Business, Events and Hospitality

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/7184

Browse

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 30

THE IMPACT OF EMOTIONS ON CONSUMER DECISION-MAKING: A CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR ANALYSIS OF HEDONIC CONSUMPTION AS RELATED TO THE HARLEY-DAVIDSON BRAND
(Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, 2019) Ahlers, Tario J.
Consumer behaviour has varied aspects that allow for a more detailed understanding of why certain products are purchased. In this light the American firm of Harley-Davidson is utilised as an appropriate case study with a focus on men aged 40 to 60 from the area of Edinburgh. Harley-Davidson appears to be an under-studied phenomenon. Whilst some examples are present in which Harley-Davidson has an important role, these examples either focus on marketing from the perspective of the company or from the social environment the consumer enters after the purchase has been completed. This research considers factors that motivated consumers carry out the act of purchasing a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. A thorough literature review of current research establishes an academic understanding of the environment that consumers may enter and attempts to identify possible motivations for the consumer to act in this way. Various important motivating factors are established by the literature which contribute to the hedonic purchase intentions of middle-aged male consumers who may go through a midlife-crisis situation in which they attempt to distract from their aging character and counter it through a more lavish lifestyle. Other aspects considered are the manner in which money is handled under various circumstances. The primary research was conducted as a qualitative case study. This involved semi-structured interviews with volunteering participants at the local Harley-Davidson dealership in Edinburgh. In order to illustrate other ways in which money is spent and risks perceived, the research uses an additional cluster of non-motorcyclists from the same area, gender, and age group. Through the openness of the participants, aspects that had not previously been considered, such as participants’ description of depression and the positive impact of reduction of alcohol consumption. It has been established through the thematic data analysis that Harley-Davidson consumers do not struggle with a mid-life crisis but rather follow a progression under which a Harley-Davidson is the most comfortable option for them before retiring from motorcycling. Based on the thematic analysis it was discovered that the majority of Harley-Davidson owners have previously owned other brands and moved to Harley within the age limits set for this research. Keywords: Consumer behaviour, Hedonic Consumption, Harley-Davidson, Edinburgh, Progression of Consumption
USER CHARGES, MARKETISATION OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR ACCESS IN DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: CASE STUDIES OF NIGERIA AND SCOTLAND (1980-2017)
(Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, 2018) Osuntubo, Oladipo Oriyomi
Global models of higher education and the degree to which they are influenced by marketisation vary widely. Despite the perception of marketisation reforms in university education being global, literature and focus are heavily dominated by developed countries and the studies that are comparative tend to compare two or more developed or developing countries. Given the perceived global nature of marketisation reforms and its drivers, a gap exists to examine marketisation in the context of a developed and developing country. Consequently, this study and my contribution to the field of public administration is an examination of the marketisation of university education in a developed and developing country context with emphasis on the use of charges and the implications this has for access by evaluating developments in Nigeria and Scotland. Both countries were selected because, despite perceived global nature of marketisation reforms and the expectation that developed countries would exhibit more features of marketisation, they appear to have adopted different approaches to managing HE, particularly on the use of charges for home students. Considerations including the lack of comparable statistical data resulted in the adoption of a qualitative approach for primary data collection with semi-structured interviews conducted with 35 academics and administrators. Research found that while marketisation reforms are partly driven by developed countries and IFIs dominated by them and while some features of marketisation are evident, charges which is a significant feature of market-type reforms is not used in Scotland due to equity of access considerations. Research founds that many developed countries that have charging policies provide services on a quasi-market basis where the government is still directly or indirectly responsible for funding university education due to equity considerations. Developing countries like Nigeria on the other hand, partly due to pressures from external partners have embraced a pure market approach to service delivery which has seen the responsibility for funding university education shifted away from the state and onto students and their families, resulting in access being dependent on the ability to pay upfront, disenfranchising many due to lack of state support, credit or exemption systems. Secondary findings on wider features of marketisation indicated the presence of many features of marketisation in university education in Nigeria and Scotland and revealed a point of intersectionality between the HE systems in developed and developing countries due to marketisation reforms. Many students from developing countries now study with HE institutions based in developed countries and pay a premium in the process because some of the supposed benefits of marketisation are not evident in their home countries. Implications for developing countries include a suggestion to focus more on what external partners do and less on what they say. While marketisation in the context of quasi-markets delivers some of the benefits which justify marketisation in Scotland; in Nigeria, marketisation delivers few benefits and has significant negative implications for access due to continued undersupply, increasing costs and the state abdicating its role in society. The study shows that equity of access and some of the other benefits of markets in HE can only be guaranteed by state intervention through regulation and funding, highlighting policy transfer challenges. The study highlights the limitation of markets in service provision in certain contexts and significance of the state.
Corporate Governance and Corporate Performance: Evidence from Jordanian Family and Non-Family Firms
(Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, 2018) Saidat, Zaid Mhmoud
Corporate governance and corporate performance are two concepts that have been extensively examined in finance and management literature. However, most studies have been conducted in developed countries, particularly the UK and the US, while there is relatively little work carried out on the Middle East, specifically Jordan. Many Jordanian companies are characterised by concentrated ownership (generally family firms), which forms a considerable part of its economy (ROSC Jordan, 2004). Few researchers have examined family firms’ performance from a corporate governance perspective. This study investigates the influence of corporate governance on the performance of Jordanian family and non-family firms from 2009 to 2015, employing agency theory and resource-dependency theory to investigate the relationship between corporate governance and performance of family and non-family firms. Agency theory is concerned with problem of agency between principals and agents as well as principals and principals, which undermines value maximisation. Due to complexity within the corporate governance and performance phenomena, agency theory is supplemented with predictions from resource dependence theory, since this theory asserts that the resources provided by the shareholders and the directors are likely to improve performance. It has been suggested that the board of directors and ownership structure are effective corporate governance mechanisms to improve firm performance. Multivariate pooled-OLS regression analyses were the main tool of analysis. Secondary data obtained from published firm annual reports, firm financial reports and the Thomson One database was analysed to test the effect that board of directors and ownership structure have on corporate performance and the performance of family firms. To ensure confidence in these estimates, this thesis uses two-stage least squares (2SLS) to address the issues of endogeneity. The focus of the investigation was firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). The dataset is a panel of all firms on the ASE from 2009 to 2015, excluding financial firms with a sample of 103 firms, including 56 family-firms (about 55%) and 47 non-family firms. Major findings include (i) board mechanisms; board size, independent directors and family CEO negatively influence family firm performance while CEO duality tends to have a positive effect on performance, (ii) female board member, ownership concentration and local institutional investors have no effect on corporate performance, (iii) in non-family firms, there are positive relationships between governance mechanisms (independent directors and local institutional investors) and corporate performance. However, board size and concentrated ownership have no effect on performance, (iv) female board member has a negative effect, and (v) the proportion of foreign shareholders has a positive effect on the performance of family and non-family firms. Overall, there is a difference between the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on family and non-family firms’ performance. In terms of practical implications, this study illustrates (i) The importance of corporate governance in the broader sense, especially in emerging economies such as Jordan, where ownership is concentrated in Jordanian companies; (ii) signs policymakers and regulatory bodies can use to monitor companies that are more likely to confiscate investors and/or introduce governance problems; (iii) a potentially productive method for professional investors to select companies with superior governance structures and performance to improve returns on their investments, particularly in the long term.
Critical drivers of entrepreneurship: a study of the Nigerian community owned and managed independent retail businesses in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
(2018) Ijeghede, Courage
Purpose: This study explores the motivations of an entrepreneur’s business entry decision within the context of the Nigerian community owned and managed independent retail businesses in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, a minority ethnic group with independent retail micro-businesses. Approach: A research methodology that is most appropriate to the qualitative research aim and highlights the research respondents’ ideas with some details is advised. The research sought access to respondents’ ideas using a qualitative methodological approach, including 20 in-depth interviews. Result: This research found evidence of pull, push and mixed motives as the critical drivers of entrepreneurship. The findings indicate that immigrant enclaves, their economic and social embeddedness into the mainstream group, family business background, informal and formal economic activities, and cultural influences are the core drivers of entrepreneurship. Moreover, the perceived discrimination faced in the host country, interestingly generated intergroup solidarity and strengthened the influence of the group network. Implication: The core conclusion for policy makers from these limited research findings is that a variety of critical drivers of entrepreneurial motivations as identified in this study, seems to be driven by: ‘push’ factors, ‘pull’ factors and ‘mixed’ factors. This limited study offers a framework, which can assist to understand the factors driving these entrepreneurs business entry decision. Currently official liaison with this community is minimal, there are clear opportunities for policy makers to better engage the community, to manage the potential expectations of minority migrant entrepreneurs and channel much needed support to them through formal and informal networks. Limitation: The invisibility of the Nigerian Community in Germany is a key limitation on these research findings. Furthermore, this is a small exploratory study, limited to NRW, Germany and the findings cannot be generalised. However, it can be the basis for future repeated qualitative studies and for a large quantitative study.
Stakeholders: a source of competitive advantage? An analysis of the influence of stakeholders on the strategies of independent, rural, Scottish museums during their organisational life cycle.
(Queen Margaret University, 2008) Halcro, K.
Data indicates that Scottish museum attendance is rising annually, yet anecdotal comments appear to contradict this evidence. Explanations for this dichotomy are inevitably complex and varied, but variations in organisational performance have been explained by the Resource-Based View, which argues an organisation's competitive advantage stems from its ability to access and use resources. This perspective is examined through the concept of stakeholder theory. This thesis investigates the influence stakeholders have on independent, rural Scottish museums during the organisational life cycle, and whether this is a source of competitive advantage. The research involved an exploratory survey to scope the characteristics and environment in which Scotland's museums were operating, but also a typology for further research. The outcome was to adopt a phenomenological approach to investigate fourteen independent, rural, museums strategies during the organisational life cycle, drawing on stakeholder models proposed by Mitchell, Agle & Wood (1997) and Jawahar & McLaughlin (2001). This process involved interviewing 141 stakeholders to discuss their experiences in shaping these museums' strategies. Using narrative analysis, it emerged that these museums' strategies were influenced by different stakeholders during the organisational life cycle and this is reflected in a model developed from these findings. Growth museums were characterised by either an entrepreneurial leader or a board of trustees working in collaboration with key paid staff to access resources, particularly funding. By contrast, mature stage museums were dominated by a definitive stakeholder centred on a group of trustees who also occupied other stakeholder groups, notably volunteers and the community. This definitive stakeholder provided these museums with many of their resources, which proved to be an organisational strength, but also a weakness. The museum in decline and which ceased trading during this study, closed as a result of losing the definitive stakeholder's confidence and withdrawing funding. It was evident that stakeholders did influence museum strategy, but the definitive stakeholder explained a museum's competitive advantage
The development of an assessment framework for Etourism capability in Scotland
(Queen Margaret University, 2009) Reino, Sofia Pardinas
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are claimed to provide businesses with a competitive advantage, to the extent of reshaping entire industries. In tourism, an information-intensive activity and the impact of ICT has been extensively documented at the industry, destination and business level. eTourism Capability refers here to the contribution of ICT to tourism business performance. Therefore, the work is based within the Tourism domain. However, its methods are mainly emerging from the adapted combination of previous research in business and eBusiness. Previous work has urged for the development of wide-angle studies, assessing the eTourism Capability of a destination. However, existing research addressing this issue, tends to place the focus on only one specific aspect of technology adoption, it is not sector specific and/or does not take into consideration the different levels of contribution to performance made by systems. In order to develop an eTourism Capability Assessment Framework for Scotland, and to provide the baseline for its strategic benchmarking with other tourism destinations, the work included an extensive literature review of Tourism and eTourism, developed of a conceptual framework. This supported the selection of key tourism industry stakeholders, i.e. the accommodation sector within the established context. An electronic questionnaire enabled the data collection. Through a mix of statistical techniques, the data treatment provided answers to the research questions, which related to the most suitable approach for ICT indexing in the accommodation sector, the level of contribution to performance by the different ICT elements, patterns describing the impact of business characteristics on ICT uptake, and the predictive models for this uptake. The results suggested the suitability of IT-based indexes for assessing the ICT uptake of this sector. Additionally, the results suggested important differences in the contribution that each system makes to business performance. This even varies across systems supporting similar business functions. Furthermore, the results emphasised the influence of the individual ICT on their own adoption, and suggested several dimensions to describe systems, which underlie the association between business characteristics and ICT adoption by the accommodation sector. These are compatibility observability, physical accessibility, verticality of systems and whether these support standardisation of processes across branches. Since the influence of business characteristics on ICT uptake seem to be system-specific, the predictive models are developed for each individual system. Finally, recommendations for further research have also been made.
An investigation into the host's relationship with the commercial home
(Queen Margaret University, 2008-05) Sweeney, Majella
The research presented in this thesis is an investigation of the views of commercial home owners within Scotland. The thesis is designed to deepen understanding of the commercial home sector, and more specifically, the relationship the host has with the commercial home. The host's relationship with their commercial home contributes to the provision of commercial hospitality within a home setting. The review of the literature points to a number of conceptual gaps in our understanding, notably that there has been no study directly focusing upon the host perspective of the commercial home and how this relationship with the home might potentially impinge upon the guest experience. The specific aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the host and their commercial home and its influences on product construction. As the hospitality product is more of a total sensory experience than has perhaps been acknowledged to date, it is appropriate to seek to understand the host perspective. Prior studies have very largely focused on readily accessible 'objective' issues, rather than below the surface issues accessing the inner self, the intangible dimensions of self, which may determine aspects of the hospitality product. The field research involved the researcher taking photographs of the commercial home properties and then using the photographs as prompts to interview the hosts and explore intangible elements such as memories, emotions and senses. A conceptual framework was developed from the data, identifying the main components of the host home relationship, and was revised as each commercial home was analysed. The framework is divided into three sections; Home, Host, and Business. In relation to the Home section themes that emerged include, Meanings of Home, Décor, and Artefacts. In relation to the Host section, themes include Family and Lifestyle. With regards to the Business section, themes include Feelings, Space, Guests, Performance, Target Market, Tourist Board and Competitors.
Performance measurement of community education services: A case study of public service delivery in Forth Ward, Edinburgh
(Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, 2017) Fejszes, Violetta Rozsa
Performance measurement within public services is a key feature of the literature but at ward level it has been an under-studied concept. This thesis presents research within a ward with deprived and affluent areas, focusing on community education service provision and the part performance measurement plays in it. The literature shows the importance of community education services in deprived areas to empower residents. They have the potential to impact positively on the lives of individuals and communities. Performance measurement is meant to ensure the delivery of value for money, quality services but it can instead be a barrier. In subjective areas like community education, measurement is difficult. The primary research was conducted in a qualitative case study. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews with ward stakeholders. The key findings identify constraints surrounding performance measurement in subjective services. While there was increased emphasis on measuring performance the value of such procedures was questioned. Performance measurement practices did not necessarily lead to improved service outcomes. The findings uncovered many specifics concerning both the process and the context. As community education was credited with reducing public service dependence by supporting self-reliance, dedication to such services was seen as necessary. Changes were needed, in performance measurement and more broadly, as there was a risk that the sector would not be able to operate soon. Despite the various representative bodies, effective local input, which was needed, had yet to be achieved. The findings draw out real issues with potentially serious implications. They highlight how the public service provision might be improved at the most micro level of democracy, the ward, where citizens experience first-hand public services. The research could therefore be of value to policy-makers and those responsible for service provision.
Developing an effectiveness evaluation framework for destination management systems
(Queen Margaret University, 2010) Horan, Patrick
The ever-increasing use of the Web as a channel of distribution within the tourism industry naturally leads to a situation where its effectiveness needs to be examined and justified. While there is a growing realisation of the need to assess the effectiveness of a Destination Management Systems (DMS) based websites, research into this area in the tourism domain has been quite limited and narrow in focus. This situation is further compounded by the fact that currently there is little in the way of appropriate models and techniques in place to manage a DMS based websites effectively and that there is a general lack of consensus when it comes to defining and understanding its standards and concepts. This thesis describes a methodology for the development and evaluation of a comprehensive set of weighted dimensions and criteria for measuring the effectiveness of DMS based websites. Ultimately, from a DMS perspective, website effectiveness depends on how well a website performs with respect to the related business goals. The scope of the research was limited to assessing the impact of DMS effectiveness on the accommodation sector. This research began by employing a Delphi study to generate, validate and prioritise a comprehensive set of dimensions and criteria for measuring the effectiveness of a DMS. The Delphi study successfully identified a total of 12 dimensions and 105 criteria required to assess DMS based websites effectiveness. These components were incorporated into a comprehensive evaluation framework applied specifically to evaluate the effectiveness of a DMS based websites using a diverse range of approaches and perspectives. The evaluation phase of the research took place over an eight month period and concentrated on testing this framework using VisitScotland.com as a test bed. The outcomes from the evaluation phase successfully demonstrated that the framework provides DMS management with a comprehensive method to measure and manage the effectiveness of their Web presence by not only identifying areas of the website and website strategy that needed attention but also by providing advice and suggestions on how to improve these areas.
The role of major events in the creation of social legacy: a case study of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games
(Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, 2017) Sharp, Briony
The importance of major event legacy has become increasingly vital for host cities and their organising partners. Much of the earlier studies in this area focused on tangible legacies such as economic and infrastructural. Contemporary research has seen a shift towards potential intangible legacies including social legacies and how events engage with their communities. The Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games is used a case study in order to establish pathways towards the creation of social legacies. This study aims to advance the current literature on the notion of social legacy by conceptualising legacy planning and implementation through the experiences of local policy makers, organisers and coordinators; local community members living within the regeneration area; and, a wider demographic of volunteers involved in Games related programmes. A mixed method approach was employed for this research consisting of interviews, focus groups and an online survey. The data collected was analysed in line with emerging themes. The main themes in this thesis focus upon social impacts relating to individuals, communities, and image, status and sense of place. First, the social impacts for individuals emerging from volunteering, personal development, and an increase in social capital are examined to determine potential routes to create social legacies. Second, an analysis of potential social legacy routes relating to communities examines social impacts of community engagement, post-industrial event-led urban regeneration, the development of social capital, and issues relating to social impacts in communities. Next, social impacts concerning image, status, and sense of place are presented in relation to the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games to highlight social legacy creation routes through changes in reputation, civic pride, and sense of identity. Before concluding, stakeholder perspectives are analysed with regard to the creation of a social legacy from hosting the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games with consideration to partnership legacies, knowledge exchange, and future implications.

Business, Events and Hospitality

Browse

Filters

Settings

Sort By

Results per page

Search Results