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The purpose of this paper is to shed light on emerging issues threatening the Eastern Caribbean and to suggest how Antigua's Port Authority redevelopment can assist in solving a major challenge. The fact that the ports have not improved in key areas appears to be impacting the ability of carriers to maintain their service to the region. The ongoing development being undertaken in Antigua represents the first major Port improvement project ever undertaken within this part of the world. This article reflects the impact this new facility will have on Antigua and the surrounding islands.

The main inputs to this article were an extensive review of various regional and international journals and research projects; interviews with regional academics and port professionals; personal knowledge and experience and assessment of key industry data.

The continued departure of cargo lines from the region is an issue that requires urgent attention. Regional ports are not equipped with the infrastructure, technology, labor reforms and human resource capacity to entice new entries to the region. The displacement of cargo vessels by cruise ships also remains a major issue. The Port Authority of Antigua with its modern infrastructure and a cadre of technically trained people represents an option for a hub-and-spoke port and logistic operation.

A follow-on study could usefully analyze the reduction in container lines serving the Caribbean/Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) between 1995 to the present day and the impact on trade and shipping costs.

If it can become a regional hub, the Antigua Port Authority can serve as a lifeline to struggling carriers. This could result in improved regional connectivity and profit improvement for the carriers. It could also encourage regional participation in investment and employment opportunities.

The result of improving connectivity and intra-regional commerce will have a significant social impact within the OECS as economic integration improves. The free movement of people will finally be supported by the free movement of goods.

The article considers the concept of a dedicated container terminal within the Eastern Caribbean and the additional services being offered by the first Eastern Caribbean Port to upgrade its port infrastructure in the region.

In the face of newly industrialised nations, there is the tendency that there will be a shift or redirect of tourists from old tourism destinations to the newly industrialised ones. While there has been a consistent growth in cruising to the Caribbean, the question is whether the growth in cruise ship calls and increase in cruise passenger arrivals to the Caribbean translate into greater development for the region ' s stakeholders or whether this just creates increased profits for the cruise lines, and whether there will be a shift from the Caribbean to the newly industrialised nation in years to come. This paper seeks to address these issues.

This research employed mixed methods approach to answer the research question. The nature of the question and data necessary to answer the question led to the choice of qualitative and quantitative techniques.

The findings from this research will, hopefully, serve as a guide for Caribbean nations to develop a better strategy to cope with the cruise tourism industry; an approach based more along the lines of inter-island collaboration as opposed to competition.

Lack of ample data on cruise tourism in the Caribbean was one of the limitations of the study. Another drawback involved the high level of secrecy which surrounds the industry and the unwillingness of cruise lines and their associates to provide access to operational data, which they regard as confidential.

The Caribbean, particularly Caribbean governments, will benefit from a greater understanding of the power relations among the cruise tourism stakeholder chain and the profile of costs and benefits associated with the industry. Over the years, the Caribbean has relied solely on the economic impact surveys produced by Florida Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA) and Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), both of whom represent the cruise lines, in order to make projections and development plans for the industry.

An offshore sector makes reference to financial services and non‐financial services frameworks in a country/territory. Clientele who make use of these services are non‐residents of the given jurisdiction. In these service frameworks assets can be diverted to, and business/financial affairs conducted in, an environment where a package of favourable regulatory incentives are in place to benefit clients who would ordinarily not be privy to such regulatory regimes in onshore jurisdictions. These regulatory incentives typically comprise incorporation mechanisms as regards commercial holding companies or overseas subsidiaries in client‐friendly fiscal and exchange control environments.

This chapter will discuss diversity and discrimination within Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) (in employment and wider society) and critically assess the findings of the extant literature as it relates to such small island developing states. The chapter will examine race, sex, disability, and sexual orientation, specifically exploring current accepted practice and the effect of the recently enacted anti-discrimination legislation. This discussion is important as there is limited available literature as it relates to discrimination, diversity, inclusion and equality in the Caribbean region.

This chapter will rely on secondary data, primarily studies which focus on T&T, in the fields of management, psychology and sociology; as well as country reports published by international agencies including the United Nations and the World Health Organization; and T&T Equality Commission Reports.

Diversity exists within T&T, as does discrimination, within employment and wider society. This reflects an acceptance of the status quo as part of the culture of the twin island state, rather than challenging why it is still regarded as acceptable to treat some minority groups less favorably than others as a result of their immutable characteristics.

The use of secondary data may have limited the scope of the findings.

The development of the Equal Opportunity Act (2000) is a pivotal event in the trajectory towards equality; however, further action will be needed to reduce discrimination within society. The exclusion of sexual orientation from the Act and the criminalization of private sexual behavior must be addressed in order for Trinidadian society to become truly inclusive and diverse.

This discussion is important as there is limited available literature as it relates to discrimination, diversity, inclusion and equality in the Caribbean region and much of what is accepted as representative of reality is based on anecdotal evidence.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among role conflict, role ambiguity, the three dimensions of organizational commitment, and turnover intentions. In addition, the paper tests the moderating effect of perceived alternatives in the relationship between continuance commitment and turnover intentions.

The research was a cross‐sectional study of employees in the public sector in St Lucia. In total, 226 usable questionnaires were obtained. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

It was found that role ambiguity and conflict were negatively associated with affective and normative commitment. Also, there were negative relationships between the three dimensions of organizational commitment and turnover intentions. There was no significant relationship between employees' role stressors and their continuance commitment. Employees with continuance commitment develop turnover cognitions when alternative jobs are available.

More research using data from the public sector in developing countries is advocated. Studies should incorporate three dimensions of organizational commitment and also assess pay satisfaction. Moderators that might change employees' normative and affective commitment should be explored.

It is suggested that the sector should reduce role stressors to enhance employees' commitment. Employees should be offered competitive salaries to minimize turnover of employees with affective and normative commitment. This will serve to minimize retention of mainly employees with high continuance commitment.

This is one of the few studies that have examined organizational commitment in the public sector using data from a developing country.

Growth of the tourism sector and the relative importance of the last mile have been studied in independent literature, but theorists formally linking the two phenomena are limited. This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework for the understanding of the relationships between the last mile concept and the growth of the tourism sector.

Using 16 Caribbean countries’ tourism destinations, the study designs the last mile response to tourists’ demand based on the following categories: homogenous high-end tourists; homogenous low-end tourists; non-homogenous high-end tourists; non-homogenous low-end tourists; homogenous and non-homogenous high-end tourists; and homogenous and non-homogeneous low-end tourists. Destination networks were ranked relative to each other in terms of six different performance dimensions. A ranking of 1 indicates the best performance along a given dimension and the relative performance worsens, as the ranking gets higher.

First, it is the case that the Caribbean has a tourism environment with three types of destinations differentiated by their last mile standard levels (high standard LML, low standard LML and a combination of high and low standard LML). Second, tourists can choose from destinations that have high, low and combination of high and low last mile standard levels. Third, the relative number of tourists and relative profit of destination will depend on the last mile level. Fourth, while empirical evidence of the integration strategies for market differentiation is scarce, this paper points to the effect of cooperation on marketing destinations or integration strategies for marketing destinations.

The grouping of countries into high standard LML, low standard LML and a combination of high and low standard LML represents an advance on the traditional grouping based on proximity, colonial affiliation, language and cultural association. Identifying destination networks that are best suited for a variety of tourists, investors and marketers is of great value to regional tourism planners.

This paper aims to explore the need for innovation in Caribbean tourism with stringent (mandatory) environmental regulations as the key driver of the process. It draws examples from three destinations, Barbados, Guyana and Jamaica.

This assessment entailed a review of the literature on the key issues. Theories on innovation, regulations and competitiveness were examined in brief. The paper also presents an overview of Caribbean tourism to provide context. Of note is the dearth of information on the drivers of innovation and its effect on the Caribbean tourism industry which was a major limitation of this assessment.

The main implication of this review is that it attempts to highlight the need for discourse on the effective use of environmental regulations to influence the behaviour of industry operatives towards achieving sustainable tourism. Within the context of climate change and the threat that this poses to Caribbean tourism, there is the critical need for this discourse. Consideration is also given to the value stringency of regulation since it is theorised that, if applied correctly, this may be the impetus to drive businesses to innovate to be competitive.

This is a novel approach to the management of the tourism industry which has shown a preference for self-regulation. Given the proposed outcome, the paper advocates mandatory, stringent regulations since self-regulation is a choice left solely to the industry operatives.

This study examined the attainment and the benefits of financial flexibility in the presence of concentrated ownership in the Caribbean.

This study used qualitative methodology via the use of case studies.

Results revealed that liquidity may be considered the most important form of financial flexibility for firms in transitioning economies, due to constrained capital markets. Blockholder firms also focus on liquidity out of a concern for recovering their substantial investment. This study suggested that in addition to an emphasis on liquidity, blockholder owners emphasise professionalism in managing the firm. This professionalism, accompanied by a genuine separation of ownership and control, may be critical in minimising the possibility of misappropriation of surplus liquidity. The study showed that blockholder owned firms may not recognise maximum capital investment benefits because of the use of sub-optimal capital budgeting techniques reflecting their liquidity preference, or pay maximum dividends, opting instead to use dividends as a governance tool. However, the ability to separate ownership from the management of the operations may counteract this, leading to an increased focus on net present value (NPV) maximising projects, and a dividend policy aimed at preserving future financial flexibility.

This study highlights the value of qualitative studies in finance research, by providing a deeper insight into the management of firm financial flexibility, under blockholder ownership. It emphasises the importance of considering liquidity as a critical form of financial flexibility. Furthermore, the study shows that two significant factors in controlling principal–principal (PP) conflict may be the ability to separate ownership from control and the appointment of a professional management team.

This research introduces the variable of PP agency in the study of financial flexibility.

The purpose of this study is to explore the current state of corporate governance in various aspects of business settings and to empirically examine the impact of national culture on corporate governance performance, with a view of supporting business corporations in further enhancing the effectiveness of their corporate governance system.

A pooled sample of 9,003 companies drawn from 50 countries across ten different regions is collected. A variety of statistical methods, including the paired sample t-test, the ordinary least squares regression and the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient are implemented to analyze the current state of corporate governance. To empirically investigate the causal relationship between national culture and corporate governance, the multivariate regression analysis is also applied.

This study proposes a broad set of the empirical findings regarding the current state of corporate governance. Despite being accepted as a prerequisite building block for sustainable corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate governance is still receiving far less attention among business corporations. The governance framework is widely adopted by business corporations, yet the intensity of implementing corporate governance is significantly different across regions. The variation of the intensity observed across regions can be explained by the national cultural characteristics that are all likely to impact the degree to which corporations act in corporate governance manners. Corporate governance performance is strongly related to three other aspects of socially responsible corporate performance – community, employee and environment.

This study provides both the motivation and a starting point for further investigation in the milieu of corporate governance. It would be interesting for future research to further explore the extent to which corporate governance has a positive indirect impact on a firm’s financial performance. There is potential to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the interaction effect of national culture and geographic region on corporate governance performance of the corporations embedded in that region through a statistical interaction method. In addition, it may be interesting to integrate corporate financial performance (CFP) into the analysis to identify a specific type/practice of the corporate governance that could provide the highest return on the investment. Last, another interesting avenue for future research would be to explore the ethical mechanisms that have been institutionalized to promote corporate governance practices.

The present study is beneficial to both business corporations and policy makers. In essence, the study can potentially draw managers’ attention to applying modified corporate governance strategies according to their national culture. Furthermore, the study can alter business corporations to promote a strong corporate governance regime in chorus to CSR strategies so as to promote CSR development, which ultimately results in higher levels of competitiveness and CFP. In addition, policy makers who are responsible for inward foreign investment can use the findings of this study to evaluate the investors’ potential governance adoption.

The findings of this study are useful in encouraging the business corporations to further strengthen their corporate governance system. This study helps to fill the theoretical void regarding the cultural impact on corporate governance by exploring a broad set of national cultural characteristics under which good corporate governance is more or less likely to occur.

The study, conducted in Trinidad and Tobago, seeks to investigate the relationships among perceived organizational support, psychological contract, and affective organizational commitment. In addition, the study aims to test the moderating effect of psychological contract breach in the relationship between affective commitment and turnover intentions.

The research was a cross‐sectional study of employees in media organizations in Trinidad and Tobago.

Perceived organizational support led to affective commitment and the latter, in turn, led to lowered turnover intentions. However, employees with higher levels of affective commitment who perceived a psychological contract breach were more likely to think about quitting their jobs. There was no significant relationship between employees' psychological contract and their affective commitment.

The study's findings are generalizable to other print media organizations and perhaps to similar businesses in the Caribbean region. Future research should examine the antecedents and consequences of organizational commitment in other parts of the Caribbean and in non‐Western settings. This will serve to determine the cross‐national applicability and generalizability of results found in studies conducted elsewhere.

The study suggested that to avoid psychological contract breach and retain employees who identify with their values and goals, organizations ought to provide feedback, support career development, and engage in participative decision‐making.

This study contributes to theory and research in organizational commitment in two main ways. Firstly, this is one of the few studies to examine the phenomenon in the Caribbean. Secondly, the findings of this study lend support to similar studies that have been conducted mainly in North America.