Search results

This study aims to develop and validate a scale for the assessment of the quality of the meta-management process that helps urban destinations to identify potential improvement in their strategy and possible paths to enhance destination competitiveness.

In particular, through an empirical analysis of all the Italian cities with tourism certification (138 urban destinations), a model is proposed, linking specific portal functions to the achievement of six meta-management processes (product development, segment selection, customer relation management, promotion, destination image and brand management and management of distribution channels). Through a comparison with a competitive set of excellent international destinations, the study identifies priorities for competitiveness enhancement.

The results of the study contribute to the ongoing debate on destination competitiveness and destination web site evaluation.

From the managerial point of view, the model helps destination managers to control destination strategy and create consensus among all the stakeholders on the actions to achieve them.

The systemic nature of tourism products generates the need for a broad involvement of destination stakeholders in the destination management organization's (DMO) activities and makes destination governance, defined as the setting up and developing of rules and mechanisms for business strategies by involving stakeholders (Beritelli et al.), an interesting topic. Over the last seven years the authors have conducted an in‐depth study of governance and performance of 13 European tourism destinations – three mountain and two seaside destinations, four urban cities and four small heritage cities (Sainaghi; d'Angella; De Carlo and Dubini) – which represent an interesting sample to study this topic. This paper aims to discuss these issues.

A qualitative methodology is adopted; applying a theoretical model (Airoldi et al.) to the sample, the authors analyzed the governance structure of the selected destinations in terms of typologies of stakeholders involved, contributions provided, rewards obtained, decision‐making processes and mechanisms which link these four components.

The clinical cases (Yin; Eisenhardt) reported in the paper reveal several archetypes in destination governance structures defined according to different variables: destination manager characteristics; amount (absolute and relative) of financial contributions managed by the destination manager; financial model (firms and public bodies participation in destination manager annual budget); number of actors participating in the governance structure; number of actors participating in permanent meta‐management activities.

The empirical analysis offers interesting implications for both the academic debate and practitioners. From an academic point of view, this categorization enriches the academic contributions on destination governance, which are often descriptive. Moreover, the model allows identifying key variables and relationships in order to analyze and assess destination governance structures. At the same time, this framework offers interesting insights for destination managers responsible for the design and management of the governance structure.

This paper proposes a model originally projected to analyze firms' governance for the analysis of DMOs governance. The authors decided to apply this model because it offers a new perspective to study destination governance, which considers the complexity of the environment and the different kinds of relationships between stakeholders.

Notwithstanding a growing interest on destination management, little is known about the formation and evaluation of destination managers' strategies. Strategy assessment is essential to understand whether, and how, destination managers allow the reconciliation of the diverse stakeholders' interests within an integrated destination plan, pursuing the development of the destination. The purpose of this paper is the exploration and building of a strategy assessment approach.

A qualitative methodology is adopted, to identify key dimensions of strategy assessment and their combination within an integrated destination plan. Data come from the city of Turin, and the destination management organization developed for 2006 Winter Olympic Games.

The use of balanced scorecard approaches points out how a financial dimension is key in meta‐management contexts, notwithstanding the public interests of the destination supply system. Also, this work discloses the formative process that characterizes strategic planning within supply networks of tourism destination. It describes the hierarchy of strategy assessment, taking into consideration externalities emerging from integrated supply systems developed at the destination level.

Limitations are intrinsic to case study methods, and points on findings generalizability.

The paper offers insights on developing analytical capability within meta‐management organizations, to diagnose value creation and competitiveness gaps. Also, it gives insights on developing co‐ordination capabilities, allowing different strategic goals to be drawn into an integrated design.

The paper offers a novel approach for developing a strategy map, and contributes to prior research on strategy assessment in meta‐management.

To create a competitive edge in today's tourism marketplace, cities seek to differentiate themselves and create a positive image. Yet, there is little consensus about city branding processes and few case studies. This paper aims to explore Milan's brand image and personality, focusing on the extent to which its image is dominated by business and fashion or culture and heritage and the implications of this positioning for Milan's re‐branding in preparation for Expo 2015.

The paper combines quantitative and qualitative primary research. It reports the findings of a questionnaire survey, a web survey, desk research and focus group research. It analyses actual and potential tourists' perceptions, Milan's heritage product, current brand personality and the brand fingerprint.

Business tourism is central to Milan's prosperity; in contrast, its significant cultural attractions remain marginal to its tourism offer. This results in a narrow range of tourist perceptions of the destination and highly seasonal tourist activity.

This paper represents the discovery phase research for a new city brand and further longitudinal and qualitative work is required.

The paper includes implications for the development of a consistent destination branding strategy analyzing the first steps of the definition of the Milan's brand.

The paper makes practical recommendations to tourism and place marketing practitioners for broadening Milan's brand to build on the city's strong architectural and cultural heritage. It also has value for tourism academics since it makes a methodological contribution to the place branding literature through its use of projective techniques.

This paper aims to investigate and discover the demographic characteristics of corporate leaders (CEOs) in Fintech sector firms representing the implementation of the sustainable business model. Particularly, the purpose is to identify a benchmark profile of CEOs and to understand which are the main features (e.g. age, tenure, education specification, education level, gender, nationality, years of entrepreneurship, years in financial functions, years in IT functions), giving more opportunity to develop and maintain sustainable business models using innovative platforms.

The research questions are answered through a quali-quantitative methodology using descriptive and statistical approaches. The researchers collected a sample of 100 Fintech firms from the main Fintech firms in 2018 identified by the annual KPMG Report (2019). Thus, the research observed and tested the average level of the major CEO demographic features. Additionally, the paper explored whether these variables have a major probability to affect Fintech leading.

Assuming a relevant part of Fintech firms, the main results of this paper show the relevance of several CEO demographic characteristics. Additionally, the age, the tenure and the presence of an MBA are significant elements in affecting Leading companies.

The paper is novel because it contributes to the literature examining the internal governance and sustainable business model, still not explored. Moreover, this study contributes to identifying the CEO demographic characteristics that foster financial institutions' transition towards sustainable business models.

In this research a model for the rationalization of the assessment in a rent to buy contract has been proposed, in order to contextualize the economic amounts involved in the negotiation according to the specific market risk of the area where the property is located. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The model borrows the logical principles of operational research, in order to take into account the convenience constraints of the parties involved (seller and buyer) and to determine the minimum amount of the additional annual rent to be charged as down payment on the final sale price, compensating the investment risk. The procedure proposed for the risk assessment combines the discrete modeling of real option analysis and the exponentially weighted moving average method, in order to weigh appropriately the data available for the specific area in the analysis.

Considering the limit conditions of variability of the property market value at the time provided for the notarial deed, the proposed model returns two values (minimum and maximum) for a fixed contract duration and for a specific market area for the annual additional rent, which define the reference range to ensure the compliance with the convenience constraints of the parties involved.

In order to test the reliability of the developed methodology, the model has been implemented to the 24 “microzones” defined by the Italian Revenue Agency for the city of Bari (Southern Italy). The results obtained were then georeferenced, in order to create thematic maps of convenience for the subjects interested in the rent to buy formula. The developed maps define a useful support to be consulted in the negotiation phase between the seller and the buyer, allowing both to verify the investment conveniences within the limits of their disposable incomes and their needs.

The tabulated values of the down-payment amounts and the related thematic maps constitute a valid support for both the parties in the initial negotiation phase of the contractual conditions: in fact, if comparable data for the assessment of the market value and the market rent at the time of the stipulation of the contract are ordinarily available, the increase in the rent, to be charged as the annual down payment on the final purchase price, is generally entrusted to the contractual capabilities of the subjects involved, since there is no market reference that can direct an appropriate assessment.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efficiency of temperature-based weather derivatives (WD) in reducing risk exposure for Chinese agriculture industry. Therefore, a put option with cumulated growing degree days as its underlying index is assumed to be bought by farmers as a risk management instrument to prevent income fluctuations from adverse temperature conditions.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the efficiency of temperature-based WD in reducing risk exposure for Chinese agriculture industry. Therefore, a put option with cumulated growing degree days as its underlying index is assumed to be bought by farmers as a risk management instrument to prevent income fluctuations from adverse temperature conditions.

The results of the efficiency tests show that temperature-based put options are efficient in offsetting yield shortfalls for rice and wheat in China. The weather-yield models have a high prediction power in explaining yield variation by temperature.

The de-trending procedure for the weather-yield model should be improved to distinguish better between technology progress, human activities and influence of weather. Further, more advanced models could be used for the pricing.

The findings of the paper support the launch of WD as an efficient risk management tool for agriculture in China. Compared with traditional damage-based insurance, WD are more flexible, have lower transactions costs and avoid moral hazard or adverse selection.

The efficiency problem of WD has not been analyzed sufficiently worldwide and especially not for developing countries like China where a large proportion of the population works as farmers. This paper supports to fill this gap.

The purpose of this study is to explore the hedonic experience and its formation at heritage attractions.

A qualitative and exploratory approach was applied, using data from 21 semi-structured interviews and three in-situ focus groups.

Findings highlight that senses, imagery and emotions are stimulated by the physical landscape and by triggers of memorable experiences.

To further explore this topic, a broader range of heritage attractions and perspectives from the diverse stakeholders involved in the management and consumption of these sites is needed.

Given the scarcity of research dedicated to the hedonic experience at heritage sites, this study provides a contribution by exploring the visitor’s perspective and points out relevant insights. As the hedonic feelings of pleasure, comfort and related affective responses impact the quality of memorable experiences, relevant implications for theory and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of high-involvement work systems (HIWS) on absorptive capacity. In addition, the mediating effect of happiness at work in the relationship between high-involvement work practices and absorptive capacity is analyzed.

A 2-1-2 bathtub multilevel mediation model was used to analyze a sample of 783 employees from 111 bank branches, gathering data at three different times.

The results reveal that HIWS positively affect absorptive capacity. In addition, they show that happiness at work partially mediates the relationship between HIWS and absorptive capacity.

Happiness at work is a fundamental element for knowledge absorption. The findings support the basic assumptions of the job demands-resources model, and demonstrate how HIWS, acting as a job resource, lead to positive attitudes (happiness at work) and, in turn, to positive outcomes (absorptive capacity). The proposed HIWS, based on the assumptions of the mutual gains model, reveal a positive employment relationship with effects on both HAW and organizational outcomes. If organizations expose their employees to management practices that have specific benefits for their HAW, employees are more likely to perform their jobs in ways that will promote their absorptive capacity.