An examination of DMO network identity using Exponential Random Graph Models

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Allies or foes? Key challenges facing the shifting landscape of destination management in England

Within a shifting political and economic context, reshaped Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) in England are expected to deliver well beyond traditional activities related to marketing and promotion of destinations. Yet, such delivery processes are to happen in light of the increasingly resource-constrained operational environment, where the public purse is no longer available to destinations and destination organisations. This commentary paper provides a discussion on recent transitions in the landscape of destination marketing and management in England, where processes of organisational transformation, the introduction of reshaped DMOs and the public-to-private transition in supporting tourism have been influenced by both the 2010 coalition government’s neo-liberal agenda and the global economic downturn disrupting Europe’s travel and tourism sector and beyond. The discussion debates the existence of key considerations, which should be taken into account by reshaped DMOs due to their implications for destination management practice. Transitions in the landscape of destination marketing and management in England have indeed contributed to the rise of complex, multifaceted issues and mirror a great deal of uncertainty alongside the introduction and run up of the deemed to be controversial new destination management and marke-ting structures in England, and as such, they arguably deserve further attention

Historic Gardens: English Heritage Perspective

Purpose – This paper aims to provide an exploratory investigation into contemporary interpretation methods used in historic gardens and their fundamental role in enhancing the visitor experience and sense of a place. Design/methodology/approach – A series of semi-structured interviews (n = 65) with Wrest Park visitors – who had the opportunity to experience new interpretation methods provided on-site – have been carried out in an attempt to explore their sense of place through interpretation. Findings – The research suggests that interpretation has a fundamental role to play in “telling the story” of historic gardens, with 92.5 per cent of the sample understanding elements of the place’s history, significance and evolution. The findings further suggest the presence of two distinct visitor typologies – history explorers and leisure seekers. Practical implications – The study provides implications for theory and practice and recommendations for historic garden practitioners. Originality/value – The importance of conceptualising and operationalising interpretation in historic gardens has received relatively little attention across the extant body of heritage interpretation literature. English Heritage’s Wrest Park, which is amongst England’s most prominent historic gardens, is used as a case study

Distributed leadership: lessons from destination management organisations.

Within a new funding and governance landscape, pooling knowledge and resources has become a fundamental prerequisite to ensuring the long-term sustainability of reshaped, yet financially-constrained Destination Management Organisations (DMOs), which face challenges to deliver value to their destinations and member organisations. Leadership and its distributed dimension, namely Distributed Leadership (DL) is a recent paradigm, which is gaining momentum in the domain of DMOs and destinations as a promising response to these challenges. The overarching aim of this study is to investigate how DMOs enact and practice DL and as such, serve as leadership networks in destinations following the organisational transformation of these DMOs within a new funding and governance landscape for DMOs and destinations in England. Three prominent domains from the broad organisational literature, namely DMOs and destinations, leadership and its distributed dimension, and Network theory and its practitioner tool SNA, both underpin and inform the cross-disciplinary approach embedded in this study. By adopting and adapting a recent organisational leadership framework (Hoppe & Reinelt, 2010), the underpinned study develops and puts into practice mixed- and multi-method- driven, three-phase methodological framework aimed at identifying the enactment and practice of DL in Destination Milton Keynes (DMK). The methodological framework fuses two strategic organisational literature domains, namely DL and SNA. Five core objectives contribute to addressing the overarching aim of this study, where the study first deconstructs and contextualises the shifting DMO concept, before defining the political and economic dimensions of its organisational context that influence change on a DMO level. The study then identifies an initial evidence of organisational change within the DMO in focus influenced by shifts in its organisational context, where the development and implementation of Destination Management Plans (DMPs) provide insights into the enactment of DL on a DMO level. The adopted Abductive approach to knowledge accumulation, which is founded on the continuous interplay between existing theoretical contributions and new empirical data, also supports the development of the DMO Leadership Cycle. Thirdly, after providing evidence of the enactment of DL through DMPs, the study investigates processes related to the practice of DL in DMK by adapting Hoppe and Reinelt’s (2010) framework for the evaluation of leadership development along with a number of structural and relational network properties. This results in the identification of six contrasting yet interconnected leader types within the organisation in focus. Building on this evidence of the enactment and practice of DL in DMK, the study formulates a response to key challenges to and opportunities for the enactment and practice of DL in DMK and reshaped DMOs in England through the perspective of both senior leaders representing DMO member organisations and policy-makers representing lead figures at Visit England. At last, driven by findings derived throughout the three phases of data collection, the study constructs a set of practitioner outputs, which may provide implications for DL practice in reshaped DMOs. Amongst these are guidelines for good leadership practice for reshaped DMOs to inform future leadership practice on a DMO level in the UK and the development of a methodological framework for the identification of DL in DMOs. Findings from this study build on the existing state of the literature on DMOs and destinations by constructing the DMO Leadership Cycle and its theoretical dimensions, the introduction of definitions of DMOs serving as leadership and DL networks in destinations, and building upon the leadership dimension of the DMO Leadership Cycle. Findings also build on the existing state of the DMO and destination leadership practice and the application of the DL paradigm in the context of DMOs and destinations in particular by shifting the focus from marketing and management to leadership and DL, the introduction of guidelines on good leadership practice for DMOs, constructing the DMO Leadership Cycle and its practitioner dimensions. Findings from this study build on the existing state of the literature on leadership and DL by introducing advances in the measurement of DL and the identification of DL behaviours and roles within networks. Findings also build on the existing state of leadership practice and the application of the DL paradigm in particular by providing practitioner insights on how leadership is distributed through an investigation in situ beyond traditional fields of application and across diverse organisations

Does distributed leadership have a place in destination management organisations? A policy-makers perspective

Within an increasingly networked environment and recent transitions in the landscape of funding for destination management organisations (DMOs) and destinations, pooling knowledge and resources may well be seen as a prerequisite to ensuring the long-term sustainability of reshaped, yet financially constrained DMOs facing severe challenges to deliver value to destinations, visitors and member organisations. Distributed Leadership (DL) is a recent paradigm gaining momentum in destination research as a promising response to these challenges. Building on the scarce literature on DL in a DMO context, this paper provides a policy-makers’ perspective into the place of DL in reshaped DMOs and DMOs undergoing transformation and explores current challenges and opportunities to the enactment and practice of DL. The underpinned investigation used in-depth, semi-structured interviews with policy-makers from VisitEngland following an interview agenda based on the DMO Leadership Cycle. Policy-makers within VisitEngland saw a multitude of opportunities for DMOs with regards to DL, but equally, they emphasised challenges acting as barriers to realising the potential benefits of introducing a DL model to DMOs as a response to uncertainty in the funding landscape

International academic staff in UK higher education: campus internationalisation and innovation in academic practice

Amidst opportunities for universities to consider international academic staff in supporting internationalisation and innovation in academic practice, there is very little research to provide insights into their attitudes towards institutional approaches and frameworks in place to enable this. This paper focuses on this research gap, suggesting that this academic community might enhance the development of internationally-informed and innovative pedagogic practice. The research reported within the paper constitutes a preliminary study, set within a UK Higher Education (HE) case study setting. Methods included focus groups and themed in-depth interviews with a sample of 34 international academic staff from over 15 countries. The findings and discussion provide insights into the perspectives and experiences of international academic staff in relation to the Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning and other institutional practice. Innovative pedagogic practice as enabled by international academic staff is discussed, as are approaches to the internationalisation of the curricula. The findings are relevant to the UK H.E. context but also for the global context: academic institutions need to consider whether curriculum and processes are limited and limiting in favour of a narrow cultural lens

The coupled boundary layers and air-sea transfer experiment in low winds

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 88 (2007): 341-356, doi:10.1175/bams-88-3-341.The Office of Naval Research's Coupled Boundary Layers and Air–Sea Transfer (CBLAST) program is being conducted to investigate the processes that couple the marine boundary layers and govern the exchange of heat, mass, and momentum across the air–sea interface. CBLAST-LOW was designed to investigate these processes at the low-wind extreme where the processes are often driven or strongly modulated by buoyant forcing. The focus was on conditions ranging from negligible wind stress, where buoyant forcing dominates, up to wind speeds where wave breaking and Langmuir circulations play a significant role in the exchange processes. The field program provided observations from a suite of platforms deployed in the coastal ocean south of Martha's Vineyard. Highlights from the measurement campaigns include direct measurement of the momentum and heat fluxes on both sides of the air–sea interface using a specially constructed Air–Sea Interaction Tower (ASIT), and quantification of regional oceanic variability over scales of O (1–104 mm) using a mesoscale mooring array, aircraft-borne remote sensors, drifters, and ship surveys. To our knowledge, the former represents the first successful attempt to directly and simultaneously measure the heat and momentum exchange on both sides of the air–sea interface. The latter provided a 3D picture of the oceanic boundary layer during the month-long main experiment. These observations have been combined with numerical models and direct numerical and large-eddy simulations to investigate the processes that couple the atmosphere and ocean under these conditions. For example, the oceanic measurements have been used in the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) to investigate the 3D evolution of regional ocean thermal stratification. The ultimate goal of these investigations is to incorporate improved parameterizations of these processes in coupled models such as the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) to improve marine forecasts of wind, waves, and currents.This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research

The Coupled Boundary Layers and Air–Sea Transfer Experiment in Low Winds

The Office of Naval Research's Coupled Boundary Layers and Air–Sea Transfer (CBLAST) program is being conducted to investigate the processes that couple the marine boundary layers and govern the exchange of heat, mass, and momentum across the air–sea interface. CBLAST-LOW was designed to investigate these processes at the low-wind extreme where the processes are often driven or strongly modulated by buoyant forcing. The focus was on conditions ranging from negligible wind stress, where buoyant forcing dominates, up to wind speeds where wave breaking and Langmuir circulations play a significant role in the exchange processes. The field program provided observations from a suite of platforms deployed in the coastal ocean south of Martha's Vineyard. Highlights from the measurement campaigns include direct measurement of the momentum and heat fluxes on both sides of the air–sea interface using a specially constructed Air–Sea Interaction Tower (ASIT), and quantification of regional oceanic variability over scales of O (1–104 mm) using a mesoscale mooring array, aircraft-borne remote sensors, drifters, and ship surveys. To our knowledge, the former represents the first successful attempt to directly and simultaneously measure the heat and momentum exchange on both sides of the air–sea interface. The latter provided a 3D picture of the oceanic boundary layer during the month-long main experiment. These observations have been combined with numerical models and direct numerical and large-eddy simulations to investigate the processes that couple the atmosphere and ocean under these conditions. For example, the oceanic measurements have been used in the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) to investigate the 3D evolution of regional ocean thermal stratification. The ultimate goal of these investigations is to incorporate improved parameterizations of these processes in coupled models such as the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) to improve marine forecasts of wind, waves, and currents

Membrane vesicles, current state-of-the-art: emerging role of extracellular vesicles

Release of membrane vesicles, a process conserved in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, represents an evolutionary link, and suggests essential functions of a dynamic extracellular vesicular compartment (including exosomes, microparticles or microvesicles and apoptotic bodies). Compelling evidence supports the significance of this compartment in a broad range of physiological and pathological processes. However, classification of membrane vesicles, protocols of their isolation and detection, molecular details of vesicular release, clearance and biological functions are still under intense investigation. Here, we give a comprehensive overview of extracellular vesicles. After discussing the technical pitfalls and potential artifacts of the rapidly emerging field, we compare results from meta-analyses of published proteomic studies on membrane vesicles. We also summarize clinical implications of membrane vesicles. Lessons from this compartment challenge current paradigms concerning the mechanisms of intercellular communication and immune regulation. Furthermore, its clinical implementation may open new perspectives in translational medicine both in diagnostics and therapy