customer purchase intention than did a high conspicuous decoration style. The relationship between conspicuous decoration style and customer purchase intention was found to be fully mediated by image perception. The findings emphasize the significance of CSR in influencing Chinese customers’ purchase intention with hotels of a highly-conspicuous decoration style. Externally oriented CSR practices (i.e., corporate philanthropy, environmental protection) were found to be more significant in moderating the relationship between conspicuous decoration style and purchase intention than internally oriented CSR practice (i.e., employee treatment). Hotels engaging in philanthropy and environmental protection, can not only elicit a positive response from consumers, but also help mitigate the risks of a loss of organizational legitimacy as a result of high conspicuous decoration.     

Risk management strategies - before Hominization and after

Selected examples, ranging from birds to pastoralistic nomads and subsisting peasants, indicate that the higher animals adopt foraging strategies similar to individual decision makers in economies without market (subsistence economies): in contrast to actors in (ideal neoclassical) market economies, maximizing expected utility, they operate in such way as to optimize long-term survival of genetically related groups. This can be seen as a strategy of (maximum) ruin avoidance, played by 'selfish genes'. In the sense of conjectural history the parallelism between risk behaviour of animals and early men may be regarded as the continued existence of principles of natural evolution beyond hominization up to the historical emergence of complex societies where pursuit of surplus production replaced ruin avoidance as the primary orientation in the older subsistence economies.     

企业员工薪酬公平感的中介作用:基于金钱崇拜与组织公民行为的关系

选取297名企业员工为样本, 通过问卷调查, 分析企业员工金钱崇拜心理与其组织公民行为之间的关系, 并探讨薪酬公平感在金钱崇拜与组织公民行为关系中的中介作用。结果表明: 员工金钱崇拜与组织公民行为之间显著正相关;员工薪酬公平感对金钱崇拜与组织公民行为关系起到部分中介作用。     

身份“差序格局”的测量及其效应研究

文章以文献研究和深度访谈为基础,结合问卷调查所获的数据资料,编制了员工身份“差序格局”问卷。274份有效问卷的探索性因子分析表明,身份“差序格局”包括经济剥夺感、差序对待感和权力偏移感3个维度。为了进一步验证身份“差序格局”的构想效度,并考察问卷的信度与校标效度,对74家企事业单位进行了调查,获得了519份有效问卷。验证性因子分析结果支持身份“差序格局”问卷的结构,信度和多元回归分析的结果显示,身份“差序格局”问卷具有较好的信度和效度。最后,结合本土文化情境,围绕身份“差序格局”对组织不公正、组织负向认同、伤感度和反生产行为的差异化效应及其诱因进行分类梳理,强化了身份“差序格局”结构的说服力和解释力。     

The perception of biotechnology in agro-forestry: The opinion of undergraduates and researchers

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) cropping promoted by different researchers, and the subsequent crisis regarding the safety of food derived from them, has resulted in strong public mistrust towards the authorities, both scientific and political. The aim of this work is to investigate the perception of Italian undergraduates and researchers towards the introduction of GMOs in agro-forestry. The factors determining attitudes towards GMOs were examined by means of 66 questions divided into three units: Knowledge, Opinon, Trust. Anagrafic and socio-cultural information were also analyzed. Data was processed through a multivariate analysis approach. The hierarchical clustering on undergraduates and researchers allowed to distinguish clusters of respondents skilled in biotechnology from those skilled in off-topic disciplines. Principal component analysis and K-means demonstrated that the positive or negative opinion toward GMOs, as for undergraduates, does not depend on their knowledge, but it is associated with the level of trust in the institutions. On the contrary, for researchers, it is related to their expertise level, without any linkage to trust in the institutions. This type of study may represent a key step for understanding the social, economic and scientific components underlying the choices of citizens, communities and society about GMOs.     

Latent vs. Observed Variables: Analysis of Irrigation Water Efficiency Using SEM and SUR

In this paper we compare conceptualising single factor technical and allocative efficiency as indicators of a single latent variable, or as separate observed variables. In the former case, the impacts on both efficiency types are analysed by means of structural equation modeling (SEM), in the latter by seemingly unrelated regression (SUR). We compare estimation results of the two approaches based on a dataset on single factor irrigation water use efficiency obtained from a survey of 360 farmers in the Guanzhong Plain, China. The main methodological findings are that SEM allows identification of the most important dimension of irrigation water efficiency (technical efficiency) via comparison of their factor scores and reliability. Moreover, it reduces multicollinearity and attenuation bias. It thus is preferable to SUR. The SEM estimates show that perception of water scarcity is the most important positive determinant of both types of efficiency, followed by irrigation infrastructure, income and water price. Furthermore, there is a strong negative reverse effect from efficiency on perception.     

Identifying and mapping the tourists⿿ perception of cultural ecosystem services: A case study from an Alpine region

Landscapes provide an array of services to society, from the provision of food and material, to the provision of cultural ecosystem services such as recreation, aesthetics or spirituality. Studies on cultural ecosystem services, however, remain rare and little is known about the spatial localisation of these services. In this study, we adopt and test a framework to identify and map the provision of cultural ecosystem services as perceived by tourists in an Alpine region, i.e. the region of South Tyrol in Italy. A photo-based questionnaire survey is combined with cartographical representations of landscape types to elicit hot and coldspot areas of cultural ecosystem service provision. We statistically test for influences of the land use type and the respondents' socio-demographic background on the tourists' perception of these services. The results show that different spatial patterns emerge for each of the investigated cultural ecosystem services depending on the distribution and extent of the landscape types to which they are related. In particular traditionally managed landscapes, small in extent and mainly scattered over large areas between 1000 and 2200 m a.s.l., are hotspot areas of aesthetic beauty, leisure activities and spirituality. In contrast, intensively managed landscapes, mainly located in the lowland plains of the study site, are considered to be more important for the provision of cultural heritage values. While the results suggest that land use type exerts the strongest influence upon tourists' perception, factors such as the respondents' perceived importance of the services, their gender, cultural background, environmental engagement and experience with the landscape play a significant but subordinate role. We conclude that the spatially explicit information about the provision of cultural ecosystem services can serve as a helpful basis for the design and further implementation of land use policies that acknowledge the high touristic value of traditionally used landscapes in mountain regions.     

The Methodology of Risk Perception Research

Risk perception is not strictly a matter ofsensory perception, but of attitudesand expectations. As such, it can be studied byreasonably well developed methods of attitudemeasurement and psychological scaling. Suchmeasurement needs to be applied in a pragmaticfashion, however, since the discussions of fundamentalmeasurement and requirements of scale levelsappropriate for various types of statistical analysis hasfailed in establishing a useful basis for empiricalresearch. The paper also discuses samplingprocedures and the response rateproblem. In risk perception work, there is usually abias involving too many respondents withan above average level ofeducation, but that variable tends to be weaklyrelated to risk perception variables. Finally,post-modern claims and their rejection ofquantitative methods are critically discussed.