Current Issue's Features (Volume 11 Number 2, October 2011 - March 2012)

Japan has constructed a notable model for transforming external crisis into a springboard for new innovation. This can be attributed to technology substitution for constrained production factors inspired by induced bias in innovation. Because of the current global economic stagnation, Japan's model has drawn global concerns. However, the limit of a substitution model in a production function has been revealed in an information society, leading to an increasing significance of the integration of production, diffusion and consumption functions. Consequently, the emergence of supra-functionality encompassing social, cultural, aspirational and emotional needs beyond economic value, leading to utmost gratification of consumption, has become critical. Since a group of consumers with a disability is more demanding of supra-functionality, an empirical reasearch based on an analysis of the demand of such a group and the institutional impediments that hinder the group's ability to achieve utmost gratification was conducted. Japan's mobile phone development trajectory was used for the analysis as its development trend corresponded to emerging from a disability of effective utilization of information technology (IT) in the paradigm shift to an information society and was typical of Japanese institutions in a constrained circumstance.

Rural Destinations and Tourists' Satisfaction............

Past studies have shown that good service quality often leads to a better performance and higher satisfaction level. This study examines service quality dimensions and its impact on Bario, a rural tourism destination in Malaysia. Five dimensions of service quality namely, places of interest, sceneries, outdoor activities, atmosphere, and motives interest, have been chosen as the focus of this study on tourists' satisfaction. This study focuses on tourists, who visited Bario between August 2009 and January, 2010, as a population of interest. One hundred and forty six local and foreign tourists participated in this study, which attempted to add to the sparse research and to bridge the gap between service quality and tourists' satisfaction in the rural destination. The analysis has shown that different service quality components had various impacts on tourists' satisfaction. The results of this study propose that places, outdoor and atmosphere are the important dimensions to enhance tourists' satisfaction. Implications of the findings, potential limitations of the study, and directions for future research, are discussed.

"JSR has an International editorial board and has representation from the academia both from Indian and foreign universities. The editorial advisory board is still being expanded."                           

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