1984 research outputs found
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The Future of Tradeshows: Evolving Trends, Preferences, and Priorities
No full textFar from supplanting trade shows, technology has augmented the shows’ interactive, informational aspect by increasing potential contacts and scheduling efficiency for participants. However, the tradeshow itself remains an essential vehicle for selling products and services, explaining and demonstrating the product, and creating lists of qualified buyers. Whereas the tradeshow exhibitors are focused on sales and prospects, this study finds a complementary set of goals by attendees, who are more interested in the show’s educational aspects (including learning about useful products). Successful execution of a tradeshow requires careful planning and coordination between different stakeholders (i.e., attendees, exhibitors, meeting planners, destination executives). In addition to integrating social media and mobile technology, tradeshows also are focusing on environmental sustainability and providing information for participants’ corporate-social responsibility interests. Based on focus groups, interviews, and a survey of over 2,500 tradeshow participants, the top reason for exhibitors to attend a show involves their sales goals, while the top purpose for attendees is education. Ironically, although a substantial number of tradeshow participants appreciate the available technology, another substantial group either doesn’t notice the technology or avoids using it
Fourth Quarter 2013: Flight to Quality: Big Trumps Small
Get PDFA new hotel investment performance metric is introduced. Starting with this issue, we will apply our new economic value added (EVA) indicator as a barometer of hotel investment performance. Complete details of how to use this benchmark and why it is superior to evaluating cap rates relative to 10-year Treasury rates can be found in the recent publication from the Center for Hospitality Research and Center for Real Estate and Finance entitled “Using Economic Value Added (EVA) as a Barometer of Hotel Investment Performance,” by Matthew J. Clayton and Crocker H. Liu. Essentially, the hotel EVA spread tells us whether the current hotel yield (cap rate) exceeds the total borrowing cost (weighted average cost of capital; also includes the cost of equity financing) for doing a typical deal. Intuitively, if an investor finances a hotel project using 7-percent financing, the current yield on the project should exceed the 7-percent borrowing cost. Exhibit 1 (next page) shows that the EVA spread for hotels was positive until the first quarter of 2008. Subsequent to this period, the EVA spread has been either negative or near zero except for the second quarter of 2012 when it was positive. A negative EVA spread indicates that any return for hotel investors must come at the back end of the project. The expectation is that they will make their money when they sell the hotel due to price appreciation rather than making their money immediately
An Empirical Analysis of Performance Impacts Resulting From Conversion to Franchise Operations
No full textFranchising is an important form of organizational control. Possible benefits of franchising include its ability to reduce agency costs that increase with costly monitoring, and provide incentives for the use of local information by onsite managers. However, these benefits may come at a cost, as franchisees may reduce quality by choosing to free ride. While many studies have investigated the reasons for franchising, few studies have documented the impacts of franchising on unit level operating performance. Using time-series data from a number of lodging properties that were converted to franchisee control from company control, this study documents the performance impacts of franchising. The analysis reveals that conversion results in a modest decline in financial performance and an immediate sharp decline in quality
Cornell/Select Leaders Employment Matrix and Job Barometer
No full textThe Cornell/Select Leaders Commercial Real Estate Industry Employment Matrix was developed for the Job Barometer as a comprehensive model for organizing jobs within the industry. Organizing jobs within a three-part matrix by sector, business field, and job function not only provides a structure for understanding employment, but also serves as a model for understanding the structure, activity and roles within the commercial real estate industry as a whole
Sound Off #2 (Industry Professional Response): The Institutionalization of Single Family Homes
Get PDFAs the housing crisis has drawn considerable attention to the housing industry, “deals” are becoming more and more scarce, which is fine with me. The US housing market was never meant to be a speculator’s bonanza. It is actually a very predictable and stable asset class for creating cash flow and capital appreciation. All the attention paid to finding deals loses sight of the fact that at its core, US housing is an accumulation play, not a flip
Signaling Eco-Certification: Implications for Service Coproduction and Resource Efficiency
Get PDFPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to use an eco-friendly service concept framework to demonstrate the effect of credible eco-certification signaling.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors examine a cross-sectional data set consisting of 2,481 hotel sites across the US. The authors measure the performance of the operations component of eco-friendly service by operations-driven resource efficiency (ODF), and the performance of the marketing component by customer-driven resource efficiency (CDF). A series of multivariate regressions compare these two resource efficiency measures between credibly eco-certified hotel sites and others.
Findings – The results indicate that credible eco-certifications achieve the signaling effect. Eco-certified hotels outperform others in both ODF and CDF measures; and eco-certified hotels still achieve higher CDF after controlling for ODF.
Practical implications – The findings suggest that eco-friendly service design requires not only eco-friendly operations but also a built-in credible signaling mechanism. This mechanism engages the customers in eco-friendly service coproduction and in doing so integrates the operations and marketing components of eco-friendly service strategy through eco-certifications.
Originality/value – This study is among the first to demonstrate empirically the signaling effect of credible eco-certifications in services. It increases understanding of eco-friendly service design and delivery by exploring the role of credible eco-certifications in linking customer benefits with the service organization’s strategic intent
Managing Context to Improve Cruise Line Service Relationships
Get PDFInteractions between customers and service employees have a strong influence on customers’ perceptions of service quality and their overall satisfaction. During service encounters, both physical and social dimensions of the service environment affect interpersonal dynamics and the subsequent relationships that develop. The study described here focuses specifically on the cruise experience and the distinct passenger-service employee relationships that develop during a cruise. An extensive review of related research combined with interviews and observations on six cruises suggests a framework of four specific role relationships: the passenger as expert, the passenger as manager, the passenger as friend, and the passenger as a team member. By focusing on dimensions of the context in which service occurs, managers can anticipate the types of relationship that develop. They are then better prepared to address the service challenges most likely to occur as they strive to enhance service delivery
Cynicism in Negotiation: When Communication Increases Buyers’ Skepticism
No full textThe economic literature on negotiation shows that strategic concerns can be a barrier to agreement, even when the buyer values the good more than the seller. Yet behavioral research demonstrates that human interaction can overcome these strategic concerns through communication. We show that there is also a downside of this human interaction: cynicism. Across two studies we focus on a seller-buyer interaction in which the buyer has uncertain knowledge about the goods for sale, but has a positive expected payoff from saying “yes” to the available transaction. Study 1 shows that most buyers accept offers made by computers, but that acceptance rates drop significantly when offers are made by human sellers who communicate directly with buyers. Study 2 clarifies that this effect results from allowing human sellers to communicate with buyers, and shows that such communication focuses the buyers’ attention on the seller’s trustworthiness. The mere situation of negotiated interaction increases buyers’ attention to the sellers’ self-serving motives and, consequently, buyers’ cynicism. Unaware of this downside of interaction, sellers actually prefer to have the opportunity to communicate with buyers
Performance Evaluation with High Moments and Disaster Risk
Get PDFTraditional performance evaluation measures do not account for tail events and rare disasters. To address this issue, we reinterpret the riskiness measures of Aumann and Serrano (2008) and Foster and Hart (2009) as performance indices. We derive the moment properties of these indices and their sensitivity to rare disasters and show that they are consistent with the asset pricing literature. As applications, we show that “anomalous” investment strategies such as “momentum” or investment in private equity lose much of their glamour when accounting for high moments and rare events. Furthermore, using the indices to select mutual funds results in desirable high-moment properties out of sample