Identifying Opportunities To Inform And Inspire: Tribal Casino Employee Perceptions Of Tribal Self Sufficiency And Philanthropy

While the business case for employee engagement and satisfaction is well documented in the service profit chain and the cost savings of employee retention are easily quantified, the means to achieving these related goals in the casino industry is not well known. The pathway to employee engagement and satisfaction is even less well known in the tribal government gaming industry. This paper finds that employees in casinos that are owned by tribal governments in the United States find particular pride in sharing the tribal government’s self-sufficiency, community engagement, and philanthropic activities with casino guests, who often wonder “where the money goes.” The paper supports our case with data collected from tribal casino employees in four Southern California casinos that demonstrate that employees are a good source to share crafted messages with casino guests. We put these philanthropic and charitable contributions in the larger context of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies that commercial casino companies have implemented through their trade association, the American Gaming Association, in order to manage perceptions of the gambling industry in the United States

Sustainable Stoke:Transitions to Sustainability in the Surfing World

What does sustainability mean in the surfing world? This question is answered by more than 40 of the most influential figures from the surf industry, academia, non-profit organisations, and the surfing community, exploring the cutting edge of the surfing world's transition to sustainability. High profile contributors include: 1) President of the International Surfing Association and founder of Reef, Fernando Aguerre, 2) 1978 World Champion and former CEO of the Association of Surfing Professionals Wayne Rabbit Bartholomew, 3) Professional Surfer, former Waterman of the Year and twice inducted into the Surfer s Hall of Fame Rob Machado, 4) President of the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association Doug Alladini, 5) Founder of Surfrider Foundation Glenn Hening, 6) Co-Founder of Surfers Against Sewage Chris Hines, 7) Fred Hemmings 1968 world champion, founder of the Pipeline Masters and the World Championship Tour, and former state senator, and 8) Bob McKnight former CEO and current chairman of the board at Quiksilver, and many more. Sustainable Stoke systematically explores how surfing culture and industry impacts on social, economic and environmental areas of life at both international and local levels. Innovations and initiatives are highlighted providing the foundations for technological transitions as well as social and environmental initiatives that are improving the lives of thousands of people all over the world

Consumer spaces as political spaces: a critical review of social, environmental and psychogeographical research

The purpose of this review is to critique the social and environmental psychology literature on spaces and places with a focus on consumer culture and neoliberalism. By drawing on social theory and the Continental philosophical literature the review argues that an alternative approach to knowledge production is required. To this end recommendations are provided for what a psychogeographical approach in social and environmental psychology could look like. It argues that such work could be of benefit to academic and local communities by exposing the social costs and consequences associated with consumer culture and neoliberalism

Strategic Management at Mormaii - the Brazilian Surf Industry Leader

The sport of surfing has been growing rapidly in popularity worldwide and Brazil is among the countries with the largest surfing population, behind the United States and Australia, however, multinational surf companies are rushing in emerging markets like Brazil to find new opportunities for growth. This paper intends to provide insights on how local companies in these markets can overcome and even take advantage of differences with global competitors by re-thinking their core competencies and business models. Therefore, empirical research applying qualitative case study methodology was developed to investigate the role of strategy in the surf industry - a fairly unexplored research topic. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with the founder and CEO and the executive directors at the Brazilian surf industry leader - Mormaii, were conducted to understand how the 4-decade local company found its way to success. Although the theories: RBV, Core Competencies, and Dynamic Capabilities complement each other and help to explain firms’ performance and strategic choices, in empirical studies strategy has been analyzed only by one or another theory. Therefore, the simultaneous use of these three theories intended to fill this gap in the literature and bring more consistency to the discussion of this case study. As a result, this empirical study illustrates the RBV perspective, which stems from the principle that the source of firms’ competitive advantage lies in their internal resources and capabilities, rather than simply evaluating environmental opportunities and threats in conducting business. It also highlights the role that core competence and dynamic capabilities play in the company’s virtuous circle of sustainable growth and provides practitioners clues for re-thinking their strategies

Reply to Jim Butcher’s response (volume 14, no.3) to “building a decommidified research paradigm in tourism: the contribution of NGOs”

Our paper Buliding a Decommodified Research Paradigm in Tourism: the contribution of NGO's argued that western, neoliberal, free market paradigms continue to dominate the tourism research agenda. It was contended that alternative research paradigms are needed to enrich the field and to provide new ways of seeing, researching and doing tourism. Decommodified research paradigms based upon feminist theory, ecocentrism, community development and post-structuralism, were put forward as the contribution of NGO's int this area. A decommodified approach to tourism research opens the way for exploration of tourism's potential to provide the means for community defined and community-driven development and conservation. THe paper called for the widening of the paradigmatic scope of tourism research in order to provide a mode of understanding that is more equitable then simple economically rational exploitation of an experiential commodity