Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the links between investment activity and personal contacts for small- and medium-sized firms with public officials at the subnational level in Russia.

A list-experiment design, using a survey of 21,000 Russian firms in 2017, was used to evaluate the importance of personal connections with officials for conducting business.

A total of 27% of firms without investment and 37% with investment considered personal connections with officials an important factor for doing business. The importance of such contacts was lower in regions with a better investment climate. However, a higher proportion of firms were likely to invest in the regions where higher importance was placed on political connections. Therefore, in Russia in the mid-2010s, investment from politically connected firms did not crowd out investment from other firms.

Although the available data did not allow causality to be defined, the research shows that political connections are important for investors in emerging markets and that the importance of political connections diminishes with improvement in the business climate.

This paper provides a quantitative estimate of the relationship between political connections and firm investment in Russia, an example of large emerging economy. This relationship is moderated by institutional quality at the subnational level. The results provide empirical support for the theory of limited access orders elaborated by North et al. (2009), and stress the importance of rents and their productive utilization for the development of emerging economies.

Purpose: The purpose of this chapter is to review and critically evaluate robots, artificial intelligence and service automation (RAISA) applications in the restaurant industry to educate professors, graduate students, and industry professionals.

Design/methodology/approach: This chapter is a survey of applications of RAISA in restaurants. The chapter is based on the review of professional and peer-reviewed academic literature, and the industry insight section was prepared based on a 50-minute interview with Mr. Juan Higueros, Chief Operations Officer of Bear Robotics.

Findings: Various case studies presented in this chapter illustrate numerous possibilities for automation: from automating a specific function to complete automation of the front of the house (e.g., Eatsa) or back of the house (e.g., Spyce robotic kitchen). The restaurant industry has already adopted chatbots; voice-activated and biometric technologies; robots as hosts, food runners, chefs, and bartenders; tableside ordering; conveyors; and robotic food delivery.

Practical implications: The chapter presents professors and students with a detailed overview of RAISA in the restaurant industry that will be useful for educational and research purposes. Restaurant owners and managers may also benefit from reading this chapter as they will learn about the current state of technology and opportunities for RAISA implementation.

Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this chapter presents the first systematic and in-depth review of RAISA technologies in the restaurant industry.

The purpose of this study was to examine hospitality revenue management (RM) research in the recent decade, to identify emergent issues/topics and suggest directions for future research.

A systematic process of literature review involving content analysis was adopted. The process involved searching for published articles in three major online databases for hospitality and tourism journals, evaluating and selecting the relevant articles, analyzing and synthesizing the findings of the selected papers and organizing the findings to determine what is known and what is yet to be known.

The paper established a broad range of topics that have engaged the attention of hospitality and tourism researchers in contemporary times. These topics were structured into seven major themes constituting the core activities of hospitality RM process and another eight themes covering the factors influencing the practice of RM.

The classification of the literature into core activities of RM process and factors influencing RM serves as a useful guide for practitioners and academics to trace relevant literature on various aspects of RM and to visibly notice the gaps in the existing literature.

By developing an RM framework and using it to evaluate existing literature, this study brings cohesion into the hospitality and tourism RM literature.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the nomological network of associations between collective mindfulness and big data analytics in fostering resilient humanitarian relief supply chains.

The authors conceptualize a research model grounded in literature and test the hypotheses using survey data collected from informants at humanitarian aid organizations in Africa and Europe.

The findings demonstrate that organizational mindfulness is key to enabling resilient humanitarian relief supply chains, as opposed to just big data analytics.

This is the first study to examine organizational mindfulness and big data analytics in the context of humanitarian relief supply chains.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the shocks to firm's beta around the event of addition or deletion from the S&P 500 index.

The total derivative of beta and Campbell and Vuolteenaho decomposition of beta methodologies are used, on monthly and daily basis, to examine the behavior of beta around the event.

Results show a significant increase in correlations of the event firms' returns and the market proxy returns and cash‐flow betas, and decrease in discount‐rate betas for added firms and the opposite effects for deleted firms. Robustness tests indicate that the total derivative changes effects are typical for the event firms industry but that the cash‐flow correlation changes are specific to the firm. These findings suggest that addition or deletion from the S&P 500 index is not an information free event.

The Campbell and Vuolteenaho methodology has limitations – it is conditional on the selection of state variables. In future research it would be beneficial to use different state variables in the beta decomposition framework. Another relevant question for a future research is: what are the effects of the event on the Fama‐French factor model loadings?

The paper's findings contribute to the ongoing debate in the literature of the information hypothesis for addition or deletion from the S&P 500 index.

This study investigates the impact of insider-ownership of publicly traded firms on their performance, cost of debt (COD) and cost of equity. We use a sample of 104 non-finance listed companies of Pakistan for the period from 2006 to 2016. Our study is conducted in Pakistan as a developing country in which insider-ownership is dominant, and a weak external corporate governance mechanism increases the payoffs from insider-ownership. We use feasible generalized least square (FGLS) regression methods to examine these hypotheses. Based on agency theory, we find that insider-ownership enhances firm performance. Furthermore, our results show that insider-ownership reduced the COD and equity. Higher ownership decreases the opportunistic behavior of insiders. It also reduces the creditor’s perception of the likelihood of default on loan payments and reduces agency issues among shareholders. The insider will invest in positive NPV projects which will help maximize shareholders’ wealth and minimize the COD. Similarly, the relationship between insider-ownership and cost of equity is significant but negative. Supporting the convergence of interest increase in ownership helps in aligning the goals of managers and stakeholders whereby the insider will focus on value creation by minimizing equity cost.

This paper proposes an in-depth and complete literature review of the revenue management (RM) issue in the passenger transportation industry. The purpose of this paper is to investigate structural elements and characteristics that help to make sense of the current body of RM literature under a managerial perspective.

The RM literature landscape is analysed according to a systematic literature review approach to point out the main topics around which the scientific literature has grown in the past 30 years. Topics are further categorized in themes by means of an agglomerative hierarchical clustering procedure.

First, the scientific literature of the past 30 years has been categorized into ten topics and four themes. Second, topics and themes are put in contrast with stages of the RM business process to highlight research areas still unaddressed by the literature. Third, the paper suggests research lines for future-related works that could positively contribute to the elevation of RM from a system of techniques to a “strategic management” theory.

Available literature reviews of RM in passenger transportation are focused on quantitative aspects and poorly structured in the systemic view of the RM. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first of its kind, as it aims to assess the whole body of literature, rather than specific themes, and to do it under a management/business perspective.

Following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the international community took vigorous, unprecedented steps to curb Saddam Hussein's military ambitions. The central component of these actions was a set of comprehensive arms, aviation, maritime, and economic sanctions, each imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). When the multinational coalition forces ousted Iraq from Kuwait the following year, the UNSC made these sanctions and embargoes a component of the armistice agreement. Over time, these sanctions were subsequently used as leverage to press for Iraqi compliance with relevant UNSC resolutions calling for Iraqi disarmament.¹

Purpose: Talent management and in particular strategic talent management (STM) has emerged as an important issue for hospitality organisations worldwide. In this chapter, we address some of the complexities evident in hospitality organisations in relation to the practice of STM, the types of internal and external STM issues that arise and both the research and practice implications of pursuing STM in hospitality organisations.

Methodology/Approach: This chapter presents a review of the literature on the wider topic of STM, with particular focus on the integration of issues and themes identified in the hospitality management literature related to STM perspectives.

Findings: We find that STM is a topical issue for hospitality organisations irrespective of size, complexity, or geographic location. However, research that explicitly addresses STM in hospitality is nascent leaving many unanswered questions. The notion of what constitutes STM is shaped by the complexities and values of the hospitality industry itself and its meaning is not necessarily the same as in other industry contexts. However, as yet we do not have sufficient insights to reach conclusions as to what STM truly looks like in hospitality organisations.

Research Implications: Here, we add to the literature, highlighting the need for more research on the many dimensions of STM in hospitality organisations including its antecedents, processes, and outcomes and the extent to which it is different in hospitality organisations compared to multinational corporations and public sector organisations.

Practical Implications: We highlight a number of practical implications around roles, processes, practices, and skillsets to utilise a strategic approach to talent management in hospitality organisations.

Originality/Value: This chapter continues the debate as to the role of STM in hospitality organisations as well as providing a more focussed agenda for both future research and practice. We also analyse and critique the internal and external forces and pressures that shape STM in hospitality organisations.