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Need for an early warning system for travel associations
Need for an early warning system for travel associations
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Introduction
Successful tourism development is related to the reduction of risks associated with a destination and an event in addition to infrastructural improvements and heightened awareness on the world stage. The threat of terrorism has often been identified as a major risk associated with mega events (Toohey et al., 2003; Kim & Chalip, 2004; Taylor & Toohey, 2006), and the Olympic Games in particular are regarded as an attractive target (Cashman & Hughes, 1999; Neirotti & Hilliard, 2006). Over the last few years, risk has become an important factor when considering international travel (So¨nmez, 1998; So¨nmez & Graefe, 1998a, b; Lepp & Gibson, 2003, 2008; Reisinger & Mavondo, 2005, 2006; Kozak et al., 2007), especially for Americans who perceive themselves as particularly vulnerable. Tourists tend to avoid destinations they perceive as risky and choose ones they consider safe (So¨nmez & Graefe, 1998a). So¨nmez & Graefe (1998b) indicated that despite the tourism industries worldwide economic strength, terrorism and political turmoil present major challenges to the industry. Potential tourists may change their travel plans because of terrorism, which in turn may lead to significant losses for a destination (Coshall, 2003). For example, because of the US–Libya military confrontation in 1985, nearly two million Americans changed their foreign travel plans in 1986, which resulted in a 30% decrease in visitation compared with the previous year (Richter & Waugh, 1986; So¨nmez & Graefe, 1998b; Edgell, 1990). The most significant disruption to tourist flows to date were the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in the United States which resulted in 6.8% fewer international tourists visiting North America in 2001, compared with 2000 (Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, 2000, 2001, 2002)[1].
Tourism is a dynamic and ever changing industry heavily dependent on a number of factors outside the control of those involved. It is inevitable therefore, that tourism will evolve over time. A typical tourist destination life cycle normally runs through six stages. To be able to respond to these changes and avoid the ultimate stagnation and decline scenario, it is vital that the tourism strategy has a dedicated monitoring programme in place. Only by having a ‘finger on the pulse’, through regular monitoring and feedback, will it be possible to react to issues early enough before they become problems, and so create a dynamic destination that is capable of adapting to market opportunities and changing preferences. This is especially true for the relatively smaller more specialised markets. Unfortunately this element is all too often forgotten or given insufficient resources [2].
Tourism has to face a challenging change in its framework conditions: The geopolitical as well as the economic situation require new strategies. Technological innovations, demographic change and a powerful costumer have to be met in politics, marketing and planning. New destinations, new products with prices on a level, which would have been incredible some years ago, compete with the established tourism offer. Focusing on the consumer the paper does not ignore the importance of the tourism offer, the industry, the destinations etc. They constitute some of the factors leading to a change in consumer behaviour, and they are together with others the field where the behaviour of the consumers shows up and where the knowledge of the consumer can be applied [[3]][[4]].
As we can’t limit our attention to a single external factor and its impacts, we look at several of the emerging factors, new trends in tourism emerging from the whole set of influences and the endogenous dynamics of tourism. These emerging trends will not change tourism overnight. Trend research has shown that the future developments will most probably come as a step-by-step development, not as a revolution.
References
[1] Perceptions of Risk and Travel Intentions: The Case of China and the Beijing Olympic Games Christine Xueqing ia; Heather J. Gibsonb; James J. Zhangb (a) School of Professional and Continuing Education, University of Hong Kong, (b) Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sport Management, University of Florida, USA[2] European Commission. Tourism Unit; Directorate-General for Enterprise, Tourism Unit, 2002 – 122 pages[3] Martin Lohmann; The author is managing director of N.I.T., Institute of Tourism Research in Northern Europe in Kiel, Germany (www.nit-kiel.de).[4] The author, Martin Lohmann, is as a professor for Consumer Behaviour with the University of Applied Science in Lüneburg Germany (www.fhnon.de/fbwp/lohmann).
At Literature Review of industry life cycle
At Literature Review of industry life cycle
The concept of industry life cycle is one that relates to the various stages that an industry moves through right from initial product entry, up to its eventual decline. Typically, there are five stages or phases in the industry lifecycle. Gort and Klepper (1982) originally identified these five stages. These five stages include early stage, innovation phase, shakeout or cost phase, maturity phase and finally decline phase. The work of Klepper (1997) explored the concept of industry life cycles. His work reviewed a series of evidence on the entry, exit, corporate survival, and product innovation and organization structure in new and emerging industries in order to assess if these industries go through the regular business cycles as they progress towards old age. His work acted as a clear depiction of what happens in the evolution of modern age industries and product life cycle is what is used in elucidating this evidence. Yoo (2000) explored the theory of Industry Life Cycle by deriving an equilibrium timing of both entries and exits, coupled with the equilibrium output levels spanning the entire industry life cycle period. His work also examined the effects of rise in entry costs. By means of an extended model having three entrants, his work indicated that the very fist entry might effectively be delayed with the third firm and that the less efficient company may be used as the first entrant in certain exceptional cases. Maksimovic and Phillips (2008) examined industry life cycle about acquisition and investment. Their main work was however aimed at finding out if really, the firm organization matters in this process.
The work of Volpato and Stocchetti (2008) explored the management of product life cycle in the auto manufacture industry. They did this by evaluating the effectiveness of the carmakers using the product life-cycle model. Their work discovered certain interesting results about product life cycle. The first one is that new product development process must be timed appropriately by planning with regard to several generation of a product that are to be developed on a similar platform as opposed to basing it on the next generation model only. Transition management from the marketing point of view must be conducted in order to ensure a successful sale of products. Product policy in the product life cycle process such as differentiation is not as effective as product innovation. Simons (2011) explored the characteristics of product markets and industry life cycle. The work of Giachetti, Marchi, and Corradini (2012) presented the best work on the concept of industry life cycle within the technology-based arena. Their work explored the evolution of company’s product strategy over the entire life cycle of information technology industries. The most interesting point that can be extracted from their work is that the global mobile phone industry experienced or entered the shake-out/cost phase in the 2000s. Strategy has therefore shifted from product towards process innovation. Innovation is also noted to play a major role in industry maturity.
1.1 Phases of industry life cycle
The work of Dinlersoz and MacDonald (2009) identified the following five phases in the development and maturity of an industry.
Early Stage Phase- This is an alternative product design as well as positioning stage. It involves the establishment of range as well as boundaries within a given industry
Innovation Phase- In this stage, product innovation is noted to decline while process innovation kicks in. It is at this phase that the ‘dominant design’ arrives
Shakeout Phase- At this stage, firms settle on their ‘dominant design’ and they achieve their economies of scale. This forces the smaller industry players to exit or be acquired. Barriers of entry get extremely high and large-scale consolidation is achieved.
Maturity- In this stage, growth is noted to be no longer the focus and both cash flow and market share become the main goal of firms that are left in operation.
Decline – At this stage, industries experience a decline in revenues. A new industry may replace the existing industry as a whole
This literature review indicates that there is a general lack of literature or knowledge on the role of industry life cycle in the development and marketing of information technology-based products and services such as the Android Smartphone technology system. In this paper, we explore this gap in knowledge through a critical analysis of the Smartphone industry. A case in point is how and when the Android OS changed the smartphone life cycle as depicted in Ferreira’s (2011) article.
2.0 Three themes that are present in Ferreira’s (2011) article titled “Android OS changes Smartphone life cycle”
A review of Ferreira’s (2011) work indicates that there are three main dominant themes. These are changing nature of customer needs, technological advancement and corporate social responsibility
2.1 Changing customer need
The global smartphone ecosystem is rapidly changing because of the dynamic nature of consumer needs. For companies to remain competitive, they must be able to identify with the rapidly changing consumer needs and then prioritize their aims and objectives along these lines. The smartphone industry has seen a phenomenal growth in terms of user experience and operating system development. The Android operating system, a derivation of Linux operating system has rapidly shifted consumer demands from the iOS powered iPhone to Android operating system devices.
Consumers’ need for stylish and highly multi-functional cell phones is what has driven the development of smartphones and their respective operating systems (Lin and Ye, 2008, p.617). It is important for manufacturers and other players within the smartphone ecosystem to monitor the dynamism of consumer needs in order help them in gaining a competitive advantage. Advancements within the smartphone ecosystem are continuously increasing and surpassing one another as new versions are constantly hitting the market at great speeds. According to Kano’s theory of customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction is directly proportional to the degree to which a given product or service is adequately functional. The changing nature of customer needs has led to constant operating system upgrades.
2.2 Technological advancement
Advances in technology have created a number of innovations within the smartphone ecosystem. The advent of Android operating system has resulted in the creation of better and more efficient smartphone systems. The Android technology offers a perfect example of how technology can be can be leveraged to enhance user experience CITATION HoT11 l 1033 (Ho & Chen, 2011)
2.3 Corporate Social Responsibility
Kotler and Lee (2005) defined the concept of corporate social responsibility as “a commitment to improve community well-being through discretionary business practices and contributions of corporate resources” (p.3). This means that a given business entity must have objectives that surpass financial gains. Within the smartphone ecosystem, players must ensure that all hardware and software applications are built while having the benefits to the community and environment in mind. In the past, the global smartphone industry was heavily criticized for building their hardware from minerals sourced through illegitimate and conflict-ridden sources. Titanium, Gold, Tungsten and Tin, the base materials for smartphones’ electronics were for long sourced from the eastern Democratic Republic. These minerals were being sourced in places where countless number lives were lost due to blood money generated from the illegal mining and smuggling activities in those areas. In other words, the money from minerals bought by the manufacturers of smartphones was being used to fund armed militias. This calls for some sort of accountability and social responsibility. In is also important for the smartphone application developers to ensure that their products consume less electricity or energy. This was they would be advancing the global sustainability agenda.
Industry background of smartphone industry life cycle diagram and it’s industry analysis (use graphs)
A review of extant literature suggests that the smartphone industry is approaching its maturity phase. The global smartphone industry is currently at an advanced growth phase. It is actually towards the end of growth phase and is fact-approaching maturity. Innovation is noted to be the key driver of this industry towards maturity CITATION Wes07 l 1033 (West & Mace, 2007).
Fig.1 Smartphone industry life cycle
Industry analysis
Introduction phase
The smartphone industry came into being in 1993 with the introduction of IBM Simon. This phone had PDA capabilities and was, arguably, the very first smartphone CITATION Ree10 l 1033 (Reed, 2010). This phase ended sometime in 1999.
Growth phase
The Smartphone industry entered its growth phase in 2002 with the multiple releases of smartphones such as Palm One, Pocket PC and Black Berry. This stage has had a steady rise but was recently forecasted to headed for a slump in growth rates (Kuittinen, 2013)
3.1 Apple industry life cycle and its analysis
A review of Apple Inc operations reveals that its industry life cycle is a unique one. This is due to the nature of product life cycles that it maintains for virtually all of its products. According to Yadegari (2012), apple has a way of ensuring that its products are always in the introduction and growth phases. In this company, the introduction stage includes the release of the original iPad, iPhone as well as iPod. When it comes to the growth stage, the company has a way of maintaining its products in this stage and to them “backwards”
Fig.2 Apple’s industry life cycle
Within the product life cycle, instead of allowing its products to reach maturity phase, it releases new and improved features. The company does this by improving its product quality, styles and well as improving its technology. This is best seen in the way it handles its products such as iPad Mini and iMac product ranges.
Fig. 3 iPhone product life cycle (Euromonitor, 2011)
Apple’s makes minor upgrades to its hardware as well as features with every version. A perfect example is the use of product extension in its product ranges. This is aimed at taking care of the needs of various consumer segments. At a time when iPhone was approaching its maturity stage, it released a low-cost model of its iPhone 4 that has no front-facing camera as well as retina display. Euromonitor (2011) reiterated this to have been an excellent offer to the late notes this adopted in the emerging economies such as India and China.
3.2 Samsung industry life cycle and its analysis
Samsung is an undisputed leader in the realm product life cycle design. The continuing rise in demand for smartphones coupled with competition that gets worse everyday makes indicates that the smartphone industry is at growth phase. This means that Samsung Mobile is at its growth phase as a company. The product life cycle of Samsung products is less than a year.
Critique of existing industry life cycle models and a review if they are valuable in today’s industry and what is it that it is missing.
The concept of industry life cycle is, in a profound one. This is because companies can use it in setting out their short and long-term objectives. A company that knows that it operates in an industry at an advanced or mature stage must consider venturing into other industries with growth potential while those that operate within a growing industry must formulate strategies for gaining a competitive advantage and accumulating as must profit as possible.
Despite its noble potential, the concept of industry life cycle as conceptual frameworks fails to consider the importance of services to every industry. The work of Cusano, Suarez and Kahl (2007) noted that existing models of industry life cycle main focuses on the changes in both products and services but with a conspicuous failure to explore the role of services in the cycle. There is therefore a need for the role of services at various stages in industry evolution to be incorporated into the existing industry life cycle models.
References
BIBLIOGRAPHY Cussamano, M., Suarez, F. S., & Steve, K. (2007). Product,Process,Service:A New Industry Lifecycle Model. Massachussets: Massachussets Institute of Technology.
Dinlersoz, E., & MacDonald, G. (2009). The industry life cycle of the size distribution of firms. Review of Economic Dynamics , 648–667.
Eurominitor. (2011, August 2). Smartphones Strategy: Case Studies . Retrieved 5 24, 2013, from Euromonitor: http://blog.euromonitor.com/2011/08/smartphones-strategy-case-studies.html
Ferreira, A. (2011). Android OS changes smartphone life cycle.
Giachetti, C., Marchi, G., & Corradini, R. (2012). Users’ Ability to Anticipate Incremental and Radical Innovation in Online Communities: The Role of Product Knowledge and Willingness to Participate in the Community Life. Working Paper No. 15/2012. Department of Management, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia.
Gort, M., & Klepper, S. (1982). Time Paths in the Diffusion of Product Innovations. 630-53.
Ho, T., & Chen, R. (2011). Leveraging NFC and LBS Technologies to Improve User Experiences. International Joint Conference on Service Science (pp. 17-21). Taipei, Taiwan: IEEE.
Klepper, S. (1997). Industry Life Cycles. Vol 6 (1) (pp. 145-81). Oxford University Press.
Kotler, P., & Lee, N. (2005). Corporate Social esponsibility: Doing the Most Good for Your Company and Your Cause. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Kuittinen, T. (2013, April 4). How Dangerous is the Current Smartphone Slowdown? Retrieved May 24, 2013, from Forbers.com: http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2013/03/04/how-dangerous-is-the-current-smartphone-slowdown/
Lin, F., & Ye, W. (2009). Operating System Battle in the Ecosystem of Smartphone Industry. 2009 International Symposium on Information Engineering and Electronic Commerce (pp. 617-621). IEEE.
Maksimovic, V., & Phillips, G. (2008). The Industry Life Cycle, Acquisitions and Investment: Does Firm Organization Matter? Journal of Finance , 673-709.
Reed, B. (2010, June 18). A Brief History of Smartphones. Retrieved May 25, 2013, from PCWorld.com: http://www.pcworld.com/article/199243/a_brief_history_of_smartphones.html
Simons, K. L. (2011). Product Market Characteristics and the Industry Life Cycle. New York: Economics Department, Rensselae.
Volpato, G., & Stocchetti, A. (2008). Managing product life-cycle in the auto industry: evaluating carmakers effectiveness. MPRA Paper 29381. Germany: University Library of Munich.
West, J., & Mace, M. ( 2007). ENTERING A MATURE INDUSTRY THROUGH INNOVATION: APPLE S IPHONE. Paper presented at the DRUID Summer Conference 2007,, June 18 – 2. Copenhagen, CBS, Denmark.
Yadegari, S. (2012, October 24). Apple Inc. and the product life cycle. Retrieved May 25, 2013, from WordPress: http://symkt.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/apple-inc-and-the-product-life-cycle/
Yoo, J. (2000). A Theory of Industry Life Cycle. JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT,Vol 25 (1) .
Health Policy Briefing
Health Policy Briefing
Author
Institution Affiliation
Introduction
Every employee looks forward to paid sick leaves. There are many employees who often like to extend their holidays by taking their annual leaves, while others may present the excuse of being unwell and remaining absent from work, which may bring the companies they work in to question the absence of the employees on medical ground. This paper entails laws, regarding paid sick leave, passed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The law regarding paid leave was adopted in 2011 and requires employers contracting with the city to provide their employees with paid sick leave (The National Partnership for Women & Families, 2014).
The Health Issue
Paid sick leave is typically a health issue that affects organization to a certain level. Whenever a firm grants sick leave to its employees without arranging for any backup, the organization may face some disruption regarding the normal for the workflow. Sick leave is nevertheless unavoidable in certain circumstances especially when an employee falls sick and has to stay off duty as a result of the illness. In this case, the employee would benefit from the law promoting paid sick leave while the organization will have to take the resulting responsibility. This implies that such kind of leave can be unavoidable for the firms. The need to pay employees once they fall ill is fully recognized by the Philadelphia laws governing paid sick leave, which require that employees should be paid for the time they are off their work once they fall sick.
Health Issue Background
Paid sick leave has been largely advocated through a coalition that calls for paid sick days among workers within the city of Philadelphia. The coalition has been led by Women’s Way and the Path Ways PA to support the ordinance of Promoting Heath Families and Workplaces (The National Partnership for Women & Families, 2014). The main goal of the coalition and the call for paid work leave has been to enable workers earn at least one hour of their sick time for every 30 hours they have worked in their organizations.
Typically, the same trend has been seen in several cities in the United States since 2006 (Greenberg, 2014). In this case, a number of cities have enacted similar ordinances that require employees to provide a certain number of paid sick days annually to employees with some work activity levels in their respective cities. This case has seen a similar drift within Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Law
The current law in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was adopted in 2011, when the bill was passed according to an article by the National Partnership for Women & Families (2014). The law requires all employers in the city to offer their workers with earned/paid sick leave. The paid sick leave ordinance however took effect in 2012. The law applies to the employers covered by the city’s ordinance, by contract. This implies that almost all employers within the city are expected to provide their employees with paid sick leaves (Pedrow & Clarke, 2012). The law guidelines exclude the employers with less than five workers. Subcontractors are also not subjected to the law.
The ordinance specifically applies to the contractors after they receive any new contracts, concessions, leases, franchise, or even the city’s financial aid. The “City financial aid recipients” constitute the broadest group of the covered employers (Pedrow & Clarke, 2012). This category include all entities that receive the city’s direct assistance in terms of grants, loan guarantees, loans, tax incentives, the city waiver fees, in-kind services, or even any real property that exceeds $100,000 within any given 12-month period (Pedrow & Clarke, 2012). Generally, the ordinance requires covered employers to provide the number of sick days earned by their employees or more. Typically, the existing paid leave policy is that “If the Employer has a paid leave policy, which makes available an amount of ‘paid leave’ per year that includes vacation days, personal days, sick days, etc., it will meet the requirements of the sick pay ordinance as long as the minimum number of days required is still provided” (Pedrow & Clarke, 2012).
Argument
Paid sick leave as a health policy has faced a number of arguments regarding its benefits and the associated problems/costs. Regarding the associated benefits, it is certain that paid sick leave provides employees with more consistency and protection. Many employees are granted limited benefits by their employers especially the low-wage workers (Polson, 2014). Where one firm allows its employees to enjoy a substantial sick leave allowance, the other one might receive no allowance at all. The law is used in Philadelphia for redressing such imbalance existing between organizations. It is required in the health policy that the employees must be paid while they are on their sick leave, as it is their basic employment right and such type of legislation also contributes in improving the working life conditions.
When the employers do not pay to the sick employees for their time off then this certainly indicates that the employees have to return back to their job in order to meet their financial commitment. If the employees are ill and they are still working then they would certainly spread the illness in the work environment (Polson, 2014). This would impose an overall dramatic influence on rest of the employees. Therefore, allowing the employees to stay at home while they are sick is not just helping them get better but it also ensures that no one else get sick too.
Nevertheless, a problem arises when the policy is abused, especially by workers. Small businesses have a lot to lose from this legislation, although the policy excludes the smallest firms possible; firms with less than five workers. Such firms have small profit margins and having to cater the needs of their sick employees can be difficult for them at times, as they are not able to afford their employees’ paid sick leave.
When employers are forced by the city authorities, through the health policy, to pay allowance to their employees while they are on sick leave, discrimination during employment opportunities may occur in which case, only the relatively young and totally healthy employees would be preferred to the weak and old workers who are prone to falling ill. In such case workers who are old, smokers or obese might find it difficult to find a job, as they are considered to be the part of group possessing higher instance of absenteeism. Employers may not be in good terms as expected with such employees once they get employed implying the need for good employers would not be applicable (Kelly & Kossek, 2008).
What Next
To avoid any problems, firm and employees should be in good terms when it comes to health policy governing paid sick leave in the City of Philadelphia. The city employers need to establish a sick leave policy whereby the employees taking off on any of the working days must be asked to produce a medical certificate. Another thing is that the employees must be aware of all the terms and conditions of company’s sick policy (Polson, 2014). The city employers may advocate for a bill to treat any the sick leave of their employees as unpaid if they do not provide any valid proof of having been ill with respect to valid medical records. The employees need to fill the sick leave form, whenever they think of taking a sick leave. This will help the firm to keep a track the employees’ sick leave pattern.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Sick leave is considered as a basic right of the employees. This implies that employees deserve sick leave without being victimized by their employers or specific organization policies. Nevertheless, the employees need not misuse their chances of getting paid sick leave from their employers. There are several measures that can be employed by companies to make sure that the paid sick leave is actually being used for improving the health of the employees and not for any other purposes (Polson, 2014).
It can be recommended that in any situation where the employees are found abusing their sick leaves, the company should immediately take notice of such consequences. The manager may then ask the employees the reason for not attending work, which they must together try to sort out. If the company implements the above mentioned action and strategies they will definitely reduce the risk of abuse of sick paid leaves. The employees and managers could be on the same page from the beginning when it comes to sick leave policy. If there is even some element of the policy misuse, then the abuse may become more disruptive for the organizational work schedule. References
Greenberg, K. (2014). A Dual Perspective on City-Mandated Paid Sick Leave Policies. Retrieved from americanbar.org: http://www.americanbar.org/content/newsletter/groups/labor_law/ll_flash/2014/may2014/special.html
Kelly, E. L., & Kossek, E. E. (2008). Getting There from Here: Research on the Effects of Work–Family Initiatives on Work–Family Conflict and Business Outcomes. The Academy of Management annals, 305-349.
Pedrow, B. D., & Clarke, E. K. (2012, June 26). City of Philadelphia Guidelines Clarify Paid Sick Leave Ordinance. Retrieved from ballardspahr.com: http://www.ballardspahr.com/alertspublications/legalalerts/2012-06-26-city-of-philadelphia-guidelines-clarify-paid-sick-leave-ordinance.aspx
Polson, D. (2014, February 2). Workers deserve paid sick leave: Yet some Pennsylvania legislators not only don’t like it, they want to stop local governments from guaranteeing it, writes social scientist Diana Polson. Retrieved from post-gazette: http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2014/02/02/Workers-deserve-paid-sick-leave/stories/201402020063
The National Partnership for Women & Families. (2014, October). State and Local Action on Paid Sick Days. Retrieved November 11, 2014, from nationalpartnershi: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalpartnership.org%2Fresearch-library%2Fcampaigns%2Fpsd%2Fstate-and-local-action-paid-sick-days.pdf&ei=R1hiVL_LK9GN7Aaj1YH4CA&usg=AFQjCNFU57hW7pMhvaJtg5