Azhar Ahmad

Corporate Meeting Destination Choice: The Influences of Consumption Value, Organizational Structure and Personality

ABSTRACT This study attempts to explore the relationships among novelty preference for corporate meeting destination choice, consumption value, organizational structure, and personality. A total of 75 corporate meeting planners from public listed service organizations were involved. The data was collected through questionnaire survey which was then analysed using multiple regression analysis. The results revealed that consumption value and personality contributed significantly to the prediction of novelty preference for corporate meeting destination choice. Interestingly, there was no statistical support found on the effect of organization structure on meeting destination choice. Finally, this study relates the importance of segmentation and targeting in the corporate meeting market. The study also helps bridge the gap between tourism marketing and organizational research.

ANALYZING THE IMPACT OF FIRM’S EMBEDDEDNESS IN A CENTRALIZED SUPPLY NETWORK STRUCTURE ON RELATIONAL CAPITAL OUTCOMES

Abstract This research looks at the different effects of firms’ network structural positions in an upstream supply network upon the firms’ level of relational capital outcomes. Previous research largely focused on the context of decentralized network structure. However, the supply network is a centralized network because of the existence of the focal firm. The existence of the focal firm may influence the impact of relational capital outcomes. Hence, the objective of this research is to determine the type of network structural positions required to obtain a reasonable relational capital outcome in upstream supply network. This study found that network structural positions, i.e. degree centrality contributed to firms’ level of relational capital trust. Hence, a firm embedded in upstream supply network benefits differently in terms of relational capital through different degree of embeddedness. The firm resources should be re-aligned to match the benefits of the different network structural positions.