SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW OF TOURISM GROWTH NEXUS: AN OVERVIEW OF THE LITERATURE AND A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PAPERS

This study performs the first citation-based systematic literature review of the tourism-growth nexus. The citation analysis provides a bird's eye view of this literature, which, in turn, identifies the sources of knowledge in terms of most influential journals, authors, and articles. A detailed content analysis of 100 most influential papers has been generated on the nature of the study, variables used, country of analysis, type of analysis, the methodology, and the direction of causality. In total, 284 papers were found relevant in the Scopus database using a comprehensive list of keywords. The citation analysis reveals that Tourism Management is the leading journal with a total of 2527 citation counts, whereas Tourism Economics is the leading journal with a total of 41 publications on this topic. Juan Gabriel Brida is the most prolific author, whereas Lee and Chang (2008) is recognized as the most influential paper. The content analysis reveals that 58% have applied time series, and 38% have used panel data analysis. Tourism causing growth is the leading result of both time-series and panel studies. International tourism receipts/earnings/expenditure and the number of international tourist arrivals are the most widely used variables to measure tourism.     

Health and economic growth in high-income countries revisited: evidence from an augmented production function for the period 1980–2009

This paper uses time series data for seven industrialized countries from 1980–2009 to explore the causality between health care expenditure (HCE) and economic growth. We have set up a classical Cobb–Douglas production function including HCE, labor, capital, and an augmented function additionally including the number of patent applications (as a proxy for technology and research) and the total number of tertiary education students (as a proxy for education). Our results show that there is a long-run relationship between growth and HCE. As regards causality, in the classical production function, evidence for mutual causality between GDP and HCE is noted only in France, Germany and England, causality from HCE to GDP is noted in Italy and Japan, while no causality whatsoever is evidenced in Canada and USA. However, a completely different situation is unveiled when the augmented production function is used with mutual causality being noted in all perused variables. The novelty of our study lies first in that it contributes to the health-growth nexus literature for high-income countries which has been quite controversial and second it sets off new variables whose omission might be one of the reasons of the result dichotomy. Results of this study will be very useful for high-income countries currently afflicted by the economic crisis and embark on HCE curtailments or revisions.     

Safety alerts reduce willingness to visit parks irrigated with recycled water

This study demonstrates the effects of framing safety precautions on the presentation of a controversial product (recycled water [RW]) to the inhabitants of two Greek towns by asking them whether they would visit various configurations of a public park irrigated with RW. The same questions are posed in an additional version augmented with a safety alert. Among many others, results mainly show that willingness to visit (WTV) a park irrigated with RW or willingness to pay for RW decrease when respondents are confronted with the safety statement that ‘the irrigated parts are isolated and have been properly marked for the visitor so that he/she does not come into touch with RW’. Moreover, WTV does not decrease when there is previous experience with the park. The upgrade of RW from secondary to tertiary treatment is valuated only when safety alerts are present. The paper yields promotion insights useful for relevant utilities, organizations, and governments which are interested in forming a social marketing mix for this product while contributing to the theoretical and empirical understanding of framing effects with their experimental demonstration in the two case studies.     

Sustainability and branding: An integrated perspective

Sustainability is increasingly drawing the attention of scholars, policy makers, and companies, as the latter are recognizing the necessity and opportunities of implementing sustainable practices in their operations. Marketing plays a substantial role in both applying such initiatives and promoting them, which can be greatly supported through brands. We suggest that firms can use their brands to promote the value of sustainability to their industrial customers, consumers, and other stakeholders. This may be achieved through branding activities that emphasize the firm's sustainability practices and their impact on stakeholders. Expressing sustainability actions as the measurable and relatable outcomes they yield and associating them with brands have the potential to further facilitate this integration of sustainability and branding. A framework and guidelines for sustainability practices that may be employed in this process of integrating operations and marketing are discussed.     

A global food–energy–water nexus with heterogeneity,non-stationarity and cross-sectional dependence

We estimate the Food–Energy–Water (FEW) nexus for 21 countries worldwide, with data available from year 1990–2000 in order to investigate the relationship between food production and two scarce resources: energy and water. Food production is proxied by four alternative variables: The index of agricultural production, the index of crops production, the index of livestock production and the value added from agriculture. Water and energy as independent variables are controlled by methane and nitrogen emissions, capital, labor and five versions of fertilizer proxy: pesticides, insecticides, fungicides, herbicide and other. For robust estimation, we have perused a number of standard and novel panel estimators such as the common correlated effects mean group estimator and the augmented mean group estimator (AMG). These estimators can account both for non-stationarity and the cross-dependence problems. Based on standard estimators such as the generalized least squares estimator or the Arellano-Bond generalized method of moments GMM, they reveal the existence of a significant FEW nexus while the mean group estimator, the group mean DOLS estimator, the common correlated effects and the augmented mean group estimator (AMG) do not yield significant coefficients for water and energy. In the latter models only labor and pesticides are significant at 5%. Also, the unobserved total factor productivity appears significant at 5% under the AMG estimation. When significant, energy and water elasticities ranged from ? 0.001 to ? 0.256 and from ? 0.014 to ? 0.084 respectively.     

Evaluation of commercial weight‐loss programmes in Greece

The objective was to evaluate the success of commercial weight‐loss programmes and define areas that need development in the Greek weight‐loss industry. A total of 973 people (217 men and 756 women), all customers of the same slimming company, participated in the study. Subjects were enrolled in a weight‐loss programme that lasted for a year. Body weight (BW) and height was measured at baseline and at the end of the treatment. For 470 participants, BW was also measured 1 year after the end of the programme (follow‐up). We evaluated alterations in initial and final BW, as well in body mass index (BMI) categorization. Sixty‐six women were allowed to start the programme, although underweight and 47.3% of the participants enrolled with a normal BMI. At the end of the treatment, 124 persons were underweight. Most subjects with a BMI >40 at baseline remained at the same BMI category after the implementation of the programme; however, this was a small group (n = 8). Most subjects (67.3%) remained at the same BMI category after treatment. One year after the completion of the programme, all participants presented significantly higher BW compared with that at the end of the programme. Results suggest that economic gaining is the priority for weight‐loss companies in Greece. The employed staff in its majority is neither nutritionists, nor dieticians, but employees well‐trained on marketing, who are being paid accordingly to their sales. Thus, many customers who are either underweight or of normal BW are enrolled in weight‐loss programmes for the company's financial benefit and are sold programmes with the use of appliances of questionable scientific validation.     

Sibling rivalry: implications for the family business succession process

This paper deals with sibling rivalry dynamics and their impact on the succession outcome within family enterprises. While sibling rivalry plays a critical role in the succession process, there is only limited literature that addresses this important subject. This theoretical study reveals valuable insights on this topic and contributes to the existing literature. Particular attention is placed on parental behavior and attitude during childhood, sibling characteristics and the perception of parental fairness by the successors, which we advocate are the principal factors conducive not only to the emergence of rivalry among heirs but also to influencing the effectiveness of the succession outcome.     

The challenge of BPR to the information systems profession

This article explores the relevance of ideas emerging from business process re-engineering (BPR) for the information systems profession. The marginal role of this profession in conceiving and leading organizational change is examined. Against this background, current interest in BPR is seen as reasserting the challenge of incorporating an active engagement with organizational design into professional practices.     

Further insights on the relationship between SP500, VIX and volume: a new asymmetric causality test1

In the aim to explore the complex relationships between S&P500, VIX and volume we introduce a Granger causality test using the nonlinear statistic of Asymmetric Partial Transfer Entropy (APTE). Through a simulation exercise, it arises that the APTE offers precise information on the nature of the connectivity. Our empirical findings concretize the information flow that links volume, S&P500 and VIX, and merge the leverage effect and the asymmetric stock return-volume relationship into a unified framework of analysis. More specifically, when we condition on the tails, the detected causal channel provides empirical validation of the noise trading contribution to large swings in financial markets, because of the increase of trading volume and the subsequent worsening ability of market prices to adjust to new information.