The literature on family firm performance has failed to conclusively link the impact of family influence on the financial market performance of public firms. The goal of this research is to address this gap by considering mechanisms through which founding family influence contributes to superior firm performance relative to non-family firms. This study links family influence in publicly-traded firms with firm performance in terms of both accounting (Return on Assets) and financial market (Buy-and-Hold-Abnormal-Returns) metrics. The findings support the argument that increased advertising and R&D focus in family influenced firms reflects a long-term oriented management strategy, consistent with decreased agency costs. Using a large cross-sectional-time-series sample of publicly traded firms for the period between 2001 and 2010 from 65 different industries, the findings in this article suggest that investments in advertising and R&D projects have better performance implications in family-owned vs. non-family owned firms. The results are robust to alternative models, measures of firm performance, industry, firm, and time effects.

Demand for pork chops and chicken breasts were analyzed using best-worst scaling and consumer choice experiments. Outdoor enthusiasts (who regularly hunt, fish, or participate in outdoor activities), which represent a unique consumer group with respect to livestock animal welfare, were surveyed with respect to meat purchasing attributes. Six meat attributes were analyzed for relative levels of preferences with safety having the largest share. Nutrition and taste were more important to outdoor enthusiasts than a representative sample of U.S. residents. Positive and significant mean willingness to pay estimates were obtained with the exception of locally produced pork chops. Outdoor enthusiasts were willing to pay a higher amount for retailer and industry verified antibiotic free pork chops than a representative sample of U.S. consumers.

Until 1978 China had a class struggling model of development. After years of bad experience, it was only natural to leave that model and to focus on the economical development of the country The Ruling party of China decided to take The Middle Way of economical development, combining the leading role of the communist party and capitalistic market economy. Chinese people were used to The Middle Way because of ancient history, local psychology and the prevailing mixture of Daoist and Confucian philosophy. The philosophical and psychological tendency of Chinese people to tend to find a Middle Way and reasoning, is very much different than the western thinking, which is based on finding always right way and contradiction. In this paper, we will discuss foundations and limitations of the Chinese Middle Way Model and whether it is really the most natural way for China. Also, we are trying to foresee the future development of the Chinese model and the limitations of the Middle Way Reasoning and its implications to the growth and exponentially of the 21st century.

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is blessing for Pakistan and China. China and Pakistan have best political relations. CPEC is going to boost up the economic relations between both countries. China’s participation in the development of Gwadar Port took the international attention. Planning the development of Gwadar port becomes an important content of CPEC. This way Gwadar port has entered into a new development period. Due to their potential impact on the strategic pattern of the Indian Ocean and because of its strategic importance, there is international repercussion, also have other difficulties such as cost, security issues in Pakistan and Power crises and other issues. This paper attempts to explain the challenges, due to security issues, culture difference, energy and political crises in Pakistan, conflict in Baluchistan, and external pressure. Finally, this paper discusses some specific measures of barriers, solutions and suggestions. CPEC will be a game changer on the regional canvas and is expected to bring prosperity and improve quality of life in general to the region and in particular to Pakistan. There is a dire need to take on board all the regional and global players by addressing their concerns for early establishment of CPEC.

This paper examines the successful business strategy employed by Southwest Airlines with special respect to the recent theories of Paul Lawrence. Long-time professor of organizational behavior at Harvard Business School, Lawrence posited that Renewed Darwinian theory reflected four basic human drives: acquisition, defense, comprehension, and bonding. Given Michael Porter’s assessment of the distinctions between cost leadership and differentiation, my analysis reveals that Southwest succeeded in maintaining its competitive market niche for the air-travel industry by engaging in a strongly economistic, cost leadership strategy that primarily incorporated and prioritized aspects of the drives to acquire and defend. In doing so it displayed greater vision and operational effectiveness than its competitors (such as Continental Lite, for example).

In Italy, a tourism tax was introduced in 2011, since then it has been adopted in most of the Italian provincial capitals and tourist cities. This tax can mitigate the negative externalities caused by tourists; however, it should be carefully planned both in terms of the amount of money to be levied and in terms of the uses to be financed with the tax revenues, it could, otherwise, negatively impact the tourism sector, decreasing—rather than increasing— the social welfare. The aim of this paper is to assess the acceptability of such a tax and to examine how the tax should be designed to better meet tourists’ preferences while improving tourism sustainability. To this aim, a Contingent Valuation experiment has been performed for two Apulian touristic towns: Otranto and Castro. The results demonstrate that the willingness to pay (WTP) for the tourism tax depends not only on the vacation and the tourist type but also on how the fiscal revenues are used. If no mention is made of the use of the tax revenues, the WTP can be as low as €0.85 per person per night, which is much lower than the tax actually levied. Instead, if the tax revenues are used to improve and to protect the environment, the WTP can be as high as €3.96. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research paper estimating the WTP in the Italian context based on tax revenue use.