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1 – 10 of 35Luis Farinha, João J.M. Ferreira and Sara Nunes
The purpose of this paper is to study the linkage of innovation and entrepreneurship to economic growth in countries with different levels of development.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the linkage of innovation and entrepreneurship to economic growth in countries with different levels of development.
Design/methodology/approach
Following quantitative analysis, the authors carry out three empirical approaches to examine the effects of innovation and entrepreneurship on competitiveness. In accordance with their initial study framework, they test the conceptual model of competitiveness through applying descriptive statistics, structural equation modelling (SEM) and hierarchical cluster analysis. Descriptive statistics and SEM data sources from the Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum were analysed for 148 countries. The hierarchical cluster analysis furthermore analysed Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data on 67 different countries.
Findings
The study confirmed that innovation and sophistication factors are crucial to the competitiveness of economies. The study also revealed the definition of five clusters relative to the competitive performance of advanced economies following the introduction of new entrepreneurship variables.
Originality/value
This research aims to open up avenues for the development of regional competitiveness studies.
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Sara Nunes, Cristina Estevão and Maria Nicolau Filipe
Competitiveness has been the objective of investigation in tourism in general, and particularly in hospitality, by many researchers in the past decades. The purpose of this study…
Abstract
Purpose
Competitiveness has been the objective of investigation in tourism in general, and particularly in hospitality, by many researchers in the past decades. The purpose of this study is to identify which main factors are considered crucial for the increase of competitiveness in hospitality, by applying the Porter’s diamond model to this sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology used in the study required the use of primary data from which the authors obtained 285 responses from companies related to hospitality in Portugal. In the processing of data, the authors used a structural equation model.
Findings
The results showed that “government policies”, “factor conditions”, “related and supporting industries” and “cooperation and innovation” were determinant factors of the competitiveness of the sector.
Originality/value
Despite the importance of competitiveness in hospitality, the number of studies focused on the empirical validation models of competitiveness, applied to the hospitality industry, is still incipient. This study contributes to fill this gap.
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Luis Farinha, Sara Nunes, João J. Ferreira and António Fernandes
This paper focuses on the issue of global competitive advantage of nations, based on the dimensions analyzed by the World Economic Forum in assessing the economic competitiveness…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper focuses on the issue of global competitive advantage of nations, based on the dimensions analyzed by the World Economic Forum in assessing the economic competitiveness of a large sample of countries. From the different stages of development of the countries, this study aims to help us to recognize what variables better explain the global competitive advantage of economies.
Design/methodology/approach
Following quantitative analysis, results based on PLS show what dimensions within each economic development stage best explain the global competitive advantage of economies.
Findings
Beyond the institutions, infrastructure and regulation of the markets, higher education and training, the technological readiness, the business sophistication and innovation contribute greatly to explain the competitive advantage of economies.
Originality/value
Understanding the drivers of global competitive advantage of nations, this study may help academics to conduct new studies, as well as politicians to define intervention priorities.
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Jonas Oliveira, Rogério Serrasqueiro and Sara Nunes Mota
This paper aims to assess the risk reporting practices extent to which firm’s and corporate governance characteristics explain risk-related disclosures (RRD) motivations across…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to assess the risk reporting practices extent to which firm’s and corporate governance characteristics explain risk-related disclosures (RRD) motivations across two European Latin countries (Portugal and Spain). Moreover, drawn on elements of agency, legitimacy, resources-based perspectives and institutional theory, this study also intends to assess whether the influence of corporate governance mechanisms on risk reporting is mediated by strategic/institutional legitimacy interests.
Design/methodology/approach
From a sample of 60 non-finance Portuguese and Spanish companies with securities traded on the Euronext Lisbon stock exchange market and on the Madrid stock exchange market, respectively, at December, 2011, the Corporate Governance reports and the “risk/risk management” sections of the Management reports included on consolidated annual reports for 2011 were manually content analysed, according to prior literature. Further, multiple linear regressions were used to assess the potential relationships between corporate governance mechanisms and risk reporting. The paper’s theoretical framework draws on elements of agency, legitimacy, resources-based perspectives and institutional theory. To understand the risk reporting practices of Portuguese and Spanish non-finance listed companies, the paper conducts a content analysis of 60 consolidated annual reports for 2011.
Findings
Results indicate that visible companies, operating in a country with a weaker legal environment, and during periods of financial distress disclose more discretionary RRD, basically to contextualize their negative outcomes. Some corporate governance mechanisms were crucial to improve risk information.
Originality/value
The paper goes beyond prior literature work and assesses whether the theoretical framework grounded on agency, legitimacy, resources-based perspective and institutional theory is suitable in explaining RRD in an under-researched setting (European Latin countries, such as Portugal and Spain, with low agency costs and different corporate governance models). Moreover, the analysis embraces a wider and homogeneous range of internal and external corporate governance mechanisms and uses a period in which both countries were severely affected by a sovereign debt crisis with negative impacts on company’s liquidity and financial risks. A research setting like this has not been studied hitherto.
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Cristina Estevão, João Ferreira and Sara Nunes
The competitiveness of tourist destinations has been the subject of great research interest in recent decades. Nevertheless, and despite the diversity in the literature, studies…
Abstract
The competitiveness of tourist destinations has been the subject of great research interest in recent decades. Nevertheless, and despite the diversity in the literature, studies focusing on the empirical validation of tourism destination models of competitiveness have still to be completed. Hence, this research project seeks to contribute to filling this shortcoming through the identification and evaluation of the factors underlying tourism destination competitiveness in Portugal. The study methodology adopted requires primary data that were sourced from a questionnaire deployed as a structured research instrument based upon the variables put forward by the Dwyer and Kim model (2003). Through recourse to structural equation models, the results report the existence of significant relationships between resources, supply and tourism destination management as the core and essential factors to the competitiveness of a particular tourist destination.
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Alexandra Coghlan and Lewis Carter
Mobile games and ICT-based mixed reality tools offer significant opportunities for tourism. This chapter reviews the existing literature in both these areas, and presents a novel…
Abstract
Mobile games and ICT-based mixed reality tools offer significant opportunities for tourism. This chapter reviews the existing literature in both these areas, and presents a novel way of combining games and virtual reality into an interpretive tool. As a complex, threatened marine ecosystem, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef faces significant interpretive challenges, and almost no new interpretive tools have been developed over the last 30 years. Here, the authors unpack the stages and interdisciplinary approach required to design the tool and highlight how it might fit within the broader scope of ICT developments in tourism. We outline areas of future research, with a particular focus on how ICT might contribute to making nature-based tourism more sustainable, by finding fun, innovative ways to engage tourists in the conservation of some of our most iconic natural assets.
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Imane Guellil, Ahsan Adeel, Faical Azouaou, Sara Chennoufi, Hanene Maafi and Thinhinane Hamitouche
This paper aims to propose an approach for hate speech detection against politicians in Arabic community on social media (e.g. Youtube). In the literature, similar works have been…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to propose an approach for hate speech detection against politicians in Arabic community on social media (e.g. Youtube). In the literature, similar works have been presented for other languages such as English. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, not much work has been conducted in the Arabic language.
Design/methodology/approach
This approach uses both classical algorithms of classification and deep learning algorithms. For the classical algorithms, the authors use Gaussian NB (GNB), Logistic Regression (LR), Random Forest (RF), SGD Classifier (SGD) and Linear SVC (LSVC). For the deep learning classification, four different algorithms (convolutional neural network (CNN), multilayer perceptron (MLP), long- or short-term memory (LSTM) and bi-directional long- or short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) are applied. For extracting features, the authors use both Word2vec and FastText with their two implementations, namely, Skip Gram (SG) and Continuous Bag of Word (CBOW).
Findings
Simulation results demonstrate the best performance of LSVC, BiLSTM and MLP achieving an accuracy up to 91%, when it is associated to SG model. The results are also shown that the classification that has been done on balanced corpus are more accurate than those done on unbalanced corpus.
Originality/value
The principal originality of this paper is to construct a new hate speech corpus (Arabic_fr_en) which was annotated by three different annotators. This corpus contains the three languages used by Arabic people being Arabic, French and English. For Arabic, the corpus contains both script Arabic and Arabizi (i.e. Arabic words written with Latin letters). Another originality is to rely on both shallow and deep leaning classification by using different model for extraction features such as Word2vec and FastText with their two implementation SG and CBOW.
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Sara Evans‐Lacko and Graham Thornicroft
Although we know that stigma is associated with having either a diagnosis of mental illness or a substance abuse disorder, evidence about whether stigma and discrimination are…
Abstract
Although we know that stigma is associated with having either a diagnosis of mental illness or a substance abuse disorder, evidence about whether stigma and discrimination are experienced differently, or at higher levels, for people with co‐occurring mental illness and substance abuse is unclear. Given the high prevalence of co‐occurring disorders and the high levels of need among people with co‐occurring disorders, understanding the varying levels of stigma and barriers to care encountered by this group is important for healthcare practitioners.
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