Tourism destination competitiveness: second thoughts on the world economic forum reports

The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Reports of the World Economic Forum elaborate the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) as an overall measure of destination competitiveness for 130 economies worldwide. From a tourism management point of view, a measure such as the TTCI is expected to be instrumental in explaining and predicting the tourism performance of receiving countries. This study explores several ways to transform the TTCI into a formative structural model. Partial least squares path modelling, PLS regression, mixture modelling and non-linear covariance-based structural equation modelling are applied to examine the TTCI's predictive power. The analysis probes possible measures for improvement. The destination countries may be subject to unobserved heterogeneity with regard to how the various constituents of competitiveness act on tourism performance. Interaction phenomena seem to prohibit a simple cause-effect pattern and non-linear relationships show encouraging results

A cross-sectional testing of The Iowa Personality Disorder Screen in a psychiatric outpatient setting

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Patients suspected of personality disorders (PDs) by general practitioners are frequently referred to psychiatric outpatient clinics (POCs). In that setting an effective screening instrument for PDs would be helpful due to resource constraints. This study evaluates the properties of The Iowa Personality Disorder Screen (IPDS) as a screening instrument for PDs at a POC.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In a cross-sectional design 145 patients filled in the IPDS and were examined with the SCID-II interview as reference. Various case-findings properties were tested, interference of socio-demographic and other psychopathology were investigated by logistic regression and relationships of the IPDS and the concept of PDs were studied by a latent variable path analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that socio-demographic and psychopathological factors hardly disturbed the IPDS as screening instrument. With a cut-off ≥4 the 11 items IPDS version had sensitivity 0.77 and specificity 0.71. A brief 5 items version showed sensitivity 0.82 and specificity 0.74 with cut-off ≥ 2. With exception for one item, the IPDS variables loaded adequately on their respective first order variables, and the five first order variables loaded in general adequately on their second order variable.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results support the IPDS as a useful screening instrument for PDs present or absent in the POC setting.</p

Assessment of Latent Class Detection in PLS Path Modeling: a Simulation Study to Evaluate the Group Quality Index performance

Structural Equation Models assume homogeneity across the entire sample. In other words, all the units are supposed to be well represented by a unique model. Not taking into account heterogeneity among units may lead to biased results in terms of model parameters. That is why, nowadays, more attention is focused on techniques able to detect unobserved heterogeneity in Structural Equation Models. However, once unit partition obtained according to the chosen clustering methods, it is important to state if taking into account local models provides better results than using a single model for the whole sample. Here, a new index to assess detected unit partition will be presented: the Group Quality Index. A simulation study involving two different simulation schemes (one simulating the so called null hypothesis of homogeneity among units, and the other taking into account the heterogenous sample case) will be presented

A Methodological Comparison between PLS Path Modeling and Generalized Structured Component Analysis

Contains fulltext : 91378.pdf (author's version ) (Open Access)43e Journées de Statistique, 23 mei 201