This article examines the effect on price of different characteristics of holiday hotels in the sun-and-beach segment. The effect on price is estimated under the hedonic function perspective by means of random effect models, known also as mixed or panel models. Some 82,000 prices were gathered between 1991 and 1998 from tour operator catalogues. The study reveals huge price differences between 4-star hotels and the rest, coupled with practically no difference between 1-star and 2-star hotels. Other attributes with a significant effect on price are town, hotel size, distance to the beach and availability of parking place. The results can assist hotel managers in shaping pricing and investment strategies.Keywords: pricing; hedonic functions; hotels; random effect models; hierarchical models.This article studies the effect on prices of the different characteristics or attributes of a holiday hotel in the sun-and-beach segment. Such attributes include, among others, the town in which the hotel is located, star category, size, and the services available to guests. Prices are examined from the supply perspective, assuming that the hotel market is in a monopolistic competition situation in which the hotel manager can differentiate its offer. We consider tour operators' prices, which coincide with what most tourists pay as tour operators constitute the most frequent distribution channel for tourist hotels in the sun-and-beach market segment (Espinet, 1999).

Species invasion is one of the leading mechanisms of global environmental change, particularly in freshwater ecosystems. We used the Food and Agriculture Organization's Database of Invasive Aquatic Species to study invasion rates and to analyze invasion pathways within Europe. Of the 123 aquatic species introduced into six contrasting European countries, the average percentage established is 63%, well above the 5%-20% suggested by Williamson's "tens" rule. The introduction and establishment transitions are independent of each other, and species that became widely established did so because their introduction was attempted in many countries, not because of a better establishment capability. The most frequently introduced aquatic species in Europe are freshwater fishes. We describe clear introduction pathways of aquatic species into Europe and three types of country are observed: "recipient and donor" (large, midlatitude European countries, such as France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, that give and receive the most introductions), "recipient" (most countries, but particularly southern countries, which give few species but receive many), and "neither recipient nor donor" (only two countries). A path analysis showed that the numbers of species given and received are mediated by the size (area) of the country and population density, but not gross domestic product per capitaFinancial support was provided by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (REN2002-10059-E and REN2003-00477) and the Catalan Ministry of Universities, Research and Information Society (Catalan Government Distinction Award for University Research 2004 to E.G.B.

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This paper examines the scope, types, and degree of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices currently employed in human resource management (HRM) in Spain, and its determinants. It analyses firm, employee, and job‐related characteristics which affect the implementation of CSR in HRM. It also offers an overview of the current situation regarding CSR in HRM for a wide range of economic sectors, employees, job characteristics, and HRM practices. Information is obtained from employees rather than CEOs. Results show that companies do not engage in CSR practices to the same extent. The scope of CSR differs among types of HRM practices. The practices curently applied are grouped more according to type than to degree of responsibility. Another relevant result is that some variables such as a firm's dimension, have a clear effect on the likelihood that an employee benefits from responsible labour practices, but their effects generally vary for different types of practices. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Different single-item and multiple-item scales are used as subjective indicators of well-being in the international arena. However, very few cross-cultural studies exist into subjective indicators of well-being among adolescent populations. In this study, three different multi-item scales, variations of these scales and several single items -all of them previously used separately in international research-were tested together on 12 to 16-year-old adolescents in 4 different countries with Latin-based languages (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Spain). The scales are the PWI (Cummins, Eckersley, van Pallant, Vugt, Misajon, et al.

z Two distinctly different quantitative approaches are used to evaluate measurement instruments: the split-ballot experiment and the multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) approach. The first approach is typically used to indicate whether variation in the method causes differences in the response distribution; the second approach evaluates the reliability and validity of different methods. The new approach, suggested in this paper, combines the more attractive features of both methods. The strength of the split-ballot experiment is its use of independent random samples from the same population to provide information about differences in response distributions. This is also possible with the new approach, but this approach provides more detailed information about the reasons We thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology through the grant SEC2003-04476.

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