A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF CHANGE IN THE ENGLISH NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

This paper reports the findings of a longitudinal comparative case study of three National Health Service (NHS) hospital Trusts in England, investigating the perceptions of clinical, managerial and accounting professionals towards changing cost accounting and performance measurement practices. It incorporates both qualitative and quantitative data analysis, and is based on a contextualist understanding of change management, utilising the content‐process‐context approach (Pettigrew and Lapsley, 1994) to investigate the influence of receptive versus non‐receptive contexts on change. The analysis reveals limited success in improving performance measurement practices (the content of change) in Trusts. Nevertheless the specific context within which change was operationalised was found to be very important, with central mangers playing a key role in influencing change. The process of change indicated slow shifts in clinical‐accountant‐managerial relations, partly driven by changes in financial flows within the organisations.     

Advancing destination image: The destination content model

Knowledge of the mental representations that individuals hold about tourist destinations are important to understand their intentions. These mental destination representations have often been investigated by applying the concept of destination image. This study argues that the extant literature is often rather atheoretical and lacks operational rigor. These are major shortcomings which undoubtedly hinder the development of academic and managerial insights. In response, this study draws on contemporary psychology to develop the destination content model, comprising three informational components held in individuals‘ minds about destinations. The present study further outlines preferable methods and measures for each component, thus aiding researchers to investigate mental destination representations.     

Intended destination image positioning at sub-provincial administration level in China

Tourism development is officially recognized by the Chinese central government as one of the strategic pillars of the country's economy. Hence, regional authorities are responsible for developing positioning strategies for their tourism destinations. This study investigates the following: (1) the variety of planned image positions among sub-provincial prefectures in China; (2) the commonalities of these image propositions across China and (3) the differences within and across the regions and provinces. This research is based on a representative sample of tourism development plans of 77 prefectural administrations. The texts (in Chinese language) were content analyzed and condensed in two steps into semantically similar terms and concepts. The results show that image-positioning objectives are generally lean in the planning documents lacking sophistication and creativity. The variety of used image terms tempts to believe in quite different positioning goals. Yet, from a compound perspective, this does not yield very distinct overall image positions.     

Technological content of exports

A large body of literature argues that the characteristics of exports matter for economic growth and development because some goods trigger positive externalities or are subject to increasing returns. Thus, for policy purposes, it is important to know whether a country’s export basket enjoys these productive opportunities. They have been associated with technological content of exports. However, measuring them is not easy. Previous methodologies to account for exports’ technological content used either R&;D data or trade data. The former is used to account for knowledge-intensive activities during the production phase and the latter to identify levels of ‘sophistication’ of exports based on exporting countries’ characteristics. Building on these contributions, this paper combines industry-based and product-based indicators to circumvent some of the shortcomings of the received literature, including the product-industry controversy (i.e. are the actual activities during the production process or the product characteristics what better accounts exports’ technological content?). We use data from Uruguay on direct and indirect R&;D spending from public and private sources and also trade data to build the sophistication index corrected by quality. We contrast our findings with existing methodologies to highlight our contribution.     

The 7th Asia-Pacific CHRIE Conference

Despite the increase in use of user-generated electronic content as an information source by tourists, its influence in destination image formation is not yet fully understood. This research aimed to explore the communicated destination image held by tourists to Zanzibar Island (Tanzania) by utilizing communications in Lonely Planet. Content analysis of 214 posts using TextSTAT yielded 13 destination attributes. Comparatively, functional attributes were dominant in potential tourists whereas post-travel image perception was dominated by psychological attributes. Those who have visited tended to have a positive image of the island compared with those who are planning to visit the island. The results necessitate the differential use of the functional- and psychological-based information in communicating with tourists at different information-search stages. Studies to capture communications in another language are recommended as well as the employment of methodologies that might reveal hidden images held by tourists.     

高职高专旅游英语教学中跨文化交际能力的培养

语言是文化的裁体,文化支配着语言。不同文化背景的人们在交际的过程中,由于文化差异,交流双方很容易产生文化障碍。要获得跨文化交际的最佳效果,我们不仅要掌握语言本身的规律,更要了解语言所承载的深刻文化内涵,通过一些手段来培养学生的跨文化交际能力。     

Designing the content of advertising in a differentiated market

In many markets, consumers use attribute information to assess the value they expect from purchasing a product or service. This includes many low involvement experience goods including take-out food, many packaged good categories and restaurants. In these markets, quality differences exist but many differences are horizontal in nature: the consumer is interested in finding a product that meets her unique tastes. Beyond ensuring that consumers know the brand, the category and the price; it seems advertising should provide consumers with attribute information. However, a significant proportion of advertising does not provide it. In fact, within the same category, competitors respond to messages that emphasize detailed attribute information with messages that are devoid of attribute information. These messages are uninformative about product attributes. We explore how competition in a differentiated market is affected by the ability of a firm has to choose uninformative messages. We construct a model to investigate the factors that affect a firm’s decision to use advertising with detailed attribute information or advertising that does not provide it. The model demonstrates that content decisions about advertising are affected by the differences between products, the range of heterogeneity in consumer tastes and the degree to which costs increase as a function of the quantity of information in advertising. Surprisingly, even when the cost to increase the quantity of information in advertising is low, uninformative campaigns can be more profitable than campaigns with attribute information. The analysis also demonstrates that firms can be more likely to provide attribute information when there are less consumers that are attribute-sensitive. Finally, the model shows that uninformative messages can create “artificial differentiation” in some situations.     

逆比较优势进口高技术含量中间品与生产技术革新

科学刻画逆比较优势进口高技术含量中间品对生产技术革新的影响效应能为制定科学进口国外中间品和提升生产技术革新速度方面的政策提供有益参考,以剖析上述效应为目标的多维细致检验结果表明：首先,制造型和服务型中间品进口技术含量逆比较优势指数对生产技术革新的影响效应呈现倒U型,进口约2.5倍于自身比较优势水平技术含量的中间品能最大化中间品进口的生产技术革新功能,这一结论在多层面检验中均稳健成立。其次,中国中间品进口技术含量逆比较优势指数处于倒U型顶点的左侧正效应区间。对于动态比较优势持续提升的中国而言,在处理好“卡脖子”风险的基础上,可适度提升中间品进口技术含量,以更好地发挥中间品进口的生产技术革新功能。最后,倒U型效应具有非常强的稳定性,多维外部冲击均无法撼动倒U型效应。为此,倒U型效应可谓协调中间品进口和生产技术革新间关系的“铁律”。     

提高女生体育成绩的研究

根据我校40名女生体育课成绩的调查统计,女学生在各项目中丢失分主要有心理、教学内容等方面的原因,教师应加强对女生的心理训练,改进教学。     

高校休闲体育课程内容设计解析——以湖南工业职业技术学院为例

体育课程内容设计是指依据一定的课程目标,将体育学科中纷繁的构成要素组合成具有某种特定的形式结构的活动。针对目前部分高校体育课程内容设计的比较和分析,以湖南工业职业技术学院为例,从课程内容设计的依据,课程内容的结构,以及课程内容设计的资源保障等方面解读和分析,主客观两方面因素决定着休闲体育课程内容设计的原则,目前高校体育课程结构设计确实存在问题,要发挥出课程设计的整体优势,课程结构各要素的完整性及其有机联系而形成的系统性是设计的实质核心;湖南工业职院以高校公体课＂三自主＂的原则为纲,开发灵活互动的＂三结合＂模式,以及学分制课程模式的基础上,所开设的休闲体育课程内容及结构符合休闲体育课程发展的方向;此外,课程资源的丰富和全面是课程内容设计得以顺利实施的保障。