Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that condition decision making by entrepreneurs in the tourism sector. Specifically, the authors consider whether the decisions related to seasonal closure are conditioned by non-economic factors related to quality of life.

The study uses data from a survey of entrepreneurs in two highly seasonal tourist locations in Spain: one coastal destination and one mountain destination. The information provided by the survey was used to determine the factors that condition the decision to close for part of the year and to analyze the way in which entrepreneurs evaluate the costs and benefits associated with the period of closure.

The results show that entrepreneurs acknowledge the cost of shutting down during the off-peak season. However, although they recognize this cost, other elements are important in their decision making such as the quality of life of the entrepreneur, the presence of a more profitable secondary activity in a different destination and the tenure regime of the business. Entrepreneurs attach great importance to factors that justify the closure of establishments for several months a year. This, in turn, means that public policies designed to reduce the intensity of seasonality lose effectiveness.

This paper sheds light on whether there are underlying non-economic motives that lead to a shutdown during the off-peak season. There are no previous studies that analyze the influence of the decision to close and which consider aspects related to the quality of life of entrepreneurs. Therefore, the study presents the first analysis of entrepreneurs’ assessments of the costs and benefits of a seasonal resting period.

Following recent scholarship promoting the study of sports-related texts as a vehicle for examining sociopolitical issues, this study aims to identify methods and materials used to facilitate the extended exploration of sociopolitical issues in a secondary sports literature class and to establish how students describe their experiences taking up such activities.

This qualitative study stems from a greater investigation into the teaching of secondary sports literature classes. Data collection involved conducting interviews, observing instruction and gathering artifacts. Driven by guiding research questions, data analysis was conducted in an iterative and recursive manner and multiple validation strategies were used to enhance trustworthiness.

The methods and materials used to facilitate the extended exploration of sociopolitical issues included a whole-class reading of Season of Life (Marx, 2003) and small-group research into “controversial topics” in sports culture. Student-participants described engaging with those methods and materials as relevant to their personal interests and experiences and revelatory in terms of learning about sociopolitical issues in sports and society.

Scholarship promoting the potential for sports-related content to support literacy instruction has grown in recent years. This study covers new ground, for it documents classroom research to build understandings about the methods and materials used to facilitate the extended exploration of sociopolitical issues in a secondary sports literature class and the ways students describe their experiences engaging in such activities.

This chapter explores how identity formation in Appalachia is impacted by globalized processes. Residents of the region are often understood as inhabiting space belated which ignores the ways that global processes of extraction, exploitation, colonialism, and national politics come to impact the region and its inhabitants. Rooted in narratives of time, death, and belonging, personal identity formation in Appalachia is as rich and complex, while often unseen, as the region is itself. By understanding the way selective hegemonies and colonial narratives have impacted the region, we can begin to explore how these same concepts have begun to impact personal development.

Companies increasingly complain about a new band of “mysterious” consumers whose behavior is challenging the very foundation of modern consumer economies: materialistic aspirations. There is less interest in “things”. Designer labels are not the turn‐on like they were a few years ago. Despite significant means, many shoppers are passing up Lord & Taylor for Wal‐Mart. An especially valuable resource for these and other changes in consumer behavior that are altering the rules for successful marketplace engagement is the annals of adult development psychology. Epochal changes taking place in leading consumer behaviors owe much to the common midlife shift toward to self‐actualization.

Reviews the evolution of marketing to date. Discusses the different stages of transaction marketing and relationship marketing. Goes on to discuss a new marketing system called developmental relationship marketing. The system integrates concepts and approaches used in both transaction marketing and relationship marketing and is based on the principle that consumer behavior cannot be predicted. Asserts that the main challenge confronting marketers is understanding consumers’ psychosocial needs. Goes on to discuss consumers’ root motivations and refers to these as key underlying motivating values. These are based on the different stages in a person’s life. Finally, the developmental relationship marketing model anticipates developmental changes in consumers’ needs, motivations, and the strategies they employ to meet needs.

In a earlier debate, it was suggested that for many reasons, the decision by a retailer to source low‐cost clothing offshore from low‐wage suppliers may be ill‐advised. We were able to show that using lower priced textiles and apparel manufactured by foreign sources could be sub‐optimal operations strategy. In numerous cases, those relying upon this form of procurement failed to consider all the relevant information. Despite the obvious attraction of low cost, there were serious trade‐offs and disadvantages. We classified the latter as the hidden costs of importing (for example, delays, use of airfreight, administrative and quality costs, etc.) and the inflexibility costs. When properly attributed and quantified, these disadvantages often outweighed the benefits of low cost foreign supply. It was at this point that we proposed the need for an objective, axiomatic framework (widely accepted across the textile industry) to demonstrate the full implications of domestic versus offshore purchasing – a total acquisition cost model. Here, we expand this thinking, and begin to explore how such a model can be developed using the data obtained from a sample of international textile and clothing retailers and their suppliers.

Organizations have never addressed what it means to be global in its depth and entirety. It has been equated with being international, or having offices in different countries. It has been approached and appropriated through historical lenses of modernization, and of what sociologist Martin Albrow calls the “rational project”. It is felt that we have come to a situation that is nothing short of a crisis. Explores the depths of “global integrity” with a view to providing individuals, organizations and societies with the tools to engage in becoming global. In the process introduces our concept of the “four worlds,” and argues that each needs to be progressively transformed, from a local identity towards global integrity, if our current crisis is to be in any sense resolved. Such a resolution, moreover, requires, in each cultural case, tapping the core and bedrock as well as the subsoil and topsoil of each, as it were, with a view to evolving from a formative (local), as opposed to de‐formative, towards a normative, re‐formative and ultimately transformative (global) perspective.

Career research has been synonymous with paid work. The ensuing result is a picture of women’s careers framed by men’s experiences. In this paper career development theory is briefly traced to provide a context for a proposed model of women’s careers. This broad, non‐linear model aims to be inclusive of a diverse range of experiences without being deterministic. Internal and external influences in the developmental processes of women are taken into account. The model is built around four facets: explore; focus; rebalance; and revive, each of which is separated by a reflective period of reassessment. Explanation of the model is extended through the use of illustrative cases drawn from previous research. This proposed model of women’s careers is aimed to stimulate and extend discussion and research.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the Western roots of the gap between practice and theory in HRM to underline the relevance of a flexible HR support. This support deserves to be nurtured by an insightful consideration of traditional Chinese thought, especially “vital nourishments” and “non-action.”

Following the methodology of deconstruction provided by French Sinologist and Philosopher François Jullien, this paper brings forward the implicit tenets of Western thought that feed HRD. The work of deconstruction relies here on an “heterotopia” (which literally means “a thought coming from elsewhere”) while making use of the founding tenets of traditional Chinese thought.

A flexible support, echoing some existing practices of coaching, mentoring and other developmental interactions, acts as an efficient and natural “non-active” development of HR especially relevant when facing stress at work.

If it is worth recalling the already existing bridges between theory and practice in HRM, it is also important to imagine new ones favorable to HRD.

The paper provides a critical reference for managers in charge of HRD.

The paper provides a critical reference for academics who wish to be more scholarly engaged in supporting executives and managers.

The paper challenges the Western ethnocentric reading of management in order to welcome another millenary way of thinking built in China. It escapes the fundamentals of managerial thought which have durably ruled over Western management studies.