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This paper investigates whether an outcome-based school aid formula could improve fiscal and outcome equity significantly more than a typical aid formula would. When outcome-based formula is applied to foundation aid, fiscal and outcome equity deteriorates compared to Ohio's recent aid formula. However, when it is applied to power-equalizing aid, the latter improves fiscal and outcome equity more significantly than both foundation aid and Ohio's recent aid formula do. This paper further shows how to apply them to real-world cases. The lessons from this paper can be easily applied to similar grant systems with standardized test scores.

Online information research on hotels is gradually emerging as a key area of research with the increasing use of social media as a platform for co-creative service innovation (CCSI). The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between the key drivers of co-creation intention in the social media context. Understanding relationships between key drivers of customers’ co-creation intention will prove valuable in advancing current knowledge about service innovation using social media. The key drivers examined in this study are – customer innovativeness, attitude toward CCSI on social media, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. This knowledge will be of considerable value for its practical application in the hotel industry.

Data were collected from 346 hotel guests using survey method. Structural equation modeling with a bootstrapping estimation was used to analyze the data.

The results show that customer innovativeness, attitude toward CCSI on social media, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control positively influence both co-creation and adoption intention. Further, it was also found that co-creation intention mediates the relationship between its two driving factors, namely, customer innovativeness, attitude toward CCSI in social media and adoption intention.

The findings provide theoretical implications for hospitality discipline. The findings also provide various strategies hospitality firms can use to co-create service innovation through the effective use of social media.

The relationships examined in the present study have not been tested previously; this is the first attempt of the kind. Thus, the associations established in this study form an important contribution to the existing body of knowledge in co-creation, service innovation and social media literature.

In the contemporary hospitality industry, superior customer experiences are essential in gaining customer loyalty and achieving a competitive advantage. However, limited research addresses this subject. The purpose of this study is to advance scholarly research on customer experience management (CEM) in the hospitality field by providing a comprehensive overview of the key elements of CEM, a framework for managing customer experience and a rich agenda for research.

An extensive literature review produces a comprehensive overview of the existing knowledge of CEM. A synthesis of previous literature reveals the need for additional, contemporary information sources. The study is, therefore, supplemented by invited commentaries on CEM from senior scholars and hospitality managers.

The proposed model takes a holistic perspective on managing a positive customer experience, through collaboration among marketing, operations, design, human resources and strategy, in association with technology and social media.

The literature review and commentaries from leading experts reveal six areas for further research on CEM in the hospitality industry.

This study provides a comprehensive, systematic review of CEM literature and detailed understanding of the mechanisms for managing customer experiences in the hospitality industry. It integrates state-of-the-art CEM knowledge in the generic business context, along with principles of hospitality management, and advances CEM research by emphasizing the need for collaboration among marketing, operations and human resources.

Although place branding has been practiced for many years, limited studies have examined its impacts on economic performance from business owners' perspectives. The purpose of this study is to explore the causal relationships between the internal branding of business owners and the external perception of downtown and business performance.

Data were collected from 167 downtown business owners of small communities in a Midwestern state in the USA. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to evaluate reliability and validity of the measurement model, and structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed hypotheses and research model.

The findings suggest that internal communication about downtown branding increased business owners' downtown brand congruence (internal branding) and in turn downtown commitment. Positive links from business owners' downtown commitment to their perception of downtown performance and individual business performance were also identified.

This study expands the scope of place branding with the perspectives of small communities' business owners. The findings suggest that “branding the downtown” may be an effective strategy to revitalize their downtown. Internal communication about downtown branding could encourage business owners to be integral parts of this strategy.

This study is unique in investigating place branding and internal branding quantitatively from the context of the business owner operating in the downtown.

US apparel firms have been relatively slow exploring Chinese and Indian apparel markets, despite the countries' tremendous growth potentials. To help US apparel firms successfully enter these promising markets, this study aims to compare evaluative attributes that Chinese and Indian consumers utilize when purchasing denim jeans.

Data were collected in Shanghai, China and Bangalore, India.

The results of the study confirmed that Chinese and Indian consumers ranked attributes differently. Chinese consumers placed the highest importance on price, followed by fitting, brand country of origin, quality, and design, whereas Indian consumers placed importance on fitting, brand country of origin, design, price, and quality, in descending order.

Caution needs to be exercised in generalizing the findings since the data for this study were collected from one city in each country. The study tested the idea that the importance of attributes would be different between Chinese and Indian consumers as their cultures and retail development stages differ. This idea was supported in conjoint analysis.

The findings indicate that a regional approach, assuming that all Asian markets are the same, is inappropriate. Thus, US apparel firms need to pay careful attention to differences in each Asian market.

China and India have been compared frequently in various ways: growth potential, market size, and population. Surprisingly, however, no study has attempted to compare Chinese and Indian consumers' evaluative criteria for apparel products. This is the first empirical study to show the differences between Chinese and Indian consumers in evaluating apparel products.

Business and academia alike have become aware of the crucial role of customer‐to‐customer interactions. Facilitated by the increasing customer connectedness through online media possibilities, companies need to understand how customers influence each other and how to manage these customer interactions. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize an expanded model of customer‐driven influence (CDI) that presents an overview of the influence process and its determinants. The model covers important issues, such as deliberate versus unintentional sender actions, verbal and non‐verbal communication, and reflective and impulsive receiver reactions.

This article is the result of the first Thought Leadership Conference on Service Marketing, held in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, June 2012.

The model shows the importance of considering goal theory in studying customer‐driven influence. Both sender and receiver can act and react in deliberate and unintentional ways. The mechanisms for customer‐driven influence are then contingent upon which particular goal (combination) is activated. Message reception is either verbal or non‐verbal. Furthermore, the receiver can react either by reflective processing or by impulsive processing leading to liking a particular product or wanting the product (respectively). Accordingly, the receiver builds behavioral intentions of purchasing and further talking about the particular product.

This paper synthesizes insights from the extant literature on word‐of‐mouth, social influence, and dual processing of information to develop a comprehensive model customer‐driven influence. The authors' framework is embedded in goal system theory, as it addresses fundamental self‐regulatory issues, such as the impact of implicit goal activation and essential contextual factors on preference formation and choice.

The International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management is a leading international journal in the field of hospitality and tourism management. It was started in 1989, and it turns 30 years old this year. To celebrate this anniversary, this paper presents a bibliometric overview of the publication and citation structure of the journal over the past 30 years. The purpose of this paper is to identify the relevant issues in terms of keywords and topics and who is achieving better results in terms of authors, universities and countries.

The Scopus database is used to collect the bibliographical material. A graphical mapping of the bibliographic data is developed by using VOSviewer software. It produces graphical maps with several bibliometric techniques, including co-citation, bibliographic coupling and co-occurrence of keywords.

The results indicate that English-speaking countries are producing the highest number of articles in the journal, followed by Asian institutions, with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University as the most productive institution.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no papers that present a general overview of the publication and citation structure of this journal. Its 30th anniversary is a good moment to develop this study.

As the elderly population in Korea grows, sales of travel packages for elderly people are also increasing. Senior tourists should spend much time with other tourists because of the nature of package travel. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the significance of rapport with other tourists in the elderly tourist context. Specifically, the current study examined the relationship between other customer perceptions and rapport with other tourists. In addition, this study investigated the influences of rapport with other tourists on tour quality, tour satisfaction and word-of-mouth.

This paper collected data from 411 elderly tourists in Korea and conducted a structural equation modeling analysis to test nine hypotheses.

Physical appearance and suitable behavior positively affect rapport with other tourists and thus aid in increasing tour quality, tour satisfaction and word-of-mouth.

In service marketing, there is a general consensus that customers are influenced by other customers who use the same service facility because they recognize other customers as the environment of the service facility. The concept of other customer perceptions was applied to tourism marketing in this study in combination with another understudied concept, rapport. This study is one of the first, as per the authors’ knowledge, to apply those important concepts to the tourism industry in particular, although there has been a considerable body of research in the service marketing field. Consequently, the findings of this paper would be meaningful and useful for travel agencies when developing a marketing strategy to enhance rapport between tourists.

The absence of physical interactions in online learning environment brings psychological influences on learning participants in interacting and sharing knowledge with others, such as ignorance of other member’s presence and insecurity to share something in online environment. The purpose of this research was to examine the knowledge sharing behavior (KSB) by online learning community members in terms of their psychological safety (PS) and social presence (SP) perceptions. In addition, this research also identified the influence of PS to promote SP and the mediation impact of SP in the relationships between PS and KSB.

The data were gathered through self-administered questionnaire distributed to 133 online class members at a university in Indonesia where online learning has created a new learning experience. To represent key behavioral attributes, 12 items were used to represent PS, SP and KSB. The relationships among the variables were analyzed using the structural equation modelling method.

The result showed that PS positively influenced SP and KSB. SP also brought a positive impact on promoting KSB and fully mediated the relationship between PS and KSB.

The result may not have fully captured the reflection of the influencing factors of KSB, as this research focused only on two psychological factors, namely, PS and SP. The research may be further enriched by including additional factors and expanding the data collection to include more online learning institutions.

The results implied the importance of PS and SP perception to promoting KSB in online learning environments. The results highlighted an important message to universities and schools to be more concerned on students’ feeling safe personally and students’ awareness of others’ presence to maximize knowledge sharing activities in online class environment.

This paper revealed the importance of PS and SP to promote KSB in the higher education online learning community. To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, this is the first study to link PS and SP to KSB and identify the importance of the mediation effect of SP on the relationship between PS and KSB specifically in higher education online learning environment.