Journey into Parenthood: Commodification of Reproduction as a New Tourism Niche Market

This article examines the phenomenon of viewing life cycle stages associated with reproduction as commodities, and how this has paved the way for developing and marketing new tourism products and experiences. It traces the genesis of this trend and provides a conceptual review of this development by way of four examples—“babymoons,” hotel baby programs, reproductive tourism, and procreation tourism programs. It argues that parents-to-be and new parents form a new tourism niche market, and that these new products occupy the moral boundary of tourism marketing—packaging up previously sacred and non-commodified events for tourist consumption.     

Understanding the Motivation and Travel Behavior of Cycle Tourists Using Involvement Profiles

Bicycle tourism is a growing niche tourism market which has potential economic, social, and environmental outcomes for individual participants and host communities. However, there has been a lack of research into heterogeneity of this market and their respective motivations and behavior. This article applies the concept of enduring involvement, in conjunction with tourist motivational theory, to segment and better understand cycle tourist behavior and intentions. A total of 564 completed questionnaires was collected from an online survey of bicycle club members in Australia. Respondents were segmented into five initial clusters by their level of enduring involvement. A number of significant differences were found on their travel motivations, travel behavior, and behavioral intentions, as well as their sociodemographics and cycling behavior. The results lend support to the application of enduring involvement in a tourism context to better understand the behavior of niche markets which include popular leisure pursuits. Recommendations as a result of the findings are made for product development and marketing communication, while future research opportunities are also outlined.     

后金融危机时代南通物流业群生态研究

现代物流业是国民经济发展的动脉和基础,其发展程度是衡量一个国家和地区综合竞争力的重要标志之一。本文从群生态的视角,分析了后金融危机时代南通物流业群落发展的优势与不足,提出了南通物流业群落发展的总体思路与战略。     

Strategic niche management: towards a policy tool for sustainable development

Strategic niche management (SNM) is a recently developed approach that could help induce a broad socio-technical transition towards more sustainable development. It is designed to facilitate the introduction and diffusion of new sustainable technologies through protected societal experiments in fields such wind energy, biogas, public transport systems, electric vehicle transport and eco-friendly food production. A major challenge in SNM concerns the processes by which such experiments can evolve into viable market niches and ultimately contribute to a broader shift towards sustainable development. This paper sheds more light on this issue by systematically consolidating the main SNM studies, and by bringing in new insights from the literature that is in some sense complementary to SNM. These are studies on the development and commercialisation of radical innovations in large companies, and literature about infant industry protection and broader industrialisation processes in developing countries. A number of suggestions for implementing SNM are given.     

区域产业群落形成的生态位与聚集势

本文从复杂性系统自组织理论及生态物理学的视角,考察和研究了区域产业群落形成过程中产业生态位、产业集聚核、区域产业场、产业聚集势的作用和重要性,导出了产业聚集势及其势曲线随产业场的变化情况,在一定程度上分析和揭示了区域产业群落的生成机理和发展演化规律.     

Niche tourism attributes scale: a case of storm chasing

In spite of the rapid and large growth of niche tourism, and the proliferation of tour operators catering to such markets, limited information is available on the measurement of tour operator attributes that are critical to maximise the experience and needs of their tourists. Thus, a study was conducted to comprehensively evaluate different operational attributes of small storm-chasing tour operators. Findings reveal high internal reliability and utility for this niche market; additional testing is suggested to evaluate such scale among other small niche tourism operators.     

Conceptual niche management of grassroots innovation for sustainability: The case of body disposal practices in the UK

The grassroots has recently been identified as an alternative site for the development of innovations that may contribute to shifts towards more sustainable systems of consumption and production. While the characteristics of these innovations have been elaborated, it remains unclear how these alternative ideas and practices can be purposively supported to populate incumbent systems. This is especially so in light of the difficulty the grassroots face in connecting forcefully with the mainstream.This article will address this issue by outlining an adaptation of conceptual niche management - an approach that focuses on the embedding of guiding principles used to fulfill basic societal needs - that is sensitive to grassroots innovation. The framework will be applied to the current UK body disposal system to illustrate how such transformative sustainability ideas may be capitalised on.     

Commentary on Niman's Discussion of Competition and Progress

An entrepreneurial view of macroevolution is in line with thinking of natural selection as being more than just elimination of the unfit. Real innovation needs to be considered, and the ability to expand into new niches is crucial. Various factors tend to militate against change, some of which are intrinsic to the organism, whereas others depend upon the state of the economy. Evolutionary biologists have had some ideas about macroevolution, ecology, and physiological and anatomical innovation that are much more germane to such matters than most kinds of genetics.     

基于生态位模型的江苏省城市人力资源生态系统评价研究

人力资源生态系统是影响经济发展和人才流动的重要因素,准确评价人力资源生态系统有利于合理配置人力资源与优化人力资源生态环境。利用生态位模型,构建了城市人力资源生态系统评价指标体系,系统评价了江苏省13个城市的人力资源生态系统,并对城市人力资源生态系统聚类分析。研究结果表明：江苏省各城市人力资源生态系统的生态位值和综合评价值存在显著差异,并且城市聚类现象非常明显。苏州与南京为第一类城市,生态位值和综合评价值最高,有显著的综合竞争优势;第二类城市显现出“势”因子较强的牵引作用,尤其是在教育科技方面优势明显;第三类城市在经济发展指数、交通运输指数均处于较低水平,城市竞争力较弱。最后,提出了相应的对策。     

生态位在企业人才安全内涵探讨的应用

在探讨人才安全的涵义时,通过引入生态位原理,系统分析了企业人才安全的运行机理和基本内涵,指出企业人才安全就是企业人才系统与管理系统相匹配,从而达到企业和人才都能发展的动态平衡状态。并依据人才安全的运行机理,设计出切实可行的企业人才安全评价指标体系,然后运用模糊综合评判方法对实例进行验证,得出对企业人才安全的评价。