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This chapter explores a relatively underresearched assumption in the diversity literature, namely, that more variety in demographic characteristics, educational or functional backgrounds, or hierarchical status in the workforce represents a wider repertoire of perspectives, approaches, and ways of thinking. Using data from members of innovation teams across 27 organizations in 11 industries (for which variation in thinking should be highly valued), we explore at the individual level whether people with different demographic and informational backgrounds evidence differences in ways of thinking which we define in terms of cognitive styles, learning styles, cultural orientations, and communication preferences. We find large differences in ways of thinking due to culture and communication preferences but modest and limited differences in ways of thinking by level and type of education, occupational function, and hierarchical status. We find few differences by gender. The findings raise questions about the frequently repeated claims that categorical and informational diversity among organizational members reflects differences in ways of thinking.

The study investigates the relationship between hospital environmental factors and the well-being of geriatric in-patients. It aims to identify the impact of architectural design on comfort, safety, privacy and stress levels experienced by elderly patients during their hospital stays.

Employing a mixed-methods approach, the research assesses the experiences of 100 geriatric in-patients across various hospital types through surveys, observational checklists and state anxiety measurements. The methodology involves examining architectural features, patient perceptions and correlations among environmental variables and patient experiences. Statistical analyses, including correlations and chi-square tests, were employed to discern associations between environmental variables and patient experiences.

The research identified key architectural features significantly impacting geriatric patients' experiences. Factors such as sturdy beds, furniture quantity, lighting conditions, proximity to facilities and ward occupancy levels were found to influence spatial, sensory and social comfort. Notably, proximity to facilities and control over the immediate environment were crucial for self-control and safety perceptions. Privacy, highly valued by patients, correlated with the presence of curtains and ward occupancy. Moreover, patient stress levels exhibited correlations with autonomy, privacy and ward occupancy.

This research offers significant insights into the criticality of specific architectural elements in enhancing comfort and reducing stress for geriatric in-patients. These findings hold substantial value for healthcare facility design, emphasizing the need to prioritize certain design aspects to promote the well-being of elderly patients during hospitalization.

The authors construct two time-varying political connection (PC) indexes to measure a firm's political tendencies toward ruling and opposing parties and analyze whether a firm with ruling party tendencies obtains better bank loan contracts compared to the contracts obtained by a firm with opposing party tendencies and a firm with fixed PC tendencies.

Linguistic text mining is used to construct the two time-varying PC indexes from news sources that reflect the tone and frequencies of characteristic texts to determine a firm's tendencies to favor the ruling or opposing parties.

The results show that varying PC firms connected to the ruling party receive preferential loan contracts when their political tendencies increase but varying PC firms connected to the opposition party do not. In contrast, fixed PC firms gain similar benefits only when the connection is determined in the presidential election year but not in other years. Firms supporting two parties receive minimal financial rewards in terms of loan terms.

In past studies, once a firm is identified as having a connection with a political party, it is assumed to have PC throughout the sample period (i.e. fixed PC firms). The authors lift this assumption and examine how varying PC affect bank loan contracts. The two time-varying PC indexes can identify a firm's more immediate party tendencies and more precise effects of a firm's party tendencies on bank loan contracts.

This chapter proposes to understand the prospects of smart technologies that can transform tourism destinations and instigate regenerative development process. Bio-based resource consumption and technology-driven practices aimed for better sustainable development have been the need of the era. This study emphasizes the theory of regenerative tourism, which attempts to preserve and improve a destination's natural and cultural resources while contributing to the socio-economic development of the host communities. It examines how transformational technologies, like smart infrastructure, big data analytics and renewable energy systems, could assist the tourism industry achieve the transition to a green economy. This chapter illustrates the benefits and problems of integrating such technologies into the tourism infrastructure of a destination. Additionally, it highlights the necessity of cooperation among stakeholders and policymakers and examines the possible environmental, social and economic implications of using a regenerative approach to tourism. The results of this study contribute to the expanding body of knowledge on the development of sustainable tourism and shed light on the transformative potential of technology in creating a more sustainable and resilient future.

The purpose of the study is to analyse the impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry during the rise of worldwide pandemic crises using Twitter analysis. The study is based on 57,794 English-language tweets mined from Twitter from 1 April 2020 to 15 October 2020. Based on thematic and sentiment analysis, the study found that overall sentiments expressed on Twitter were negative. This chapter contributes to existing knowledge about the COVID-19 crisis and broadens the respondents’ understanding of the potential impacts of the crisis on the most vulnerable tourism and hospitality industry. This research emphasises the sustainable revival of the hospitality industry.

This study examines the impact of outcome uncertainty on the National Football League (NFL) secondary ticket market prices. As a demand-driven market, it is essential to comprehend how resellers respond to outcome uncertainty, one of the consumer demand factors in sports.

Using real-time ticket prices and money lines as a proxy of the probabilities of winning, this study employs a regression analysis and examines 33,554 price observations from the NFL’s secondary ticket market partner, StubHub.

The result shows a positive relationship between outcome uncertainty and secondary market ticket prices, indicating that resellers adjust the prices in response to the level of outcome uncertainty and put more value on games with greater uncertainty. This finding confirms the demand-driven nature of the secondary ticket market, as outcome uncertainty is one of the demand factors in sports.

This study links the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis with secondary ticket market pricing and fills a gap in the literature by providing an important perspective on games with uncertainty in the secondary ticket market. Outcome uncertainty has limited understanding in relation to secondary ticket market pricing despite its relationship with consumer demand. The positive relationship between outcome uncertainty and the ticket prices, grounded in real-time price data and win probability from sport betting markets, enhances our understanding of price determinations in the secondary ticket market.

Facilities management (FM), which is crucial for the operation and sustainability of buildings and infrastructure across the world, covers a wide range of competencies that may vary across regions. Focusing on Sri Lanka and Hong Kong, this study aims to reveal and compare the importance and current competency levels of FM competencies in these regions, based on which appropriate education and training can be formulated to enhance the growth of their FM sectors.

After an extensive literature review, 12 FM competency attributes (CAs) were identified. A questionnaire survey in Sri Lanka and Hong Kong solicited the industry practitioners’ perceived importance and current levels of the CAs. The survey responses, 126 from Sri Lanka and 148 from Hong Kong, were analysed by a modified Importance-Competency Analysis matrix, followed using the Mann−Whitney U test to identify any differences in the responses between the two regions.

Between Sri Lanka and Hong Kong, significant differences were found to exist in the importance and current competency levels of over half of the CAs. Among the CAs requiring priority attention, “operation and maintenance” and “leadership” are the top two in Sri Lanka while the top two in Hong Kong are “technology” and “leadership”.

This study yielded insightful results on the importance of FM competencies and the current competency levels in a developing region and a developed region, which are useful for the development of FM education and research.

Along with the national government's expectation transformation, administrative system reform, economic transition, social demand structure's upgrading and population change, these negative effects are turning increasingly obvious and thus become huge powers that push the reform of traditional elite sports development mode forward. Against this background, in order to make this reform better adapted to China's reality and future development, the chapter suggests that Chinese traditional elite sports development mode should shift its driving forces of development from single to multiple, change its administrative system from government-oriented to society-oriented, develop its training concepts from instrumentalism to humanism, improve its construction of development from unbalanced to balanced and alter its effectiveness of development from extensive to intensive so as to achieve sustainable development.