Business Commons^™

Do Fans Want Close Contests? A Test Of The Uncertainty Of Outcome Hypothesis In The National Basketball Association, Daniel A. Rascher, John Paul G. Solmes

Kinesiology (Formerly Exercise and Sport Science)

The National Basketball Association claims to sell entertainment. Part of that entertainment is dose, competitive contests with uncertain outcomes. Howeyer, hometown fans want the home team to win. Hence, optimal probability that the home team wins a game from the perspective of maximizing demand, lays somewhere between 0.5 and 1.0. Using data from individual games for the 2001-02 season, this optimal probability was estimated to be approximately 0.66. Fans want their home team to have about twice the chance to win a game as the visiting team. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Treatment Of Travel Expenses By Golf Course Patrons: Sunk Or Bundled Costs And The First And Third Laws Of Demand, Matthew T. Brown, Daniel A. Rascher, Chad D. Mcevoy, Mark S. Nagel

Kinesiology (Formerly Exercise and Sport Science)

To attract golf patrons, sport managers must understand consumption patterns of the golfer. Importantly, the treatment of travel costs must be understood. According to the Alchian-Allen (1964) theorem, golfers treat travel costs as bundled costs (third law of economic demand) whereas classical consumer theory indicates that golfers treat travel costs as sunk costs (first law of economic demand). The purpose of this study was to determine if golf patrons treated travel costs as sunk costs or if they treated travel costs as a bundled cost. Data from a survey of course patrons in Ohio support the treatment of travel costs …

The Use Of Adventure Travel In The Meeting Planning Industry, Michelle Millar

Hospitality Management

This study investigates the types of adventure travel activities, ecotourism, soft-adventure, or hard-adventure activities, that meeting planners have used, and if the type of activity used varies by meeting planner type. Surveys were completed by one hundred and eighteen purposefully selected meeting planners. The sample included corporate, association, independent, incentive and other meeting planners from the United States and Canada. Overall, independent planners utilized the most activities across all three adventure travel categories, followed by incentive travel planners. Corporate, association, and other meeting planners did not seem interested in using adventurous activities at meetings.

Wifi Availability And Accessibility As Stated On Hotel Websites, Michelle Millar, Thomas R. Schrier, Eun Kyoo Kim

Hospitality Management

Competition among hotels is increasing. As such, hotels are constantly looking for ways to increase both their competitive advantage and guest satisfaction. Hotels have discovered ways to do this through the use of technologies such as wireless networks. Wireless networks have the potential to provide guests with additional amenities as well as allow for greater productivity among staff members. This can both increase a hotel’s competitive advantage, and satisfy guest expectations. The purpose of this exploratory study, therefore, is to determine if hotels are taking advantage of this opportunity by promoting wireless internet availability via their property’s website and using …

Internet Recruiting In The Cruise Industry, Michelle Millar

Hospitality Management

The cruise line industry is expanding rapidly. Recruitment within the industry will be an endless task and the cruise lines will need to explore every avenue possible to recruit new employees for each new contracted ship. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to examine the website of each major cruise line to determine if they are utilizing their website to recruit employees. In total, 33 attributes relating to e-recruiting method, function, content, and job search tools, were analyzed. The results of the content analysis revealed that, although the cruise lines are using e-recruiting methods, they are not using the …

Developing Hawaii Tourism Dashboard, Sun-Young Park, Walter Jamieson

Hospitality Management

No Abstract Available.

Executive Interview: An Interview With Charlie Faas, Daniel A. Rascher

Kinesiology (Formerly Exercise and Sport Science)

No abstract available.

Executive Interview: An Interview With Dan Champeau And Chad Lewis, Daniel A. Rascher

Kinesiology (Formerly Exercise and Sport Science)

No abstract available.

Variable Ticket Pricing In Major League Baseball, Daniel A. Rascher

Kinesiology (Formerly Exercise and Sport Science)

Sport teams historically have been reluctant to change ticket prices during the season. Recently, however, numerous sport organizations have implemented variable ticket pricing in an effort to maximize revenues. In Major League Baseball variable pricing results in ticket price increases or decreases depending on factors such as quality of the opponent, day of the week, month of the year, and for special events such as opening day, Memorial Day, and Independence Day. Using censored regression and elasticity analysis, this article demonstrates that variable pricing would have yielded approximately $590,000 per year in additional ticket revenue for each major league team …

Variable Ticket Pricing In Major League Baseball, Daniel A. Rascher, Chad D. Mcevoy, Mark S. Nagel, Matthew T. Brown

Kinesiology (Formerly Exercise and Sport Science)

Sport teams historically have been reluctant to change ticket prices during the season. Recently, however, numerous sport organizations have implemented variable ticket pricing in an effort to maximize revenues. In Major League Baseball variable pricing results in ticket price increases or decreases depending on factors such as quality of the opponent, day of the week, month of the year, and for special events such as opening day, Memorial Day, and Independence Day. Using censored regression and elasticity analysis, this article demonstrates that variable pricing would have yielded approximately $590,000 per year in additional ticket revenue for each major league team …

Web 2.0: A Social Informatics Perspective, Jonathan P. Allen, Howard Rosenbaum, Pnina Shachaf

Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Strategy

This position paper argues that the Web 2.0 phenomenon is an important object of study for information systems research, and that a social informatics approach to understanding Web 2.0 is particularly relevant and useful. We discuss Wikipedia as an example of empirical research on Web 2.0 that can help bridge the divide between academic and popular discourse on new technology movements.

Sustainability Reporting Practices In Portugal: Greenwashing Or Triple Bottom Line?, Diane H. Roberts, John Koeplin

Accounting

This paper examines the status of sustainability reporting in Portugal. The Global Reporting Initiative's (GRI) guidelines for sustainability reporting is an initiative that attempts to create a paradigm of triple bottom line reporting that encompasses the economic, environmental, and social performance of business. Measurement and reporting of environmental and social aspects are in their infancy compared to financial/economic reporting. The objective of the GRI's framework is to elevate environmental and social reporting to the level of financial reporting by developing reporting principles and information qualities similar to those used in corporate financial reporting. In the post-Enron corporate reporting environment, such …

Auditor’S Independence: Increasing Expectations And Expanding Responsibilities In The Early 1930s, Diane H. Roberts

Accounting

Auditor independence is an aspect of professional ethics crucial to user confidence in contemporary times and the early 1930s. Primary sources that reflect the thinking of the leaders of the accounting profession in the United States are examined to determine the profession's stance on independence issues. The period examined begins with the stock market crash of October 1929 and ends with the American Institute of Accountants' (AIA) fiftieth anniversary meeting in 1937. Thus both events leading up to and immediately following the passage of US Federal Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934 are examined. Although ownership interests in clients and …

What They Really Think: Resolving Methodological Issues In Supply Chain Ethics Research, K. Chipp, Michael M. Goldman, N. Kleyn

Sport Management

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to further the theory and strengthen methodological approaches to the role of ethics in buyer-seller relationships. The paper explores opportunities to enhance response rates, validity and reliability in the research context of organisations seeking to understand the ethical beliefs their suppliers hold of their buying organisations.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The research universe is a select business group, all of which are technologically literate and online. Innovative research sampling methods were selected to great effect. The method selected was saturation surveying, a process whereby all identifiable target respondents are surveyed. Instead of selecting between sampling techniques, …

What Makes Opera Thrive – Learning From Evaluation In The Performing Arts, Paul Lorton Jr

Business Analytics and Information Systems

For not-for-profit cultural enterprises to survive, they need to learn what makes them worthy of their community’s support for not-for-profit enterprises must secure contributions in addition to the revenues they may generate from their services. This discussion will examine the information contained in the some 500 IRS Form 990 (Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax) report from organizations that classify their activity as “Opera” and present a matrix of goals, achievement and income mixes to build on earlier efforts at defining success for Opera companies. By systematically exploring what the criteria are, how activity is measured against those criteria …

Source Code Protection For Applications Written In Microsoft Excel And Google Spreadsheet, Thomas A. Grossman Jr.

Business Analytics and Information Systems

Spreadsheets are used to develop application software that is distributed to users. Unfortunately, the users often have the ability to change the programming statements (“source code”) of the spreadsheet application. This causes a host of problems. By critically examining the suitability of spreadsheet computer programming languages for application development, six “application development features” are identified, with source code protection being the most important. We investigate the status of these features and discuss how they might be implemented in the dominant Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and in the new Google Spreadsheet. Although Google Spreadsheet currently provides no source code control, its web-centric …

Improving Call Center Operations Using Performance-Based Routing Strategies, J. Stanley, R. Saltzman, Vijay Mehrotra

Business Analytics and Information Systems

The article presents a simulation study of performance-based call routing strategies using a variety of routing rules based on historic data such as average handling time and first call resolution rate. We demonstrate the relative benefits of various performance-based call routing strategies using actual data from a financial call center. In particular, our modeling results indicate that call routing based on adjusted average handle time (AAHT) and z-scores of AAHT are two strategies that can substantially improve overall call center performance and customer satisfaction.

Could The Work System Method Embrace Systems Concepts More Fully, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

The work system method was developed iteratively with the overarching goal of helping business professionals understand IT-reliant systems in organizations. It uses general systems concepts selectively, and sometimes implicitly. For example, a work system has a boundary, but its inputs are treated implicitly rather than explicitly. This paper asks whether the further development of the work system method might benefit from integrating general systems concepts more completely. After summarizing aspects of the work system method, it dissects some of the underlying ideas and questions how thoroughly even basic systems concepts are applied. It also asks whether and how additional systems …