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Multiattribute ratings of country‐image are commonly obtained to study the influence of country‐of‐origin on product preference and purchase decisions. Usually, such ratings are obtained for products made in different countries in order to make comparisons across countries. However, recent research evidence indicates that, when individual respondents rate multiple entities (e.g., multiple countries), the ratings of a particular country can be affected by the other “contextual” countries included in the questionnaire. The purpose of this study is to examine, via a controlled experiment, the issue of measurement context effects in the measurement of country images. The hypotheses tested concern the stability of attribute‐based and entity‐based country image scaling and potential methods of reducing the vulnerability of multi‐entity scaling to entity context ‐‐ the use of an anchor entity and an insulator question set to increase country image measurement stability.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether different scales and ways to collect reviews and ratings found on online travel agencies (OTAs) can affect hotels, and whether hotels obtain the same or different evaluations.

Hotel ratings from five OTAs in four European markets were collected and compared in pairs. An initial comparison was made with the hotel scores of each OTA to show what a typical user would see. Then, a rescaled score (0-10) was used to compare all the OTA scales appropriately and to distinguish between what customers observe and what the reality is.

The results reveal that Booking.com that uses a scale (2.5-10) and Agoda with a scale (2-10) seem to give higher rating scores than Atrapalo (1-10), Travel Republic (0-10) and hotel reservation service (1-10). However, when the scores are rescaled (0-10), the worst ratings are found on Booking.com followed by Agoda.

OTAs should include, next to the scores, the scale used to rate hotels so as to provide users with better and clearer information. Moreover, rating questionnaires should match the verbal denominations with their numerical values to avoid biased ratings.

OTAs and hotel managers are losing information provided by customers because customers are not aware of the scale when rating hotels. Moreover, hotel ratings are used by potential customers to obtain a clearer image of an establishment. However, if some hotels are being overrated by some scales, customers might have higher expectations, which may not be met.

The unique rating scales of Booking.com and Agoda provide additional insights into their hotel evaluations, which seem to be apparently higher when in fact they are not.

在线旅行评论评分量表及其对酒店得分和竞争力的影响

摘要

这项研究旨在研究在线旅行社（OTA）上评论和评级的不同量表和方式是否会影响酒店获得的评估。

本研究收集并比较了来自四个欧洲市场中五个OTA的酒店等级数据。研究首先对每个OTA的酒店得分进行了比较, 以显示一般用户会看到的内容。然后研究使用重新缩放的得分（0-10）来恰当地比较所有OTA的酒店等级, 并区分顾客观察到的内容和现实。

结果显示, Booking.com使用的量表（2.5-10）和Agoda的量表（2-10）, 似乎高于Atrapalo（1-10）, Travel Republic（0-10）和 hotel reservation service （1-10）的评分。但是, 当分数重新调整为（0-10）时, 最差的评分是在Booking.com上, 其次是Agoda。

OTA应在评分旁边注明用于对酒店进行评分的量表, 以便为用户提供更好, 更清晰的信息。此外, 评级问卷应使评价描述与其数值相匹配, 以避免评级出现偏差。

OTA和酒店经理正在丢失客户所提供的信息, 因为客户在对酒店进行评级时并不了解其使用的量表。此外, 潜在客户使用酒店评级来获得更清晰的企业形象。但是, 如果某些酒店被某些网站的评级量表高估, 那么客户可能会有偏高的期望, 而这些期望可能无法被满足。

Booking.com和Agoda的独特评分等级标准为酒店提供了更多见解, 而实际上酒店的情况可能并非如此。

Las escalas de calificación de las opiniones de los viajes online y sus efectos en la valoración y competitividad de los hoteles.

El objetivo de esta investigación es determinar si las diferentes escalas y formas de recopilar opiniones y valoraciones de las Agencias de Viajes Online (OTAs), pueden afectar a si los hoteles tienen las mismas o distintas calificaciones.

Las calificaciones de hoteles de cinco OTAs en cuatro mercados europeos, se recopilaron y compararon por pares. Se realizó una comparación inicial con las puntuaciones de los hoteles de cada OTA, para mostrar lo que vería un usuario típico. Luego, se utilizó una puntuación de reescalado (0-10), para comparar todas las escalas de las OTAs de manera apropiada y así poder diferenciar entre lo que los clientes observan y lo que es en realidad.

Los resultados revelan que Booking.com, que utiliza una escala (2.5-10) y Agoda con una escala (2-10), parecen puntuar con calificaciones más altas que Atrapalo (1-10), Travel Republic (0-10) y hotel reservation service (1-10). Sin embargo, cuando se vuelven a escalar las puntuaciones (0-10), las peores calificaciones se encuentran en Booking.com, seguida de Agoda.

Las OTAs deben incluir, junto a las puntuaciones, la escala utilizada para calificar los hoteles a fin de proporcionar a los usuarios una información mayor y más clara. Además, los cuestionarios de calificación deben hacer coincidir las denominaciones verbales con sus valores numéricos para evitar calificaciones sesgadas.

Por un lado las OTAs y los gerentes de hoteles, están perdiendo información proporcionada por los clientes, porque los clientes no son conscientes del tipo de escala utilizada cuando califican los hoteles. Por otro lado, los clientes potenciales utilizan las calificaciones de los hoteles para obtener una imagen más clara de un establecimiento. Por lo que en muchos casos, los clientes pueden tener expectativas más altas, que pueden no cumplirse, si los hoteles están siendo sobrevalorados por algunas escalas.

Las escalas de calificación únicas de Booking.com y Agoda, brindan información adicional sobre las evaluaciones de sus hoteles que parecen ser aparentemente más altas cuando en realidad no lo son.

Many firms measure customer satisfaction on an attribute‐by‐attribute level. Past research has shown that halo errors can pose a serious threat to the interpretability of such data. Examines three factors that potentially reduce halo, using a combination of an experimental and quasi‐experimental research design. Three conclusions were drawn. First, measurement after consumption showed less halo than delayed measurement. Second, relative rating scales contained less halo than standard satisfaction scales. Third, an interaction effect was found between the number of attributes to be evaluated and the rating scale used. The evaluation of many attributes reduced halo in comparison to an evaluation of few attributes when a standard satisfaction rating scale was used. However, when the more complex relative rating scale was used, halo was not reduced when subjects had to evaluate a large number of attributes, perhaps due to the increased complexity of the task.

Investigating the subjective breathing resistance of wearing respirators requires a valid and reliable technique to measure breathing resistance. The purpose of this study is to test the validity and reliability of several rating scales and select the best for investigation of breathing resistance.

The authors designed three scales, that is, BRX scale, CP-100 scale and RVAS scale, and 30 subjects were separated into three groups, each group with a different scale. They sat for 5 min and walked for 5 min while wearing three models of respirators. After each trial, subjects were asked to complete subjective ratings of breathing resistance. Reliability was examined by the coefficient of Cronbach’s α, and validity was examined through content validity, discriminant validity and criterion validity. Generally, subjects were capable of reporting their sensation of breathing resistance by using the rating scale technique. However, the accuracy of rating strongly depended upon the properties of the scale.

The CP-100 scale was found to be highly reliable and most valid for rating subjective breath resistance. The validated CP-100 scale is very sensitive and accurate.

This is the first paper to select the best subjective scale for investigation of breathing resistance of respirators. The CP-100 scale will find wide applications in subjective breathing resistance evaluation for the use of respirators in industrial benchmarking activities. It will introduce the human factor engineering into the respirator manufacturing to improve the comfort of respirators.

This paper aims to provide a theoretical explanation of why credit rating agencies typically disclose credit risk of issuers in classes rather than publishing the qualitative ranking those classes are based upon. Thus, its goal is to develop a better understanding of what determines the number and size of rating classes.

Investors expect ratings to be sufficiently accurate in estimating credit risk. In a theoretical model framework, it is therefore assumed that credit rating agencies, which observe credit risk with limited accuracy, are careful in not misclassifying an issuer with a lower credit quality to a higher rating class. This situation is analyzed as a Bayesian inference setting for the credit rating agencies.

A disclosure in intervals, typically used by credit rating agencies results from their objective of keeping misclassification errors sufficiently low in conjunction with the limited accuracy with which they observe credit risk. The number and size of the rating intervals depend in the model on how much accuracy the credit rating agencies can supply.

The paper uses Bayesian hypothesis testing to illustrate the link between limited accuracy of a credit rating agency and its disclosure of issuers’ credit risk in intervals. The findings that accuracy and the objective of avoiding misclassification determine the rating scale in this theoretical setting can lead to a better understanding of what influences the interval disclosure of major rating agencies observed in practice.

The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multicriteria decision support system that has been successfully applied to numerous decision-making situations, has been applied to patient assessment. The AHP was used with Timeslips™, a group storytelling program that encourages creative expression among dementia patients, to determine the optimal scale for pre and post assessment among the nine most common agitation and anxiety scales. The AHP used the six criteria identified by qualitative assessment of the nine scales: (1) validity/reliability, (2) observation period, (3) training required, (4) time to administer, (5) most appropriate administrator, and (6) accessibility/cost. The AHP indicated that the Overt Agitation & Anxiety Scale was optimal for use with Timeslips; the process and results are discussed.

Many different scales have been used to measure customer satisfaction. These scales can be divided into three main groups, being those measuring performance, disconfirmation and satisfaction. Reports on the design and execution of a study of hotel guests in which they were asked to rate the key service attributes of their stay using all three of these measurement scales. Repurchase intention and word‐of‐mouth effects were also measured. Compares the scales on the basis of reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, predictive validity, skewness, face validity and managerial value for directing a quality improvement programme. Shows the disconfirmation scale to be superior to both the performance and satisfaction scales on all these criteria except for predictive validity. In addition, the performance scale was generally better than the satisfaction scale on a number of these criteria.

Since sovereign ratings provided by credit rating agencies (CRAs) are a key determinant of the interest rates a country faces in the international financial market and once sovereign ratings may have a constraining impact on the ratings assigned to domestic banks or companies, some studies have focused on identifying the determinants of sovereign credit risk assessments provided by CRAs. In particular, this study estimates the effect of fiscal credibility on sovereign risk using four different comprehensive credit rating (CCR) measures obtained from CRAs' announcements and two different fiscal credibility indicators.

We build comprehensive credit rating (CCR) measures to capture sovereign risk. These measures are calculated using sovereign ratings, the rating outlooks and credit watches issued by the three main credit rating agencies (S&P, Moody's and Fitch) for long-term foreign-currency Brazilian bonds. Based on monthly data from 2003 to 2018, we use different econometric estimation techniques in order to provide robust results.

The results indicate that fiscal credibility exerts both short- and long-run effects on sovereign risk perception, and macroeconomic fundamentals are important long-run determinants.

Since fiscal credibility reflects the government's ability to maintain budgetary balance and sustainable public debt, the government should keep its commitment to responsible fiscal policies so as not to deteriorate expectations formed by financial market experts about the fiscal scenario and, thus, to achieve better credit assessments issued by CRAs with respect to sovereign debt bonds. Sovereign credit rating assessment is a voluntary practice. It is up to the country whether they want to apply for a rating assessment or not. Thus, without a sovereign rating, one must find an alternative to measure the sovereign risk of a country. In this sense, an important practical implication that this study provides is that fiscal credibility can be used as a leading indicator of sovereign risk perceptions obtained from CRAs or even as a proxy for sovereign risk.

This paper is the first to verify how important the expectations of financial market experts in relation to the fiscal effort required to keep public debt at a sustainable level (i.e. fiscal credibility) are to sovereign risk perception of credit rating agencies. In this sense, the study is the first to address this relation, and thus it contributes to the literature that seeks to understand the determinants of sovereign ratings in emerging countries.

The purpose of this study is to describe the development of the 14-item reflective fostering fidelity rating (RFFR), an observational rating system to evaluate model fidelity of group facilitators in the Reflective Fostering Programme (RFP), a mentalisation-based psychoeducation programme to support foster carers. The authors assess usability, dimensionality, inter-rater reliability and discriminative ability of the RFFR.

Eighty video clip extracts documenting 20 RFP sessions were independently rated by four raters using the RFFR. The dimensionality of the RFFR was assessed using principal components analysis. Inter-rater agreement was assessed using the intra-class correlation coefficient.

The proportion of missing ratings was low at 2.8%. A single principal component summarised over 90% of the variation in ratings for each rater. The inter-rater reliability of individual item ratings was poor-to-moderate, but a summary score had acceptable inter-rater reliability. The authors present evidence that the RFFR can distinguish RFP sessions that differ in treatment fidelity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first investigation and report of the RFFR’s validity in assessing the programme fidelity of the RFP. The paper concludes that the RFFR is an appropriate rating measure for treatment fidelity of the RFP and useful for the purposes of both quality control and supervision.