Business Components Research Articles

Decentralisation, Government Policy and Public Sector on Services Delivery: Case Study of Jonglei State, South Sudan

Decentralization is considered as an essential element to achieve good governance, which is characterized by participation, accountability and transparency. It is believed that decentralization can promote citizen participation and accountability of decision makers, as the result governments at local level will become more responsive to citizen demands and become more responsive in-service delivery (Blair, 2012). Political activists, nongovernmental organizations and human right groups are also arguing that decentralization increases the ability of citizens to select responsive public officials and hold them accountable for their performance, as well as to participate more effectively in public decision-making arenas (Griddle, 2007). Service Delivery: According to (John Henry 2012) A service delivery framework (SDF) is a set of principles, standards, policies and constraints used to guide the design, development, deployment, operation and retirement of services delivered by a service provider with a view to offering a consistent service experience to a specific user community in a specific manner . (Peter Keen 2013) Service delivery is a component of business that defines the interaction between providers and clients where the provider offers a service, whether that be information or a task, and the client either find value or loses value as a result. According to (Charles wood 2011) description, good service delivery provides clients with an increase in value. Services provision and for strengthening institutions of accountability in governance. The series highlights frameworks for creating incentive environments and pressures for good governance from within and beyond governments. According to (Henry 2009) it outlines institutional mechanisms for empowering citizens to demand accountability for results from their governments The results showed a linear relationship between internal decentralization and service delivery (r= 0.752 f= 2.596, sig= 0.148) budgeting (beta= 0.422) and financial accountability (beta = 0.439 explained more to service delivery followed by financial accountability (beta =0.422 and financial reporting (beta =0.358) this implied that budget was more influential in determining the level of service delivery followed by financial accountability and financial report in government organs like Bor Municipality.

COVID-19 and the bleisure travellers: an investigation on the aftermaths and future implications

ABSTRACT Bleisure travel is a terminology usually used to label travel that involves components of both business and leisure. It characteristically takes the form of business travellers prolonging the length of their trip, to relish leisure activities at the destination visited. The study investigated the effect of COVID-19 on the bleisure travellers and the repercussions of covid-19 pandemic on their future travel behaviour. A qualitative research methodology was adopted and data was collected with the help of a semi-structured interview guide to interviewing people who were involved in bleisure travel. A total of 30 respondents from several industrial verticals like service, healthcare, tourism, IT, academia etc. were considered for the study. Data were analysed with the help of Nvivo-12 by using thematic analysis. The results revealed that due to this global pandemic, bleisure travellers are highly demotivated, scared and anxious. The results further conveyed that the future of bleisure travel seems uncertain and blurry which not only affects the tourism or travel pattern of the tourists but will have a high impact on pure business-related activities as well. The study will help to chart out the future course of actions and to analyse the implications of COVID-19 on bleisure travel.

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF PROFESSIONAL LINGUODIDACTICS IN THE PROCESS OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION AT NON-LANGUISTIC SPECIALTIES OF UNIVERSITIES

The article deals with the problem of professionally oriented foreign language education of students of non-linguistic specialties. Today, the goal of teaching a foreign language to non-linguistic specialists is the professional and business component of intercultural communication. In other words, it became necessary to train a graduate possessing professional oral communication competence, which led to the creation of a linguodidactic approach in vocational education, the theoretical and methodological foundations of which are dealt with by professional linguodidactics.In the context of professionally oriented teaching of foreign languages, we are talking about the formation of the future specialist’s secondary linguistic personality, which is a key category of professional linguodidactics. As an autonomous diversified scientific discipline, linguodidactics has its own object and subject of research, patterns, and categories, general didactic and linguistic professional principles that are actualized in the process of foreign language teaching.Professional linguodidactics is of great scientific and social importance, since it provides ample opportunities for training specialists with a high level of foreign language professional communicative competence, ensuring their mobility, competitiveness, and success in the modern world; determines the need for constant professional and creative development of foreign language teachers. Professional education creates the necessary prerequisites and conditions for conducting fundamental linguodidactic research in professionally oriented foreign language education.
 Keywords: professional linguodidactics, non-linguistic specialist, foreign language professional communicative competence, secondary linguistic personality, foreign language advanced specialization, integrated teaching, linguistic professional learning environment.

Modern Trends in the Concept of the Evolution of the Transport University Ecosystem

In a volatile economy and globalism, the role of the industry university is being transformed into the competence to integrate new business components inherent in ecosystems. The specificity of the evolution of the ecosystem of a transport university in the context of the transformation of the business paradigm is considered. The object of research is the ecosystem of the university.Methods of systems theory, theory of synergetics, systems analysis and synthesis were used. The materials of the official sites, the current data of the rankings of universities, as well as approaches to the creation of university ecosystems have been analyzed. The main properties and stages of development of the ecosystem of the transport university have been established.The positioning of a modern higher education institution determines the shift of the development paradigm towards the formation of an ecosystem based on the knowledge economy. A transport university, like any third-generation university, has such attributes of a business model based on an ecosystem approach as: synergy and transparency of interaction, decentralization and self-organization. The concept of the university ecosystem is proposed as an innovative format for its development in the management of spatial, personnel, social and technological development of railway transport in Russia, in response to the challenges of the national economy.The results of the study will contribute to the selection by Russian universities of the most effective business models of management in scientific and educational ecosystems, as well as the trajectories of staged development. A promising direction can be the study of the specifics of management in ecosystems not only of industrial universities, but also of network, federal higher educational institutions, as well as universities with a special research status.

МАЛИЙ ТА СЕРЕДНІЙ БІЗНЕС ЯК УЧАСНИК МІЖНАРОДНИХ СТРАТЕГІЧНИХ АЛЬЯНСІВ

The article considers the peculiarities of the construction and functioning of international strategic alliances and the reasons that hinder the participation of Ukrainian small and medium-sized businesses. Recommendations for the development of knowledge-intensive components of small and medium-sized businesses (venture, innovation and manufacturing businesses) and preparation for their participation in international strategic alliances are given: 1. In the conditions of globalization and strengthening of competition companies look for ways of saving of the economic efficiency, increase of competitiveness. One of such ways can be considered an international strategic alliance. ISA is an organizational agreement on long-term cooperation, which provides for the joint use of resources and management structures of two or more independent firms from different countries to implement tasks related to the mission of each of them; ISA is able to promote the innovative development of individual enterprises and the economy of a developing country as a whole; ISAs are an important link in the transfer of technology and other scientific and technical developments of national companies; SMEs with large companies may spread, on the one hand, due to the lack of financial and managerial opportunities for SMEs to develop business and compete with global players in the industry, and, on the other hand, large members of the alliance can count on the flexibility of SMEs and to obtain the results of their scientific and technical work, as well as the expansion of its scientific and technical base through mergers with SMEs or their acquisition; The highest achievement of ISA can be the creation of such innovations and modernization of production at a level that was not even laid down in the formation of the alliance. 2. In order to increase innovation activity, development and preparation of venture, innovation and production small and medium-sized businesses for participation in ISAs, the state must ensure after completion of quarantine: - increasing the investment attractiveness of Ukraine by maintaining political, economic stability and lasting peace in the country; - in the legislative order of creation and stimulation of the competitive environment in the field of venture, innovative and industrial small and average business in perspective branches of economy; – the possibility of using ways to diversify effective financial support for innovative enterprises based on the experience of developed countries; – stimulating bank capital to preferential financing of innovative SMEs in promising industries; – creation of a legislative basis for the development of the “angel network” in Ukraine; – obtaining a mandatory level of financial training through online education for start-ups in order to reduce the risk of using their financial support; – creation and development of regional infrastructure of resource, information, scientific and technical support for SMEs; – organization of training of high-class specialists in the field of support of venture business and organization of works on creation and realization of perspective projects; – sustainable development of the Ukrainian stock market; – improvement of the legal framework in terms of clarifying the functions and principles of venture funds and venture firms in order to eliminate their misuse of tax benefits; – protection of Ukrainian intellectual property abroad.

ОЦІНКА ЕФЕКТИВНОСТІ ФУНКЦІОНУВАННЯ МІСЬКОГО ГРОМАДСЬКОГО ТРАНСПОРТУ

The article considers the main approaches to defining the essence of the concept of "efficiency", which made it possible to formulate the author's vision of the content of this category. Public transport is an important component of public life, development of the country's economy and environmental safety of the population. The world pandemic of coronavirus demonstrated the importance and criticality of the system of public transport for each state, because exactly the restrictions of movement and filling of public transport became an insuperable problem both for citizens and for those components of business and functioning of the country. Under such conditions, the issue of public transport efficiency is particularly acute, because the transport needs of the population must be met not only under uncertainty, but also in the perspective of sustainable development and in line with market and infrastructural circumstances. That is why the research of peculiarities of estimation of efficiency of urban public transport functioning acquires a special topicality. The author has characterised the peculiarities of content and components of efficiency of public transport. The own methodology of effectiveness assessment of public transport operation is presented and the specific set of initial data of such assessment is formulated. As a result, it was possible to approbate the author's method on the data of the system of public transport in. Kiev. Using of methodology and carrying out of evaluation allowed the author to formulate the main substantiated ways of effectiveness increase of public transport and strategic vectors of further development. Analysis of quantitative characteristics of the system of public transport as an economic entity has determined that the main way of increasing its efficiency is increasing the profitability of transportation and number of passengers. As a result of analysis of the quality of public transport services, it is determined that the main directions of increasing their efficiency should be increasing the number of trips and introduction of a more convenient schedule. These are to be the main components of the strategy for further development of public transport in Kiev.

(Р)ЕВОЛЮЦІЯ БАНКІНГУ: ДИСКУСІЇ ТА ПЕРСПЕКТИВИ

The banking paradigm is being transformed because users have changed. They need a new model of service: timely, efficient, profitable and effortless. Banks should be prepared to disclose their data to partners (fintech companies, IT developers, retail chains) using standardized and open application programming interfaces (API). They must also be prepared to connect to new industry platforms, where they act as participants rather than owners of experience and customer relationships. Such a comprehensive transformation takes long time and is determined by the bank’s risk appetite and readiness to digital business. There are classification and main relationships between the terms that denote promising areas of modern banking (Lifestyle-banking, Behavioral banking, Bank-as-a-Service, Open banking, Omnichannel banking, White label banking, Neobanks). It is determined that the concepts of Lifestyle-banking and Behavioral banking are close, but the latter is aimed at the formation of rational financial behavior, which creates a conflict of interests, as financial culture begins to excite the classic bank only when large loan arrears. Omnichannel is an additional characteristic of Lifestyle and Behavioral banks, and all of them are impossible without Open banking. The substructure of Open Banking is the concepts of BaaS and White label banking. To speed up interaction between different stakeholders, Open Banking is based on an API that traditional banks have avoided for security reasons. PSD2 has been introduced as the legal basis for opening bank data of customers with their permission to authorized third-party suppliers. Trends in rethinking banking: digitization of all elements of the banking business; focus on customer needs; cooperation with fintech companies to stimulate innovations; creation of a standardized structure for exchange of banking data through API; abstraction from the peculiarities of each banking system; development of intuitive banking operations; transition to component architectures or modular structures to facilitate and accelerate the development of new services and channels; increasing the level of consumer protection. A comparative characterization of what the banking revolution can give to society as a whole and to each client individually, and the risks that we must be aware of, is given. It is determined what modern banks need to do to increase their competitiveness: review their strategic goals and place more emphasis on consumer experience; use the accumulated analytics for individualized customer service, which will increase profitability; develop a clear and flexible management structure that easily adapts to the changing business environment, provides coherence, adaptability, speed and reliability throughout the ecosystem to turn business components into interchangeable and reusable assembly units of processes or services; identify key indicators, regularly measure them and compile reports, structuring business relationships.

PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPMENT OF SMALL AND MEDIUM BUSINESSES AND MEASURES TAKEN TO SUPPORT IT AT THE STATE LEVEL

In the development of small and medium businesses, there are many problems associated with the weak motivating component of business, the implementation of its state support. The article raises the question of the correlation between the dynamics of the development of small and medium businesses and the measures taken to support them at the state level, and assesses the level of development of small and medium businesses at the state and regional levels. The collected and analyzed factual material made it possible to determine the turning point in changing trends in the development of small and medium businesses, and an attempt to identify the causes of this process, the reduction in the volume of entrepreneurial activity was made.
 The conclusion reached by the authors is as follows: the analysis of national programs of state support for small and medium businesses has shown that the potential opportunities of organizations directly or indirectly involved in providing favorable and comfortable conditions for the development of small and medium businesses are not fully realized. It is necessary to adjust the amounts provided for by national projects for the development and support of entrepreneurship, taking into account the targeting and responsibility for their development.

ESB SOAS Business Based Design Platform in Management Software

An infrastructure that is capable of linking any IT resource is required to merge the old and the new Service-oriented Architecture (SOA). An infrastructure that can rapidly merge and replace facilities to fulfill advanced specifications is essential for being scalable. To be confident, a reliable and secure network is required. The ESB is a network access bus. An ESB is a software interface that enables business components to be combined more efficiently and flexible in a service-based architecture. An ESB enables the complex link, mediation, control and communication of resources.

The Sustainability Stimulus of Malaysian Seaport Cluster toward Competitive Vigilance: The Total Quality Management (TQM) Approach

The quality management is primarily a commercial action, interaction between strategic business components and management practices and supported by seaport users in the seaport cluster. With the progressive approach, a conceptual of seaport quality can be installed into the seaport activities to stimulate the seaports to create and sustain competitive advantage by increasing their ability to respond tousers’ needs through the quality improvement of seaport services as logistics platforms. The Total Quality Management (TQM) can be used to improve the responsiveness of seaport cluster products and services from upstream entities to downstream entities. The quality management focuses on: to satisfaction of customers; reduce cost; improve productivity; and, to optimize the seaport operations. This issue has become apparent within theseaport cluster, whilethe influence of quality on customer perceptions and consumption behavior has become a major factor affecting the end user choice of seaports. Although that quality management provides approaches to achieve such objectives, a limited number of seaports have developed quality-oriented approaches. This paper explores issues related to the total quality management within the seaport cluster, this paper also reviewing on the current situation at Malaysian seaports that are currently using the ISO for improving the organizational performance. A conceptual of seaport quality will be introduced as a framework for excellence for the seaport cluster and may provide the best strategic approach for the seaports at present and in the future. This paper will provide practitioners and policy makers with an indication of the applicability of the quality culture in the seaport cluster.

Rancang Bangun Sistem Informasi Stok Barang Berbasis Website

The arrangement of the stock of goods is a vital component in the trading business, because the availability of goods owned by the number of goods that come out is recorded. This recording is one part of the stock inventory component. A stock of goods is said to be balanced if, incoming goods, outgoing goods and the rest of the goods have a total amount equal to the total number of goods at the time of entry into the warehouse. The main component of other than recording is the flow of goods turnover has a clear track record. The use of information systems can easily keep track records of per unit of goods. This study takes a case regarding the stock of goods at a smartphone shop, the flow of the goods turnover process at the store is unique from other stores, because every day goods or units of goods must be circulated. From these problems, an Inventory System for Web-Based Mobileshops was built, there are several steps of data flow to describe the flow of information and transformations that are applied when data moves from input to output, namely, Event List, Data Flow Diagram, CDM, PDM, and Design. The system user interface is built. PHP and MySQL programming languages ​​are used to build the System. Based on the BlackBox testing carried out, it can be concluded that the Inventory System Design for Web-Based Mobileshop has been successfully built. The features of this system are managing loan application data, managing brand data, cellphones, outgoing goods and incoming goods as well as managing DO and producing output reports of goods going out and goods coming in.

Problems and prospects of the development of modern marketing management

Importance. The development of digital technologies makes business to be more transparent and mainly changes the influence of marketing over brands and companies stability. The scope of the growing number of business components, which influence the customer involvement, becomes the base of constant development of marketing instruments and methods of marketing control. Objectives – to search for the ways of the development of marketing activity control in the dynamically changing contemporary situation. Methods. Management methods, methods of strategic marketing, multipurpose project methods, scientific methods of the study (observation, hypothesis formulation, hypothesis verification) and others. Conclusions and Relevance. The author identified the main problems and perspectives of the development of modern marketing control. On the bases of formulated basic principle of marketing control the article contains the discussion of the instruments, which aim to speed and virtualize the processes of management. On the one hand, the proposed principle of the modern marketing management turns to be a reliable orienting point for identifying advanced technologies and identifying sustainable trends in the development of marketing management methodology. On the other hand, it opens the perspectives of intentional development of methodology in each topical area, in terms of measuring the processes of developing creative delivery of personalized content, monitoring the marketing environment and positioning managed products, brands, the reputation of companies and the business as a whole. The prospects of improvement modern marketing control are related to the quality of data analysis, oriented on quick errors identification in order to learn a lesson, with conscious experimentation new solutions search, with how to compare data with specific results and their re-evaluation, with constant improvement based on feedback.

Determinants of family meetings in private family businesses

PurposeFamily governance mechanisms serve to govern and strengthen relations between the family and the business, as well as the relationships between the members of the business family itself. However, despite agreement on the importance of adopting family governance structures, explicit research on the determinants of family governance mechanisms is currently missing. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to uncover the determinants of family meetings. In order to do so, the social systems theory is used to unravel several determining factors of this crucial form of family governance mechanisms in private family firms.Design/methodology/approachThe authors perform a qualitative study by conducting semi-structured interviews in eight Belgian private family firms in order to discover the antecedents of the implementation of family meetings. The authors use a pattern-matching technique as an analytical strategy.FindingsThe findings of the study highlight the importance of “soft,” relational, qualitative issues as antecedents of family meetings as opposed to previous research on family governance, which predominantly focused on “hard,” quantitative measures (e.g. family ownership). The findings of the study also provide novel insights into the origins of the family component (i.e. family meetings) of family business governance.Originality/valueWhile the current literature has only focused on describing the different types of family governance and their positive consequences for the family firm, the authors take a step back to explain why family meetings, as a form of family governance, are adopted in the first place. Second, the authors demonstrate the instrumentality of the social systems theory in understanding the family's needs that necessitate the implementation of family governance mechanisms.

Augmented reality and virtual reality revolutionize rusiness transformation in digital marketing tech industry analysts and visionaries during Coronavirus (COVID 19)

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are among the new innovations that provide digital marketing platforms with immersive services for Companies.. While several VR/AR applications have been built to reveal details on digital marketing pages, they still lack of comprehensive models which taking into consideration the elements of informal marketing experience in the development of such applications. This study contributes a conceptual model to serve as guidelines for developing a augmented reality that considers an foundations informal learning component in business. This paper provides a thorough overview of new augmented reality (Ar) and virtual reality (VR) technology in ten critical areas where the application of augmented reality and virtual reality is growing at present. The aim of this research is to highlight how the consumer experience in digital marketing is changed and enriched by augmented reality and virtual reality. The authors present the subject of augmented reality and virtual reality briefly. They further describe the technological and hardware technology needed to incorporate a framework of augmented reality and virtual reality and the various types of displays needed to enhance the user interface. Also briefly mentioned is the rise of AR in markets. The implementations of AR are discussed in the three parts of the article. The use of augmented reality and virtual reality as a component of television and gaming is illustrated in multiplayer gaming, electronic games, broadcasting, and immersive films. Manufacturing, beauty industry, healthcare, planning to business, transformation marketing and fight against COVID-19 crisis. This study contributes a conceptual model to serve as guidelines for developing a augmented reality that considers an foundations informal learning component in business.

Tourism Hospitality Industry Supply Chain in Pandeglang Regency After Tsunami 2018

One of fastest growing tourism economic zone is Tanjung Lesung, located in Pandeglang Regency, Banten. Besides Tanjung Lesung Special Economic Zone, Pandeglang Regency has many tourism potentials, which contributes significantly to the regional revenue. As a critical element of tourism, hotels provide accommodation and services for tourists. To provide the services, the flow of goods, services, and information must be designed efficiently and effectively. Unfortunately, the December 2018 Sunda Strait tsunami had impacted hospitality industry and its supply chain severely since then. To support the recovery from the impact of the tsunami, it is important to understand the relationship between each component in the hospitality supply chain in Pandeglang. Hence, this study aims to identify the hospitality supply chain in Pandeglang. The study uses the qualitative approach to describe the main components of the hospitality supply chain and with samples of interviews mostly from official governments and other related organizations within the industry. The result finding indicates that the components in the hospitality business in Pandeglang consist of three main components, namely: supplier, distributor, and customer. In addition, the relationship between components can be more efficient to increase product competitiveness in the tourism market and to support the Pandeglang recovery.

Uncertainty analysis of business components in Iran with fuzzy systems: By comparing hypermarkets and Net markets

Purpose: Today's businesses, especially in Iran, face many factors and challenges, one of which is uncertainty in inputs and laws and regulations. Especially in the current situation and with the development of e-commerce on the one hand and on the other hand despite critical conditions such as COVID-19, the purpose of this article is a comparison between businesses with the study of hypermarkets and net markets. Methodology: This research is a descriptive-analytical type that after explaining the goals and components of organizational business using library resources and Internet search, interviews and questionnaires, from a multi-criteria decision approach and fuzzy logic for effective analysis The implications of organizational business are exploited. Two areas of physical retail businesses such as hypermarkets and virtual ones such as net markets have been compared and analyzed. The necessary decisions for the activities of these businesses are inferred using the principle-based principles of fuzzy systems. Findings: The result of the research has been that due to the capabilities of the development of net markets such as the effective use of information technology and experts, their comprehensive development and growth in the future is more realistic that The ability to extend this to other areas of virtual business. Especially in spite of critical conditions such as the spread of pandemics, the popularity of using net markets has increased. Originality/Value: The virtual and internet business platform has not yet been significantly developed in Iran. The most important approach in this study is to examine the components of business in Iran and a comparative study to change attitudes toward e-business.

Dampak Ekonomi dalam Pengelolaan Homestay di Desa Terong Kabupaten Belitung

Desa Wisata Terong has a high unique selling point. The uniqueness of the Desa Wisata Terong is also equipped with supporting facilities including homestay, Belitung Regency. The number of visits to Desa Wisata Terong January-August 2019 experienced a peak visit in March, May and June with the largest number of visits in June (238) tourists. The number of visits to Desa Wisata Terong in January-August 2019 was as large as 844. Of the number of visits only 0.02% (22) included visitors staying overnight, while the remainder were one day visitors.The longer visitors stay at Homestay the more meaningful the economic contribution of tourism is generated,this underlies the necessary strategy to increase the length of stay of visitors in Desa Wisata Terong. This strategy has implications for the development in accordance with the potential and tourism products such as homestays, food and drinks, souvenirs and transport in Desa Wisata Terong of Belitung Regency. Spending on Homestay visitors from Pancasila University where the composition of the largest expenditure is the culinary business component, which is 55% of the total visitor expenditure

РОЛЬ СОЦІАЛЬНО ВІДПОВІДАЛЬНОГО МАРКЕТИНГУ В ДІЯЛЬНОСТІ ПІДПРИЄМСТВА

The article discusses such concepts as socially responsible marketing, marketing concepts, tools of marketing concepts, social and ethical marketing. The modern tools of realization of social and ethical marketing at the enterprise are analyzed. The main tools of the concept of social-ethical and socially-responsible marketing at the modern enterprise are investigated. The directions on improvement of its activity are offered. The activity of the enterprise is considered, methods on increase of efficiency from realization of the concept of socially responsible marketing are developed. Measures and methods for improving the application of the tools of the concept of socially responsible marketing at the enterprise operating in the domestic market of goods and services are proposed. The methods and ways to increase the effectiveness of the proposed measures on the concept and tools of socially responsible marketing are studied. The analyzed areas of activity of the enterprise provide grounds to say that for modern consumers the issue of social responsibility in general is very important. In the market of modern goods and services where consumers are quite demanding, there are grounds to argue on the relevance of this issue and further active study. On the basis of the analyzed theoretical and practical material on issues of ethics and responsibility, and at the same time the issue of providing reliable information about the production of goods of the enterprise is the main component of effective business. Modern, demanding consumers need an individual approach, starting with the development of idea on the release of goods to the very process of selling goods on the market. That is why this issue is quite relevant and not fully explored. Modern operating conditions dictate more and more requirements for Ukrainian enterprises. That is why every leader is faced with the decision to implement the concept of social responsibility in the development strategy of his enterprise, because, in terms of integration into the world community, social responsibility of doing business is a necessary part and core of enterprise competitiveness. Based on the evolution of marketing concepts, the concept of socially responsible marketing deserves special attention, because it directs its efforts to combine cooperation between consumers, producers and the environment, and therefore society as a whole.

Sport-specific factors affecting location decisions in business to business sport manufacturing companies: a qualitative study in the Alps

International business research has focused on location decision criteria a lot. In contrast to existing studies, this qualitative study examined business to business sport manufacturing companies. The focus was on sport-specific factors influencing the decision-making processes of sport manufacturing companies located in the German-speaking Alps. The results showed that sport-specific factors, such as corporate sport culture, the work ethic in terms of sport, and the location's destination image regarding sport, play key roles in the location decision-making process. Additionally, the spirit of sport is a fixed component of sport businesses' corporate culture. The findings contribute to the sport management literature by adding sport-specific factors influencing location decision-making in the sport industry and suggest a new framework for these factors. Managers and governments could utilise the findings to support their settlement decisions and as advice for benchmarking initiatives.

James Andrews’s “Fashionable Tour”: A Philadelphia Quaker Travels, not without Mishap, Up the Hudson River to Niagara Falls and Back in the Summer of 1821

James Andrews’s “Fashionable Tour”: A Philadelphia Quaker Travels, not without Mishap, Up the Hudson River to Niagara Falls and Back in the Summer of 1821 Dee E. Andrews (bio) and Celeste L. Andrews (bio) Near the end of July 1821, James Andrews, a 25-year old unmarried Philadelphia Quaker, set out to Manhattan to visit his older brother Josiah who had recently moved to the city.1 From Manhattan, Andrews ventured up the Hudson River and across the Mohawk River Valley and western New York to Niagara Falls, a round-trip journey of nearly 1,200 miles, to view what was already recognized as one of the new nation’s great natural wonders. Along the way, he started a diary, initially in the form of a letter to his mother, that quickly turned into a travel journal.2 In the same summer, Gideon Minor Davison, a Saratoga printer, traveled much the same route and beyond to Montréal, Québec, and back by way of Boston, and produced the first of a series of travel guides called The Fashionable Tour from his trip. Davison knew a good thing when he saw it. A primitive version of a Fodors guide, The Fashionable Tour combined local highlights, patriotic anecdotes, and, most importantly, practical advice on transport and accommodations. As its title implies, Davison’s guide presented travel as something status-building and relatively easily accomplished: a fundamental component of the new American business of tourism.3 [End Page 1] The 1820s also marked the beginning of Americans’ explicitly aesthetic and spiritual connection with nature, pioneered by the Hudson River school of landscape art under the commanding influence of British-born Thomas Cole. Cole began his career at the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and ultimately settled in Catskill, New York. Inspired by the Romantic movement and the as-yet unspoiled vistas of the Hudson River Valley, he produced some of the most influential works of any landscape artist and shaped Americans’ perceptions of what the natural world should look like. Cole’s work was driven by the fear that Americans’ long march to improvement would destroy the natural landscape, including the rivers and ancient forests of upstate New York. And he was right: the Erie Canal and urban development were rapidly transforming many of New York’s natural scenes into industrial sites.4 In short, James Andrews came of age at a time when what we today would call environmental tourism and an ethos of naturalism were increasingly familiar to Philadelphians: an appreciation of what Davison, Cole, and Andrews himself, called “the sublime.” Andrews was by no means the first Quaker to make this journey. In October and November 1805, Robert Sutcliff, from York, England, had also gone out of his way to trek from Merion, Pennsylvania to Niagara and back. Along the way Sutcliff attended Nine Partners Quarterly Meeting and visited Nine Partners School, met and stayed with Friends and members of his own family who had emigrated to America, and conducted business. Sutcliff was not disinterested in his surroundings. He writes in detail about the people he meets, remarks on modes of travel, and, as a member of the Romantic generation himself, expresses sympathy for enslaved peoples and Indians and frequently comments on the as yet unchanged natural world of the New York and Pennsylvania interiors. His book includes engravings based on his drawings of Friends meeting houses as well as Niagara Falls.5 Andrews’s trip was different. Apart from visiting his brother in Manhattan, he appears to have met no other Quakers along the way and conducted no business or mission and stayed exclusively at public accommodations. The journal includes a surprisingly enthusiastic rendering, given Andrews’s Quakerism, of Continental Army commander Anthony Wayne’s triumph at Stony Point. But this too was from a family, rather than a religious, connection. General Wayne, like Andrews, came from [End Page 2] Click for larger view View full resolution From the Andrews Family Private Collection, courtesy of the Children of James Andrews, Jr. and Elisabett Bardsley Andrews. [End Page 3] Chester County roots. Andrews would marry Hannah Lloyd, a granddaughter of Hugh Lloyd, a Free Quaker, who had...