Dynamic managerial capabilities: Scale development and validation

Studies on dynamic managerial capabilities still have a rather theoretical nature, and there is great difficulty in finding a valid, reliable instrument to measure this construct. The present study contributes to solving this problem: It aims to develop and validate a scale to measure dynamic managerial capabilities. In this investigation, we develop a scale for three factors related to dynamic managerial capabilities: human capital, managerial cognition (already described in the literature), and relationship networks. The prominent finding in this research is the factor that is referred to here as relationship networks.     

Information and Knowledge as Antecedents of Consumer Attitudes and Intentions to Buy and Recommend Fair-Trade Products

The authors propose and empirically test a causal model to understand how the availability of fair-trade information and consumer knowledge about this issue affect consumers’ attitudes and intentions toward fair-trade products. The model is built upon the attitude-behavior paradigm and the premises of agency theory. It is tested through structural equation modeling with a sample of 292 Spanish consumers. The findings are that consumers do not have good knowledge about fair trade and that this is significantly determined by the lack of information about this in the market. It is also observed that consumers’ perceptions about the availability of fair-trade information have negative effects on their concern about this issue and that such information as is available is not effective in reducing consumer skepticism. The research represents an extension of previous fair-trade literature because the role of information and communication in improving consumer attitudes and buying intentions has rarely been explored in the case of ethical products.     

Evolution of indigenous tourism among the Lacandon of Chiapas: an application of Weaver’s model

ABSTRACT

In this paper, Weaver’s six-stage indigenous tourism model is applied to the Lacandon Maya (Hach Winik) of Chiapas, Mexico. Based on a comprehensive review of the anthropological and historical literature on this indigenous group, combined with longitudinal ethnographic and collaborative research performed with tourism entrepreneurs, the Lacandon tourism experience is assessed from the pre-European period until present. By analysing a case study of indigenous tourism in Mexico, a developing country in another geographical region and with a different colonial past, this work supplements Weavers’ perspective. The results show that the fourth and fifth stages of Weaver’s model coincide in this case study, while the sixth stage is still incomplete. Although the Lacandon case has its peculiarities and bearing in mind that several different factors should be considered in the Latin American context, the model proves to be an interesting tool for indigenous tourism analysis in developing countries.     

经济管理类专业计算机相关课程的设置与开放实验教学的研究

文章根据新形势下经济管理类专业对计算机及相关技术的特殊要求,讨论了计算机相关课程的设置,提出了实验教学改革的想法,即如何构建和管理开放实验室。     

Tourism as an alternative source of regional growth in Portugal: a panel data analysis at NUTS II and III levels

The role of tourism is of vital economic importance, particularly for small countries with a privileged geographical location and favourable weather conditions. This paper examines the importance of tourism as a conditioning factor for higher regional growth in Portugal by employing the conditional convergence hypothesis of Barro and Sala-i-Martin, associated with the endogenous growth theory. The panel data estimation approach provides evidence of the positive impact of tourism (through the accommodation capacity) on the growth in per-capita income among the Portuguese regions, increasing the rate of convergence. Therefore, tourism can be considered as an alternative source for stimulating higher regional growth in Portugal, if the supply characteristics of this sector are improved.     

Analysing the factors influencing clean technology adoption: a study of the Spanish pulp and paper industry

Technological change has a relevant role to play in the transition towards a sustainable industry. However, slow diffusion of clean technologies can be observed in OECD countries. The analysis of the determinants and barriers to clean technology adoption should be a main goal of economists and social scientists. This paper shows that three sets of interrelated factors prevent but also stimulate the widespread adoption and diffusion of clean technology: these are factors external and internal to the firm, conditions of the potential adopters and characteristics of the environmental technology. These factors are included in the so‐called ‘triangular model’, which is further applied to the analysis of clean technology adoption in the pulp and paper industry in Spain. The empirical study shows that clean technology adoption decisions are the result of an interaction between these factors, often involving contradictory signals for the potential adopter. The paper closes with some public policy recommendations for the effective and efficient promotion of clean technology diffusion. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Numerical issues in threshold autoregressive modeling of time series

This paper analyses the contribution of various numerical approaches to making the estimation of threshold autoregressive time series more efficient. It relies on the computational advantages of QR factorizations and proposes Givens transformations to update these factors for sequential LS problems. By showing that the residual sum of squares is a continuous rational function over threshold intervals it develops a new fitting method based on rational interpolation and the standard necessary optimality condition. Taking as benchmark a simple grid search, the paper illustrates via Monte Carlo simulations the efficiency gains of the proposed tools.     

AN EVALUATION OF PROCESS‐ORIENTED SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORKS

Supply chain management (SCM) is implemented by integrating corporate functions using business processes within and across companies. Several process‐oriented frameworks for SCM have been proposed but only two of these provide sufficient detail to enable implementation. We evaluate the Supply‐Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) framework and The Global Supply Chain Forum (GSCF) framework using four criteria and identify their relative strengths and weaknesses.     

Feature selection methods involving support vector machines for prediction of insolvency in non‐life insurance companies

We propose two novel approaches for feature selection and ranking tasks based on simulated annealing (SA) and Walsh analysis, which use a support vector machine as an underlying classifier. These approaches are inspired by one of the key problems in the insurance sector: predicting the insolvency of a non‐life insurance company. This prediction is based on accounting ratios, which measure the health of the companies. The approaches proposed provide a set of ratios (the SA approach) and a ranking of the ratios (the Walsh analysis ranking) that would allow a decision about the financial state of each company studied. The proposed feature selection methods are applied to the prediction the insolvency of several Spanish non‐life insurance companies, yielding state‐of‐the‐art results in the tests performed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Statistical Decision Problems and Bayesian Nonparametric Methods

This paper considers parametric statistical decision problems conducted within a Bayesian nonparametric context. Our work was motivated by the realisation that typical parametric model selection procedures are essentially incoherent. We argue that one solution to this problem is to use a flexible enough model in the first place, a model that will not be checked no matter what data arrive. Ideally, one would use a nonparametric model to describe all the uncertainty about the density function generating the data. However, parametric models are the preferred choice for many statisticians, despite the incoherence involved in model checking, incoherence that is quite often ignored for pragmatic reasons. In this paper we show how coherent parametric inference can be carried out via decision theory and Bayesian nonparametrics. None of the ingredients discussed here are new, but our main point only becomes evident when one sees all priors—even parametric ones—as measures on sets of densities as opposed to measures on finite-dimensional parameter spaces.