Rethinking social impacts of tourism research: A new research agenda

Understanding the social impacts of tourism on communities is extremely important for government at all levels so that action can be taken to reduce the likelihood of a community backlash against tourists and tourism development. Given that the residents of many tourism destinations are a fundamental part of the tourism ‘product’, resident attitudes and behaviour have a sizable impact on the success or otherwise of a destination. Research on the social impacts of tourism on communities is substantial and ongoing and while advances have been made in the area, the research has not addressed some of the deep seated issues faced by tourist destinations. This paper provides a critique of the social impact of tourism literature, highlighting the inadequacies in the research that has been conducted to date, which then leads to the development of a new conceptual framework. The paper traces the key developments in social impact research and argues that the predominance of quantitative methods potentially limits our ability to gain a more in-depth understanding of the impacts and how they influence both the host community and tourists. The paper finds that the quantitative focus from previous social impact research has led to a narrow understanding of the issues surrounding social impacts and proposes a new research agenda based on ‘layers’ of social impact understanding through the use of ethnography or phenomenology. The paper concludes with recommendations to progress social impact research beyond simply describing the issues towards explanations of why they occur by suggesting that social impact research examine, in greater depth, the values and intrinsic characteristics of the host residents.     

Solesolevaki as social capital: a tale of a village,two tribes,and a resort in Fiji

This paper advances understanding of the complex and adaptive nature of indigenous Fijian communities involved in tourism. It examines how tourism-related development has set the people of one Fijian village along two separate development pathways, and explores how preferential access to tourism benefits has created disparities within the community. Complex Adaptive Systems theory and Social Capital theory are used to conceptualise how over 40 years of tourism involvement has influenced development within an indigenous Fijian community. The findings argue that indigenous Fijian communities are non-homogeneous entities, which are constantly in transition, responding and adapting integratively to both internal and external changes over time. The findings show that the emergence of new behaviours and ways of life has led to the collapse of the pre-existing systems of social capital. As a response, community members retreated and regrouped, strengthening internal bonds and social capital in their smaller social units, leading to both dependency and opportunity-seeking behaviours among participants. Ultimately, the paper asserts that money alone does not lead to development, but rather tourism and access to a variety of capital do.     

In and out of everyday life through film experiences: an analysis of two social spaces as leisure frames

The new information and communication technologies have made it possible to view films in different spaces. Using the symbolic interactionist framework as a frame of analysis, we interpret the meaning of the two experiences of viewing technology-mediated films in the home and in the cinema. We conducted field research during the first half of 2009, digitally recording 16 interviews with research participants living in Barcelona (Spain). The interviews were transcribed verbatim with the help of voice-recognition software. Reports from our research participants indicate that individuals considered only the cinema experience to be a true leisure activity, while the home experience was interpreted as a routine recreational activity. Therefore, the meanings of the film-viewing activity were associated with the symbolic properties of the frames of interpretation. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings for the home as a unified centre where shared meanings are co-produced by family members.     

Social media affordances: Enabling customer engagement

Despite the acknowledged importance of social media for customer engagement, our understanding of this phenomenon is limited and new theories can help shed further light on the unique features of social media in the tourism context. Our work contributes to the literature by adopting an affordance perspective that leads us to identify three distinctive social media affordances for customer engagement in tourism: persistent engagement, customized engagement, and triggered engagement. Our work also extends prior research on customer engagement by examining the process of recognition (proprioception, exteroception and coperception) through which organizations engage customers in social media.     

基于产业集群视角的企业营销要素研究

区域营销是产业集群竞争优势的重要来源。根据产业集群产品和主要构成企业的特点,可以将我国的产业集群分为出口加工、高新技术、乡镇企业、工业园区四类。各类产业集群面临的机会和威胁也不同。在竞争激烈的市场环境下,只有协调运用群内企业各营销要素,才能使产业集群产生持久竞争优势。     

论社会保障的生命周期及中国的周期阶段

从国家保障、福利国家、强制储蓄和社会保险等主要的社会保障模式中 ,可以看到由产生、成长、高峰、衰退和消亡等阶段组成的社会保障体制的生命周期。中国的新社会保障体制在其生命周期上已经完成产生阶段 ,正处于成长阶段的中期 ,经过另外三十年左右的努力 ,将可以进入高峰阶段。为此 ,中国需要在社会保障体制的改革和建设中对农村保障、养老保障、失业保障和医疗保障诸方面 ,付出一系列特殊而具体的努力     

浅谈企业社会责任与企业绩效的关系

企业的社会责任要求企业必须超越把利润作为唯一目标的传统理念,强调在企业管理过程中对人的价值的关注,强调对员工、客户、股东,对环境、社会的贡献。本文在理解社会责任及企业绩效的基础上,以上海某公司为研究实例,分析了该公司承担社会责任与其企业绩效之间的关系,为该公司及其他公司的社会责任的承担提供理论支持。     

Adoption of professional management in Chinese family business: A multilevel analysis of impetuses and impediments

Building upon the market, institutional, and cultural perspectives, this paper identifies the major impetuses and impediments that affect the professionalization of Chinese family business at the environment, firm, and owner levels. Our integrative framework projects that whether a family business owner will adopt professional managers is largely determined by the relative strength of impetus factors and impediment factors. We then discuss the possible governance choices under different configuration of impetuses and impediments. This theoretical framework is expected to help set the momentum for further conceptual exploration and empirical study in this area.

Product‐market strategy and the marketing capabilities of the firm: impact on market effectiveness and cash flow performance

We report on two studies (a single and a multi‐industry) that empirically investigate a nomological network of relationships between strategic business unit product‐market strategy (differentiation, cost‐focus, and product‐market scope), marketing capabilities (architectural and specialized capabilities, as well as their integration), and business unit performance (market effectiveness and subsequent one‐year objective cash flow), along with a series of controls. Addressing important lacunae in the resource‐based view our main research objective is to augment understanding of how critical firm‐level marketing capabilities enable the realization of strategy, thus, further advancing both the resource‐based view and more recent capabilities theorizing. Specifically, we test seven hypotheses and find strong evidence that both architectural and specialized marketing capabilities, and their integration, positively mediate the product‐market strategy and derived business unit performance relationship. In contrast to many extant studies, both survey and objectively measured data are combined, and because the secondary data collected contains both resource‐level (input) data and subsequent one‐year financial data, a higher level of confidence may be attributable to our findings. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘Globesity’? The effects of globalization on obesity and caloric intake

We examine the effect of globalization, in its economic and social dimensions, on obesity and caloric intake, namely the so –called ‘globesity’ hypothesis. Our results suggest a robust association between globalization and both obesity and caloric intake. A one standard deviation increase in globalization is associated with a 23.8 percent increase in obese population and a 4.3 percent rise in calorie intake. The effect remains statistically significant even after using an instrumental variable strategy to correct for some possible reverse causality and ommited variable bias, a lagged structure, and corrections for panel standard errors. However, we find that the primary driver (of the ‘globesity’ phenomenon) is the ‘social’ rather than the ‘economic’ dimension of globalization, and specifically the effect of changes in ‘information flows’ and ‘social proximity’ on obesity. A one standard deviation increase in social globalization increased the percentage of obese population by 13.7 percent.