Topic Review
Tourist Value Lead to Loyalty
The perceived value of a tourist’s trip, representing a trade-off between costs and benefits of travelling to a destination, can exert a significant influence on tourists’ loyalty, which is a main concern for managers of tourist destinations.
  • 996
  • 25 May 2022
Topic Review
The Complex Adaptive System of Rural Tourism
Complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory was proposed by John Holland in 1994 and mainly studies the mechanisms of a system’s complexity and system emergence. The core of the theory is “adaptability produces complexity”, and the adaptive interaction of microscopic agents can produce macroscopic complexity phenomena. The theory believes that the system is a dynamic network composed of interacting and adaptable agents. Adaptive agents are capable of “learning” and “growing” in order to obtain the maximum symbiotic benefits. Agents can adjust behavior rules to meet changes in the external environment and other agents’ requirements in the process of interacting with the information, energy, and matter of the external environment. They move or aggregate to occupy a better niche and obtain the greatest benefits in symbiosis. The overall differentiation, aggregation, and reconstruction of the system are gradually derived on the basis of the interactions between the agents and the environment. Along with the dynamic adaptability process, the whole system leaps from chaos to order and from simple to complex .
  • 996
  • 07 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Product Attributes, Evaluability, and Consumer Satisfaction
Consumer satisfaction is considered essential to long-term business success. Organizations have a need to produce products and services that yield highly satisfied and loyal consumers. Having loyal consumers reduces the costs for firms, since the expenses for acquiring new consumers are much higher than those for keeping existing ones. Studying the factors that determine consumer satisfaction is of vital importance for a company, as consumer satisfaction has been described as the best indicator of a company’s future profits. In addition, several studies have indicated that there are positive effects of consumer satisfaction on overall brand equity and its different aspects, i.e., retailer awareness, retailer associations, the retailers’ perceived quality, and retailer loyalty. Most studies of consumer satisfaction have been based on the overall satisfaction with a product as a whole, while only a few have related consumer satisfaction to the performance of product attributes. We aimed to study which type of product attribute leads to the most satisfaction, thus providing clues for providers to improve their products. We focused on attribute evaluability and analyzed the ease or difficulty in evaluating a product’s attribute. This was assumed to be related to consumer satisfaction Although evaluability has usually been manipulated experimentally, we studied evaluability as a consumer’s perceptions of product attributes. We aimed to show the effects of attribute evaluability on consumer satisfaction outside of the laboratory context, in a real consumer setting. This aim matched the endeavor in research to study the scaling-up of small-scale laboratory findings to larger markets and settings, as advocated by List.  Another basic process in the formation of consumer satisfaction is a judgment of product performance that is relative to the reference point of the product’s performance expectations. In general, the positive disconfirmation of expectations (the perceived realizations of performance exceeding expectations) will lead to consumer satisfaction, whereas negative disconfirmation (the perceived realizations of performance falling short of expectations) induces dissatisfaction. From prospect theory, it is known that negative deviations from a reference point are judged more negatively than their commensurate positive deviations are judged positively, thus indicating asymmetric effects of product evaluations.  A hitherto under-researched topic is whether consumer satisfaction differs when it is due to an attribute expectation disconfirmation of easy-to-evaluate versus difficult-to-evaluate attributes. This topic is theoretically interesting, because such differences may be driven by different psychological processes. Also, it is of practical significance, because it provides a clue to providers in regard to the type of product attributes for which negative expectation disconfirmation needs to be avoided. We consider attribute evaluability as a factor that moderates the effects of attribute disconfirmation on consumer satisfaction.
  • 996
  • 15 Nov 2021
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
The Capital Asset Pricing Model
The capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is an influential paradigm in financial risk management. It formalizes mean-variance optimization of a risky portfolio given the presence of a risk-free investment such as short-term government bonds. The CAPM defines the price of financial assets according to the premium demanded by investors for bearing excess risk.
  • 954
  • 13 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Mobile Learning
Abstract: Mobile phones have become widespread in the modern era. One contemporary use of mobile phones is in the education field, commonly known as M-Learning. Subsequent to the growth of M-Learning, developers of educational mobile applications need to understand what the user requirements are, and how to satisfy them. In order to measure user satisfaction while engaging with mobiles aslearning tools, manymodelshavebeencreatedusingtheUnifiedTheoryofAcceptanceand Use of Technology, and other models such as the Technology Acceptance Model. However, none of these has focused on the technical factors affecting the users’ intentions to use their mobile phones as learning tools. Due to technical limitations, as well as human psychology, mobile phone learning remains limited to an assistance-only function. This paper presents a review of studies that have been used to measure users’ intentions of engaging with mobile phones as learning tools. One hundred and twenty-seven papers have been reviewed, dating from 2011 to 2020. These papers differ in terms of methodology and results collected. Results showed that many models had been extended by adding factors such as trust, pre-usage or attitude. Moreover, this review concludes that almost none of the above-mentioned studies had identified precisely the technical factors that may affect the intention of using this type of technology in education. However, when classifying the influential factors of M-Learning, almost none of the studies discussed the advantages of the technical aspect in imparting knowledge through mobile learning. This study is significant for the education industry in its identification of the relative importance of these factors where mobiles are involved in the learning process. In addition, it provides a brief history of the involvement of technology in education.
  • 995
  • 10 Feb 2021
Topic Review
War on Women
War on Women is a slogan in United States politics used to describe certain Republican Party policies and legislation as a wide-scale effort to restrict women's rights, especially reproductive rights. Prominent Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer, as well as feminists, have used the phrase to criticize proponents of these laws as trying to force their social views on women through legislation. The slogan has been used to describe Republican policies in areas such as access to reproductive health services, particularly birth control and abortion services; the prosecution of criminal violence against women; the definition of rape for the purpose of the public funding of abortion; and workplace discrimination against women. While used in other contexts, and prior to 2010, it became a common slogan in American political discourse after the 2010 congressional elections. The term is often used to describe opposition to the contraceptive mandate in Obamacare and policies to defund women's health organizations that perform abortions, such as Planned Parenthood. The concept again gained attention in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when Republican nominee Donald Trump drew notice for a history of inflammatory statements and actions toward women. The phrase and the concept have been criticized by Republicans and some pro-life Democrats. Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus described it as an over-simplified fiction advanced by Democrats and the media while other Republicans contended that such rhetoric was used as a distraction from President Barack Obama and the Democrats' handling of the economy. In August 2012, Todd Akin's controversial comments regarding pregnancy and rape sparked renewed media focus on the concept. Republicans have tried to turn the phrase against Democrats by using it to argue hypocrisy for not critiquing sex scandals of members within their Party who have cheated, sexted, and harassed women; and for not supporting bills to combat sex-selective abortion.
  • 993
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Partnership
The widespread use of terms such as ‘collaboration’, ‘partnership’, ‘cooperation’, and more recently expressions such as 'co-creation' and 'co-production', has led to debates about the expectations of such relationships and calls for more rigorous clarification and classification of these related concepts, which are sometimes used interchangeably. This entry shares some of the attempts that have been made to define and categorize ‘partnership’. It concludes by suggesting that the broad spectrum of personal and organizational interactions and connections within, between, and across different sectors, domains, disciplines, and contexts makes the quest to delineate and categorize these diverse types of collaborative endeavours a seemingly impossible task.
  • 994
  • 31 Jan 2022
Topic Review
London School of Economics Gaddafi Links
The affair of the LSE Libya Links refers to the various connections that existed between the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the Libyan government and its leader Muammar Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. The NGO Gaddafi Foundation pledged to donate £1.5 million over five years to a research centre, LSE Global Governance, of which £300k were paid. In addition, LSE Enterprise established a contract worth £2.2 million to train Libyan officials. In 2008, the LSE granted a PhD degree to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader, for a dissertation. Currently, allegations circulate that Gaddafi's thesis was ghost-written and/or plagiarised. In December 2010, Muammar Gaddafi addressed members of the School in a video link-up where he was addressed as "Brother Leader" and received an LSE cap previously given to Nelson Mandela. In connection with the civil uprising in Libya in February and March 2011, the links between LSE and the Gaddafi regime, and the conduct of individual members of LSE's staff, came increasingly to be questioned. As a result of the revelations, the LSE's Director, Sir Howard Davies, resigned on 3 March 2011, citing "errors of judgement". In a New York Times op-ed piece on 7 March 2011, Roger Cohen wrote, in reference to events that had transpired at the School, "It may be possible to sink to greater depths but right now I can't think how. ...The Arab Spring is also a Western Winter. ...How did we back, use and encourage the brutality of Arab dictators over so many years? To what degree did that cynical encouragement of despots foster the very jihadist rage Western societies sought to curb?"
  • 992
  • 10 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Mutualism
From an ecological perspective, relationships range from to mutualism (i.e., beneficial/beneficial) to parasitism (i.e., beneficial/harmful). Mutualism in international production can be defined as international production that enables socially sustainable mutual prosperity growth between all countries involved in the international production.
  • 992
  • 26 Oct 2020
Topic Review
A Development Strategy of a Low-Density Territory
Montesinho Natural Park is one of the largest Portuguese natural protected areas, presenting good biodiversity and a cultural heritage with a strong connection to the territory and its people. It constitutes a low-density territory, characterized by a human and social landscape based on community practices, such as joint aid and the community use of goods and means of agricultural production, which have contributed to the construction of the “transmontana” identity and to the richness of the habitats. The promotion of the sustainable development of this low-density rural region demands the understanding of its specificities and an appropriate approach to grasp its challenges and develop effective management tools, allowing to preserve and exploit the region’s potential from various perspectives. 
  • 991
  • 25 Apr 2022
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