Search results

Tourism is a key source of income to South Africa. Food and beverages is a key part of tourism and the literature reveals that tourists spend up to a quarter of their budget on cuisine. South Africa has, however, been rated as the least-prepared culinary travel destination and the travel destination with the greatest potential for growth. Therefore, a segmentation taxonomy based on culinary preferences of international tourists to South Africa is put forth which can be used to prepare South Africa as a culinary travel destination. The 627 international tourists surveyed were divided into five segments with the use of factor analyses, t-tests, Spearman rank correlations and analysis of variance. The segments were named conservationists, experience seekers, devotees, explorers and socialisers (CEDES taxonomy). Multiple results and implications are discussed in the paper.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the process by which “analogue” corporate reports produced under a “paper paradigm” are translated into a machine language as required by digital reporting. The paper uses Austin and Searle’s linguistic speech act theory to examine how digitally translating reporting information into atomised data affects the infrastructure and practice of accounting.

Extensive interview and observation evidence focussed on the IFRS Foundation’s digital reporting project is analysed. An interpretive approach is informed by the concepts of L compatibility, illocution and perlocutionary acts which are drawn from speech act theory.

Two key sites of translation are identified. The first site concerns the translation of accounting standards, principles and practices into taxonomies for digital tagging. Controversies arise over the definition of accounting concepts in a site populated by accounting and IT-orientated experts. The second site of translation is in the routine production and dissemination of digital reports which impacts the L compatibility between preparers and users.

The paper highlights a previously unexplored field of translation in accounting and contributes a unique perspective that demonstrates that machine translation is no longer marginalised but is the “primary” text with effects on the infrastructure and practice of accounting. It extends speech act theory by applying it to the digital domain and in the context of translation between languages.

The long-term energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy challenges the future of oil and gas firms. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the world’s largest oil and gas firms’ strategies are responding to the transition.

The authors used content analysis of annual reports to examine the renewable strategies of the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas companies. Data were analyzed using two complementary statistical methodologies to build a taxonomy of the patterns in strategic behaviors involving renewable energy.

Five transition archetypes are identified – three reflect an active pursuit of renewable energy, whereas the other two are more defensive in posture. The authors also find that the firm’s country context has an important bearing on renewable strategy. Both normative social pressures and regulatory pressures play key roles in influencing a firm’s commitment to a renewables’ strategy.

Using an innovative research method, we develop a new taxonomy to classify how the world’s largest oil and gas firms are shaping the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy..

Using an innovative research method, the authors developed a new taxonomy to classify how the world’s largest oil and gas firms are shaping the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

There is a tension between the literatures on incomplete contracting and transactions cost economics regarding the importance of ex post governance and the extent to which formal theories of incomplete contracting capture salient aspects of exchange relations. In this paper, we empirically examine how firms structure joint R&D agreements to illuminate how contracts can be incomplete and how governance can matter. We employ a dataset of 96 contracts to construct a taxonomy of the types of mechanisms firms use in organizing collaborative R&D, and indicate how groups of mechanisms line up with various types of contracting hazards. The results suggest that the allocation of property rights over innovations at the time of contracting between R&D partners is an important aspect of contract design. But they also suggest that weak property rights admit scope for other dimensions of contract. In particular, the research indicates that while knowledge spillovers may give rise to appropriability hazards, efforts to contain or channel knowledge spillovers may enable joint venture members to strategically block other members’ follow-on commercialization or research. Firms design joint R&D governance mechanisms to balance spillover hazards and strategic blocking.

The broader analytical framing of systematically distorted communication (SDC) helps extract value out of the enormous amount of scholarship on fake news.

The massive literature on fake news has been the subject of handbook overviews, systematic literature reviews, summaries, taxonomies, citation studies and so on. Deploying these tools, the approaches that the literature takes can be characterized, Habermas' concept of systematically distorted communication (SDC) will then be presented in its context, reviewed and put to work to frame fake news research to tell us new things that individual pieces of specific analysis and research do not. Conclusions will be offered from this analysis.

Fake news research has become repetitive, revolving around themes such as the fate of journalism, the role of technology, remediating its effects and deep dives into definitional components (disinformation, misinformation, lies and so on). A broader framing of systematically distorted communication allows us to arrive at some conclusions about contemporary fake news: that it is a power strategy with a particular right-wing slant and it creates a sociology – that is, its own interpretive environment – hostile to democratic functioning. It answers the question: what is fake news for?

A perspective on fake news research is much needed and Habermas' concept is a useful framing mechanism for the large corpus of research. Systematically distorted communication asks – and answers – different questions of the research. Meanwhile, SDC itself is modified by its application to fake news research and contemporary conditions.

Purpose – Research on hospital system organization is dated and cross-sectional. We analyze trends in system structure during 2000–2010 to ascertain whether they have become more centralized or decentralized.

Design/Methodology/Approach – We test hypotheses drawn from organization theory and estimate empirical models to study the structural transitions that systems make between different “clusters” defined by the American Hospital Association.

Findings – There is a clear trend toward system fragmentation during most of this period, with a small recent shift to centralization in some systems. Systems decentralize as they increase their members and geographic dispersion. This is particularly true for systems that span multiple states; it is less true for smaller regional systems and local systems that adopt a hub-and-spoke configuration around a teaching hospital.

Research Limitations – Our time series ends in 2010 just as health care reform was implemented. We also rely on a single measure of system centralization.

Research Implications – Systems that appear to be able to centrally coordinate their services are those that operate in local or regional markets. Larger systems that span several states are likely to decentralize or fragment.

Practical Implications – System fragmentation may thwart policy aims pursued in health care reform. The potential of Accountable Care Organizations rests on their ability to coordinate multiple providers via centralized governance. Hospitals systems are likely to be central players in many ACOs, but may lack the necessary coherence to effectively play this governance role.

Originality/Value – Not all hospital systems act in a systemic manner. Those systems that are centralized (and presumably capable of acting in concerted fashion) are in the minority and have declined in prevalence over most of the past decade.

This application brief describes a “Module Discussant” activity assigned in an online graduate-level leadership theory course. The assignment was designed to stimulate higher-level thinking, apply leadership theory to practice, and foster extensive communication among students in the online learning environment using a common learning management tool—the online discussion forum. This brief presents leadership educators with perspectives from two professors who coordinated the assignment, as well as the perspective of a graduate student participating in the activity. The professors and students involved report that the assignment resulted in compelling levels of engagement and critical thinking. Recommendations for future use and for enhancing the quality of the assignment are also offered.