Innovation,entrepreneurship, and restaurant performance: A higher-order structural model

Drawing on theories from hospitality, innovation, and entrepreneurship, this study examines a higher-order structural model investigating business innovation, the owners' entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE), and human capital as drivers of restaurant performance. The theoretically derived model was tested on data from 198 café and restaurant owners in Australia. The PLS-SEM analysis found restaurant innovation activities and the owner's ESE to positively influence restaurant performance. Furthermore, the six ESE dimensions had varying effects on restaurant performance, with ‘Developing new product and market opportunities’ having the strongest effect. In contrast, the entrepreneur's ‘human capital’, representing their levels of business ownership experience and entrepreneurship/industry education, did not significantly affect restaurant performance. However, human capital indirectly affected performance through innovation and ESE. The findings of this study advance theories in restaurant entrepreneurship and performance and present important implications for industry authorities to develop a successful and sustainable restaurant sector.     

The Impact of Supplier Development on Financial Performance in the Restaurant Industry

ABSTRACT

Many firms have come to recognize the crucial role that cooperative relationships with suppliers play in determining high financial performance. Of main concern in many firms are supplier development activities and behaviors (SDABs) of buying firms, which are an attempt to meet current and future business needs such as high financial performance by improving supplier performance. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how buying firms' SDABs affect supplier performance (in delivery as well as product and service quality) and its impact on financial performance of the buying firms. The authors critically revisit extant knowledge on the subject, develop a conceptual framework integrating buyer and supplier relationship marketing/management practices, and test the framework in the independent restaurant industry context. Using structural equation modeling and data collected from 236 restaurant owners and/or presidents in the United States, the results of this research support the usefulness of the framework, showing that buying firms' SDABs directly affect supplier performance, which leads to high financial performance of the buying firms.     

Effect of experiential value on customer satisfaction with service encounters in luxury-hotel restaurants

Exactly how the restaurant industry creates good quality service experiences has attracted the attention of scholars and practitioners. Some scholars advocate creating high quality service encounters to enhance customer satisfaction. However, recent research has not examined hotel restaurant service, and a detailed understanding of its potential effects on the customer meal experience and customer satisfaction is needed. Consequently, this study of service encounters and restaurant consumer behavior constructed a comprehensive framework via a literature review. Empirical data were collected by a questionnaire distributed to luxury-hotel restaurant customers. The empirical results indicated that restaurant environmental factors and interactions with service employees and other consumers positively influence the consumer experiential value. Additionally, only interactive relationships with service employees directly and positively affect consumer satisfaction. Restaurant environment factors and interactions with other consumers indirectly and positively influence consumer satisfaction through experiential value. Finally, with respect to marketing and development initiatives, the results of this study can help improve the physical attractiveness of the examined luxury-hotel restaurants.     

Do mindfulness and perceived organizational support work? Fear of COVID-19 on restaurant frontline employees’ job insecurity and emotional exhaustion

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has impacted the restaurant industry tremendously. Building on the Conservation of Resources Theory, the current study investigates the relationships among U.S. restaurant frontline employees’ fear of COVID-19, job insecurity, and emotional exhaustion. The study also examines the moderating role of employee mindfulness and perceived organizational support. SPSS PROCESS macro was used for hypotheses testing. Results suggested that restaurant frontline employees’ fear of COVID-19 was positively associated with both job insecurity and emotional exhaustion. Fear of COVID-19 had an indirect effect on restaurant frontline employees’ emotional exhaustion via job insecurity. Employee mindfulness buffered the positive relationship between fear of COVID-19 and job insecurity. Perceived organizational support was found to intensify the positive relationship between job insecurity and frontline employees’ emotional exhaustion. The research provided useful human resource management practices for U.S. restaurant businesses amid crises such as COVID-19.     

How can the solo dining experience be enhanced? Focusing on perceived territoriality

Europe, Australia, the United States and now Asia have documented recent increases in numbers of “solo” consumptive restaurant dining behavior, representing an emerging worldwide restaurant industry trend. The study’s objectives were designed to explore unchartered solo dining research addressing perceived territoriality as a theoretical foundation for identifying potential physical and psychological boundaries applied to the solo dining context and for examining the relationships between those boundary factors, solo diners’ perceived territoriality, overall satisfaction and revisit intentions. Results showed that restaurant physical and psychological boundaries positively influenced perceived territoriality, leading to positive solo dining satisfaction and revisit intention. Further, this study revealed that solo diners’ motivations significantly moderated the effects of psychological boundaries upon their perceived territoriality. Implications and recommendations for future research are provided.     

Is there an incompatibility between personal motives and social capital in triggering pro-environmental behavioral intentions in urban parks? A perspective of motivation-behavior relations

Drawing from the perspective of motivation-behavior relations, this study explores whether self-transcendent and activating status motives trigger pro-environmental behavioral intentions of residents living nearby urban parks. Meanwhile, this study particularly examines the moderating effect of community social capital and whether there exists an incompatibility between community social capital and personal motives. This study adopts Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) method to conduct data analysis and reveals that self-transcendent and activating status motives positively influence nearby residents' pro-environmental behavioral intentions. The relationships between personal motives and pro-environmental behavioral intentions are negatively affected by community social capital, suggesting that there is an incompatibility between community social capital and personal motives. Furthermore, a positive spillover effect between low and high effort pro-environmental behavioral intentions is noted. These findings provide park and community managers with insights as far as the residents' engagement in urban park sustainability is concerned.     

Triggers of Patrons’ Repeat Purchase for Hotel Restaurant Products

This study was designed to investigate the formation of patrons’ repurchase intentions of a luxury hotel restaurant product by considering the impact of image congruence, quality, and satisfaction. This research also examined if such decision formation differs between first-timers and repeaters and tested the direction of causality between quality and satisfaction. Results indicate that our model sufficiently accounted for the prominent relationships among image congruence, satisfaction, and repurchase intention. Overall, our empirical findings provide both industry practitioners and researchers with a deeper understanding of patrons’ decision-making process for repurchasing the luxury hotel restaurant product.     

The effect of social capital and altruism on seniors' revisit intention to social network sites for tourism-related purposes

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among social capital, altruism, common bond and identity, and revisit intention using social capital, altruism, and attachment theories. A total of 452 responses were generated from consumers 50 years of age and older (seniors), qualified as having used a social network site (SNS) for tourism-related products and services within the past 12 months. Results show that social capital has significant effects on common bond and identity while social capital has a slightly greater effect on common identity than common bond. Altruism has significant effects on common bond and identity whereas altruism has a greater effect on common bond than common identity. Common bond and identity both have significant effects on revisit intention. Noticeably, revisit intention is highly influenced by common identity. Therefore, this study provides new knowledge and recommendations to SNS administrators addressing why seniors use SNSs for tourism-related purposes.     

Working capital,cash holding,and profitability of restaurant firms

Efficient working capital management is becoming important for restaurant firms coping with weak financial conditions and increased economic uncertainty. This study investigates the impact of restaurant firms’ working capital on their profitability. We further examine the effects of firms’ cash levels on the relationship between working capital and profitability. The findings ascertain a strong inverted U-shape relationship between working capital and a firm's profitability, which indicates the existence of an optimal working capital level for restaurant firms. This study also reveals that a firm's cash level is an important factor for efficient working capital management. The results suggest that interactive effects exist among working capital, cash levels, and profitability. Thus, restaurant managers should consider these different roles and impacts when developing an efficient working capital management strategy. Detailed results and implications are presented in the main body of this paper.     

Restaurant chain’s corporate social responsibility messages on social networking sites: The role of social distance

Considering the large influence of social media on the restaurant chain industry, finding effective communication strategies to interact with customers is critically important. The purpose of the study was to investigate how restaurant chain’s CSR messages on social networking sites affect brand value and social distance. Data were collected from 403 social media users with a dining experience at a U.S. restaurant chain. A two-step structural equation model and a two by two between-subject experimental design were conducted for this study. The perception of CSR messages on SNS positively affects customer’s social distance and the restaurant’s brand credibility, and consequently enhance the brand equity. Restaurant chain’s concrete (vs. abstract) CSR messages on SNS has a positive influence on customers’ brand equity when their social distance is close (vs. distant). The study highlights the importance of shortening social distance to enhance brand equity when developing CSR messages on SNS.     

Understanding the dimensions of customer relationships in the hotel and restaurant industries

The purposes of this research were, first, to examine the dimensionality of hospitality customer relationships and, second, to develop a multi-dimensional customer relationship scale validated with both antecedent measures of marketing effectiveness and effect measures of financial performance. While hospitality marketing research has frequently focused on the relationships between various marketing actions and different dimensions of customer relationships, there is a lack of research examining customer relationships as a multi-dimensional construct. For both the hotel and restaurant industries, scale development procedures with confirmatory factor analyses were used to identify the dimensions of customer relationships: engagement, motivation, commitment, cross-buying, word of mouth, and defection. The nomological validity of these dimensions was tested using the antecedent of service quality and the effect of customer lifetime financial value. The paper concludes by articulating, first, the theoretical and practical applications of the proposed scale and, second, an agenda for future research.     

How to create competitive advantage: the moderate role of organizational learning as a link between shared value,dynamic capability,differential strategy,and social capital

Based on the organizational strategy and capability perspective, we theorized a serial mediation-moderation analysis that links critical beneficial attributes of dynamic capabilities, differential strategies, social capital, shared goals, and organizational learning to creating competitive advantage. Results from a survey of 328 travel agencies were analysed to support our hypotheses. We found that travel agencies’ shared goals may influence competitive advantage through the characteristics of dynamic capability development, differential strategy implications, and social capital accumulation. We also found that organizational learning is the most critical attribute for improving the relationships between shared goals, dynamic capabilities, and social capital to achieve competitive advantage. The implications of these findings for managerial and theoretical frameworks are also discussed.     

Human Capital,Organizational Orientations and Performance: Evidence From the Restaurant Industry

ABSTRACT

The study examines how human capital combines with and influences organizational orientations to determine performance. Specifically, this study investigates small restaurant businesses’ ability to effectively exploit intangible resources and capabilities, rather than tangible resources, in order to produce sustainable competitive advantage. A structured questionnaire was used to survey owners/managers of small independent restaurants in the United States. The results demonstrate that human capital, market orientation and entrepreneurial orientation serve as intangible resources and capabilities that can augment the competitive position of independent restaurants, and thereby improve performance. Human capital also combines with and influences the adoption of market orientation and subsequent performance.     

Mechanism of customer value in restaurant consumption: Employee hospitality and entertainment cues as boundary conditions

Food quality and employee task performance have been demonstrated to positively influence customer evaluations of restaurant dining experience. This study extends previous research by incorporating customer affective responses to examine the mediating processes underlying the relationships between customer perceptions of task performance/food quality and perceived value. The moderating influences of employee hospitality and entertainment cues on the relationships between customer perceptions of task performance/food quality and their affective responses were also examined. Results from surveying 308 customers of full-service restaurants showed that customer affective responses mediate the relationships between task performance/food quality and perceived value. The results also indicated that the relationship between food quality and affective responses increases with employee hospitability. However, employee hospitability negatively moderates the relationship between task performance and affective responses. Additionally, strong entertainment cues positively reinforce the relationship between task performance and affective responses, but do not significantly affect the relationship between food quality and affective responses.     

Structural Relationships among Health Benefits,Price Comparison,and Price Fairness

This study was to identify the crucial role of health benefits and price fairness in an environmentally friendly restaurant context and to examine relationships among health benefits, price comparison, and price fairness. Valid responses were collected from 421 visitors to an environmentally friendly restaurant. Results showed that the hypothesized model fits the data well but revealed no moderating effect of belief in health benefits on perceptions of price fairness. Therefore, an alternative model was proposed to reflect the findings from the original model that was statistically superior. Findings contribute to advancing knowledge about perceptions of price fairness in environmentally friendly dining services.     

Capital structure in the hospitality industry: The role of the asset-light and fee-oriented strategy

An asset-light and fee-oriented strategy (ALFO), which reduces risk and facilitates firm growth with minimum capital investment, has increasingly gained attention from industry practitioners and academic scholars alike, especially in the service sector like the hospitality industry. We empirically examine how ALFO is employed and how it is related to the capital structure, i.e. the proportion of debt and equity financing, in hospitality firms. Using a sample of 982 firm-year observations over the period 2002–2016, we find that ALFO is widely used by the hospitality industry, and as expected, the fee-income ratio and the degree of franchising have increased, while asset tangibility and capital intensity have decreased. Interestingly, although ALFO is positively related to long-term debt ratios of hospitality firms, our sub-sector analyses indicate that the relationship is only significant in the restaurant sector and not in the hotel sector. Our study contributes to the literature by identifying an important industry-specific variable that affects the capital structure of hospitality firms.     

The restaurant — a place for quality control and product maintenance?

The development of an awareness of quality control and product maintenance within the restaurant business should be regarded as an important facet of, not only the product-mix, but also of the marketing-mix strategy. From the management's point of view the development of a standard quality product that is precisely costed and documented has financial, organisational and marketing implications; from the employees' point of view, it has participatory and productivity implications; but, most importantly, from the customer's point of view, the sustained attainment of his perception of quality expectations should result in greater customer satisfaction, fewer complaints and a higher level of repeat and recommended business.     

人力资本、社会资本及心理资本对酒店员工的协同作用

酒店是劳动密集型的工作场所,员工不仅需要一定的人力资本,而且更需要社会资本与心理资本,研究这3种资本对酒店员工绩效与组织承诺的协同作用具有理论与现实意义。文章通过实地调研,运用逐步回归方法实证探讨这一问题,研究结果表明：酒店员工的人力资本、社会资本和心理资本都与员工绩效、组织承诺显著相关,且心理资本与社会资本、人力资本能对员工绩效、组织承诺产生协同作用。因此,酒店应该重视员工的社会资本与心理资本,并协同开发这3种资本,以便提高员工绩效,减少流失率。     

Creating New Relationships Through Tourism: A Qualitative Analysis of Tourist Motivations of Older Individuals in Japan

The current study is an exploration to examine older Japanese individuals’ motivations for travel. The study employed an open-ended survey and in-depth interviews in order to gain insight into the creation of human relationships through tourism. Our results show that tourism is perceived as offering extraordinary opportunities to meet new people, and to form and develop new relationships by Japanese older individuals, who experience fewer opportunities to interact with other people in their everyday lives compared to individuals in younger generations. In particular, distinct features of tourism settings, such as liminality and touristic communitas, allow older tourists to express themselves more freely by escaping from their existing relationships as well as from many social norms, hierarchies, and prohibitions.     

Restaurant's decision to purchase local foods: Influence of value chain activities

In this paper we investigate how restaurant managements’ attitudes and behaviors influence decisions to purchase local foods as inputs to their products. An enhanced investigation of chefs’ and managers’ decision-making criteria could improve understanding of local food systems linkages with the restaurant industry. We apply a value chain framework to investigate activities that influence restaurants’ decision to purchase local foods. Results indicate that attitudes and behaviors associated with sourcing and product characteristics play an important role in local food purchase decisions in the restaurant value chain. Order processing time and uniqueness of products are the most significant reasons in restaurant managements’ decisions to purchase local foods. The implications of these findings for restaurants and producers are discussed. Our study contributes to the literature by expanding upon the criteria used by restaurants to make local food purchasing decisions.