Search results

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

Tourism and servicescape are usually figuring in the literature as mobile and seeing as a template for all guests. However, mass-customized servicescapes tend to restrict moves and acts of some groups of customers. The purpose of this research is to understand why manmade servicescapes may create barriers and how restricted customers behave. The research gap is addressed through the specific case of how visually impaired persons (VIPs) act and move in hospitality servicescapes. The study emphasizes the importance of spatial approach in service research.

By utilizing a qualitative approach the research employed go-along observation, individual and focus group interviews to elaborate more on how this thesis relates to mainstream tourism. The empirical data were collected during three years in Sweden and Kazakhstan. Fifty-six visually impaired and blind travelers were interviewed and/or observed. Research results demonstrate that hospitality servicescapes restrict acts and moves of visually impaired guests. But VIPs resist constraints by developing different tactics to get expected services.

In marketing literature, notions of experience and consumer value have continuously been revisited since early works in the 1980s. This chapter deals with how tourism services are a paradigmatic realm for the analysis and application of the experiential approach by (a) providing evidence of the idiosyncrasy of the experiential approach for tourism services based on their high subjectivity, the relevance of emotions and sensations, their aggregated nature and the many interactions and contexts they provoke, and (b) reviewing previous works applying the experiential perspective to tourism, which are varied and multifaceted. Dimensions of tourism experiential value correspond to cognitive, affective, relational and sensorial aspects, which are present in the various phases of the tourism consumption process. Insights for both researchers and practitioners interested in the world of experiences in tourism are offered, as well as future lines of research to continue the challenge of studying tourism experiences.

In this chapter, we explore the importance of morality in groups. We draw from decades of research from multiple perspectives, including psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and organizational science, to illustrate the range of ways that morality influences social attitudes and group behavior. After synthesizing the literature, we identify promising directions for business ethics scholars to pursue. We specifically call for greater research on morality at the meso, or group, level of analysis and encourage studies examining the complex relationship between moral emotions and the social environment. We ultimately hope that this work will provide new insights for managing moral behavior in groups and society.

In a postmodern context this paper proposes that analogical scholarship in which one conceptual schema is used to view another in order to generate new perspectives, be used to view play. Hermeneutic philosophy specifically is used in a process modelling hermeneutic inquiry. Included are a review of play, hermeneutic philosophy, and the outcomes of the juxtaposition of hermeneutic concepts against play. Resultant perspectives on key issues in play, such as the meaning of play, play in meaning making, the binaries of play, play and practice, and play in the reconceptualizing movement in early childhood education, follow.

This research is about the evaluation of organizational risks in the hospitality sector, using the experience of a guest with visual impairments. The objectives of this research are to (1) identify if the previous expectations of a guest with visual impairments trip will be exceeded in the final; (2) classify organizational risks in the hotel sector; (3) verify if there are direct impacts on the travellers' future behaviour, such as destination recommendation and intention to return to the destination. Despite of the fact that organizational risks are composed by transport, hospitality and tourism attractions (tourism players can jeopardize the success of a travel experience), this research will only focus on the hospitality sector. To assure the achievement of the referred objectives, a case study will be used based on the analysis of the experience of a Portuguese guest with disabilities, who traveled alone, around Europe, with a guide dog. His expectations, constraints and risks will be analysed through a deep-depth interview, in which questions are organized from the literature review. Finally, it is expected that this exploratory research helps to find new avenues for the study of organizational risks, more precisely, hospitality risks for disabled people.

This study takes the position that the concept of fraud is socially constructed. Moreover, it asks why and how different understandings of fraud have emerged. Insights from the work of Lakoff and Johnson (1999, 2003; Lakoff, 2002, 2004, 2009) are used to analyze language revealing dominant worldviews and metaphors regarding fraud. The research method is a case study (Yin, 2014), and the analytical approach used parallels the one described in O’Dwyer (2004). The research setting is a report issued by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which provides a context to study different understandings of fraud due to the report’s divided nature. The analysis reveals three alternative worldviews, representing different assumptions about reality, that are at the root of the different understandings of fraud. These worldviews also lead to the usage of different conceptual metaphors which allow the commissioners to interpret facts in a manner that supports each worldview’s assumptions. The paper also concludes by providing a nuanced and critical examination of the results of the commission concerning its understanding of fraud.

While it is recognised that the involvement of children in sustainable tourism change and development is crucial the fact remains that information on their worldviews and sustainable tourism behaviour is scarcely available. One long-term empowerment strategy countries and governments around the world can implement is by promoting children's rights through responsible education. This chapter articulates one tactic of that strategy at the local action level of school excursions, which is seen as an instrument that can be made most effective when it is initiated with the assumption that it is needed to help our younger generation acquire an environmental worldview, is harnessed in coalition with collaborators and, applied around the ‘moral’ obligation of educational institutions to provide agency to students' voice. Of the 17 Goals of Sustainable Development, SDG4 (Quality) Education can make a critically important contribution to progress. A series of activities and initiatives undertaken in informal educational environments such as field trips and school excursions can contribute to educating children, building their awareness about responsible and sustainable tourism practices, and developing an environmental sensitivity. Excursion activities and destinations such as museum exhibits have the opportunity to shape identities—through access to objects, information and knowledge. Visitors can see themselves and their culture reflected in ways that encourage new connections, meaning making and learning. Upon looking into transformational experiences in museums it was found that students were easily able to articulate that ‘aha’ moment, particularly around thinking differently about issues and taking action for environmental and sustainable changes.

Toxic leadership is often studied from a leader-centric perspective, which focuses on the detrimental outcomes of leaders with destructive ideas and practices. In this chapter, we provide a global value chain (GVC) perspective, which accounts for effects of corporate leadership from inception of a product or service idea to its consumption across the value chain. In particular, we demonstrate how toxic leadership is sustained through an illusio, i.e., the allure of the often-charismatic leadership discourse, which is rendered unaccountable due to lack of global regulation of GVCs. This allows for global organizations and toxic leaders to exploit weaknesses in national-level regulation. Drawing on a netnographic study of toxic leadership in Amazon, we demonstrate how toxic leadership created the illusion of success while perpetuating toxicity and exploitation across their complex value chains internationally.