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Airlines play a significant role in the international tourism system, yet research on airlines, notably air crew, is scant. Given the frequency with which air crew travel to destinations, understanding of their memories and experiences can have significant insights for destination marketing and management. Destination marketers could look at using air crew as marketing mediums or as potential customers. This study aims to understand the memories and experiences of air crew in destinations and the factors that influence them.

A mixed methods survey was designed and distributed to 236 air crew of a Middle Eastern airline to explore what they remembered of destinations they visited what helped and hindered their ability to remember. The survey also assessed participants self-reported degree of mindfulness.

Results suggested that air crew determined themselves as mindful and had strong memories of the destination. Several notable hindrances were reported relating to their job; fatigue, short layovers and number of flights.

The main limitation of the study is the relatively limited depth with which participants described their experiences. The results from the study add insight to tourism businesses and governments for considering air crew or leveraging air crew as marketing mediums. The generalisability and applicability of mindfulness in other contexts have been offered.

Little research has explored the experiences or memories of air crew nor the relation of mindfulness to service providers. This research is among the first to address this gap to add theoretical and practical insight to this area.

This paper examines why individuals start their hospitality careers by becoming temporary lifeguards while aspiring to later promotion. It reports data from young people working in one major upmarket hotel chain that operates in the Gulf but has a global reach. This study aims to address issues regarding this often-overlooked career path for young staff.

A qualitative questionnaire was distributed to lifeguards working in a luxury hotel chain in a Gulf country to explore their reasons for working as a lifeguard and their experiences in this role. Data were analysed using QDA Miner and WordStat to generate coherence and similarity indices.

It is found that the attractions include good training with a well-established company operating in an upmarket location, but other important factors include career prospects, skill enhancement, self-development, monetary savings and experience working in one of the world’s most exciting tourist locations.

The results offer implications for management looking to recruit expatriate labour without considering long-term employment or residence. Nonetheless, while this offers opportunities to assess many potential long-term employees, there are costs to the practice.

Little research has been conducted on lifeguards and how employment in such roles can develop careers in hospitality. The study contributes to understanding motives and career development and conceptually suggests that liminal status complements those drawn to protean career development. The results shed light on how new employees, including management trainees, undertake liminal, protean careers, to care for family, develop their careers and enter markets that may otherwise be difficult to enter.

A continuous issue which plagues all service businesses is the process of handling complaints. Whilst the topic has been relatively well explored, extant literature has failed to fully explore how staff demographics influence the methods in which they manage complaints.

A qualitative approach was adopted with semi-structured interviews. A purposeful sample was selected, inviting managers from hotels in Dubai to share their views on factors affecting the complaint management process, including the impact of staff demographics.

Staff demographics were found to have an impact on staff's approach to handle complaints. However, participants generally felt that, with sufficient experience, the impact of many of these influences would be negated.

Literature on complaint management has considered numerous mitigating factors affecting the complaint management process. The impact of staff demographics on how they receive and respond to complaints has not been thoroughly explored.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the research trends in guest experiences of service robots in the hospitality industry.

In this study, a review was carried out on the Web of Science (WoS) database with the assistance of bibliometric analysis techniques. Cluster analysis was also employed for this to group important data to determine the relationships and to visualize the areas in which the studies are concentrated. The thematic content analysis method was used to reveal on which customer experiences and on which methods the focuses were.

On the subject of experiences of service robots, the greatest number of publications was in 2021. In terms of country, China has come to the fore in the distribution of publications. As a result of thematic content analysis, it was determined that the leading factor was the main dimension of emotional experience. In terms of sub-dimensions, social interactions attracted more attention. Most of the studies discussed were not based on any theory. Apart from these, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the Service Quality Model (SERVQUAL) and Perceived Value Theory (PVT) were featured more prominently among other studies.

In this study, only the WoS database was reviewed. In future studies, it would be possible to make contextual comparisons by scanning other databases. In addition to quantitative research designs, social dimensions may be examined in depth following qualitative research methods. Thus, various comparisons can be made on the subject with mixed-method research designs. Experimental research designs can also be applied to where customers have experienced human-robot interactions (HRIs).

In the hospitality industry, it is critical to uncover every dimension of guests' robot acceptance. This study, which presents the current situation on this basis, guides future projections for the development of guest experiences regarding service robots in the hospitality industry.

This chapter explores the competing perspectives (i.e., the “community advocates” and the “community skeptics”) on the recent move toward community in an attempt to conceptualize what this “move” means for social control. An examination of the inclusiveness of community initiatives with a focus on community policing is used to demonstrate that the move toward community contains elements of both empowerment and responsibilization. In particular, the move toward community is paradoxical in that empowerment and responsibilization occurs simultaneously and to varying degrees within inclusive community initiatives. It is argued that a socially inclusive approach to community-police partnerships works to enhance society's web of social control. However, at the same time, community members hold the potential to work together to shape this web of social control.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how discourse used as a strategic resource can facilitate change in gender and corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy and practice in a global mining company.

An existing model of discourse and organizational change was applied to illuminate the contours of a particular organizational change process. This paper draws on empirical data in the form of talk and text in oral and written form.

The research highlights the challenge of finding the right balance between organizational receptivity and resistance, so that discursive boundaries around gender and CSR can be contested and challenged, but where new concepts and subjectivities are not rejected before they have an opportunity to generate shared meaning within the organization. Findings confirm that the involvement of a range of company personnel, particularly from the operational level, is important for generating knowledge and shared meaning, which can lead to enactment. This aligns with observations made in this journal that the management of meaning as opposed to management of change provides a useful analytical and practical focus.

The paper analyses one of the first attempts by a global mining company to articulate a change agenda for gender and community relations within a CSR framework. Unique insights into the internal world of a global mining company and CSR change processes are provided. The paper utilizes a well‐articulated model that facilitates a discursive analysis of organizational change to advance knowledge and understanding.

The paper aims to identify and report service quality dimensions critical to distributors’ perception of the quality of services their suppliers provide (Manufactures).

This research used unstructured interviews and focused group discussions. The authors have interviewed ten distributors and ten frontline managers of three mid-size Consumer Packaged Goods companies operating in India. Two focused group discussions were conducted involving academicians and practitioners in the service quality domain.

Seven quality dimensions critical to a distributor’s service quality evaluation have been identified. Except for tangibility, all other SERVQUAL dimensions have been found relevant. Three additional dimensions, namely “Fairness,” “Accessibility” and “Image quality,” have been identified. The authors made a theoretical contribution by not only identifying the relevant dimension but also proving their context-specific definition. The authors also present managerial implications and recommendations to improve the service experience of distributors.

This paper investigates the distributor–manufacturer dyadic relationship from a service quality perspective for the first time. This study made a theoretical contribution by explicitly identifying service quality dimensions for a manufacturer-to-distributor (M2D) service relationship.

The purchasing power parity hypothesis is investigated within a highly economically integrated set of nations, namely the European Monetary System. We use the Phillips‐Hansen Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares procedure, which for the first time allows for an unrestricted cointegration test of the PPP doctrine. We sequentially test for the weak and strong form of PPP.

Taking an inter-Asian perspective on the perception of China’s rise and power shifts in Asia, this reflection draws on the examples of Hong Kong’s years-long pro-democracy movement, Taiwan’s democratization and India’s anti-China sentiments to discuss the growth of domestic and international discontents against China’s projection of sharp power, even military power, along its peripheries. The severity of these crises suggests that an assertive China has trapped itself in a perpetual cycle of intensifying authoritarian rule at home and seeking expansionary outreach abroad. China’s diplomatic and military adventurism is likely to antagonize potential allies, jeopardizing the hope for inter-Asian solidarity and cooperation.

The authors consult relevant secondary literature to contextualize the perception of China’s rise to domination from an inter-Asian perspective.

Following the end of the Cold War in 1990 and the demise of the Soviet Union as a Eurasian empire, some cultural theorists proposed a postcolonial, inter-Asian perspective to de-globalize the Euro-American-dominated humanities and social sciences, recognizing that many areas once deemed by the West as marginal and peripheral had contributed to the transformation of the modern world. The nineteenth-century Western imperialists and early twentieth-century Japanese militarists once deployed the geopolitical concept of “Asia” to advance their respective discourses of modernity and progress. Thus, the very notion of Asian solidarity or Pan-Asianism is deeply problematic because it reminds us of the entwined histories of colonial oppression and resistance against imperialistic intrusions.

The conventional “inter-Asian” perspective that emphasizes relational connectedness across and within nations does not seem applicable to explaining the troublesome relationship between American universalism and China-centric authoritarianism.

In today’s multipolar world, the USA and China are embroiled in a competitive relationship regarding the shape the global order should take. The recent US-China trade war is only the opening shot in the wider bilateral conflict. Behind this contest for global leadership in economic influence and technology is a serious battle of ideas.

China is still coming to terms with many unexpected consequences of globalization. Steady recovery gave China a temporary reprieve but the overall economy has weakened due to many years of trade disputes with the USA and the COVID-19 pandemic. China has yet to find a way to coexist with a fast-developing India, address the genuine grievances and demands for democratic change in Hong Kong and accommodate a stronger pro-independence force in Taiwan. To revive the vision of inter-Asian solidarity, China should build trust at home and abroad and reimagine institutional mechanisms for conflict resolution. Otherwise, it would trap itself in endless cycles of tensions and conflicts that benefit no one.

The rapid rise of China to power in the Eurasian continent and Asian waters has not only distorted the inter-Asian vision of seeking unity among postcolonial states but also accelerated competitions for territorial resources and regional dominance. By reflecting on the latest interventions of China in geopolitical affairs, this paper shows that despite the rhetorical appeal of horizontality, the engagement of many emerging Asian powers has diverged from the ideal of inter-Asian cooperation. The task for scholars is to gain a more accurate understanding of the fluid situations on the ground.

At its peak, the COVID-19 pandemic has created disruption to food supply chains in the UK and for the entire world. Although societal changes created some resilience within the supply chains, high volatility in demand creates supply, logistics and distribution issues. This is reflected in the economic instability of businesses and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In this paper, the authors explore factors behind this initial disruption in the supply chains and offer suggestions to businesses based on the established practices and theories.

The authors use mixed methods research. First, the authors conducted an exploratory study by collecting data from published online sources. Then, the authors analysed possible scenarios from the available information using regression. The authors then conducted two interviews with UK retail sector representatives. These scenarios have been compared and contrasted to provide decision-making points to businesses and supply chain players to tackle current and any future potential disruptions.

The findings from the current exploratory study inform the volatility of supply chains. The authors suggested some possible responses from businesses, during and after the pandemic.

The regression model provides a decision-making approach to help supply chain businesses during the pandemic outbreak. Once a complete data set of COVID-19 is available, the authors can create a resilience model that can help businesses and supply chains.