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organisational norms and standards. Obviously,
since the behaviour precedes disciplinary action,
this system is reactive in nature. For instance, an
airline employee may be disciplined for arriving
late to work. The other type, normally referred to
as preventive discipline, is proactive in the sense
that it attempts to establish a means of directing
employee behaviours.
The traditional approach includes two types of
popular discipline systems: the hot stove approach
and progressive discipline. The hot stove approach
represents what many would think of as conventional
management wisdom: if one touches a hot
stove, he or she gets burned. From an organisational
perspective this mean when a rule is broken
the employee is disciplined. The advantage of this
approach is that it clearly establishes rules.
However, the disadvantage is that it punishes a
good employee as severely as it does a poor one.
For example, assume that two travel agents were
late for work. One has been consistently late and
has other problems at work. The other is a model
employee. The hot stove approach requires that
both be disciplined in the same way, even though
one employee is clearly doing a better job than the
other. Like the hot stove approach, progressive
discipline also relies on clear and complete
definition of behaviours that will be punished and
the type of punishment that will be meted out for
each infraction. A progressive discipline programme
might include, for instance, a rule that
an employee who is tardy to work once will receive
an oral warning, an employee who is tardy twice
will receive a written warning, an employee who is
tardy three times will be suspended and so on. This
step-by-step approach to discipline is very popular,
probably because it intuitively sounds like a good
system. In addition, this type of approach generally
proves that management has given the employee
every opportunity to perform. This evidence might
be valuable later.
For example, in the United States this information
is often used in court cases to prove that an
employee should have been released from his/her
job. Without this, many former employees have
won large court settlements because of what is
know as `unlawful discharge'. Most progressive
discipline programmes include four steps: oral reminders,
written reminders, paid decision-making
leave and discharge. In each stage of this process
except discharge, the emphasis is on positively
encouraging good behaviour.
discount pricing see pricing
discourse
ROBERT H. WOODS, USA
A discourse is the statements or talk constituting a
social language about a subject. That talk constructs
the message in certain `lights', collectively
constraining other ways of seeing and knowing. In
tourism, those within a state agency, travel trade
association or particular population may
�through their speech and writing) consciously or
unconsciously privilege certain representations of
history, nature and so on, denying rival explanations.
discretionary travel
KEITH HOLLINSHEAD, UK
Discretionary travel comprises all non-compulsory
forms of tourism. It is engaged in after fulfilling
obligatory trips related to institutional and social
responsibilities, such as work and family. Occurring
in leisure time, the journeys are perceived as
pleasurable. The trips can be measured objectively
through time budget studies or subjectively
through perception of the degree of freedom of
choice.
discriminant analysis
discriminant analysis 153
DAVID J. TELFER, CANADA
Discriminant analysis is a multivariate statistical
technique used to estimate the relationship between
a single categorical dependent variable �such
as tourist versus non-tourist) and a set of metric
�interval or ratio level) independent variables. The
primary objective of this analysis is to understand
differences among the groups �as defined by the