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The German network of leisure and tourism geography is analysing the concept of sustainable development in the field of tourism. This research is directed to point out the conditions for a sustainable tourism with high earnings which is accepted by the residents. Christoph Becker has published with Hubert Job and Anke Witzel an important textbook on sustainable tourism in Central Europe.

Seit Gründung des EUROPÄISCHEN TOURISMUS INSTITUTS GmbH (ETI) an der Universität Trier stellt der Kulturtourismus einen der Forschungs‐ und Beratungsschwerpunkte innerhalb der Institutsarbeit dar. Im Jahr 1992 führte das ETI mit Unterstützung der EG‐Kommission das Forschungsprojekt “Kulturtourismus in Europa/Demonstrationsvorhaben im Bi!dungs‐/Kulturtourismus” durch, dessen Ergebnisse auf dem Internationalen Symposium “Kulturtourismus in Europa: Wachstum ohne Grenzen?” im Juni 1992 in Trier vorgestellt und im weiteren dokumentiert wurden (vgl. Becker/ Steinecke 1993; Steinecke 1993a, 1993b).

This article aims to evaluate a new architecture for scalable decision-making and control in preservation environments for its ability to address five key goals: scalable content profiling; monitoring of compliance, risks and opportunities; efficient creation of trustworthy plans; context awareness; and loosely coupled preservation ecosystems. Scalable decision support and business intelligence capabilities are required to effectively secure content over time.

We conduct a systematic evaluation of the contributions of the SCAPE Planning and Watch suite to provide effective and scalable decision support capabilities. We discuss the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of advancing the state of art and report on a case study with a national library.

The system provides substantial capabilities for semi-automated, scalable decision-making and control of preservation functions in repositories. Well-defined interfaces allow a flexible integration with diverse institutional environments. The free and open nature of the tool suite further encourages global take-up in the repository communities.

The article discusses a number of bottlenecks and factors limiting the real-world scalability of preservation environments. This includes data-intensive processing of large volumes of information, automated quality assurance for preservation actions, and the element of human decision-making. We outline open issues and future work.

The open nature of the software suite enables stewardship organizations to integrate the components with their own preservation environments and to contribute to the ongoing improvement of the systems.

The paper reports on innovative research and development to provide preservation capabilities. The results of the assessment demonstrate how the system advances the control of digital preservation operations from ad hoc decision-making to proactive, continuous preservation management, through a context-aware planning and monitoring cycle integrated with operational systems.

Preservation environments such as repositories need scalable and context-aware preservation planning and monitoring capabilities to ensure continued accessibility of content over time. This article identifies a number of gaps in the systems and mechanisms currently available and presents a new, innovative architecture for scalable decision-making and control in such environments.

The paper illustrates the state of the art in preservation planning and monitoring, highlights the key challenges faced by repositories to provide scalable decision-making and monitoring facilities, and presents the contributions of the SCAPE Planning and Watch suite to provide such capabilities.

The presented architecture makes preservation planning and monitoring context-aware through a semantic representation of key organizational factors, and integrates this with a business intelligence system that collects and reasons upon preservation-relevant information.

The architecture has been implemented in the SCAPE Planning and Watch suite. Integration with repositories and external information sources provide powerful preservation capabilities that can be freely integrated with virtually any repository.

The open nature of the software suite enables stewardship organizations to integrate the components with their own preservation environments and to contribute to the ongoing improvement of the systems.

The paper reports on innovative research and development to provide preservation capabilities. The results enable proactive, continuous preservation management through a context-aware planning and monitoring cycle integrated with operational systems.

This viewpoint takes up the Covid-19 pandemic as a trigger for a research agenda around societally engaged international business (IB) research.

The paper is organized as a viewpoint. First, it provides an overview of Covid-19 research in business and management and IB in particular. Second, it introduces a societally engaged IB perspective, around poverty and human rights as well as trade.

The paper offers an annotated introduction to the paper contributions of the special issue with three clusters, “re-reading the crisis”, “crisis protectionism” and “firm strategies during the pandemic”.

The paper points to future research opportunities in terms of crisis management and societally engaged IB research.

The Covid-19 crisis poses new questions for research on international business and its related disciplines. In particular, the political, economic and societal disruption which the pandemic has caused highlights the importance of addressing broader societal issues such as climate change, poverty and inequality through a purposeful and forward-looking research agenda.

The paper and the special issue are some of the first combined research outputs on the Covid-19 pandemic in international business.

The purpose of this paper is to identify which plant protection practices consumers prefer and why. The authors focused on beneficial insects, genetically modified (GM) plants, synthetic chemical pesticides, biological plant protection, mechanical-physical plant protection as well as biotechnical plant protection. The authors studied the effects of the risk perception and both subjective and objective knowledge on preference.

The authors collected cross-sectional data from n = 1,223 people living in Germany. For this, the authors used an online panel and quoted participation after age, gender, income and region. The authors used multiple regression analyses and also explored moderation effects of knowledge on risk perception to explain participants' preferences.

The most preferred plant protection practice in the study sample was the application of beneficial insects. The authors found evidence that risk perception, as well as objective and subjective knowledge, can have a pivotal direct effect on preferences. Additionally, subjective as well as objective knowledge typically moderated the effect of risk perception, depending on the plant protection practice in focus. Overall, the authors found that levels of subjective and objective knowledge of plant protection practices were rather low among German participants.

While studies on consumer preferences for GM or organic food are abundant, preferences regarding other types of common plant protection practices are hardly investigated. To tackle this research gap, the authors focused on six different and common plant protection practices and compare results.

This study aims to compare styles of management accounting (MA), i.e. the way in which MA influences corporate decision-making, in German and Spanish companies. The study illustrates relevant differences by comparing the role of management accountants in decision-making processes and puts a particular emphasis on their networking activities in a corporate context.

This study builds on field study data from semi-structured interviews with senior management accountants in German and Spanish companies. The authors analyze the data within the framework of the actor-network theory (ANT).

In the sampled German companies, strong networks between management accountants and other corporate functions have been established, whereas the corresponding Spanish networks are emerging but remain fragile because of interference from anti-programs, mistrust and defensive departmental attitudes. Although MA in Spain has established only few accepted routines and remains distant from managerial decision-making, it enjoys an unquestioned standing in the German companies, because its routines and procedures are embedded into corporate culture. This embedding is facilitated by not only information technology but also relatively simple tools such as templates, timetables and standardized agendas.

The present study underlines how combining the field study approach with rationales from ANT can provide relevant insights into MA practices in its corporate context.

The present study provides guidance for management accountants striving for an increased influence on corporate decision-making and an improved collaboration with corporate management.

The authors extend the traditional spectrum of theoretical approaches in comparative MA studies. The ANT lens allows to show how styles of MA are shaped by interdependencies between institutional settings and networking processes. In this way, this paper complements previous cross-country research, which has mainly relied on contingency theory to examine static, country-specific differences in relation to distinct environmental and cultural conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to open up new lines of research into the engagement of corporations during humanitarian crises. The paper provides an introduction to core concepts in the delivery of humanitarian assistance, as well as a comprehensive overview of when, why, how, and to what effect corporations engage in humanitarian action.

Building on extant literature and policy reports, the paper synthesizes concepts and insights to map the interdisciplinary field of research on corporate engagement in humanitarian action.

The paper systematically reviews and describes different dimensions of corporate engagement for delivering humanitarian action and explains key complications that inspire new research questions. In particular, the paper highlights challenges associated with getting corporations to engage in humanitarian action; challenges associated with ensuring effective corporate engagement; and challenges associated with ensuring ethical engagement.

By raising new questions about corporate engagement in humanitarian action, this paper develops an original and positive research agenda for international business, management research, and related fields.

This paper explores sports consumer interest in virtual environments (VE) and Web3 activations, specifically how the level of psychological involvement, consumers' generational cohorts and previous experience with VE and Web3 activations influence consumer interest in VE and Web3 products and services related to their favorite sports team.

A survey instrument was developed and distributed online resulting in a sample size of n = 526. The survey was designed to measure consumers' psychological involvement with their favorite sports team based on the Psychological Continuum Model, and to determine respondents' interest in potential VE and Web3 activations. Finally, the survey collected demographical information and data regarding respondents' previous experience with VE and Web3 applications. Multiple regression analysis was subsequently conducted to predict the impact of (1) psychological involvement, (2) consumers' generational cohorts and (3) previous experience with VE and Web3 activations on the dependent variable consumer interest in VE and Web3 activations.

The regression model showed a significant impact of the independent variables on consumer interest in VE and Web3 activations with consumer involvement exerting the highest influence. Consumers' previous experience with VE and Web3 applications also seems to trigger interest, in line with the consumption capital theory. This study also suggests that younger generational cohorts are not intrinsically more attracted to VE and Web3 activations but their interest seems to depend on the type of activation.

This study is intended as a first assessment of independent variables that may have an impact on sports consumer interest in VE and Web3 activations. Further research is needed to assess the impact these variables combined with other indicators may have on consumer interest, for instance by employing a Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach. This research included selected VE and Web3 applications comprising online games, NFTs and cryptocurrencies, to calculate a VE and Web3 Literacy Score for the purpose of this paper. However, the “umbrella term Web3” (Wang et al., 2022) could indicate a number of additional applications not considered in this research. Future studies could examine sports consumer experience with additional Web3 activations when assessing VE and Web3 Literacy.

The results of this research imply the need for a diversification of the VE and Web3 portfolio offered by sports teams to cater to different consumer segments. Upcoming challenges for sports teams include motivating younger consumers to take an interest in Web3 activations beyond gaming. Additionally, sports teams should encourage loyal supporters in the advanced stages of the PCM who possess limited VE and Web3 experience, to engage in VE and Web3 activations through simplified offers complementing their overall fan experience.

VE and Web3 activations currently offered by sports teams are still in their early stages and data underpinning their success is scarce. This is the first study examining variables that may influence consumer interest in a sports context.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the determinants of success of elite athletes by applying the concept of career success to a sporting context. The concept of career success includes extrinsic (i.e. tangible) career accomplishments like medals as well as intrinsic factors referring to subjective judgements about career attainments. Thereby, a holistic perspective is taken which has not been studied extensively before.

Based on previous literature, a theoretical model was derived outlining how human capital, motivation, organisational characteristics and socio-demographics affect both intrinsic and extrinsic career success. To measure the impact of these factors, primary (n=1,249) and secondary data of elite athletes were collected. Regression analyses indicated that all factors included in the theoretical model were associated with extrinsic and intrinsic success.

Institutional support was an important driver for intrinsic career success while financial support affected extrinsic career success. There was no significant influence of extrinsic career success on intrinsic career success.

These findings imply that policy makers should offer enhanced dual career options, such as mentoring programmes, aspects like sport-psychological support and nutrition counselling, and long-term, stable financial support for athletes to maximise career success.

This paper applies the construct of career success to sports. A focus on the athletes’ intrinsic career success is placed as this area has been neglected in past research.