Process framework for innovation through tradition and its antecedents in rural heritage B&B

Design/methodology/approach: Nine heritage Bed and Breakfast (B&Bs) displaying successful Innovation through tradition (ITT) in Songyang county in China were selected as the research site. Multiple cases of B&B were interviewed, and some observations were conducted. This study adopted the process-oriented reflexive critical incident technique to collect qualitative data and analysed it thematically. Purpose: ITT is an increasingly important area of research particularly in the creative and cultural industries. The purpose of this study is to develop a process framework of ITT for rural heritage B&B sector and investigate the antecedents and challenges of ITT implementation. Findings: Based on the findings, a five-phase innovation framework is proposed to demonstrate how ITT could be achieved in practice. These phases are idea generation, idea evaluation, initial implementation, continuing implementation, and sustaining improvement. Three key antecedents (experience corridors, networks, and institutional pressures) of ITT implementation were also identified. Practical implications: This study has showed that rural heritage B&Bs can differentiate themselves from competition by the means of ITT. It proposes a process framework for this kind of innovation bringing to light the required steps, the antecedents, and key activities which the practitioners should pay great attention. It highlights the needs for continuing and sustaining innovations in long-term. Originality: This study proposes a novel five-phase process framework of ITT to encompass the innovation activities in heritage setting. For practitioners, this study recommends enhancing the sensing capability of local entrepreneurs through personal travel experience and establishing business networks as the key antecedents of a successful ITT under rural heritage setting

Customer experience and brand loyalty in the full-service hotel sector: The role of brand affect

This study proposed a comprehensive causal model to examine the relationships between customer experience and four key factors in brand building, i.e., brand loyalty, brand trust, brand affect, and brand involvement. The dimensionality of customer experience in full-service hotel is also particularly examined in relation to brand building. Three steps of data collection were employed: interviews of 50 customers on their experiences of staying full-service hotels, a small survey of 176 hotel guests to establish the measurement scale of customer experience and a major survey of 732 hotel customers in 10 major Chinese cities to test the model of brand loyalty. Customers’ experiences with full-service hotels is proposed to be categorised into functional, affective and social. There is a chain effect from customer experience to brand trust and to brand affect, and then to brand loyalty. The brand involvement does moderate relationships between customer experience and brand trust, and brand affect, but not brand loyalty. For full-service hotels, social and functional experiences are critical in building brand loyalty and therefore they need to be the focal points in the enhancement of customer experience. Also hoteliers are advised to develop emotional connections between the customers and the hotel brand - effective way of building trust and affection. This paper is one of the first few studies to link customer experience to brand loyalty with comprehensive causal effect analysis. The study also contributes to the knowledge of customer experience in the context of the full-service hotel sector

Operational risks and coping strategies of micro-enterprise in peer-to-peer accommodation service sector: Evidences from China

Focusing on the supply side of peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation service sector, this study identifies the emerging types of micro-enterprise operators in the growing Chinese market, and investigate their respective operational risks and coping strategies. A qualitative study was adopted to explore the micro-enterprise in peer-to-peer accommodation in China. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the operators’ behaviors in the service sector. Based on the types of property ownership and forms of interaction, four groups of operators were identified, i.e. hospitable sharers, remote sharers, roommates and butlers. This study uncovers their operational risk factors (safety, cost, legal and social, psychological) and respective coping strategies. Most prior studies on P2P accommodation sector are conducted from the demand side about customer behaviors. This study not only enhances the understanding of the hosts in the sharing economy by developing a novel typology of operators, but also provides insights into the operational behaviors on an individual operator perspective

Large-scale collection and annotation of gene models for date palm (Phoenix dactylifera, L.)

The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.), famed for its sugar-rich fruits (dates) and cultivated by humans since 4,000 B.C., is an economically important crop in the Middle East, Northern Africa, and increasingly other places where climates are suitable. Despite a long history of human cultivation, the understanding of P. dactylifera genetics and molecular biology are rather limited, hindered by lack of basic data in high quality from genomics and transcriptomics. Here we report a large-scale effort in generating gene models (assembled expressed sequence tags or ESTs and mapped to a genome assembly) for P. dactylifera, using the long-read pyrosequencing platform (Roche/454 GS FLX Titanium) in high coverage. We built fourteen cDNA libraries from different P. dactylifera tissues (cultivar Khalas) and acquired 15,778,993 raw sequencing reads—about one million sequencing reads per library—and the pooled sequences were assembled into 67,651 non-redundant contigs and 301,978 singletons. We annotated 52,725 contigs based on the plant databases and 45 contigs based on functional domains referencing to the Pfam database. From the annotated contigs, we assigned GO (Gene Ontology) terms to 36,086 contigs and KEGG pathways to 7,032 contigs. Our comparative analysis showed that 70.6 % (47,930), 69.4 % (47,089), 68.4 % (46,441), and 69.3 % (47,048) of the P. dactylifera gene models are shared with rice, sorghum, Arabidopsis, and grapevine, respectively. We also assigned our gene models into house-keeping and tissue-specific genes based on their tissue specificity. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11103-012-9924-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Research on the Influence of the Social Comparison Orientation on Online Compulsive Buying Tendency of Young People

Nowadays, the online compulsive buying behavior of the young group is increasing, which has become a social problem that needs to be solved. This paper focuses on individual psychological factors and explores how social comparison orientation influences online compulsive buying. Through the research method of the questionnaire survey, this paper shows that different levels of the social comparison will lead to different buying preferences. And then we examined how mediating and moderating effects work on the influence path of the compulsive buying tendency. As a result, this study innovatively finds the mechanism of materialism values as a mediator and self-concept clarity as a moderator. It ultimately allows us to figure out a pathway that leads to the online compulsive buying tendency, and can provide new ideas for solving the problems caused by it

Process framework for innovation through tradition and its antecedents in rural heritage B&B

PurposeInnovation through tradition (ITT) is an increasingly important area of research particularly in the creative and cultural industries. The purpose of this study is to develop a process framework of ITT for rural heritage bed and breakfast (B&amp;B) sector and investigate the antecedents and challenges of ITT implementation.Design/methodology/approachNine heritage B&amp;Bs displaying successful ITT in Songyang county in China were selected as the research site. Multiple cases of B&amp;B were interviewed, and some observations were conducted. This study adopted the process-oriented reflexive critical incident technique to collect qualitative data and analysed it thematically.FindingsBased on the findings, a five-phase innovation framework is proposed to demonstrate how ITT could be achieved in practice. These phases are idea generation, idea evaluation, initial implementation, continuing implementation and sustaining improvement. Three key antecedents (experience corridors, networks and institutional pressures) of ITT implementation were also identified.Practical implicationsThis study has showed that rural heritage B&amp;Bs can differentiate themselves from competition by the means of ITT. This study proposes a process framework for this kind of innovation bringing to light the required steps, the antecedents and key activities which the practitioners should pay great attention. This study highlights the needs for continuing and sustaining innovations in the long term.Originality/valueThis study proposes a novel five-phase process framework of ITT to encompass the innovation activities in heritage setting. For practitioners, this study recommends enhancing the sensing capability of local entrepreneurs through personal travel experience and establishing business networks as the key antecedents of a successful ITT under rural heritage setting.</jats:sec

Independent travelers’ niche hotel booking motivations: the emergence of a hybrid cultural society

This study attempts to examine travel motivations from a hybrid cultural perspective in the context of Chinese niche hotels. Using an in-depth netnographic methodology, the paper analyzed 659 online reviews on 12 niche hotels from 6 travel websites to identify the motivations of Chinese independent travelers’ hotel selection. The research findings revealed that travelers’ motivations include the following: attractive environment, quality, uniqueness, spiritual well being, traditional architecture, family togetherness, foreign style offerings and service, luxury amenities, and entertainment. These motivations can be classified into modern Chinese cultural motivations, traditional Chinese cultural motivations and foreign cultural motivations. The study identifies the characteristics of the market segment of Chinese independent travelers and offers valuable insights into the role of this emergent travel group. Theoretical implications Management implications are discussed, and marketing suggestions are made to better understand what attracts this growing market segment in China

Bouncing Dynamics of Impact Droplets on the Biomimetic Plane and Convex Superhydrophobic Surfaces with Dual-Level and Three-Level Structures

Reducing the contact time of a water droplet on non-wetting surfaces has great potential in the areas of self-cleaning and anti-icing, and gradually develops into a hot issue in the field of wettability surfaces. However, the existing literature on dynamic behavior of water drops impacting on superhydrophobic surfaces with various structural shapes is insufficient. Inspired by the microstructure of lotus leaf and rice leaf, dual-level and three-level structures on plane and convex surfaces were successfully fabricated by wire electrical discharge machining on aluminum alloy. After spraying hydrophobic nanoparticles on the surfaces, the plane and convex surfaces with dual-level and three-level structures showed good superhydrophobic property. Bouncing dynamics of impact droplets on the superhydrophobic surfaces wereinvestigated, and the results indicated that the contact time of plane superhydrophobic surface with a three-level structure was minimal, which is 60.4% less than the plane superhydrophobic surface with dual-level structure. The effect of the interval S, width D, and height H of the structure on the plane superhydrophobic surface with three-level structure on contact time was evaluated to obtain the best structural parameters for reducing contact time. This research is believed to guide the direction of the structural design of the droplet impinging on solid surfaces

Challenges in developing China's marine protected area system

Since the 1980s, there have been continuous increases in the coverage of marine protected areas (MPAs) in China, and a total of 158 MPAs have been declared. The MPA system in China is characterized by (1) decentralised designation and management with reduced control from the central government; (2) a dominance of de jure fully protected MPAs that are often implemented as de facto multiple-use areas; and (3) a lack of objective evaluation processes. To improve China's MPA system requires an appropriate integration of fully protected and multiple-use MPAs, and an approach that balances the advantages of top-down and bottom-up approaches.Marine protected areas China Governance Decentralisation Protected-area management category