Much like the raw painting of Dorian Gray, this investigation will attempt to glimpse beyond the surface façade of the characters portrayed in ShowTime’s Penny Dreadful. Examining…
Abstract
Much like the raw painting of Dorian Gray, this investigation will attempt to glimpse beyond the surface façade of the characters portrayed in ShowTime’s Penny Dreadful. Examining the recurring relationship structures within the series, this chapter will dissect ideas of obsession, passion, and justice. What can the relationship dynamics reveal about notions of a monstrous nature? Like the brush strokes of Dorian’s portrait, each layer of analysis will reveal a broader picture of the term monster, being that which is not only applicable to a few individuals, or one particular sex, but a reflection of society. Why are modern day audiences captivated by such character portrayals, and much like the portrait of Dorian Grey, what disturbing truth lurks behind our civilized exterior?
Details
Keywords
Lloyd C. Harris and Andrew Crane
The green management literature repeatedly argues that in order to behave in a sustainable manner, organizational actions will need to go beyond technical fixes and embrace new…
Abstract
The green management literature repeatedly argues that in order to behave in a sustainable manner, organizational actions will need to go beyond technical fixes and embrace new environmentally responsible values, beliefs and behaviors. In this context, developing sustainability is frequently viewed as largely dependent on the extent of green culture change in organizations. However, empirical evidence for such a change in culture is not apparent, although much anecdotal support has been cited. Seeks to address some of the shortcomings in extant literature and supplies contemporary evidence of managers’ perceptions of the extent to which the green culture change is occurring and of factors acting as barriers or facilitators to such change. Begins with a review of the literature pertaining to organizational culture and greening. Following this, details the research design and methodology. Thereafter, lays out the findings of the interviews in detail. Finally, discusses these findings and suggests a number of implications, conclusions and directions for further research.
Details
Keywords
Yang Yang, Lan Jiang and Yawei Wang
More hotels are beginning to embrace green practices given increasing awareness of sustainable development. The purpose of this study is to examine factors contributing to hotels’…
Abstract
Purpose
More hotels are beginning to embrace green practices given increasing awareness of sustainable development. The purpose of this study is to examine factors contributing to hotels’ participation in TripAdvisor’s GreenLeaders program.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a sample of 48,064 hotels from 328 destinations in 29 countries, the authors leverage a multi-level logit model to examine antecedents of GreenLeaders participation. A multi-level ordered logit model is then estimated to uncover factors influencing the ranking of this participation.
Findings
Empirical results indicate that hotels with a larger size, a higher class, a better online reputation, greater reliance on business travelers, fewer neighboring hotels and a more long-term-oriented culture are more apt to join the program. Online reputation factors, hotel size and the number of neighboring hotels explain GreenLeaders hotels’ rankings. A series of robustness checks reinforces the results.
Practical implications
The results shed light on green program design and promotion. These findings can help hotel practitioners identify ideal target markets and better use their organizational resources to establish green programs. Several strategies can be implemented to promote hotels’ commitment to sustainability and to encourage guests’ awareness of and involvement in green practices.
Originality/value
This study enriches knowledge of sustainable hospitality and tourism. The findings of this study also address corporate social responsibility by analyzing factors that can promote and inhibit GreenLeaders program participation. Further, as a complement to hotel- and location-specific factors, the authors scrutinize the effects of cultural features in shaping green strategies.
Details
Keywords
Abstract
Details
Keywords
There has been a tendency in sustainability science to be passive. The purpose of this paper is to introduce an alternative positive framework for a more active and direct…
Abstract
Purpose
There has been a tendency in sustainability science to be passive. The purpose of this paper is to introduce an alternative positive framework for a more active and direct approach to sustainable design and assessment that de-couples environmental impacts and economic growth.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper deconstructs some systemic gaps that are critical to sustainability in built environment management processes and tools, and reframes negative “sustainable” decision making and assessment frameworks into their positive counterparts. In particular, it addresses the omission of ecology, design and ethics in development assessment.
Findings
Development can be designed to provide ecological gains and surplus “eco-services,” but assessment tools and processes favor business-as-usual. Despite the tenacity of the dominant paradigm (DP) in sustainable development institutionalized by the Brundtland Report over 25 years ago, these omissions are easily corrected.
Research limitations/implications
The limitation is that the author was unable to find exceptions to the omissions cited here in the extensive literature on urban planning and building assessment tools. However, exceptions prove the rule. The implication is that it is not too late for eco-positive retrofitting of cities to increase natural and social capital. The solutions are just as applicable in places like China and India as the USA, as they pay for themselves.
Originality/value
Positive development (PD) is a fundamental paradigm shift that reverses the negative models, methods and metrics of the DP of sustainable development. This paper provides an example of how existing “negative” concepts and practices can be converted into positive ones through a PD prism. Through a new form of bio-physical design, development can be a sustainability solution.
Details
Keywords
Peter Hockey, Alexandra Tobin, Juliette Kemp, Janet Kerrigan, Fleur Kitsell, Penny Green, Amanda Sewell, Christopher Smith, Stephanie Stanwick and Peter Lees
The purpose of this paper is to describe a novel approach to leadership development for UK healthcare workers, while contributing to health service improvement in a developing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe a novel approach to leadership development for UK healthcare workers, while contributing to health service improvement in a developing country.
Design/methodology/approach
A quality improvement faculty are used to teach and mentor National Health Service (NHS) International Development Clinical Fellows in quality improvement (QI) methods. Using accepted QI methods, sensitive and practical improvement projects are selected in partnership with local people in Cambodia in order to start achieving United Nations Millennium Development Goals related to child and maternal health. Simultaneously, NHS International Fellows gain an unparalleled opportunity to develop their leadership skills, which should benefit the NHS on their return to the UK.
Findings
Healthcare quality improvement methods, developed in First World countries, are transferable to the developing world and also function as a vehicle for developing leadership skills in experienced healthcare workers.
Practical implications
This leadership development programme fits with the stated aims of the Global Health Partnerships report, which encourages the NHS to play a global role in healthcare development in the developing world. Other First World healthcare systems could adopt this leadership development method to both improve the leadership capability of their own staff while also making a significant contribution to less well‐developed healthcare systems.
Originality/value
The combination of leadership development through quality improvement is novel – promising to benefit both providers and recipients.
Details
Keywords
The internet is rapidly becoming the main channel for seeking and booking travel services. The consequent human–interface interactions are now the focal point of many studies…
Abstract
The internet is rapidly becoming the main channel for seeking and booking travel services. The consequent human–interface interactions are now the focal point of many studies being conducted by both scholars and practitioners. The development of websites involves many design choices, such as background, colors, fonts, and different ways of presenting information. The study here argues that these seemingly “trivial” design choices may have nontrivial effects on customers’ behavior. The study presents three empirical examples supporting this idea. The first example refers to the presentation of hotels as items on a list on websites, which creates a “mere position” effect. The second example shows that different partitioning of an attribute’s values can impact their relative importance. The third example shows that background features (color, picture) may result in priming effects. In all cases, the seemingly trivial changes in design directly alter customers’ choices although, rationally, they should have no impact at all.
Details
Keywords
Kyle B. Murray, Jianping Liang and Gerald Häubl
This paper seeks to review current research on assistive consumer technologies (ACT 1.0) and to discuss a series of research challenges that need to be addressed before the field…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to review current research on assistive consumer technologies (ACT 1.0) and to discuss a series of research challenges that need to be addressed before the field can move towards tools that are more effective and more readily adopted by consumers (ACT 2.0).
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper. The perspective, commensurate with the current research and areas of expertise, is that of consumer researchers.
Findings
The paper argues that, while substantial advances have been made in the technical design of ACTs – and the algorithms that power recommendation systems, there are substantial barriers to wide‐scale consumer adoption of such tools that need to be addressed. In particular, future ACT designs will need to better integrate current research in human judgment and decision making to improve the ease with which such tools can be used.
Originality/value
From the perspective of consumer researchers, the paper highlights a set of key areas of enquiry that have the potential to substantially advance assistive consumer technology research.
Details
Keywords
BEFORE MISUNDERSTANDING OCCUR I should explain at once that this essay has nothing whatsoever to do with the latest esoteric theories of library management. It concerns the rather…
Abstract
BEFORE MISUNDERSTANDING OCCUR I should explain at once that this essay has nothing whatsoever to do with the latest esoteric theories of library management. It concerns the rather more gentle art, or science, of collecting picture postcards of libraries. An innocuous pastime, you will agree, and one which may be indulged in without fuss or bother or, indeed, any great expenditure of time, energy, or money. It all started when I received cards from two ex‐students, one from Port Elizabeth, the other from New Hampshire. Admittedly the first featured the Mayor's Garden, ‘flanked by old buildings and modern structures,…a quiet refuge in this busy port and industrial city’. But there, large as life and twice as ugly, behind a monument of the old Queen, stands the Public Library, built in that curious mishmash style typical of the last years of Victoria's reign. The second was of the tower of The Baker Memorial Library, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., a 1928 building but in a style strongly reminiscent of a James Gibbs eighteenth‐century church. For someone who has always suffered from an over‐developed magpie instinct it was enough, and this highly specialized branch of deltiology took its place in the long line stretching back through books, old comics, postage stamps, matchbox labels to the very beginnings of car numbers.
A new offence of ‘drug covering’ should be created, with penalty ranges of six to 12 months. This would allow sentencers to distinguish between drug mules and principals, as the…
Abstract
A new offence of ‘drug covering’ should be created, with penalty ranges of six to 12 months. This would allow sentencers to distinguish between drug mules and principals, as the latter are the principal traffickers and stand to gain the benefits of drug importation.
Details
Keywords
Yim King Penny Wan, Sow Hup Joanne Chan and Hui Lan Wendy Huang
This paper aims to examine the environmental awareness, initiatives and performance in the Macau hotel industry.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the environmental awareness, initiatives and performance in the Macau hotel industry.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed research method was adopted involving quantitative surveys with 31 hotels in Macau and 11 face-to-face interviews with the hotel managers, facilities managers and engineers.
Findings
Response from surveys and interviews with 31 hoteliers show that hotels in Macau have a high level of environmental awareness. Most hoteliers actively introduce initiatives that contribute to cost savings. Initiatives including using energy conservation light bulbs, having an active system to detect/repair leaking facilities and installing water conserving fixtures are widely implemented, while programs involving using solar lawn light, recycling leftover food and reusing wastewater are not. Major barriers for going green include the lack of government regulations on environmental management (EM), financial constraints, the lack of employees to handle EM and the fear that environmental initiatives may negatively impact the guest’s experience, especially those VIP and hardcore gamblers and customers who expect enjoying the luxuries services in Macau hotels. Lower star hotels experience more difficulties in adopting green approaches.
Research limitations/implications
This paper presents a single case study of Macau; therefore, the results in this research may have limited generalizability.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the very few attempts that investigate EM in Macau – a renowned world tourism and gambling destination, where the vast majority of hotels have their casino facilities. Results show that apart from the financial consideration and the lack of government enforcement to adopt green measures similar to hotels in other destinations, EM practices of Macau’s hotels are also constrained by its customer base and the acute shortage of human resources that is caused by the tourism boom.
Details
Keywords
Ra’ed Masa’deh, Omar Alananzeh, Noof Algiatheen, Rawan Ryati, Reem Albayyari and Ali Tarhini
This study aims to quantify the associations among employees’ perception of implementing green supply chain management (i.e. through seven variables, namely, internal…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to quantify the associations among employees’ perception of implementing green supply chain management (i.e. through seven variables, namely, internal environmental management, green information systems, green purchasing, tourist perceptions, environmentally friendly activity, employee emotional behavior and environmental legislation) with hotel’s economic and operational performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey instrument is used to examine the relationships in the proposed model by using the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. An analysis of the primary data (n = 150) collected from employees in Aqaba hotels located in Jordan is conducted to test the relationship between exogenous and endogenous constructs expressed in the proposed structural model.
Findings
The findings revealed that while green information systems, employee emotional behavior and environmental legislation affected hotels’ economic performance, internal environmental management, green purchasing, tourist perceptions and environment-friendly activity did not. Also, hotels’ economic performance positively impacted hotels’ operational performance. However, as the coefficient of determination (R²) for the endogenous research variables for economic performance and operational performance was 0.16 and 0.17, respectively, the relationships between the exogenous and endogenous constructs were not supported.
Practical implications
This study will contribute towards a better understanding of employee perceptions of implementing green supply chain management and hotel performance in Aqaba City.
Originality/value
This is the first study that adequately covers the associations among employee perception of implementing green supply chain management on hotel’s economic and operational performance in the Middle East.
Details
Keywords
Within a Europe highly concerned about becoming a zero net greenhouse gas emission continent, and where the circular economy is strongly promoted as a proper lever in this sense…
Abstract
Purpose
Within a Europe highly concerned about becoming a zero net greenhouse gas emission continent, and where the circular economy is strongly promoted as a proper lever in this sense, the present paper aims to raise awareness regarding best practices towards a “green” food retail sector in Romania. In a more specific regard, the “green” practices implemented by the main food retailers acting on the Romanian market are analysed, focusing on what these practices are, how they are measured and how transparent they are.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on desk research consisting in the identification and content analysis of the “green”-related information outlined on the food retailers' websites and in their published sustainability reports.
Findings
Food retailers are concerned about becoming carbon neutral, implementing the “green” measures outlined in the paper through the lenses of waste management, minimising/eradicating plastic, reducing/eliminating food waste, energy efficiency/saving, water consumption efficiency, protecting biodiversity, transportation efficiency and compliance with standards/obtained certifications/adherence to pacts. In addition to actions, food retailers are concerned about their proper, continuous monitorization, tackling key indicators in four directions: overall impact on the environment, impact on resources, waste impact and transportation impact.
Originality/value
The paper provides a novel, exhaustive best practices guide to encourage the transition to a “greener” activity in the Romanian food retail sector, highlighting both action measures and key assessment indicators.
Details
Keywords
Commonly, supermarkets are perceived as more sustainable than discount stores, which are accused of following an aggressive price and no-frills approach. Therefore, the purpose of…
Abstract
Purpose
Commonly, supermarkets are perceived as more sustainable than discount stores, which are accused of following an aggressive price and no-frills approach. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether supermarkets and discounters differ substantially in their sustainability communication.
Design/methodology/approach
Sustainability reports and in-store communication are two important channels for retailers’ sustainability communication. To analyze both communication channels, the authors use a multi-method approach with data triangulation, analyzing sustainability reports and store observations of eight German retailers (two supermarket chains, six discount chains).
Findings
The study reveals no major differences between supermarkets and discounters regarding the readability of sustainability reports and the number of key figures on sustainability presented. However, supermarkets perform significantly better in translating sustainability to the store level than discounters. Furthermore, the results indicate that poor quality in the readability analysis is reflected in fewer concrete data provided in the sustainability reports and poorer translation of sustainability to the retail store.
Originality/value
This paper presents an empirical analysis of how well German retailers communicate about sustainability on both the report and the store level for the interest of academia and retail managers. It reveals different performance qualities among retail chains and retail formats and identifies the shortcomings within current reporting legislation with a clear indication toward policy makers.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this study is to show that corporations may resort to legal compliance instead of acting voluntarily towards abatement of environmental damages as a strategy for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to show that corporations may resort to legal compliance instead of acting voluntarily towards abatement of environmental damages as a strategy for improving their reputation.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the natural philosophy and postulate of business, theoretical models have been developed to justify the purpose of this paper. Financial impacts of Indian revenue law on environmental damage prevention by the polluting firms have been gauged mathematically.
Findings
Corporate environmental responsibilities have seemed to be more reputation-led than innovation-led or efficiency-led. Reputation-led environmental responsibilities can have ways to bypass innovations and some firms can simply comply with regulations at the society’s cost (may be to a sizeable extent). If penalty is imposed on companies in the form of taxation for damaging the environment, then companies get chances to pass the financial burden to the shareholders in the form of lower dividend pay-outs. Unless the capital market supports corporate green initiatives, there may be destruction of shareholder wealth.
Research limitations/implications
Extensive empirical analysis have not been conducted as the paper concentrates on developing theoretical understanding of the models of “green cost”.
Practical implications
The exploration and outcomes of this paper can offer several directions to the government, business and social activists in articulating green economic policy for the benefits of all.
Social implications
The civil society will understand better what the corporate environmental responsibility really means for them.
Originality/value
This paper has made a modest endeavour to develop theoretical models of both “green cost internalisation” and “green cost externalisation”. It has paved the path for further deliberations and research.
Details
Keywords
In 1888 the London County Council was established as the primary local authority for the area now known as Inner London. Twelve years later the parishes within the county were…
Abstract
In 1888 the London County Council was established as the primary local authority for the area now known as Inner London. Twelve years later the parishes within the county were organised into 28 Metropolitan Boroughs which, together with the unchanged City of London, formed the second tier of local government. Twenty of the new boroughs inherited library powers because one or more of their constituent parishes had adopted the Public Libraries Acts before 1900. The eight boroughs which started without public libraries were Bethnal Green, Deptford, Greenwich, Hackney, Islington, Paddington, St. Marylebone and St. Pancras. Five of these adopted the Acts within a few years. Bethnal Green, Paddington and St. Marylebone on the other hand held out against the trend. Even the generosity of library benefactors could be rejected by diehards: Paddington refused a Carnegie grant of £15,000 to establish a service.
Yewande Adewunmi, Modupe Omirin and Hikmot Koleoso
This paper aims to examine common environmental practices and strategies for implementing sustainable FM among Nigerian FM practitioners.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine common environmental practices and strategies for implementing sustainable FM among Nigerian FM practitioners.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of the literature on sustainability and environmental management was undertaken. Data collection was through self‐administered questionnaires directed to a sample of 150 facilities managers who are members of the International Facility Management Association (Nigeria Group), Lagos, Nigeria. Structured interviews with five top facilities management professionals were also conducted. The data collected were analyzed using frequency counts, means, z‐test, repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and relative importance index. The survey achieved a response rate of 30 percent.
Findings
The survey revealed that many of the practitioners put a premium on achieving energy efficiency as a very vital environmental practice within their organizations. A strategic management procedure is more important for the implementation of environmental management in the Nigerian FM industry.
Originality/value
There is a paucity of literature in sustainability within facilities management in Nigeria. An integration of sustainability considerations into FM practice is required to promote the development of suitable environmental initiatives and practices within Nigerian cities, as many facilities managers are employed by companies whose activities harm the environment.