Institutional Repository of Academic Research University of Macedonia
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Identifying Value-Creating Aspects in Luxury Hotel Services via Third-Party Online Reviews: A Cross-Cultural Study
No full textThe purpose of the study is to identify critical value-creating elements of luxury services expressed in ratings and reviews posted οn third-party sites and examine cross-cultural differences. To this end, the research analyzed online ratings and reviews of luxury hotels posted on TripAdvisor from customers of four European regions (East, North, South, and West). Design/methodology/approach. Eight hundred thirty-eight online reviews and ratings of luxury hotels were analyzed quantitatively using MANOVA and qualitatively using text analysis. Findings. The study findings support a) that product and physical evidence are the most critical experiential elements of luxury hotels' offerings and b) cultural differences among tourists from various regions of Europe in their hotel ratings and reviews. Specifically, Eastern and Northern Europeans are more generous in their review ratings than Western and Southern Europeans. Moreover, Eastern Europeans value the hotel's physical evidence/environment whereas Western Europeans prioritize the core product (room and food) followed by the physical environment/servicescape. Southern Europeans and Northern Europeans value most the personnel, followed by the physical environment and the core product, respectively.50218320
Impact of the time limits for the receipt of tenders on the number of bidders: evidence from public procurement in Greece
No full textPurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how the period for which a public procurement notice remains open for bidding (Δt) affects the number of bids.Design/methodology/approachThe authors investigated data for 2.404 open procurement tenders in Greece for the years 2018–2021. Using Δt as the grouping factor, the authors defined two samples based on the European Union time limits for the receipt of tenders. Group 1 (Δt ≤ 35) contains all tenders for which the contracting authorities (CAs) have chosen to limit themselves to the minimum number of days allowed by law. Group 2 (Δt>35) includes the remaining tenders where CAs have chosen to keep their notices open for periods beyond the existing minimum time limits, as they are encouraged to do by law.FindingsA Mann–Whitney U test, in combination with graphical analysis, revealed that CAs from Group 2 tend to enjoy more bids per tender, that is, more intense competition.Social implicationsThe paper allows decision-makers and legislators to understand the relationship between the time CAs choose to keep their notices open for bidding and the number of bidders in each tender, that is, competition, which according to other authors, affects the outcomes of public procurement procedures.Originality/valueThe paper fills the research gap regarding the relationship between time for preparation and the number of bids in each tender
Linked Open Government Data to Predict and Explain House Prices: The Case of Scottish Statistics Portal
No full textAccurately estimating the prices of houses is important for various stakeholders including house owners, real estate agencies, government agencies, and policy-makers. Towards this end, traditional statistics and, only recently, advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence models are used. Open Government Data (OGD) have a huge potential especially when combined with AI technologies. OGD are often published as linked data to facilitate data integration and re-usability. EXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) can be used by stakeholders to understand the decisions of a predictive model. This work creates a model that predicts house prices by applying machine learning on linked OGD. We present a case study that uses XGBoost, a powerful machine learning algorithm, and linked OGD from the official Scottish data portal to predict the probability the mean prices of houses in the various data zones of Scotland to be higher than the average price in Scotland. XAI is also used to globally and locally explain the decisions of the model. The created model has Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) AUC score 0.923 and Precision Recall Curve (PRC) AUC score 0.891. According to XAI, the variable that mostly affects the decisions of the model is Comparative Illness Factor, an indicator of health conditions. However, local explainability shows that the decisions made in some data zones may be mostly affected by other variables such as the percent of detached dwellings and employment deprived population.3010035
Pay (for it) as you go: Prepaid energy meters and the heat-or-eat dilemma
No full textThe "heat-or-eat" dilemma, a trade-off typically between food consumption and heating, may elevate public health concerns during the 2022 energy-price crisis. Our paper contributes to the literature by exploring the role of domestic energy prepayment meters (PPMs) in the heat-or-eat dilemma, focusing on the association between PPM use and fruit and vegetable consumption. Using a representative sample of 24,811 individuals residing in Great Britain (January 2019–May 2021), we find robust evidence of lower fruit and vegetable consumption amongst individuals using PPMs, compared to those using post-payment energy bill payment methods. On average, our point estimates suggest that individuals using a PPM consume 2.7 fewer portions of fruit and vegetables per week. Our findings hold when bounding analysis is employed to account for omitted variable bias. Using a suite of IV approaches to further alleviate endogeneity concerns we found that our ordinary least squares results are consistent as opposed to IV models. Further robustness analyses highlight the deleterious impact of PPMs on people's healthy eating habits relevant to the consumption of enough fruit and vegetables. Our results suggest that targeted support for PPM users may have beneficial effects on people's fruit and vegetable consumption patterns.31511549
Psychometric Properties of the Cyprus Lexical List in the Greek Language for Infants and Preschool Children and Preliminary Results
No full textThe aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the adapted Cyprus Greek Lexical List a-CYLEX (GR) in a sample of 194 Greek toddlers from the island of Crete with Standard Modern Greek (SMG) as their primary language. The a-CYLEX (GR) is a parental report checklist for assessing the receptive and expressive vocabulary skills of children aged 12 months to 3:6 years. Concurrent validity of the instrument was tested via correlations with the adapted Greek version of the Receptive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test-II (ROWPVT-II), which was administered to 124 SMG-speaking children between the ages of 2 and 3:6 years. Test–retest reliability was tested by administering the instrument two times within a 2-week interval to 59 parents (30.41% of the total sample). Statistical analyses provided strong evidence for the high internal consistency and test–retest reliability of the a-CYLEX (GR). The role of the demographic variables in vocabulary performance and the frequency of each a-CYLEX (GR) word category by age were also investigated. In conclusion, the a-CYLEX (GR) is a parental report checklist that can be used by clinicians who are interested in assessing receptive and expressive vocabulary of children during toddlerhood.1
STEM Distance Teaching: Investigating STEM Teachers’ Attitudes, Barriers, and Training Needs
No full textAbstractThe aim of this study was to investigate STEM teachers’ attitude towards STEM Distance Teaching (DT), as well as their perceived barriers and training needs. A mixed survey was conducted on 158 STEM teachers in secondary education who taught their courses fully online due to COVID-19. The results revealed that STEM teachers perceive STEM DT quite positively, but their attitude can be affected by several factors, such as the efficiency of the schools’ digital infrastructure, as well as their gender, age, and STEM teaching subject. The qualitative thematic analysis identified several barriers to efficiently applying STEM DT, including the (i) lack of students’ interaction and engagement, (ii) inefficiency of digital infrastructure, (iii) lack of students’ and teachers’ digital skills, (iv) lack of space/equipment, and (v) increased teaching workload. The generated themes of training needs highlighted the need for targeted and adjusted training to every STEM discipline, as well as training on DT tools and pedagogies. Finally, the results indicated the STEM teachers’ need for psychological support and consulting.121179
The "Nip and Tuck" Service Framework: Bright and Dark Side of Beautification/Modification Services
No full textThe purpose of this study is to propose a conceptual framework of beautification/modification services, to introduce the special issue on the topic "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall! Examining the Bright and Dark Side of Face and Body Beautification/Modification Services" and to provide a future research agenda. Building on the available literature, we developed the "Nip and Tuck" service framework of beautification/modification services depicting the motives, benefits, and outcomes while it identifies current industry trends. We explore the antecedents and consequences (positive and negative) of consuming face and body beautification/modification services and integrate these in the "Nip and Tuck" service framework. In the framework, we acknowledge the critical role of new technologies such as augmented reality apps and the internet in enabling and transforming beautification/modification services into commodities. The framework also identifies the benefits consumers seek and derive from these services while it recognizes current trends that shape the industry. We conclude with a set of future research directions that arise from the framework and the articles in the special issue. The attained insights are useful to managers of beautification and modification services seeking to understand and satisfy their customers’ needs while securing their well-being.Understanding the role of beautification and modification services in consumers’ well-being is essential for business managers and policymakers. The authors propose a novel, "Nip and Tuck" framework of face and body beautification/modification services and its key antecedents and consequences while considering both their bright and dark sides.3611
The COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impact on Socioeconomic Inequality in Psychological Distress in the UK: An Update.
No full textThis paper extends earlier on socioeconomic inequality in mental health, measured by the General Health Questionnaire, to include the second national lockdown up to March 2021.31591292
The effect of board size on shareholder value: Evidence from bank mergers and acquisitions
No full textThis study examines the effect of board size on the economic impact of bank mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the US. Using a hand-collected dataset of 508 M&A between 2012 and 2018, we find that board size is negatively related to acquirer excess returns. In an additional analysis, we show that large boards have positive value implications for banks that combine the CEO and chairman roles as well as for large banks. Our findings indicate that a "one-size-fits-all" approach to board size is not necessarily in the interests of shareholders; instead, a more flexible and proactive formulation is needed.40688389
The Impacts of Social Media on Accounting and Auditing: Evidence from Greek Listed Firms
No full textCompanies are increasingly using social media to communicate with stakeholders. During the last decade, social media started to become part and parcel of contemporary lifestyles. Thus, the main purpose of this research was the investigation of the impacts of social media on accounting and auditing by using companies’ social media posts. We performed quantitative research on an initial population of 183 companies being traded on the Athens Stock Exchange (ATHEX) for one fiscal year. We gathered data from corporate social media accounts and social media posts for the 2018 fiscal year (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn). We analyzed social media posts’ strategies, and we used the Kruskal–Wallis model and OLS regression model in order to analyze the relationships between social media accounts and posts and accounting and auditing. The findings from our research show that firms with active social media accounts and active impression management techniques on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn tend to achieve higher profits compared to companies that have inactive social media accounts. Additionally, the firm’s total liabilities are mainly positively related to its posts on specific social media accounts. In addition, cash, total assets and earnings before taxes affect social media posts to different degrees, depending on the post’s content and the category of social media as well. Taking into account the auditing variables, it is suggested that there is no relation among the given auditor’s opinion, the going concern assumption and the reviewed posts.14161027