The Meaning of Applied Creativity in the Culinary Industry

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to present a study which explores the origin of applied creativity in the culinary industry, in Taiwan. A total of 36 Chinese and Western cuisine chefs from five-star hotels and top restaurants were interviewed to provide the data from this study. The findings indicate that the role of applied creativity in the culinary industry has played a key role in culinary change and evolution in Taiwan. Culinary creativity has its own distinct characteristics, such as time limitations and market acceptance, which are acquired through building blocks of professional skills and experience. The study contributes to understanding the role of applied creativity in the culinary industry.     

Creativity,self-expression and leisure

The links between creativity, self-expression and leisure practices are underexplored within leisure literature. Despite research that documents the centrality of leisure as a worked-at process of self-actualisation and self-identity, the practice of leisure is still predominately viewed as one of consumption rather than production and of passivity rather than creativity. This paper, supported by empirical evidence through qualitative research into the lives of users of the leisure spaces of the ‘provincial bohemia’ of the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle upon Tyne, argues that there is a strong component of creativity in this group’s leisure activity. This component, we argue, has, in recent years, become more important for ‘aesthetic-reflexive’ social actors in particular, as acts of self-authored and individual-expressive creativity have become more central to economic production, and to social identity. The rise in creative leisure is strongly linked to the valorisation of the romantic-artistic ethic of inalienable creative self-expression and the rejection of mass and putatively passive forms of leisure consumption common within previous Fordist modes of economic production and social ordering.     

Mapping the constructs of a business tourist service quality scorecard model

Abstract

The researchers sought to conceptualize models related to Service Quality (SQ), Balanced Scorecard (BSC), Customer Satisfaction (CS), and Customer Retention (CR). These models are evident within the tourism industry, but are not confirmed in business tourism. The empirical testing of a Service Quality Scorecard (SQSC) as a comprehensive SQ model, for explaining Business Tourist (BT) retention is proposed. Data was analyzed through a structural equation modeling procedure, resulting in a business tourist service quality scorecard (BT SQSC) causal model for the testing of SQ in the BT industry. Findings provide implications for business tourism practitioners to encourage business tourism performance.     

Trends in business tourism management

There has been significant growth in the business travel sector of tourism, which includes both individual travel and organized group arrangements, eg for conferences, conventions and exhibitions. This article considers the various types of business travel, the influences on demand, and trends in development of facilities.     

International tourism demand and the business cycle

The focus of this study is on presenting causes and hypotheses for the existence of asymmetric income and price effects on tourism demand across business cycles. The theoretical assumptions were tested by analyzing tourism import demand in different source markets, drawing on econometric models that provide for the magnitudes of price and income effects either to vary depending on the phase of the business cycle or to remain stable across the business cycles. The major outcome of this study is that the general assumption in most of the tourism demand studies—i.e. that the income effects are symmetric—should not be expected to be automatically true for every source market.     

Knowledge Cooperation Diversification Strategy for Tourism Scholar Creativity: The Moderating Role of Tie Strength

This study proposes a novel theoretical framework for studying different perspectives on knowledge diversity and creativity, including both the benefits and costs of knowledge searching across different fields of expertise. Data on 1,340 tourism scholars over 31 years show a consistent horizontal S-shaped relationship between knowledge diversity and creativity. Furthermore, tourism scholars who invested more effort in maintaining good relationships with partners, such as through network ties, achieved greater profitability gains from cooperation diversification strategies and scholar creativity. Our framework and findings highlight the complexity and temporal dynamics among tourism cooperation networks.     

Measuring Employee's Creativity: A New Theoretical Model and Empirical Study for Tourism Industry

Based on the componential theory of creativity, this research built and tested a new theoretical model that links the 4P model (people, product, place, and process) with creativity via several intervening variables. Survey data and two-step structural equation modeling were used to evaluate a sample of 338 employees surveyed from 57 tourism and hospitality organizations in Taiwan. As anticipated, we found that people (e.g. personality) positively affected place (e.g. organizational environment and participation) and creative process (e.g. data collection, idea generation, and confirmation), which in turn influenced product outputs of creativity and satisfaction.     

基于《旅游学刊》关键词计量分析的旅游学科创新力及知识体系构建

既有研究有少量以关键词为研究对象来探讨旅游学科相关信息,然鲜见对学科创新力及知识体系演变与构建的研究。文章以《旅游学刊》2000—2014年载文的书写关键词为研究对象,运用文献计量可视化软件CiteSpace进行数据统计分析,结合内容分析,创新性地将学科创新力测评及知识体系演变结合研究。结果显示：（1）学科创新潜力、创新活力和创新保持力分呈变异V形和倒V形,除2000—2004年的创新潜力和创新活力变化稍大外,2000—2004年的创新保持力、2005—2009年及2010—2014年的各项创新力较为稳定;（2）学科知识体系演变由学科内容及方法的演变来展现,内容为数量-质量-精神层次的演变,方法为质性方法-量化方法-质与量结合的演变;（3）构建由研究内容、方法及目的3大部分组成的旅游学科知识体系框架。文章探讨以《旅游学刊》单一期刊为研究对象,理论建构依据的是“分析性归纳”,强调的是“典型性”,反映的是“高水准旅游学术刊物”这一同质化范围内。     

Teleconferencing and its effects on business travel

With escalating travel and convention costs some organizations are looking to teleconferencing by satellite as a possible solution. Although with certain disadvantages over the conventional meeting, it can allow for a maximum of cost-effective information exchange over a geographically disparate area. The author provides an overview of this young industry and discusses what effects teleconferencing will have on business travel.     

The development of a conceptual model of greening in the business events tourism sector

This paper examines the process of corporate greening, and proposes a general conceptual model of the process, which may be relevant in a number of different corporate sectors. The model includes drivers of greening and barriers to greening and also the organisational context in which greening decisions are taken. In addition, this paper considers the role of media coverage in influencing pro-environmental behaviour amongst organisations. The paper then tests the model in one particular tourism context – that of business events – in order to ascertain the specific nature of the corporate greening process in that context. The paper concludes that the general model may be applied to a number of industry sectors, and the model specific to business events tourism may be used to underpin future research in this area.     

Strategic planning and business performance in the quoted UK hotel sector: results of an exploratory study

The purpose of this study was to conduct an exploratory investigation of the relationship between strategic planning and business performance. A multidimensional model of 11 variables was formulated after a review of the strategic planning-performance literature. Data were obtained from 63 hotel units representing eight quoted hotel companies, and various planning-performance relationships were examined. The results indicated that the key planning characteristics of throughness, sophistication, participation, and formality were positive, and in most cases significantly related, to seven indicators of business performance.     

The relevance of business cycles in forecasting international tourist arrivals

Casual empiricism suggests that there may be a cyclical trend associated with international tourist arrivals in which variation around the linear trend can be formed by the interaction with other cyclical phenomena. This paper employs a simple model that incorporates a linear trend and sine function to capture these two characteristics in forecasting international tourist arrivals in Hong Kong. The model is extended to include a set of sine functions through the application of Fourier analysis to account for situations in which more than one phenomenon may be present in the time series. The forecasting accuracy of the model is compared with other forecasting approaches. Evaluation of the results using the mean absolute percentage error measure show that the forecasting performance of the extended model with a linear trend and two sine functions is superior in terms of accuracy when compared with other forecasting models.     

A hotel sustainability business model: evidence from Slovenia

This research explores and develops a hotel sustainability business model (HSBM) to study the sustainability orientation of the Slovenian hotel industry. Based on a comparative analysis of the existing sustainability and triple bottom line models, the usual content of a three-line HSBM (economic, environmental and sociocultural) was extended to include customer satisfaction, environmental education and power to implement changes. Financial, marketing and tourism sustainability experts investigated best practices in sustainability measurements and gathered appropriate sustainability indicators; expert opinion and the Delphi method refined and reduced an initial 79 indicators to 36 operational indicators, able to fulfil the HSBM's sub-categories within the extended triple bottom line. The HSBM's concept was used to study the sustainability of Slovenian hotel firms to reveal how important these indicators are for hotel managers and do they monitor them. Results indicated strong importance and measurement of economic and marketing indicators, such as profitability and customer satisfaction. Following the socialist tradition, companies recognise the importance of human resources, but the importance of environmental education and awareness building, biodiversity, and the establishment of partnerships with stakeholders to implement sustainable tourism development are neglected. Economic performance was, for example, monitored by 66% of respondents, environmental performance by 28% and social performance by 42%.     

Deterrents of tourism business crowdfunding: Aversion decision and aversion behavior

Crowdfunding has been recently suggested as an effective means for tourism business founders to gain financial support. Yet, few business founders in tourism have employed the method to fund their business creation and development. Using the behavioral decision model in complex and uncertain business situations, this qualitative study explored the deterrents to crowdfunding adoption and the factors that shape the perception of the deterrents in tourism business founders. The data collected by in-depth and face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 22 informants. Our findings revealed a combination of perceived personal, social and contextual deterrents that avert crowdfunding adoption decision and actual behavior. More specifically, our analysis explored attitude towards crowdfunding, perceived control over using crowdfunding, social norms and perceived contextual feasibility of crowdfunding as the determinants of crowdfunding aversion decision and aversion behavior. This study contributes deeper insights into tourism business financial management and crowdfunding policy, theory, practice and research development.     

A volunteer worker placement model for business

Volunteer workers contribute significantly to the enhancement of their communities as travel destinations. The challenge to the strategic managers of tourism activities is to properly match volunteers' needs and their potential for contribution with organizational reward capabilities and task requirements. However, unique difficulties arise in achieving optimal volunteer placements because unpaid workers require opportunities for the satisfaction of personal needs which are discernably different in priority from the satisfactions sought by financially compensated workers. Thus, organizations' existing reward systems must be adaptive to the unique demands of these special work relationships. As an aid in this internal adjustment, a Volunteer Worker Placement Model is presented which is designed to provide tourism businesses with a conceptual and practical technique for understanding and diagnosing the “inducements-contributions” nature of volunteer task assignments.     

The asset-light business model and firm performance in complex and dynamic environments: The dynamic capabilities view

Although academic research examining the effects of the asset-light business model continues to grow in the tourism and hospitality literature, the extant studies lack comprehensive theoretical foundations to develop and establish clear quantitative models of analysis. Inconsistent findings from these studies call into question the issue of their exploratory nature. Using the dynamic capabilities view, this study provides a solid conceptual framework that recognizes the asset-light business model as an industry-specific dynamic capability for lodging firms. Furthermore, this study extends recent theoretical accounts on the moderating role of environments in the dynamic capabilities-performance relationship by focusing on the service-oriented and cyclical nature of the tourism and hospitality industry. Incorporating industry-specific performance measures, the current study suggests an alternative approach to the analysis of performance of a lodging firm. The findings also provide important implications to help lodging owners, managers, and investors to strategically cope with complex and dynamic environments.     

Successful managerial behaviour for farm-based tourism: A functional approach

Despite the overall growth of rural tourism, not all have benefited equally. This study reports research designed to improve managerial performance in the rural tourism sector in Korea. Six areas are identified as being important: product/service development, business planning and evaluation, promotions, human resource management, networking, and cost reduction. It was found managers in farm-based tourism have primarily concentrated on product/service development, human resource management, and cost reduction. Of these areas, only product/service development and promotions have exhibited a statistically significant effect on real profits and on positive subjective evaluations of financial results. Based on these results, this study suggests that continuous investment in product/service development and promotions should have positive effects on operations and result in increased competitiveness and viability in the Korean farm tourism sector.     

An exploratory analysis of turnover culture in the hotel industry in Australia

This study explores the concept of turnover culture in the hotel industry, drawing on the extensive literature on both organisational culture and turnover. A questionnaire was developed and administered to non-supervisory hotel employees. Using a cluster analytic approach, nine distinct clusters of variables were produced. One cluster containing pertinent turnover and organisational culture variables was isolated from other clusters as turnover culture. The implications for management practice in controlling a turnover culture are examined, as is the need for further research into this concept.     

Important attributes of lodgings to gain repeat business: A comparison between individual travels and group travels

The purpose of this study is to investigate the attributes of the satisfaction that are related to the lodging-guests’ tendency to revisit the lodgings and to compare these attributes among the different travel styles, such as individual travel, travel with friends or as a couple, and travel with family. We examine 6351 guest evaluations from a highly popular travel reservations website. Multinomial logistic regression analyses are performed and they show that the important attributes for lodgings to gain repeat business vary among their guest's travel styles.     

Human capital in the Dubai hotel industry: A study of four- and five-star hotels and the HR challenges they face

Dubai brands itself as an international leisure and business center and home to the luxury hotel market. While hotel growth has been, and continues to be rapid, little is known about hotel employees, their demographics or how they feel about working in this industry. This article reports the findings of what is the first review of Dubai hotel human capital, noting there are significant difference in workforce demographics to other countries, for example, it is male dominated, highly educated, and employees note positive levels of organizational social capital. It also highlights potential challenges going forward.