Entrepreneur's Dilemma: Hotel Investments in Emerging Markets

Estimating the required rate of return for hotel properties is a daunting task because a lodging property is considered a hybrid between a real estate asset, and a revenue-generating enterprise affiliated with a hotel brand. Computing the expected rate of return for a hotel becomes even more complicated when a third party foreign investor/entrepreneur is the one performing the computation for an investment hotel in an emerging country. This clinical case illustrates the challenges surrounding the estimation of a project’s cost of equity in the multinational hotel industry. The results reveal that estimating cost of equity in emerging markets for hotel investments continues to be a conundrum. Future investors should make multiple adjustments and use several models when making their capital investment decisions.

The Beacon, July 27, 2011

Vol. 23, Issue 5, 8 pages

The Beacon, December 3, 2010

Vol. 24, Issue 43, 12 pages

Youth and power in the village hybrid chiefdoms in Fiji

The purpose of this study is to provide an alternative approach in analyzing social hybrid situations. The study is based on fieldwork conducted in 1995 in the village of Nasautoka, Fiji. The suggested analysis for hybrid cases is based on Anthony Giddens's structuration theory, with an emphasis on the concept of "agency" and "signification" rules. Giddens conceptualizes agents as both knowledgeable and reflexive. The agent is not viewed as passive and impotent as he paces through social life. Signification rules are extremely useful in analyses of symbolic orders, and shed light on the meaning of both "new" and "old" symbols as they manifest themselves simultaneously in Nasautoka. Of paramount importance is that these new symbols are unfolding beside the "old" symbols represented by the vanua. The vanua is a Fijian social structure with both sociocultural and physical dimensions. The current hybrid is exemplified by two merging structures and by the contrasting reactions of three groups within the village.

Alienated Selfhood and Heroism: A Poststructuralist Reading of John le Carré’s Spy Fiction Novels

John le Carré’s novels “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” (1963), “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (1974), and “The Tailor of Panama” (1997), focus on how the main characters reflect the somber reality of working in the British intelligence service. Through a broad post-structuralist analysis, I will identify the dichotomies - good/evil in “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,” past/future in “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” and institution/individual in “The Tailor of Panama” - that frame the role of the protagonists. Each character is defined by his ambiguity and swinging moral compass, transforming him into a hybrid creation of morality and adaptability during transitional time periods in history, mainly during the Cold War. Le Carré’s novels reject the notion of spies standing above a group being celebrated. Instead, he portrays spies as characters who trade off individualism and social belonging for a false sense of heroism, loneliness, and even death.