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This paper aims to assess how a hotel geographical location in different parts of Central and Eastern Europe influences the complexity of perception of pro-environmental behavior.

To find out, whether hotel location in a specific country influences the complexity of environmental practices, this study used two closely connected multivariate statistical techniques analyzing gradients: principal components analysis and partial redundancy analysis. The research comprises data collection from seven countries in Central and Eastern Europe. In all, 25 randomly selected hotels (based on star rating) from various countries were approached to complete a questionnaire. Environmental practices were studied based on motivations, perception of barriers, perception of support from different levels of public sector, will of managers to promote pro-environmental measures based on sufficient funding, perception of legislation and perception of various other important factors.

The study reveals significant differences between hotels in Central Europe and Eastern Europe in the perception of the complexity in implementation of the environmental practices by hotel managers. The character of the present study, however, needs to address the identification of particular aspects that are relevant to the geographical differences among the studied countries.

Research was limited to a selection of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. There is still probability that managers in hotels from Poland and Croatia could possess different preferences. Other limitation of this study is that only special part of hotels were asked – hotels certified by star grading, out of our scope remained other hotels. It is also known that important factor is precise location of hotel within country – hotels in established tourism destination behave other way that those outside recreational areas. These factors deserve further study within this topic. There are many aspects of sustainability and environmental protection regarding hotel industry. As we have found in our principal correspondence analysis, different environmental measures were different location in biplot – some were affected by country, the other by star grading and affiliation to hotel chain. The complexity deserves to be studied in depth.

The importance lies first in the identification of the aspects that are governed by geographical differences among the countries studied. These aspects are the initiatives and support from the government and the local governments, which counteract the perception that there is a lack of financial resources and the return on investments is slow. So, based on the data, which included information from various types of hotels from seven CEE countries, the activities of national and local authorities were identified to be the main differentiating variable. The support of the environment-friendly conduct of business in the hotel industry is appreciated by hotel managers from Central Europe. On the other hand, hotel managers from Eastern Europe do not feel any significant support from either national or other public institutions. The second factor of differentiation is represented by the perception of the lack of funds. Hotel managers from Eastern Europe feel strongly about funds limitation. The coherence of both those factors is obvious in the results, as they show the same direction but opposite orientation. It has already been discussed above. When looking at the results, the authors find the perception of availability of funds to be a fundamental difference between hotel management in Central Europe and in Eastern Europe. The lack of funds is perceived more intensively in Eastern Europe than in Central Europe, particularly because of a stronger awareness of direct or indirect support for such activities by national and other public institutions in Central Europe.

The differentiation of the aspects mentioned above comes from the social and culture policies, company policies and business cultures between these two sub-realms. Pro-environmental actions are apparently promoted less publicly in Eastern European countries than in Central European countries. The reaction to the trend for demand of greener hotels is stronger in the West, and its hotels are more likely to have legislation requirements and public support as an incentive to adopt pro-environmental measures in their business operations.

The study is based on data obtained from seven countries. The results revealed a problem of the macro-environmental influence on hotels’ potential to implement environmentally sustainable approaches and procedures throughout the industry.

In recent years, public administration has been targeted by multiple reform efforts. In multiple instances, such initiatives have been ideologically couched in public-choice perspectives and entrenched beliefs that government is the problem. One unavoidable consequence of this continued bout of criticism is the fact that government currently has a noticeably decreased capacity of boosting creation of public value. Within this context, there certainly is an important need for approaches that would counterbalance the loss of public value induced by market fundamentalism. This article suggests that leadership, as a concept of theory and practice, due to its partial immunity to the private-public dichotomy, can provide a pragmatic avenue for nurturing public interest and public value within the devolution of governance, a declining trust in government and a diminished governmental capacity to propagate the creation of public value. While this article critically examines and assesses the capacity of different leadership perspectives in terms of creating and maximizing public value, its primary scope is not the provision of definite answers but rather the instigation of a much necessary discussion.

Athens, the most beautiful destination selected by travellers of the classical era, must have filled the tourists' souls with ecstasy. It can, however, hardly be said what it was like and what sights the classical tourists visited, but we know that the Hephaisteion, temple of Hephaistos exerted a great attraction on visitors. It is certain that tourism on a modest scale existed in ancient Greece.

Governments across the globe appear to identify and tout technology as a way to transform how they govern. Public procurement is at the forefront of most reform efforts given that it plays a significant role in promoting accountability and transparency. This study relies on survey data of procurement professionals to delineate the current status of eprocurement implementation in United States and Canada. Findings suggest that digitalized public procurement has not yet led to significant transformative changes. Unsuitability of software platforms, organizational resistance, lack of strategic systemsʼ integration and failure to involve public procurement professionals in the design of e-procurement systems were identified as the primary obstacles of effectively implementing digital procurement. These findings suggest that in order to capitalize on the potentially transformative nature of ICT in procurement, policymakers, system designers, and procurement professionals must take an active role in both the design of the software and its adoption across political, institutional and behavioral domains.

The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) laid the foundations of the Islamic state in Medina in 622 A.D. The state expanded gradually during the 10‐year rule of the Prophet (pbuh). The Arabian Peninsula and Southern Palestine were conquered during that period. The state expanded enormously during the reign of Umar (RA). Many countries of the Roman and Persian empires comprising an area of more than 2.2 million were annexed. Historians have noted that this framework played a vital role in integrating these people which in turn strengthened the state.

Provides a chronological account of the evolution of the concept of product warranty and its development over the four millennia to its present state at the dawn of twenty‐first century. This study examines how the concept of product warranty originated and illustrates how this concept was an integral element of accepted business practices in commerce and trade over the ages in almost all civilizations spanning the globe. The civilizations include the Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations twenty‐first century bc, the Roman era of the fifth century bc, Bavarian rule at the start of the Christian era, earlier Jewish period of the second century ad, Hindu period of the fifth, Islamic era of the eighth, Russian period of the early tenth, church rule of the medieval times, customs of the English boroughs, and ultimately the post‐industrial era of consumerism and today’s times of warranty legislation.

This paper aims to compare two groups of stocks to analyze the efficiency of an ethical portfolio in comparison with a conventional portfolio.

Efficiency test by second-order stochastic dominance (SSD) approach is applied on two groups, which consist of 12 stocks. Ethical portfolio is chosen from the stocks complying with the participation banking rules. Conventional portfolio is selected from Borsa Istanbul (BIST) with choosing the corresponding stocks for each ethical stock according to the sector and market capitalization. All the stocks of both groups are pairwise SSD compared.

Both groups of 12 stocks are inefficient portfolios; however, a group of 7 stocks constitute an efficient ethical portfolio with the total weight of 50.82 per cent among the set of 12 ethical stocks. On the other hand, a group of 6 stocks constitute an efficient conventional portfolio, with the total weight of 45.16 per cent among the set of 12 conventional stocks. By pairwise SSD comparison of corresponding stocks from both groups, despite none of the conventional stocks dominate ethical stocks, four ethical stocks dominated the conventional ones.

Back-testing and comparison with benchmark BIST 100 Index have been done for the selected portfolios. According to back-testing results, groups of SSD efficient stocks outperformed the groups, from which they were selected. Furthermore, both SSD efficient portfolios have higher returns than benchmark index, BIST 100.

In my original efforts, I designated and depicted no less than nine “men” of economics. Essentially, I contended, as man has always tended to create God in his own image and likeness, so economists have fashioned man largely in their discipline's perceived nature and scope. These generic homines economici, that is, have thus been and perhaps cannot really be other than economists' “men”, and the study thereof provides accordingly a meaningful alternative approach to the history, nature and scope of economics itself.