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Using the Analytical Hierarchy Process, this study aims to identify organizational and market factors that prevent hoteliers from adopting greener management systems. This study first constructs a list of critical factors based on expert judgments reported in the literature and the responses from a select group of experienced managers. Then, the list is further refined by six hotel managers who consolidate the factors, which results in four categories explained by 20 items. Subsequently, this study draws from surveys on an expert panel consisting of 20 study subjects who are familiar with hotel operations. The survey results show that hoteliers’ abilities to create a greener image are the most important factor influencing the managers’ decisions to adopt environmentally friendly management schemes. Nevertheless, their motivation of adopting a green strategy seems to be associated with a marketing strategy, instead of generic environmental stewardship.

This study seeks to investigate issues transpiring in green hotels from a human resource perspective which is unlike most green-hotel studies centering on consumer behavioral subjects. It hypothesizes that the employees’ green ability consisting of environmental awareness, environmental knowledge, and environmental skill creates a positive impact on hotels’ green ability and ultimately on the overall performance of hotels. Using alumni from a tourism and hospitality program, this study collects 233 responses from a structured questionnaire survey. The findings indicate that hotel employees approximately contribute toward a fifth of the hotels’ ability to implement greener practices.

The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesise 149 hospitality-related studies published in the past two decades pertaining to environmental management (EM). The review was divided into three main stages: 1993-1999, 2000-2009 and 2010-2014 and provided future research directions.

The study sample consisted of articles published between 1993 and 2014 in four leading hospitality journals. The four journals chosen were the International Journal of Hospitality Management, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management and Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research. The title, abstract and the content, as needed, of all EM-related full-length articles from these four journals were content analysed. Editors’ notes, book reviews, industry news, conference papers and research notes were excluded from this paper.

EM research in the hospitality industry during the first two stages focused on the development of environmental policies and practices, green consumerism, managers’ environmental attitudes, indoor air quality and smoke-free environments, sustainable development, environmental performance, environmental cost control and environmental management systems (EMSs). During the third stage from 2010 to 2014, topics about environmental benchmarking and indicators have surfaced. Notwithstanding this, EM in the environmental reporting, and green marketing have been pursued less enthusiastically.

Compared with the mainstream management literature and considering the future development of EM, hospitality scholars are encouraged to extend their research to include green marketing, environmental technologies, environmental reporting, carbon footprint, employees’ green behaviour, the effects of EM on hospitality firms’ stakeholders and small- and medium-sized hospitality firms. In addition, more effort should be spent on developing hospitality-specific theories for EM.

Little has been done to determine the main research agendas in hospitality EM. A review of recent research on this topic provides an inventory of existing knowledge and points out areas requiring further knowledge exploration.

This paper aims to examine the UK’s small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) policies under Margaret Thatcher’s era in the 1980s, with a view to understand the success stories, historical development and the structures of Chinese family business through a case study of See Woo Holdings Ltd.

The authors have achieved the objective on the study of the SMEs policies under Margaret Thatcher through critical evaluation of the historical literatures, books, journals and newspapers. The study on overseas Chinese business and the case of See Woo Holdings Ltd. is mainly through the research of the Chinese overseas in the UK and Southeast Asia, and the companies report from the Companies House in the UK. The authors have used the latest 2011 UK Census statistics and academic reports to locate the most current demographic changes and Chinese business characteristics in the UK and the Northeast of England.

First, the UK’s SMEs policies under Margaret Thatcher were quite receptive towards the ethnic business. Second, the case of See Woo Holdings Ltd. indicates that family business networks are still one of the characteristics of Chinese business. Finally, the broader UK’s SMEs policies play an important role in this case study.

The authors provide a tentative linkage between the UK’s SMEs policies under Margaret Thatcher and Chinese family business. In addition, the case study of See Woo Holdings Ltd. improves the current understanding of Chinese family business with a clearer picture about their structure, practice, characteristics and development.

Cross-border students – children who are permanent residents of Hong Kong but live on the mainland and travel across the border to school every day – have been an important social, educational and political issue in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, current discussions regarding this issue focus mainly on the group of students whose parents are Chinese residents and seldom examine the wider contribution of social, geo-political, global-economic and policy changes to the phenomenon. These shortcomings have limited the understanding of the role of the state and the varied needs of these child migrants from diverse family backgrounds. This paper aims to address these gaps.

It proposes to bring changing border and immigration policies in Hong Kong back into the current analysis and offers a case study of border history. It revisits publications on Hong Kong’s immigration and migration policies, official statistics and government policy papers and (re)constructs the border changes that took place during the period from 1950 to 2013, which led to the rise and complexity of cross-border students.

This critical historical review offers two important findings: First, it reveals how the government, through its restrictive and liberalized border regulations, has constrained and produced different types of cross-border families. Second, it shows that cross-border students come from diverse family configurations, which have adopted cross-border schooling as a family strategy.

These findings underscore the importance of historical perspective, the wider context in migration studies, the centrality of the state in migrant families and a differentiated understanding of child migrants.

The term “carbon footprint” emerged during the early 2000s, but many hotels remain unaware of what they should do to implement a comprehensive programme to reduce carbon footprint despite having some environmental measures. This study aims to investigate the barriers to reducing hotel carbon footprint and to explore why many hotel managers remain bystanders.

In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with hotel executives to understand what hinders hotels’ implementation of comprehensive programmes to reduce their carbon footprint. The NVivo 11 software package was used to organise data and code the transcribed interviews to identify patterns and themes.

The findings identified several main barriers. They were (1) a lack of understanding, (2) a lack of owner initiative, (3) difficulty with measurements, (4) a lack of stakeholder coordination and support, (5) a lack of a strong mediator, (6) balancing interests and (7) risky investment. The findings of this study suggest some specific strategies for overcoming these barriers.

The study sample was restricted to the Hong Kong hotel executives interviewed; therefore, the findings will not reflect the full picture of managerial perceptions. Drawing on the foundations laid by this study, researchers could collect quantitative data from hotels in other countries to conduct a cross-cultural study.

Very few studies have investigated barriers to carbon-footprint reduction programmes. Specifically, none have been published in the hotel environmental management literature. This study represents a preliminary step towards understanding the barriers that prevent hotels from implementing the programmes.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

A new academic structure for senior secondary and higher education was introduced to Hong Kong in 2009/2010. This paper aims to: (1) compare the cohort from the old academic structure (Cohort 2010) and the cohort from the new academic structure (Cohort 2015) on the 14 categories of generic competencies; and (2) compare these attributes among students from different divisions in a tertiary institution in Hong Kong.

Self-Assessment of All-Round Development (SAARD) questionnaires were distributed to students who took the two-year sub-degree programmes offered by the College of Professional and Continuing Education, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2010 and 2015 on a self-administered basis. A total of 4,424 students have returned the questionnaires. Data were analyzed with t-test to compare between the two cohorts.

When comparing Cohort 2015 with Cohort 2010, significantly higher scores were observed on five areas such as global outlook and healthy lifestyle (p<0.05). Significantly lower scores were observed on the other five areas such as problem solving, critical thinking and leadership (p<0.05). Students from all divisions unanimously showed higher perceived rating on social and national responsibility but lower perceived rating on leadership (p<0.05).

The elimination of one public examination, the newly included components such as Other Learning Experiences (OLE) and the compulsory Liberal Studies were believed to contribute partially to the diverse responses of the two cohorts. The dramatic change of the curriculum has not changed the examination culture in Hong Kong which may hinder the development of generic skills among students.