Constructing a relationship-based brand equity model

The purpose of this study is to develop and test a model in which several aspects of the service encounter including service staff, servicescape, customer similarity, and customer interaction are taken into account simultaneously as antecedents of relationship quality and generation of brand equity. Testing the hypotheses involved two service settings, banks and department stores. The findings demonstrate that serviced staff and customer interaction have significant direct effects on brand equity. Surprisingly, four variables of service encounter have significant indirect effects through relationship quality on brand equity. Based on these findings, the implications for managers and future research are identified.     

Self-drive tourism attributes: influences on satisfaction and behavioural intention

Self-drive tourism differs from other types of tourism in many aspects, such as the importance of accessibility by roads and the attractiveness of multiple destinations along the way. Little research has investigated self-drive tourism attributes systematically. Moreover, the consequences of these attributes, namely, tourist satisfaction and post-visit behavioural intentions, have not been examined. This study aims to fill these gaps. The study is based on 377 observations collected in Xinjiang Province, China, which is a popular domestic self-drive tourism destination. Results show that two factors of self-drive tourism attributes explain the data well. Destination characteristics positively affect tourist satisfaction but driving conditions do not. Tourist satisfaction positively leads to the intention to recommend and revisit. This study contributes to the body of knowledge in the area of self-drive tourism and suggests implications to practitioners.     

Empirical investigation of the roles of attitudes toward green behaviors, overall image, gender, and age in hotel customers’ eco-friendly decision-making process

This study examined hotel customers’ eco-friendly decision-making processes. Specifically, the current study tested the relationships among attitude toward green behaviors (ATGB), overall image (OI), visit intention (VI), word-of-mouth intention (WOMI), and willingness to pay more (WPM) by considering the effects of gender and age in a green hotel context. The results of structural equation analyses showed that OI is a positive function of ATGB and that OI significantly affects VI, WOMI, and WPM. Additionally, the findings from a structural modeling comparison revealed that OI completely mediates the effect of ATGB on components of behavioral intentions. Subsequent tests for metric invariances demonstrated that the relationships among study variables were generally stronger among females and high age groups. However, only the paths from OI to VI, WOMI, and WPM in the gender group and from OI to WPM in the age group were statistically significant. Implications and future research issues were discussed.     

Effects of restaurant franchising: Does an optimal franchise proportion exist?

Franchising has significantly affected the US economy, contributing to a rapid growth of its retail sales. To identify whether franchising influences a restaurant firm's financial performance, this study investigated (1) the profitability and intangible values of both franchise and non-franchise restaurant firms and (2) the effect of the combination of franchised and company-owned outlets of restaurant firms (i.e., franchise proportion). The results of this study showed that (1) franchise firms had significantly higher profitability than non-franchise firms and (2) the relationships between franchise proportion and firm profitability and intangible value were curvilinear (inverted U-shape), verifying the existence of an optimal franchise proportion. The results propose a possibility that restaurant franchisors could maximize their profitability and intangible value with an optimal franchise proportion when other variables held constant, implying that it is important to pay attention to the franchise proportion together with other management strategies.     

Low cost carriers’ destination selection using a Delphi method

Over the past two decades, demand for air transport between Taiwan and China has grown rapidly, partly in response to the economic development of the two countries, but also as a result of political factors. Low cost carriers (LCC) that have operated for several decades in the United States and Europe will provide a good operational benchmark for direct cross-strait flights once these services become possible. This research involves the construction of a sequential destination selection model for direct cross-strait flights by LCC based on a multi-attribute value function. The selection framework comprises three elements: destination competitiveness, airport infrastructure and potential demand. Previous research focused only on a few alternative airports, but the 41 airports available for foreign flights in Mainland China have all been included in the empirical analysis undertaken in this paper. The results therefore fit better with the operational features of LCC who are normally seeking suitable secondary airports rather than traffic hubs. The analysis reveals that six airports would be suitable for LCC, namely, Shanghai Pudong, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Nanjing.     

Advertising expenditure,intangible value and risk: A study of restaurant companies

This study investigates the relationships between advertising expenditure, intangible value, and risk in stock returns of restaurant firms between 2000 and 2005. Tobin's Q was used to examine intangible value, and the variance of common stock return was used to measure the investment risk. The results indicate that the level of advertising expenditure has a significant positive effect on the intangible value of the firm, suggesting that advertising expenditures could help generate intangible value in restaurant firms. However, this study did not support a significant relationship between the advertising expenditure level and the stock return risk of restaurant firms.     

Measuring Systemic Risk: Capital Shortfall and CSRISK*

This study proposes a new measure of systemic risk named CSRISK, which identifies a financial institution's capital shortfall under the worst scenario conditional on a substantial market decline. The CSRISK index requires only public financial data, including accounting and market trading information, which is time and cost effective. The empirical sample consists of 238 US banks over the time period 2003–2013. Overall, we find that it is increasing from 2004 to 2009 and then starts to slightly decrease. This systemic risk measure has the potential to be widely applied in the practical aspects of risk management and macroprudential policy making.     

Does board social capital influence chief executive officers' investment decisions in research and development?

The findings of the chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics–research and development (R&D) investment relationship remain incomplete if previous unexamined contingencies are not considered. Very few studies in this area have invariably focused on the constraints from the external environment and overlooked the important influence of board social capital on such relationship. This study uses insights from resource dependence theory to examine how the effects of CEO characteristics on R&D investment are contingent on board social capital. The results show that board social capital mitigates/enhances the negative/positive effect of CEO tenure/CEO educational level on R&D investment, supporting the view that board social capital, as an important conduit to link firms to critical information and essential resources in the environment, may offer better counsel to CEOs and enhance their decision‐making capabilities in moving toward R&D. One important implication is that firms wishing to encourage innovation through R&D spending should consider nominating directors with rich social capital to the board because they may assist CEOs in coping with R&D complexities and acquiring requisite resources, leading to a better planning of R&D.     

Examining How Attending Motivation and Satisfaction Affects the Loyalty for Attendees at Aboriginal Festivals

This study examined the causal relationships between motivation, satisfaction and loyalty among attendees at aboriginal festivals. A total of 789 usable questionnaires were collected from two aboriginal festivals, Amis Ilisin and Saisiyat Pas‐taai. Data analyses were performed using SPSS 15.0 and LISREL 8.70 for Windows. The analytical results indicate that motivation directly affects satisfaction and indirectly affects loyalty, whereas satisfaction directly affects attendee loyalty at aboriginal festivals. Moreover, satisfaction significantly affects the loyalty of attendees at aboriginal festivals and is an important mediating variable in the behavioral model of aboriginal festivals. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.