The Factors Influencing Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

BACKGROUND: In today’s world of increased awareness regarding the concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate governance (CG), many firms in the developed countries consider noncompliance with CSR and CG standards as an important source of risk to their reputations with stakeholders. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) index and corporate factors, namely, board size, board independence, board meetings, CEO duality, a firm’s size, leverage, profitability and age. This is the first known study in the case of Saudi Arabia to use the GRI 4th edition indicators to construct the CSRD index and evaluate Saudi listed firms. Results: The results show that profitability and size factor have positive and significant association with CSR disclosure in listed Saudi firms. While CG characteristics have no impact on CSR disclosure except board independence which has a negative impact. Conclusion: The average of CSRD index among Saudi firms is too low, it is about 11% that means Saudi firms disclose 11% of the information that they have to provide for stockholders according to GRI guidelines. Furthermore, the study concludes that the most polluted sectors “Ene

The role of effective communication and trustworthiness in determining guests’ loyalty

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This study investigates the role of trustworthiness and effective communication in the development of guests’ loyalty within the hotel sector. We propose and test a conceptual model that differentiates between two types of loyalty: attitudinal and behavioral. As hotels can control and manage how they communicate their desired characteristics to guests, we posit effective communication and a hotel’s trustworthiness as the key concepts in building loyalty. This study reports on the findings of a study based on 322 hotel guests. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results reveal that implementing effective communication methods leads to a trustworthy image, which in turn has a positive impact on attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. This research provides hotel managers with strategic directions for cultivating guest loyalty

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

The influence of hospitable design and service on patient responses

A study of 216 respondents examined a medical center environment’s influence on patient responses. A stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) model was adapted to the theory that more hospitable healthcare servicescape elements will affect patients’ overall satisfaction with healthcare experience, loyalty intentions, and willingness to pay out-of-pocket expenses for healthcare services. Servicescape elements included atmospherics of the healthcare environment, service delivery by healthcare staff, physical design of the healthcare environment, and wayfinding. Results of structural equation modeling confirmed that the four servicescape elements – had a significant impact on patients’ overall satisfaction with the healthcare experience. Furthermore, overall satisfaction with the healthcare experience predicted patients’ loyalty intentions and willingness to pay out-of-pocket expenses for healthcare services. The study makes a significant contribution to the empirical modeling of patients’ behavioral responses to hospitable healthcare environments

Brand strategy scope and advertising spending: The more the better?

Given the need to justify business management expenses, firms are very interested in measuring marketing performance. The objective of this article is to analyze mass media advertising investment from an efficient point of view in hotel chains. To accomplish the objective, this article applies a two-stage double bootstrap data envelopment analysis to the monetary resources allocated to the different advertising media by the main companies in the Spanish hotel sector. The authors further investigate the determinants of hotel advertising efficiency in terms of the number of brands in the hotel portfolio and the combination of advertising media used (i.e. Internet advertising). The results show a certain level of waste of advertising spending by hotel chains and that both brand portfolio scope and Internet advertising positively affect efficiency.This work was partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities under research project INTETUR (RTI2018-099467-B-I00)

The design of a management control system for a small medium hospitality firm in Cape Verde

Mestrado em FinançasAtuamente o turismo é um dos mais importantes setores económicos com excelentes taxas de crescimento. Este projeto reflete o caso da Spencer Turismo, uma empresa do sector hoteleiro a operar em Cabo Verde com quatro unidades de negócio já operacionais e um novo projeto em curso que implica a sua expansão para uma nova ilha. Tendo em conta esta importante fase de crescimento e expansão da empresa, este projeto tem como objetivo o desenvolvimento de um Sistema de Controlo de Gestão capaz de apoiar a empresa através de um controlo eficaz e eficiente da performance quer financeira quer operacional da empresa. Inicialmente será feita uma revisão de literatura para suportar o desenvolvimento do sistema seguido de uma análise cuidada da envolvente externa e das características internas. Em linha com a estratégia e necessidades da Spencer Turismo serão definidos os principais indicadores a serem reportados, bem como a operacionalização e periodicidades a serem aplicadas. O culminar deste percurso serão os relatórios de performance relativos a cada departamento chave bem como os relativos a empresa como um todo, capazes de rapidamente identificar importantes desvios e eventuais necessidades de alteração da estratégia e/ou modo de operação. Este projeto tem como objetivo adicional ter um impacto literário ao recolher e organizar informação relevante relativamente a utilização de Sistemas de Controlo de Gestão a nível empresarial em África, com especial enfâse nas empresas cabo-verdianas. Adicionalmente, o projeto tenciona poder acrescentar valor académico, sendo concebido por forma a facilmente adaptado num estudo de caso.Tourism is a vital sector for Cape Verde's economic and social development. This project consists in the design of a Management Control System (MCS) for a capeverdean firm operating in the hospitality industry that recognized its potential to thrive in this segment. Spencer Turismo already has two hotels and two restaurants and it is building a third unit in a different island emphasizing its intentions to expand operations. The firm is manifestly going through an important phase of growth and it aims to create an integrated and diversified offer of quality products and services in the hospitality industry. This new phase revealed the need to standardize operations and have a system capable to efficiently monitor operations and constantly inform the company's management about key achievements but also possible deviations from the strategy and consequently give important insights on the performance (financial and operational) and need for shifts in strategy. The design of the MCS implied a thorough literature review and required a careful analysis of the company, both internally and externally. It was important to understand company's operations, organizational structure, strategy and goals. Subsequently it was possible to identify critical areas to control and key performance indicators (KPI's) to be reported, both financial and non-financial, for the company as a whole and for key departments identified by Spencer Turismo. Moreover, this project aims to address the gaps in literature regarding MCS in Africa, especially in Cape Verde, at firm level, and construct the base for an impactful academic case study.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio