Satisfaction Factors That Predict Loyalty in Ecotourism: A Study of Foreign Tourism in Costa Rica

Recently, foreign tourists have revealed a growing interest for natural environment enjoyment. This study aimed to: (a) identify the service satisfaction factors and (b) analyze the influence that satisfaction factors exert on the loyalty of ecotourists. The empirical analysis was carried out in Arenal National Park and Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge in Costa Rica, a country with international prominence in ecotourism due to the wealth of resources in its protected areas. A factorial analysis and the stepwise multiple regression method were performed for the data analysis of 246 surveys made in situ. Results show three satisfaction factors in ecotourism: “nature and culture”, “infrastructure”, and “service”, where “nature and culture” was the most influential predictor of tourists’ loyalty. The study also found a positive correlation between satisfaction and loyalty in ecotourism. This research will provide relevant insights to public institutions and private companies efficient planning and benefit the community and protected areas.

State Procedures for Improving the Investment Climate in the Russian Federation: Prospects for Improvement

The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted many trends that had developed before it and again updated the issue of modernizing the Russian economy, restarting the mechanisms of economic growth and sustainable socio-economic development. The key to resolving these issues is to increase the investment activity of the business. The investment climate is one of the key characteristics that testify to the freedom of entrepreneurial activity, the ease of opening and conducting business, the quality of regulatory procedures in the economy, the effectiveness of business entities, and the provision of equal opportunities for the development of the private sector. A favorable investment climate reveals the potential for the development of private companies. The article considers the system of state procedures in the field of improving the national investment climate, gives a brief description of the main tools and projects to improve the investment climate, analyses the changes in the main target indicators of investment attractiveness of the Russian Federation.

Trends in The Adoption of New Geospatial Technologies for Spatial Planning and Land Management in 2021

Changes in spatial planning and land management practices, regulations and operations have frequently relied on the uptake of innovations in geospatial technologies. This article reviews which ones the spatial planning and land management domains has effectively adopted and which new ones might potentially disrupt the domain in the near future of 2021 and beyond. Based on an extensive concept-centric trends synthesis and meta-review, the analysis demonstrates that whilst geospatial technologies are clearly gaining wider societal recognition and while private companies are indeed developing promising applications, its adoption in office work of public officials and public decision makers remains almost as limited as before. The potentially most disruptive technologies for the domain are however BIM, Block chain and Machine learning.

Mechanical Tests Performed on Rubber Plates Used on Railway Vehicles

In order to place a product on the market that is completely safe for users, the manufacturer must go through certain steps: design, prototyping, execution and prototype validation through experimental methods, obtaining documents that allow to sell the product from certain public or private companies (for example homologation certificate) and series production. One of the most important steps is the validation tests of the prototype because it will depend on them that the prototype corresponds to the design requirements.

Uncovering the worth of the past: the relationship between corporate museums' strategic orientation and dual performance

PurposeThe main aim of the study is to empirically investigate the relationship between strategic orientation and a dual conceptualization of performance (i.e. non-economic performance and economic performance) in the research context of corporate museums, which are owned and run by private companies. Furthermore, the study aims to explore the nature of the relationship between the dual performance, shedding light on the relevance of non-economic results for this peculiar category of museums.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on survey data from 105 Italian corporate museums, which represent almost the entire population in the country (91%). A structural model was estimated using SmartPLS software in order to examine the direct and indirect effects of strategic orientation on corporate museums' non-economic and economic performance.FindingsThe findings show that only if corporate museums are able to achieve non-economic performance, creating value for the owning company and the local community, they can also have good results in economic terms. Thus, the non-economic performance acts as a mediator into the relationship between strategic orientation and economic performance.Originality/valueThe current work is a pioneer study for the empirical investigation of performance within corporate museums. The empirical model of the study, based on a dual conceptualization of performance and a mediation analysis, is completely innovative in this research context.

Organizational-Cultural Elements for Improved Workplace Performance of Disabled Individuals

This chapter embarks from the increasing number of disabled individuals in private companies and public institutions and examines the working conditions of disabled employees in these organizations. Although this case is relevant to a considerable number of international contexts, the author focuses on Turkey as a case, illustrative of countries going through similar processes. The author starts by providing an introduction followed by literature on organizational culture. Next, the author discusses the recent legislation regarding the employment of disabled individuals and discusses with literature on their workplace performance. Next, the author focuses on the relationships between the organizational culture and workplace performance of disabled employees. Finally, the author concludes by recommendations for future practice to enhance performance of disabled employees and future research to conduct robust studies in the area. The chapter assumes that organizations can enhance performance of everyone by creating an inclusive culture surrounded by elements involving positive attitudes, equity, equality, and beliefs of productivity.

The Effectiveness of Corporate Governance in Uganda: The Case of Private Companies

This paper examines the effectiveness of rules, procedures and Acts as instruments of corporate governance in Uganda, with interest in the performance of private companies. An extensive review of literature and ethnographic observation of the dynamic of corporate governance in private companies indicate that much as the private companies have adopted a hybrid regulatory framework of corporate governance, loopholes do still exist that have hindered the effectiveness of these instrument in the performance of private companies. Therefore there is need for strengthening corporate governance systems; however some of the weakness are attributed to the unsolved debate on key issues of corporate governance globally that trickles down to Uganda’s young corporate governance system in the private sector.

Management of Celestial Systems under Spatial Grasp Model

Many governmental agencies and private companies of different countries are now rushing into space around Earth in hope to provide smart communication, industrial, security, and defense solutions. This often involves massive launches of cheap small satellites which are also contributing to the growth of space debris. The current paper discusses how the developed high-level system philosophy and model can effectively organize distributed space-based systems on different stages of their development and growth. The briefed Spatial Grasp Technology, based on parallel pattern-matching of distributed environments with high-level recursive mobile code, can effectively provide any networking protocols and important applications of large satellite constellations, especially those on Low Earth Orbits. The paper contains examples of technology-based solutions for establishing basic communications between satellites, starting from their initial, often chaotic, launches and distributing and collecting data in the growing constellations with even unstable and rapidly changing connections between satellites. It describes how to organize and register networking topologies in case of predictable distances between satellites, and how the fixed networking structures can help in solving complex problems. The latter including those related to the new Space Development Agency multiple-satellite defense-oriented architecture and allowing for effective integration of its continuous earth custody observation and cooperative missile tracking and elimination layers, based on self-spreading mobile intelligence. Earlier versions of the technology, described in many papers, six books including, were prototyped and used in different countries, with the current one quickly implementable too, even in university-based environments.