The effect of funding changes on public sector non-profit organisations: the case of Bushcare NSW

Research into non-profit organisations abounds, but public sector non-profit organisations have been neglected. Recent funding incentives have led to significant changes in the market environment for such organisations. This study describes market changes and explores the reactions of one environmental public sector non-profit organisation, Bushcare NSW, to these changes. This paper contends that, within this institutional environment, non-profit organisations more successful in attracting large amounts of external funding have better administrative structures in place, whereas those less successful find themselves confronted with burdensome administrative duties. Neo-institutional theory provides a theoretical basis for this empirical investigation. Funding changes have had a major impact on Bushcare organisations, those more successful in attracting grants reporting significantly fewer recent administrative changes

Soil cover of tubers and the percentage of green tubers at various inter-row widths

peer-reviewedIn the years 2002, 2003 and 2004, a field trial was conducted involving three inter-row widths (66, 75 and 90 cm) and three potato cultivars (Agria, Bright and Carlingford). Increasing the inter-row width (IRW) increased both the cross-sectional area of the ridge and ridge height measured before the harvest. With an IRW of 66 cm the majority of tubers were located directly under the ridge surface (at a depth of < 5 cm), which resulted in the highest percentage of green tubers among the three IRW values. At the 90 cm IRW, in particular, the vast majority of tubers was distributed deeply in the ridge (at a depth of > 5 cm), thus generating the smallest percentage of green tubers. Compared to the other two cultivars, Carlingford produced tubers distributed at a larger ridge depth and subsequently yielded the lowest percentage of tubers covered with less than 5 cm of soil. On the other hand, Agria had a wider horizontal span of tubers than the other two cultivars.The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food and the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Slovenian Government for financing the project

What Makes Students Attend Lectures? The Shift Towards Pragmatism in Undergraduate Lecture Attendance

An empirical study was conducted to gain understanding about reasons for lecture attendance among undergraduate students. Students were found to be heterogeneous regarding their reported lecture attendance motivations, with two segments representing prototypical extremes. The student group labelled “idealists” reported genuinely enjoying lectures and consisted of more mature aged students with working experience. Students labelled “pragmatics” were most highly represented in the Commerce Faculty, were among the younger students, reported attending lectures to get the information they need to succeed in the subject and demonstrated the lowest lecture attendance while achieving the highest grade point average. Generally, as opposed to the findings of previous studies into reasons for lecture attendance in the Seventies, a shift towards pragmatism among students seems to have occurred and now might be defining the reality of the tertiary education environment in marketing

Data-driven Market Segmentation in Tourism – Approaches, Changes Over Two Decades and Development Potential

Market segmentation studies have become very common in tourism research. While the majority of studies follow an a priori segmentation approach by profiling certain subgroups of the tourism market that are defined in advance, the popularity of post-hoc, a posteriori or data-driven segmentation approaches has increased dramatically since its introduction into tourism research in the early Eighties. This paper aims at reviewing data-driven segmentation studies conducted in tourism research with respect to the constructs under study and the methodology used, investigating developments over the past 24 years since the introduction of data-driven segmentation into tourism and providing an outlook on directions of further development

Segmenting tourists based on satisfaction and satisfaction patterns

Market segmentation has a long history in empirical tourism research. So does satisfaction research. Yet, little work has been done at the cross-roads of these two areas. This chapter makes a step towards filling this gap by (1) reviewing prior work in data-driven market segmentation with a specific focus on satisfaction, (2) analysing managerial recommendations resulting from these studies, and (3) providing empirical examples of how commonsense and data-driven segmentation studies could be conducted using satisfaction as discriminating criterion between tourists

How to prevent tourists from canceling when a disaster hits the destination: promising measures, crisis-resistant target segment and leveraging peer-to-peer networks.

Natural disasters and terrorism that hit tourist destinations can negatively affect tourism demand. The drop in tourism demand following crises is specifically critical to tourism dependent economies. To reduce the negative effect of such events, preventative measures have to be implemented by tourist destinations. Using open-ended questions, the present study directly asks tourists what measures would prevent them from canceling in the event of an earthquake or a terrorist attack hitting their planned destination. From the wide range of reported preventative measures, several broad themes emerged, the two most frequent of which are: guarantee of safety and provision of up-to-date safety information. Certain markets, such as the Visiting Friends and Relatives Market, emerge as being more “immune” against cancellations in the aftermath of a natural disaster than other segments, making them particular suitable market segments to target during the destination recovery stage. The qualitative setting led to new avenues for destination recovery including involvement of residents in destination recovery using peer-to-peer networks

Cross-cultural differences in survey response patterns

The existence of variable response styles represents a major threat to the correct interpretation of market research findings. In international marketing this threat is further increased due to samples of respondents from different cultural backgrounds. In this paper we (1) extend the investigation of differences in cross-cultural response styles by studying full response patterns instead of extreme values, (2) quantify the extent of the potential mistake of not accounting for cross-cultural differences in response behaviour, and (3) present a simple way of testing whether or not data sets from various cultural backgrounds can be used without correcting for cross-cultural response styles

Answer format effects revisited

The effect of answer formats presented to respondents in written surveys are investigated for two constructs (attitudes and behavioral intentions) and three response scales (binary, ordinal and metric). Results indicate that (1) formats differ in their susceptibility to response styles but lead to the same results with respect to average values and underlying dimensions; (2) binary format is quicker to complete and perceived as quicker while all formats are perceived as equally simple, pleasant, and useful to express feelings; (3) an interaction between the construct measured and the answer format clearly exists which should be investigated more systematically in future research

Desalination and recycling: Australians raise health, environment and cost concerns

Desalination and recycling are hot topics in Australia, with considerable public opposition to both technologies in a country that is desperately short of water. The authors have done new research which show that, while the results are “very clear”, the lack of knowledge among the population makes their choices less than informed

Recycled water for consumer markets — a marketing research review and agenda

A review of past marketing-related research in the area of recycled water has been conducted. Findings are reported within the main areas of past research: willingness to adopt different forms of usage of recycled water, concerns of the general public towards the use of recycled water, the socio-demographic profile of early adopters, strategies to increase acceptance and adoption of recycled water in communities, perceived benefits among users of recycled water. The limitations of prior studies are reviewed and gaps identified, leading to recommendations for a future marketing-related research agenda to support public acceptance of recycled water in communities