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In this vein, this paper aims to provide empirical evidence on the following questions: Which expansion strategies offer better operational and economic performance? What effects does performance-related diversification have? How do other factors such as size, quality, service offered, location or seasonality interact with performance.

In this paper, the analysis of the effects of growth strategies and hotel attributes on performance is carried out with a sample of 255 hotels that operate internationally. Using panel data and quantile regression, this study evaluates the effect of expansion and diversification on the hotels’ performance.

From these findings, it appears that the equity strategy (own hotels) outperforms non-equity strategies (hotels under rental, franchise and management contract) at the operational level. However, the economic return of the property, both adjusted and unadjusted to risk, is lower under the property ownership strategy than under the franchise and management strategies because, in general, it requires a higher investment. Regarding diversification, the growth strategy based on related diversification in food and beverage services has a negative impact on performance, calling into question the synergies between the two businesses. However, an exception to this effect is seen among those hotels, mainly those in the Caribbean, that opt to provide all-inclusive services, since these hotels achieve better occupancy rates and more stable results.

This study has not taken into account the effect of hotel property revaluation on the performance of the ownership strategy, as there is no information on the historical average revaluation at the level of each individual hotel. This study has also been unable to include information regarding the level of competition and seasonality of sales.

This paper considers a wide number of factors that can influence the performance of hotels. Second, this is the only paper that studies the impact of growth strategies from the point of view of the hotel chain. Also, the sample considered uses data at the individual level on hotels and this research analyses not only operational performance but also economic performance.

The phenomenon of growth spillover occurs because of domestic shocks, global shocks and shocks to a foreign country or region, and these are transmitted through specific channels. This study investigates the strength of the economic linkages between Caribbean Community (CARICOM) economies and its main traditional partners, including the European Union (EU-27), and emerging trading partners, such as China, with a view to determining the presence and extent of spillover growth which results from the interdependence among these economies. The paper hypothesizes that the presence of these spillovers can be leveraged to chart the future for the region's integration in the global sphere.

Based on the existing theoretical and empirical literature, a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model was developed and employed to examine the strength of the economic linkages between CARICOM economies and its main trading partners, such as the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK) and the EU-27, alongside some of the non-traditional partners such as China. This method has been widely used by institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, to profile economic linkages between economies. To this end, the methodology was formulated based on the IMF Spillover Reports which were produced from 2011 to 2015.

The model suggests that positive spillovers are likely to occur from continued deepened integration with the US, EU-27 and the UK, as traditional trade partners, but that opportunities also exist from a deliberate deepening of relations with non-traditional trade partners, for example, China. This becomes even more apparent when CARICOM is separated into categories consisting of more developed countries (MDCs) and less developed countries (LDCs). In addition, from the perspective of any trading partner, such as those in the EU-27, this research is relevant and timely as it contributes to the landscape of literature, which can be utilized for the purpose of negotiating parameters of trade and integration arrangements.

This study adds to the literature on evaluating the direction for deepened integration of CARICOM economies, both with selected traditional and non-traditional trade partners as the region pilots recovery in a post-pandemic global space.

Policymakers can use the results of this study to leverage economic spillovers as a basis for determining which trade partners offer the most significant growth benefits as the region recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and it will also assist in steering regional integration. This result also implies that over time, the comparative advantage structure of CARICOM member countries' export profile should change to reflect the import profile of its trade partners. To this end, this study can be used to inform and better position the respective trade and industrial development policies of countries in the Caribbean region as they attempt to deepen integration regionally and internationally. From the perspective of the partner, traditional trading relationships such as those which exist with European countries, such as the CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement, can be more deliberately utilized given the geographic benefits on offer with deepened relationships with economies in the Caribbean. Further, this research can also be a point of departure for future research.

This study is among the few empirical works that examine spillover effects as a strategy for rebuilding economic growth in the post-COVID 19 era. This study adds to the literature on evaluating the direction for deepened integration of CARICOM economies, both with selected traditional and non-traditional trade partners as the region navigates recovery in a post-pandemic global space.

This article focuses on regional-level cooperation in higher education by examining the functional, organizational and political approaches (FOPA) framework for higher education regionalization and using supra-national regional universities as established and successful examples of regional-level higher education cooperation among countries.

A conceptual framework is used to provide the structure for analyzing the key approaches to higher education regionalization, followed by an analysis of supra-national regional universities to demonstrate the application of the model.

The FOPA framework for higher education regionalization includes three approaches. The first is the functional approach, which includes both collaborative academic and research activities among higher education institutions as well strategies and policies to help align systems across a region. The second is the organizational approach, which focuses on networks, organizations, institutions and programs, which facilitate partnerships. The third is the political approach, which includes regional-level agreements, declarations and strategic plans to promote higher education collaboration. Key higher education activities for each approach are discussed in generic terms, with examples provided from major regions of the world.

The research was based on desk research only. No interviews were conducted.

A conceptual analysis and a model were provided for the concept of regionalization of higher education and for regional universities, which can help readers locate their interests and research in the regionalization of higher education. Examples of three different types of regional universities were provided to give concrete illustrations of a regional university.

One of the rationales driving regional universities is to address and increase a sense of regional identify and to meet the social, economic and educational needs of the specified region.

Regional universities, such as the University of West Indies, Arab Open University and the Pan-Africa University, are an understudied phenomenon. Using them as innovative and sustainable examples of higher education regional cooperation and the FOPA model, this study illustrates how single-campus, multiple-campus and virtual regional universities are functioning to meet the diversified needs and priorities across a region through cooperation among countries.

This research finds out to what extent companies’ names are influenced by the place’s attributes versus the official branding policies of a place and, consequently, whether and how local companies “buy into” the place’s strategies put forth by official bodies.

This paper is both conceptual and empirical, as a mixed quantitative and interpretive approach is used. The companies’ names of a tourist industry (the tour and guiding companies) in three destinations are compared and pitched against the branding of these cities. The companies' names are classified into categories to ascertain whether they reflect (or diverge from) the official strategies. Finally, a conceptual model is developed to explain the findings: the strategic naming model (SNM).

Our main finding is that the overall business features of a place being stronger determinants to the naming strategies than tourist destination branding initiatives. The intrinsic features of a place seem thus to be “above” destination branding policies. The researched features account for different naming strategies, such as highly original names, flat names or non-strategic names.

As the work is based on a convenience sample, it cannot claim strong representativity. The fact that each of the three data sets was processed by a different researcher might bring up personal biases.

This work is a call for a more intensive use of naming strategies to the companies’ advantages, as naming is found out to be strategy used to a very low degree. Thanks to this research, companies will understand the different naming possibilities and be able to apply them to their strategies by choosing names which express “uniqueness” or “belonging”. Practitioners will also be aware of whether they are communicating towards the industry or towards the market.

No works were found that empirically pursue our research goals. Therefore, this research might be considered as a novelty. The proposed SNM model explains and relates the most usual company naming techniques, which were unrelated up to date.

The purpose of this qualitative, single-case study was to explore the development of Jamaica’s maritime education and training (MET) curriculum within the local education context. In this research, the story of the development and sustainability of the local MET curriculum in its 40-year journey from 1980 to present (post 2020), as communicated by various maritime stakeholders and archival documents, is chronicled.

The study utilized a qualitative orientation and was an embedded single-case study in its design. The entire local MET institution community and those legislatively and operationally allied to its sustained viability constituted the general population of this study. Non-probability sampling techniques were used to arrive at a maximum variation sample. Three sources of data were used in this study: individual interviews, focus group discussions and documents.

The Jamaican (local) MET curriculum was the brainchild of local perspicacity that was empowered by international benevolence. It was developed to satisfy market demands that existed at the time of its inception. These market requirements of the maritime industry are what impacted the development of the local MET curriculum over four decades. Several other factors led to the sustained viability of the local MET curriculum. These included the ability of the local MET curriculum to meet direct market needs and maintain its fitness for purpose.

It is the view of the researcher that the findings of this study were limited by the fact that the voices of current students and employers from the four decades of the curriculum's existence are not represented in this initial study. The perspectives from these two sources would have broadened the description presented in this study.

This research has shown that specialized higher education (HE) institutions are better served in their business when they maintain a symbiotic relationship with the industry for which they are producing graduates.

The treatment of HE as a service industry has gained traction globally. This would suggest that ‘product placement' in specialized HE is important to the growth, development and longevity of that course of study within the society in which it exists.

There is a dearth of national research on Jamaica's four-decades-old MET curriculum and the elements that lend to the sustained viability of same. This discussion of sustainability of the MET curriculum will benefit maritime educators and policymakers, who must continue to hone this curriculum so that it is fit for purpose. The study will also identify some of the elements of a sustainable, specialized HE curriculum. The elements identified herein can serve as exemplars and conceptual starting points for other contexts where the discussion of the sustainability of curriculum needs to be had.

The article aims at exploring the challenges and possibilities of cooperation of higher education in a Latin American social, political and cultural context that faces historical difficulties of integration, as well as the potential contribution of academic cooperation for global citizenship.

The paper presents a general overview of networks and international centers of academic cooperation of higher education in Latin America. The analysis comprises objectives, countries, stakeholders, activities, projects and scope. The study is based on literature on internationalization, regional integration and the development of higher education, as well as on empirical gathered with networks/centers and key actors in the field. This study was carried out as a mixed qualitative method design. Firstly, a systematic review of a literature corpus of studies produced by Latin-American scholars was performed. Semi-structured interviews were then carried out with a group of scholars who are members of networks.

The findings include a review of the role of higher education in a politically fragmented reality, a panorama of major networks and international centers of academic cooperation with emphasis on internationalization of higher education, as well as their connections. The are highlighted examples of successful initiatives of cooperation and, based on interviews, there is presented a preliminary view on cooperation and trust building from professionals in higher education in Latin America.

In the last decades, with the growing interest and need for internationalizing higher education, many universities have organized or joined networks and international centers. The article will contribute for mutual knowledge of these spaces, their shortcomings and potentials, thus creating conditions for dialogue among them, as well as with universities in other continents.

The purpose of this study is to examine the sociocultural implications of caring for persons with COVID-19 in a developing country context.

In total, 156 nurses participated in the study. Stratified random sampling methodology was used. Data were collected via online self-administered questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics, including ANOVA tests were done.

Nurses experienced stigmatization, discrimination and reduced income. Nurses functioned on the frontline during the COVID-19 pandemic and encountered negative sociocultural experiences from a personal, social and professional perspective. ANOVA showed statistically significant relationships between the conflicts between their work role, family commitments and level of physical interactions with a number of variables.

Data were collected from one Regional Health Authority and may not be representative of the national population of nurses. Further, as the researchers depended on gatekeepers to access participants, the recruitment process may not have been entirely based on randomization as originally agreed.

The findings from this study can be used as a framework to develop context specific programmes and policies to support health professionals, including nurses.

Pandemics, while not new, contribute to serious sociocultural challenges for individuals and families, as well as nurses, as part of their professional roles. In this regard, maintaining effective social networks must be central to effective functioning in crisis situations, such as pandemics.

Nurses have played a key role, working both to identify, isolate and manage those with COVID-19 and supporting those who have non-COVID-19 related health needs. While nurses have been at the forefront delivering care in these uncertain times, doing so puts them at great risk, for not only contracting COVID-19 but also for experiencing negative psychosocial effects that may be due to the nature of their jobs.

The authors investigate the role played by the political climate and other covariates on the prevalence of undernourishment for 34 low-income countries across a 21-year period.

Political climate is measured in terms of political freedoms and civil liberties. The authors follow a Granger causality approach, which looks at predictive causality (i.e. causality in a temporal sense). For the socio-economic data, the authors rely on annual time series data from the World Bank.

Most of the findings are in keeping with our expectations: (1) Lowering women's fertility rate lowers undernourishment; (2) undernourishment converges to its long-run equilibrium path in response to changes in income, political climate, health expenditure, fertility rate and drinking water access; (3) the effect of an instantaneous shock from income, changes to the political climate, health expenditure, fertility rate and drinking water access on undernourishment are completely adjusted in the long run. One surprising result is that there is a positive and significant relationship between the prevalence of undernourishment and political freedom. The authors offer several possible explanations for this unexpected result.

Given our results, careful attention to the co-curation of policies is desirable. As an example, the authors would advocate a more proactive role by the richer countries in terms of their commitments to foreign aid in addressing the identified problems.

The authors use advanced panel data techniques, considering a long span of time. Unlike other studies which aim to establish correlations, the authors test for Granger causality.

From 1979 to 2023, the takaful structure has been adopted in many jurisdictions, making the documenting of its early days of establishment relatively difficult and somewhat unreliable. This is unlike conventional insurance, where the history and legislation are well documented and archived in various research (Hellwege, 2016; Marano and Siri, 2017). The purpose of this paper is to provide a chronology for the establishment and development of takaful via the takaful establishment in each jurisdiction, documenting its first takaful operator and first takaful regulation.

This paper has used a qualitative method in the form of reviewing literature and available data such as journals, books and official resources. The data is thoroughly analysed in order to build the chronology for takaful. It adopted an exploratory research design, which is deemed suitable in situations where few works of literature have examined the subject (Neuman, 2014). The paper explores the establishment and non-establishment of takaful in 57 countries. The paper categorises the countries into seven regions starting with the GCC, Levant, Asia, Central Asia, Africa, Europe and Others.

The takaful chronology presented in this paper shows that takaful operations exist in 47 jurisdictions, starting from Sudan and the UAE in 1979, with the most recent adopters being Morocco and Iran in December 2021. It is found that 22 jurisdictions do not have takaful regulations, and the Takaful Act 1984, issued in Malaysia, is considered the first takaful regulation that sets the basis for other regulations that follow.

The paper contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive chronology of takaful, especially as the few existing timelines have been found to be incomplete and consist of contradictory information.

It has been suggested that homicides in Jamaica are partly driven by conflicts among criminals over funds coming from international lottery scams; most of these funds are channeled into the country via remittances. This study aims to determine the empirical relationship between remittances and homicides in Jamaica over the period 1985–2019.

The authors apply an error correction modelling framework while accounting for indicators of changes in socioeconomic conditions.

There are two. First, the authors find from impulse response analysis of the long-run dynamics that an increase in remittances is associated with an increase in homicides, and vice versa. Second, the authors find that there is bidirectional Granger causality between remittances and homicides in the short run.

Two important implications are that policies should be strengthened to channel remittances to productive and legal investment opportunities and that greater efforts may be needed to stem the flow of funds coming from international lottery scamming and other illegal activities.

This is the first study that examines the dynamic relationship between remittances and homicides in Jamaica from a robust statistical perspective.