Services marketing in the hospitality economy: An exploratory study

Meeting the challenges of an unstable and unsettled environment is not easy. The recent impacts on the hospitality services economy of changing technology, mergers of institutions, increasingly demanding consumers and increased competition have created an atmosphere of volatility and rapid change. In order to survive in this demanding market place, service organisations have only one choice, to successfully develop and launch new services. However, the failure rate of new service projects is high, because the knowledge on how new services should be developed is limited. Unfortunately, unlike tangible new product development practices which have the benefit of extensive research into how successful new products are developed, the service sector has only recently begun to explore ways to ensure the success of new services. Therefore, this study focuses on a better understanding of how successful new hotel services are developed and investigates the factors, which have impact on success or failure in new service development (NSD) in the hotel sector. The results of the exploratory study are summarised in a conceptual model for further research.Innovation process, services marketing, new product development, new service development, critical success factors, hotels - tourism, Marketing,

Lost Voices and Singing Texts: Reconstructing the Cultural Past of Ioannina During the First Half of the 1870s

Conducting fieldwork in the ethnomusicological past, among other things may consist of coping with a wide variety of textual records, such as newspapers, magazines, public or private archives and so on. Especially, as far as newspapers and magazines of any kind are concerned, historical awareness is of great importance, for instance when the understanding of the relevant political and cultural mentalité of the writers, is a critical determinant of one’s ability to fully comprehend and make use of the possible findings, or -sometimes- even the lack of them. Quite often, the hardest part is when trying to “decrypt”, analyze and reconstruct the narration of a person whose Self emerges only through his corresponding writings. This is the case with Jonah (aka Konstantínos Aravantinós), writer of the satirical calendar of Ioannina, Karavida, during 1873-1874. Following the above paradigm, it is evident that a historical ethnomusicological research of this kind has to deal with a two-fold methodological challenge: thoroughly creating a virtual historical space in which specially customized text analysis skills can provide the ability to reach out closer to voices and sounds of the past. The latter, is a problematic leading to research theories and methodologies offered by relevant scientific fields

Strategic alignment and Information Systems success: Towards an evaluation model for firm performance

There are several models about the development of a successful Information Systems Planning process, while very little research has focused on the contribution of the Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) process to firm performance. The assessment of the process is a decision problem and managers should evaluate alternatives so that it could be solved. Both executives and researchers need to be aware of how the alignment of business and IS strategies impact firm performance. The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model of the determinants of the SISP process and success in Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to assess the contribution of these two variables to firm performance. Understanding those phases may help IS executives concentrate their efforts on organizations’ objectives and recognize the greatest value of the planning process in their firms. This paper contributes to IS executives in Greek SMEs who do not concentrate on strategic planning during the development of IS and they focus only on the technical issues. As a result, they should understand the significance of the SISP process in order to formulate and implement IS strategy which will be aligned with business objectives and increase the success of SMEs

Evaluating IT alignment and performance in SMEs using multivariate regression analysis

New competitive challenges have forced Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to re-examine their internal environment in order to improve competitive advantage. IT investments can improve firm performance in a way that it would be in “alignment” with business strategy. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the contemporary impact of IT and business strategy on business performance, incorporating all these constructs into a model that is tested using Multivariate Regression Analysis. Data were collected from IS executives in 160 Greek SMEs. The results of this survey show that Strategy conception and formulation have a significant impact on business performanc

An NOS3 Haplotype is Protective against Hypertension in a Caucasian Population

The endothelial nitric oxide synthase gene (NOS3) has been implicated in the development of hypertension, although the specific role of variants and haplotypes has not been clarified. In this study, the association of three polymorphisms (promoter T786C, intronic 4a/b, and nonsynonymous G894T) was tested in a case-control sample of 230 patients with essential hypertension and 306 healthy controls. Haplotype analysis was also performed. The mutant allele a∗ of the 4a/b polymorphism showed a protective effect against hypertension under a dominant model (odds ratio = 0.64, 95% confidence interval (0.44–0.93)), although this effect was not significant after the adjustment for covariates (P = 0.06). The estimated frequency of the haplotype composed of the T786∗, 4a∗, and G894∗ alleles was significantly higher in controls (5.5%) compared to cases (2%). These results indicate that although individual NOS3 polymorphisms are not associated with hypertension, a rare haplotype of the gene might be protective against the development of hypertension

Spatio-temporal stability analysis of the separated flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil with ZNMF jet control

The current paper presents the spatio-temporal stability analysis of an instance of laminar separation, with the intention of determining the most appropriate forcing frequency to initiate flow reattachment. The flow configuration is a NACA 0015 airfoil at an angle of attack (a) where laminar separation occurs immediately downstream of the leading edge. A zero-net-mass-flux (ZNMF) jet, normal to the surface and spanning the entire leading edge is used to achieve reattachment. The uncontrolled flow field was generated numerically in [5] using a three-dimensional (3-D) Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and compared to the complementary water tunnel experiments of [22]. Initial simulations of the uncontrolled case agree well with the PIV and force measurements. The stability analysis presented herein is undertaken on the mean velocity field of the LES. The frequency determined by the stability analysis to maximise spatial growth of the disturbance is finally compared to the forcing frequency that maximised lift enhancement in the experimental study

Digital Business Strategy: An Empirical Analysis of Mission statement content and Financial Performance

The mission statement identifies the fundamental raison d\u27être of an organization. However, developing such a document seems to be quite difficult, since most businesses end up crafting a meaningless text. Indeed, it is crucial to evaluate the content of the mission statement. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the relationship between the components of mission statement and financial performance in e-businesses. This was accomplished through one way ANOVA and t-test analysis. The findings of the research indicated that there isn’t a positive relationship between the mission statement and the performance of digital businesses. In addition, it was revealed that only one component had a positive and statistically significant correlation with a financial index. All other correlations were weak and statistically insignificant

The upper and lower respiratory tract microbiome in severe aspiration pneumonia

Uncertainty persists whether anaerobic bacteria represent important pathogens in aspiration pneumonia. In a nested case-control study of mechanically ventilated patients classified as macro-aspiration pneumonia (MAsP, n = 56), non-macro-aspiration pneumonia (NonMAsP, n = 91), and uninfected controls (n = 11), we profiled upper (URT) and lower respiratory tract (LRT) microbiota with bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequencing, measured plasma host-response biomarkers, analyzed bacterial communities by diversity and oxygen requirements, and performed unsupervised clustering with Dirichlet Multinomial Models (DMM). MAsP and NonMAsP patients had indistinguishable microbiota profiles by alpha diversity and oxygen requirements with similar host-response profiles and 60-day survival. Unsupervised DMM clusters revealed distinct bacterial clusters in the URT and LRT, with low-diversity clusters enriched for facultative anaerobes and typical pathogens, associated with higher plasma levels of SPD and sCD14 and worse 60-day survival. The predictive inter-patient variability in these bacterial profiles highlights the importance of microbiome study in patient sub-phenotyping and precision medicine approaches for severe pneumonia

Flow control in S-Shaped Air Intake using Zero-Net-Mass-Flow

Flow control using zero-net-mass-flow jets in a twodimensional model of an S-Shaped air intake diffuser was investigated. Experiments were conducted in a channel flow facility at a Reynolds number of Re = 8×104 with particular image velocimetry measurements in the symmetry plane of the duct. In the natural configuration, separation of the boundary layer occurs in a region of the duct with a high degree of curvature. A stability analysis of the wall normal profile at the location of the applied control is presented and estimates the most effective frequency of the actuator. Time-averaged velocity fields show total reattachment of the boundary layer using active flow control