Portfolio Construction in Global Financial Markets

This paper presents a classroom simulation that can be used to introduce the concepts of portfolio management and asset allocation in the presence of global markets. While there are portfolio management games and stock trading games that are designed to cover an entire semester, this simulation provides a single period introduction to portfolio management. The simulation also creates an environment in which students discover how exchange rate volatility can affect investment returns of global funds.

Problem Discovery And Problem Solving In Unstructured Situations: Using The Pan-Pacific Enterprises Simulation With University Students

Simulations and games provide students with real-world experiences in a safe, controlled environment.  Properly designed exercises can increase the effectiveness of classroom instruction and promote higher-order learning.  Pan-Pacific Enterprises: Strategic Decision Making (2003) is a problem solving and communications simulation suitable for undergraduate and graduate students.  Students are given a resource allocation problem and told to solve the problem in small groups outside of class.  In class, each group has the opportunity to integrate its small group solution into a company-wide strategic plan.  The core problem of the simulation is that the various groups are given different goals so they arrive at different solutions.  These differences provide the entire class with an ambiguous problem with no obvious solution.  The class as a whole has to develop a method to integrate the sometimes conflicting solutions

Flipping The Business College On Its Side

Colleges of business are typically formed around functional divisions like accounting, finance, management, and marketing. This discipline-based structure serves to convey basic information to the students, but it is poorly suited to provide an educational experience that integrates the functional areas into a holistic framework. Efforts to refine the educational process have met with limited success due to the tendencies of organizations and their members to resist change. A new design for the structure and management of colleges of business is necessary if today’s schools are to be better able to meet the needs of tomorrow’s students

Māori female entrepreneurship in tourism industry

The paper explores the characteristics of indigenous Māori female entrepreneurs and identifies the factors that curtailed their entrepreneurial success within the tourism industry in New Zealand. All respondents stated that their indigenous background was a primary factor of being underprivileged, disadvantaged, or restricted. After new policies were implemented and assistance was provided to their groups in the 1990th, respondents were able to obtain education, develop business skills, and obtain financial assistance. Today Māori entrepreneurship involves products and services that focus on Māori cultural and traditional experiences. The Māori female entrepreneurial goal is to create local employment, preserve culture, and conserve the environment. Respondents believe that resources must be responsibly and collectively allocated and they must continue providing education about Māori wisdom, unity, harmony, control, and preservation of the environment and natural resources as means of maintaining the Māori way of life and communal development. They believe that today\u27s tourism industry operating within Māori communities is accountable and responsible for providing well-being and support to their families and younger Māori generations

Pan-Pacific Enterprises: Strategic Decision-Making In Action

Pan-Pacific Enterprises creates an environment in which individual teams must make strategic decisions based on conflicting goals.  The game lasts a single class period but does require outside preparation by the students.  Several different groups are given the planning responsibility for a certain aspect of firm operations, yet the optimal solutions for each goal are incompatible.  It then becomes the responsibility of the group to resolve these differences and develop a unified plan

Factors affecting success of small business enterprises in the Polish tourism industry

The study analyzes the factors affecting growth and success of small entrepreneurial firms owned and operated by ten female entrepreneurs in the Polish tourism industry. The motivation behind this study is to form an understanding of leadership and innovative strategic behavior exhibited by female entrepreneurs and to analyze the factors that are crucial to promotion, development, and success of small size entrepreneurial firms within the tourism industry. The paper argues that leaders of successful business organizations are required to effectively communicate a vision conducive to creativity through available formal and informal channels while encouraging their employees to act and perform in order to have a positive influence on the organization’s success. Conclusions are drawn concerning the leadership practice, innovation, and sustainability of the industry’s entrepreneurial activities that have proven critical to the success of business. The findings provide insights on leadership and policy making regarding business innovation and leadership strategies for entrepreneurial development and growth in the sector of tourism industry that has an environmental or sustainability focus. Leadership characteristics and innovation strategies presented provide practical implications for smaller organizations and help bring about positive social change in other countries where female leadership within SMEs has not been significantly recognized

Upravljanje obiteljskim poduzećima u turizmu i hotelijerstvu: tranzicijsko gospodarstvo Poljske

This study’s objective is to examine the nature of tourism and hospitality family businesses that operate in the transitional Polish economy and to analyze the environment for development and growth of these entrepreneurial firms in the reforming economy. In order to evaluate and compare firms’ development relative to selected external environmental factors affecting entrepreneurial operations, on-site surveys and personal interviews were conducted with Polish entrepreneurs who own and operate family businesses within tourism and hospitality industry. The environmental conditions are grouped into four external nvironmental factors: political and legal environment, financial environment, non-financial environment, and socio-economic environment, and analyzed based on Kazanjian’s (1988) and Gnyawali and Fogel’s models (1994). The paper also analyzes the competencies of the owners of the entrepreneurial firms that are important for the firm’s success throughout the firm’s life cycle. Based on this study results, policy implications are made for assisting the tourism and hospitality firms’ growth and development in transitional economy.Cilj rada je ispitati prirodu obiteljskih poduzeća u turizmu i hotelijerstvu u poljskom tranzicijskom gospodarstvu i analizirati poslovno okruženje za razvoj i rast ovih poduzetničkih tvrtki u gospodarstvu koje se reformira. Za procjenu i usporedbu razvoja obiteljskih poduzeća na čije poslovanje utječu određeni čimbenici okruženja, provedene su ankete i intervjui s poljskim poduzetnicima, vlasnicima i djelatnicima obiteljskih poduzeća u turizmu i hotelijerstvu. Uvjeti okruženja grupirani su u četiri čimbenika eksternog okruženja: političko i pravno, financijsko, neprofitno okruženje i društveno ekonomsko okruženje. Analiza se temelji na modelima Kazajnjiana (1988), Gnyawalia i Fogela (1994). U radu se također analiziraju kompetencije vlasnika poduzetničkih tvrtki koje su bitne za uspješno poslovanje tvrtki u njihovom cjelokupnom životnom ciklusu. Rezultati istraživanja pružaju uvid u implikacije politike poslovanja turističkih i hotelijerskih poduzeća što pomaže u njihovom razvoju i rastu u tranzicijskom gospodarstvu

Decision making: Tourism and hospitality game

This paper introduces the reader to an experiment that proposes an expanded format of cooperative learning techniques with sets of pedagogical innovations to better meet the teaching outcomes. In this context the paper presents a decision-making game where Tourism and Hospitality students are fully involved in the educational process via active participation in the Tourism and Travel Game. The game demonstrates decision-making processes that must be taken within competitive environment with imperfect information. The individual components of the game allow players to explore the effects of production capacity, production costs, market demand, and government controls within a competitive market. Students are expected to develop various skills and competences during game. The paper presents an assessment instrument in order to provide a feedback if students benefited from opportunities that replaced a lecture with active participation by using the Tourism and Travel Game. An assessment instrument allowed us to evaluate the students\u27 opinion on their knowledge acquisition and retention rate. Each student was given the same questionnaire that evaluated how teaching with Tourism Game had influenced each area of the students\u27 learning outcome: positive interdependence, face-to-face interaction, individual accountability, group processing of the group learning experience, critical thinking, problem solving, decision-making ability, aptitude for detail, oral communication, written communication, knowledge of information, ability to organize and analyze, comprehension, application, synthesis and evaluation. Obtained results indicate a strong support for using the game as a pedagogical tool rather than a traditional lecture

Decision making: Tourism and hospitality game

This paper introduces the reader to an experiment that proposes an expanded format of cooperative learning techniques with sets of pedagogical innovations to better meet the teaching outcomes. In this context the paper presents a decision-making game where Tourism and Hospitality students are fully involved in the educational process via active participation in the Tourism and Travel Game. The game demonstrates decision-making processes that must be taken within competitive environment with imperfect information. The individual components of the game allow players to explore the effects of production capacity, production costs, market demand, and government controls within a competitive market. Students are expected to develop various skills and competences during game. The paper presents an assessment instrument in order to provide a feedback if students benefited from opportunities that replaced a lecture with active participation by using the Tourism and Travel Game. An assessment instrument allowed us to evaluate the students\u27 opinion on their knowledge acquisition and retention rate. Each student was given the same questionnaire that evaluated how teaching with Tourism Game had influenced each area of the students\u27 learning outcome: positive interdependence, face-to-face interaction, individual accountability, group processing of the group learning experience, critical thinking, problem solving, decision-making ability, aptitude for detail, oral communication, written communication, knowledge of information, ability to organize and analyze, comprehension, application, synthesis and evaluation. Obtained results indicate a strong support for using the game as a pedagogical tool rather than a traditional lecture