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In 2022, the International Network for Quality Assurance (QA) Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) published the new guidelines by adding three QA modules in response to the changing higher education landscape. The paper aims to investigate the transformative focus of quality assurance in higher education globally as well as Asian response to three new QA modules according to the INQAAHE ISGs.

The research conducted a quantitative approach for data collection. An on-line survey was conducted to perceive QA practices, perceptions toward new emerging QA modules and challenges encountered. In total, there were 26 responses from 18 territories with 22 QA agencies. A total of 13 out of them have a national qualifications framework in place.

Three are three major findings in the study. First, national policy and criteria and standards in distance education have been developed in the majority of Asian nations. Second, non-signatories of the Tokyo Convention had a higher proportion of having related policies, regulations and criteria in CBHE and distance education. Third, national policies and regulations; and lack of professional staff are two common challenges implementing QA in new types of providers.

The findings are of value for policymakers, QA agencies and universities to advocate the new QA model as a systematic approach in response to changing higher education landscape in the post pandemic era.

The study aims to analyze the relationship between tourists' satisfaction and their sense of belonging in a specific cultural destination by also investigating the moderating role of their on-site involvement, both offline (on-site activities at the destination) and online (social media activities). A further objective lies in exploring the relationship between tourists' sense of belonging and their adoption of environmentally responsible behavior while at the destination. Finally, the paper attempts to determine whether said behavior can predict tourists' pro-environmental behavior and recommendation intention.

To reach these objectives, a survey and a structural equation model, based on a sample of 647 visitors of an important world Heritage site UNESCO (i.e. Urbino), have been adopted.

Findings reveal a positive influence of sense of belonging on satisfaction and environmentally responsible behavior, which, in turn, influences pro-environmental behavior and Recommendation intention, thus triggering a virtuous process in the tourists' formation as responsible and loyal travelers. Moreover, results underline how the relationship between satisfaction and sense of belonging is significantly strengthened when tourists' on-site activity involvement increases. Conversely, the moderating role of social media involvement is not supported.

The present study offers important implications for different actors in the tourism sector, such as policy makers, destination marketing organizations (DMOs) and tourism operators.

The present study explores the role of social media involvement, specifically during the tourist's holiday.

This study enriches the empirical evidence in the cultural tourism through an analysis focused on the tourists' perspective, especially by investigating the relationship between satisfaction and emotional constructs (i.e. sense of belonging) that are able to bring environmental and loyalty benefits to the destination. Moreover, although existing research has highlighted the positive influence of the tourists' involvement on their experience, there is a paucity of studies jointly analyzing the on-site and online activities in the sustainability field.

The national logistics policy report published by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Tourism in 2011 proposes to establish international logistics strategy teams in 10 different regions around Japan to satisfy the increasing demand for advance transportation infrastructure and stay competitive in Asia Pacific. The globalization of world economies creates many opportunities as well as challenges for international logistics companies to gain more business chances in this changing environment. The purpose of this paper is to improve service quality of international logistics companies and explores the quality function deployment in terms of quality evaluation method. The logistics service is particularly characterized by offering a series of transport solution and including other logistics activities. The major customers of the logistics services are the industrial clients. The customer satisfaction is key managerial mission since the competitiveness is a growing issue in this industry. The quality function deployment is one of the unique procedures to expose the requirements of customer and transform them into managerial tasks by cross correlation analysis between requirements and technical measures. The empirical study is performed to investigate service quality of the logistics industry by focusing on a group of leading logistics companies.

Singapore’s research has grown significantly since the first national R&D plan was launched in 1991, the same year Nanyang Technological University (NTU) was established. NTU’s research progression, vitally funded by the government, mirrored the substantial growth of Singapore’s research. NTU began as an engineering-based higher education institution that also had a school for accountancy and business, but more schools were added after 2000. Since then, the university has established a research ecosystem that includes research centres of excellence, corporate labs, and medium-sized research centres. Concurrently, the development of research administration in NTU has evolved from providing pre- and post-award support, extending to include outreach, research integrity and ethics, bibliometrics analysis, and talent recruitment and career support. The evolution of administrative needs and capabilities following the changing environment underscores the dynamic nature of research management and administration in Singapore.

The literature on the factors generating loyalty towards tourism destinations has seldom focussed its attention on relationship marketing, which has left a gap in the understanding of destination loyalty. This paper aims to examine the influence of relationship quality on rural destination loyalty, approaching this through the variables of trust, attachment and satisfaction.

This study used a quantitative methodology based on an on line survey conducted in Spain. The sample consisted of 464 tourists who participate in rural tourism. The analysis of the proposed model was carried out based on the partial least squares method.

The results confirm that the model has a substantial to moderate explanatory capacity for overall satisfaction and loyalty, in which overall satisfaction acts as a mediator between the variables that make up relationship quality in reference to loyalty.

The main limitations of this research arise from the scarcity of works which aim to understand relationship quality in tourism destinations. To broaden results, it should be applied in other tourism destinations, products, services and experiences.

Destination managers should give relationships a special role in their tourism development programmes in rural tourism contexts.

Rural tourism destinations and companies are generally small-sized organisations that need managerial tools. These can benefit from developing sustainable relationships.

The significant role played by relationship quality regarding destination loyalty is studied in detail in this model.

La literatura sobre los factores que generan lealtad a los destinos turísticos poco ha centrado su atención en el marketing relacional, lo que ha dejado un vacío en la comprensión de la lealtad al destino. Este artículo examina la influencia de la calidad relacional en la lealtad a los destinos rurales, a través de las variables confianza, apego y satisfacción.

Este estudio usa una metodología cuantitativa basada en una encuesta on line realizada en España. La muestra estaba formada por 464 turistas que practican turismo rural. El análisis del modelo propuesto fue llevado a cabo con el método partial least squares.

Los resultados confirman que el modelo tiene una capacidad explicativa sustancial-moderada para la satisfacción global y la lealtad, en la que la satisfacción global actúa como mediadora entre las variables que conforman la calidad relacional y la lealtad.

La principal limitación de esta investigación surge de la escasez de trabajos cuyo objetivo se centra en la comprensión de la calidad relacional en los destinos turísticos. Para ampliar los resultados, habría de aplicarse en otros destinos, productos, servicios y experiencias turísticas.

Los gestores de destinos deberían otorgar un papel especial a las relaciones en sus programas de desarrollo turístico en el medio rural.

Los destinos y empresas de turismo rural son por lo general organizaciones de pequeñas dimensiones que necesitan herramientas para la gestión. Ellas pueden beneficiarse del desarrollo de relaciones sostenibles.

El papel significativo que juega la calidad relacional con respecto a la lealtad al destino, estudiado en detalle en este modelo.

Marketing relacional, Calidad relacional, Lealtad, Destinos rurales, Partial least squares (PLS)

Artículo de investigación

“The world needs science, science needs women” is the message given by UNESCO in the program for the development of women in science” (UNESCO, 2017). In Vietnam, women’s participation and achievements in scientific research is considered a great and important resource for industrialization and modernization. Even so, are there gender differences in scientific achievement in the social science research institutes in Vietnam? What factors influence the scientific achievement of female social researchers? The answers will be based on data from a 2017 survey with a sample of 756 researchers, of which 77.6% were female. The survey was conducted by the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, a leading, ministry-level national center for the social sciences in Vietnam. This chapter analyzed the scientific achievements of researchers through their position as principal investigators of research projects and their publications, and factors that may impact this. Bivariate and multivariate analyses of factors that may affect the scientific achievement of researchers found that gender differences in academic achievement in the social sciences in Vietnam was still prevalent. Female researchers’ scientific achievements were lower than those of their male counterparts. The contribution to science of Vietnamese female researchers was limited by many different factors; the most important were the academic rank of the researchers and gender stereotype that considered housework the responsibility of women.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown have hit the food service industry very hard. The COVID-19 outbreak has created a sharp downturn for firms in the food service industry, compelling actors across the whole food service supply chain to rethink their strategies. The purpose of this paper is to document the impact of COVID-19 on the food service supply chain, as well as to identify crisis management strategies food service firms use during the hectic early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic to survive the current and prepare for future pandemics.

We performed a qualitative descriptive study using 21 semi-structured interviews with actors across the food service supply chain (i.e. farmers, wholesalers and food service providers). Data were collected to shed light on food service firms' decision making during the hectic early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic to uncover various crisis management strategies used.

By integrating the disaster and crisis pyramid and resilience theory, four core crisis management strategies to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic are conceptualized, i.e. (1) managing resources, (2) diversifying strategically, (3) prioritizing long-term outcomes and (4) bonding socially.

The theoretical contributions include documenting the performance impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food service supply chain and exploring crisis management strategies food service firms employed during the hectic early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, functioning and survival during a pandemic, an emerging field in literature, are central to this study. Additionally, while recent research suggests that integrating crisis management and resilience literature may provide a more complete understanding of the organization–crisis relationship, these literature streams mainly developed in isolation. By integrating the literature streams of crisis management and resilience and applying these theories to the COVID-19 crisis, our study provides specific managerial guidelines.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the antecedent (Consumer Involvement) and the consequences (Brand Connection and Brand Usage Intent [BUI]) of the three dimensions of Consumer Brand Engagement (CBE) (Cognitive Processing, Affection and Activation) in luxury brand engagement on Facebook.

Data were collected through an online questionnaire completed by fans/followers of luxury brands’ Facebook pages. The empirical study was conducted using structural equation modelling.

Consumer Involvement has a positive impact on the three dimensions of CBE (Cognitive Processing, Affection and Activation). This leads to the conclusion that Activation and Affection have an impact both on Self-Brand Connection and on BUI. Moreover, it was found that Cognitive Processing impacts only on BUI.

The results identified the factors which brand managers should focus on to increase CBE on Facebook.

This study is a pioneer, as it extends the consumer engagement model to the social media context in a hedonic and conspicuous consumption category which includes luxury brand products.

Esta investigación analiza el antecedente (compromiso del consumidor) y las consecuencias (conexión con la marca e intención de uso de marca) de las tres dimensiones del compromiso del consumidor con la marca (procesamiento cognitivo, afectivo y activo) en el compromiso con la marca de lujo en Facebook.

Los datos se obtuvieron a través de un cuestionario online de los seguidores de varias páginas de marcas de lujo en Facebook. El estudio empírico se realizó utilizando un modelo SEM.

El compromiso del consumidor tiene un impacto positivo en las tres dimensiones del compromiso del consumidor con la marca (procesamiento cognitivo, afectivo y activo). Esto lleva a concluir que los procesos activo y afectivo tienen un impacto tanto en la conexión con la marca como en su intención de uso. Además, se constató que el proceso cognitivo sólo afecta a la intención de uso de la marca.

Los resultados identificaron los factores en los que los directores de marca deberían centrarse para aumentar el compromiso del consumidor hacia la marca en Facebook.

Este estudio es pionero, dado que extiende el modelo de compromiso del consumidor al contexto de las redes sociales en una categoría de consumo hedónico y ostentoso que incluye a bienes y servicios como las marcas de lujo.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of booking website (hotel or third-party) characteristics and hotel star-rating classification, as signals of quality, on travelers’ relationships with hotels or hotel chains, taking into account the moderating effect of travelers’ tendencies to seek variety.

To test the hypothesized relationships, structural equation modeling was performed. A multi-group analysis was also conducted to test the moderating effect of travelers’ variety seeking.

Both booking website quality and star rating improve customer satisfaction with specific experiences at hotels and behavioral intentions toward hotels. The results also show that travelers’ variety-seeking levels (low/high) exert a moderating effect on their overall relationships with hotels, and quality signals are more relevant for those who are less inclined to seek variety in their travel experiences.

This paper analyzes the importance of quality signals on travelers’ relationships with hotels in an electronic shopping environment. Furthermore, the influence of travelers’ variety-seeking in the hotel sector in particular is studied. For hotel managers, a better knowledge of this personality trait can help to apply successful segmentation strategies.

Este estudio analiza la influencia de las características del sitio web de reserva -web propia del hotel o de un tercero- y del número de estrellas del hotel, como señales de calidad, en la relación del cliente con el hotel o cadena, teniendo en cuenta el efecto moderador de la tendencia del viajero a buscar variedad.

Para probar las hipótesis, se llevó a cabo un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales (SEM). También se realizó un análisis multi-grupo para probar el efecto moderador de la búsqueda de variedad del viajero.

Tanto la calidad del sitio web de reserva como las estrellas favorecen la satisfacción del cliente con la experiencia concreta en el hotel y, finalmente, las intenciones de comportamiento hacia el hotel. Además, el análisis muestra que el nivel de búsqueda de variedad del viajero (bajo/alto) ejerce un efecto moderador en su relación global con el hotel y que las señales parecen ser más relevantes para los individuos con menor tendencia a buscar variedad en sus experiencias de viaje.

Este trabajo analiza la importancia de las señales de calidad en la relación de los viajeros con los hoteles en un entorno de compra electrónica. Además, se estudia la influencia de la búsqueda de variedad de los viajeros en el sector hotelero en particular. Un mejor conocimiento de este rasgo de la personalidad puede ayudar a los gerentes de hotel a aplicar estrategias de segmentación exitosas.

摘要

本研究的目的是分析作为品质判断因素的预订网站(酒店或第三方)特征和酒店星级评分分类对游客与酒店或连锁酒店关系的影响，并考虑游客寻求多样性倾向的调节作用。

为了检验假设的关系，我们进行了结构方程建模。本研究还采用多组分析的方法来检验旅客的多样性寻求的调节作用。

预订网站的质量和星级评分都可以提高客户对酒店具体体验的满意度和对酒店的行为意向。结果还表明，游客的多样性寻求水平(低/高)对他们与酒店的整体关系具有调节作用，而质量因素对那些不太倾向于在旅行体验中寻求多样性的人更相关。

本文分析了在电子购物环境下，品质因素对游客与酒店关系的重要性。此外，本文还特别研究了游客的多样性寻求对酒店行业的影响。对于酒店管理者来说，更好地了解这一个性特征有助于成功地应用细分策略。