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The concept of information and communication technology (ICT) has extensively used among travel and hospitality organization in the contemporary world. The present study discovers tourism and hospitality business reactions toward ICT-based marketing usage and investigates its relationship with functional competencies and profitability among tourism and hospitality business organizations in India. With a quantitative approach, the study found an extensive usage of ICT-based marketing in tourism and hospitality organizations was noted from descriptive tables. The application of regression analysis indicated positive and significant impact of ICT-based marketing on functional competencies and profitability of tourism and hospitality organizations in India. A positive and significant correlation was also noted among these two due to adoption of ICT-based marketing. This study provides insights to formulate comprehensive ICT-based marketing strategies to fulfill growing customer needs.

This paper includes an examination of two key issues on price decisions: (1) how should price decisions be made (the strategic and normative issue) within market contexts, and (2) how are price decisions actually made (the execution and implementation of price decisions). The paper closes with some observations useful for applied research and strategies for making effective pricing decisions. The propositions and literature review show that one pricing strategy does not fit a brand in all market contexts that brand executives experience annually in managing brands. Setting specific price points requires continuing deliberate management responses to dynamic market contexts. This paper provides useful sense-making conjunctive steps to accomplish such deliberate thinking effectively relevant for different market contexts.

Purpose – This chapter examines how preferential liberalization between a pair of countries affects the terms of trade and welfare of the liberalizing countries and on the rest of the world (ROW). We adopt a model with symmetric countries that generalizes previous work by relaxing assumptions on functional forms, which allows for the possibility that exports of member countries are complements for exports of the ROW.

Methodology/approach – This chapter uses general equilibrium welfare analysis for a three-country trade model.

Findings – We show that Kemp–Wan tariff adjustments require a decrease (increase) in the external tariff of members in a preferential trade agreement to accompany internal liberalization in the neighborhood of internal free trade when member goods are substitutes (complements) for non-member goods. However, the adjustment path of the external tariff to reductions in the internal tariff could be non-monotonic when preferences are not of the CES type.

Practical implications – Our results are of interest for the design of rules for multilateral trade agreements with respect to preferential liberalization, since they indicate how tariffs must be adjusted to eliminate negative impacts on non-member countries.

At the time of its demise in 2001, the Enron Corporation could boast of its comprehensive, state-of-the-art management control and governance systems. Yet these controls were rendered ineffective in the company's last few years. This article identifies the radical change in Enron's corporate culture that took place from the Lay-Kinder era (1986–1996) to the Lay-Skilling era (1997–2001). It argues that this was a major cause of neutralizing these controls, which in turn proved to be a major factor in Enron's fall into bankruptcy. The article draws on Schein's (1993, Legitimating clinical research in the study of organizational culture, Journal of Counselling and Development, 71, 703–708; 1996, 2004) framework of cultural practice to develop our analysis. Thus, it supports Simon's (1990, 1995) urging to more meaningfully include corporate culture in management control research studies. The article contributes to the literature by drawing attention to the rich but untold story of Enron's governance and control and also extends the research linking corporate culture and control systems.

This chapter explores organic farming's development potential in Europe. It analyses the enterprise capacities to reach a workable structure of the supply chains, in order to market good products at reasonable prices. This study has been carried out in the framework of a European project (OMIaRD). This aimed to assess the impact of the Organic Marketing Initiatives (OMI) on Rural Development. The results show after a growing phase, most of the organic marketing initiatives meet a strategic turn point, linked to their ability to face logistic problems, linked to an increasing of collected, processed and marketed volumes. This strategic turn leads them to take decisions together with their stakeholders, such that the economic and ethical goals are not questioned by the changes to be implemented.

Access to pure drinking water is considered as a basic human right and part of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. India ranks poorly in terms of providing universal coverage of potable water to its citizens. This case highlights the challenges faced by the private sector in providing purified drinking water for a diverse country like India with many geographical regions (and their corresponding water impurities) and differing levels of economic prosperity (making sustainability tougher for private companies) by focusing on Waterlife India Private Limited (WLIP). WLIP is a for-profit social enterprise that sells drinking water in rural hinterlands and urban slums at a very affordable price of US$0.006 per liter. Since its inception in 2008, WLIP has evolved to become a major player in the fragmented Indian affordable drinking water industry. Sustainability of the WLIP business model is based on a unique public–private partnership template in which three parties come together—a corporate sponsor who bears the cost of the water filtration equipment; community governance bodies like panchayats or municipalities, which give a sense of operational legitimacy to the model; and WLIP as the driving force of the network. This business model is unique for three reasons: suitable incentive mechanisms with proper alignment of interests among various stakeholders; optimization of the water-filtration plant equipment to community demand; and achieving the delicate balance between standardization of processes and customization in offerings to the operating context. Alignment of partner interest is the principal differentiator that also ensures accountability and impact.

Budgeting process has been largely criticized in the recent accounting literature. The responsiveness of budgets to fast-moving environments is now questioned. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue by suggesting that companies use rolling forecasts as an interactive and flexible tool to cope with turbulence.

We designed a web-based survey directed to Spanish companies operating in an uncertain environment. Statistical results of the survey reveal that more than 60% of the respondents consider that changes in the environment makes it very difficult to establish accurate budgets. Respondents also mentioned that with the economic down cycle the establishment of reliable financial forecasts is requiring a great effort. At the same time, qualitative interviews have been conducted with companies already using rolling forecasts to test and further develop the use of this interactive tool.

We found that the rolling forecasts are considered to be a dynamic strategic planning tool, very useful for cash management and day-to-day decision-making process, but that they cannot replace budget for evaluation and motivation purposes.

The study has its limitations as the findings rely on a small number of survey respondents and interviewed organizations. Nevertheless the results have been compared, when possible, to those of similar surveys in order to validate them.

The article supplies actualized information about budgeting practices in a turbulent environment and more specifically in the Spanish context.

Analysis of Information Options offers new tools for evaluating investments in research, mineral exploration, logistics, energy transmission, and other information operations. With Information Options, the underlying assets are information assets and the rules governing exercise are based on the realities of the information realm (infosphere). Information Options can be modeled as options to “purchase” information assets by paying the cost of the information operations involved. Information Options arise at several stages of value creation. The initial stage involves observation of physical phenomena with accompanying data capture. The next refinement is to organize the data into structured databases. Then bits of information are selected from storage and synthesized into an information product (such as a management report). Next, the information product is presented to the user via an efficient interface that does not require the user to be a field expert. Information Options are similar in concept to real options but substantially different in their details, since real options have physical objects as the underlying assets and the rules governing exercise are based on the realities of the physical world. Also, while exercising a financial option typically kills the option, Information Options may include multiple exercises. Information Options may involve high volatility or jump processes as well, further enhancing their value. This chapter extends several important real option applications into the information realm, including jump process models and models for valuing options to synthesize any of n information items into any of m output assets.

The preceding chapters of this volume illustrate the vitality and creativity of grassroots sustainability enterprises around the globe. Fundamentally grassroots sustainability enterprises are concerned with providing accessible basic material human needs such as shelter (housing), warmth (energy), food (gardening) alongside higher order needs including empowering marginalised groups or communities through employment, training and personal development. However they also often provide spaces for alternative practices, creative responses and even artistic expression. Undoubtedly such enterprises are sites of innovation focused on positive transitions across the sustainability troika of economy, environment and society. However, as Campbell et al. in this volume suggest, often this innovation is invisible to policy communities, other practitioners and wider publics (following Escobar, 1994). In part this is because the entrepreneurs at the centre of the enterprises are not seeking personal reward for their work and are not interested in the nuances of innovation theory, but it is also due to the unconventional nature of the innovations involved. Nonetheless this lack of profile does affect the ways in which grassroots sustainability enterprises and their work are received. As a result many enterprises remain niche spaces of innovation with limited impact beyond the locale in which they operate (Longhurst, this volume).