Assessment of the environmental sustainability of restaurants in the U.S.: The effects of restaurant characteristics on environmental sustainability performance

ABSTRACT

This paper investigated the current levels of environmental sustainability in restaurants across the U.S. to determine whether a restaurant’s proclivity for environmental sustainability depended on its characteristics such as chain affiliation or restaurant type.

A web-based survey was administered to 2,500 top-level restaurant managers, from which a total of 218 responses were judged as usable. The data were analyzed using independent

sample t-tests and ANOVA. This study presents an in-depth account of the environmental sustainability in restaurants across the U.S. based on an evaluation of top-level managers. This study also highlights the differences in restaurant environmental sustainability across different restaurant segments.     

Seeing Without Looking: The Effects of Hemispheric Functioning on Memory for Brands in Computer Games

The authors hypothesize that the effectiveness of in-game advertising is influenced by two inborn traits, bisected hemispheric functioning and physiological arousal, that are at the core of human behavior. A 2 (preattentive processing type) × 2 (arousal level) between-subjects design was employed in both Experiment 1 (well-known brand placement) and Experiment 2 (lesser-known brand placement). The results from the two experiments reveal that people show better recognition memory for in-game ads when brand names are presented peripherally in the right visual field and brand images are embedded peripherally in the left visual field. In addition, people can remember more brand ads when they experience less arousal (Experiment 1). This effect, however, is attenuated when unfamiliar brands are placed in the game (Experiment 2). Implications are discussed for further investigation.     

Association Ambiguity in Brand Extension

A research method is developed to effectively identify associations that significantly influence the perceived fit of brand extensions. Contrary to extant brand extension studies that mainly focus on the fit of associations, the current study considers the ambiguity of associations. The proposed measure of association ambiguity, defined as the level of uncertainty based on the perceived conflict of a particular association in a brand extension indicated by the similarity and intensity level of perceived association distance to the parent brand and extension category, was tested and validated using several brand extension cases. Identifying an association's level of ambiguity and the magnitude of its impact on the perceived fit will allow advertisers to adjust their advertising messages and increase consumer receptiveness toward brand extensions. Implications for advertising practitioners and future research are discussed.     

Service Orientation: Its Impact on Business Performance in the Medical Service Industry

From the viewpoint of internal marketing, employees who are content in their job may be motivated to satisfy their customers better than ones who are not content. Another relevant premise is that the content employees, because of their work motivation, would eventually help improve the performance of their firm. To verify these relationships, some previous studies looked into the effects of organisational service orientation on employee's satisfaction. But only few of them investigated the mediating effects of variables such as service value and customer orientation for their role in linking service orientation to business performance. This study examines how an organisation's service orientation had an effect on its performance at hospitals. For this purpose, verification of the mediating role of service value perceived by employees as well as the role of customer orientation on the firm's performance was attempted. For this study, a total of 292 usable questionnaires were collected from hospital staffs located in metropolitan cities of Korea. The hypotheses concerning relationships among service orientation, service value, employee satisfaction and customer orientation were verified by covariance structural modelling, using SPSS 10.0 and AMOS 4.0 programs. The result is as follows. First, organisational service orientation had a positive effect on both employee satisfaction and service value perceived by hospital staff. Second, employee satisfaction had a positive impact on service value and customer orientation. Finally, service value as well as employee's customer orientation were found to exert positive influence on the medical firm's performance.     

Developing the Causal Model of Online Store Success

This article introduces an Online Store Success Model (OSM) that reflects the characteristics of information systems, marketing, and e-commerce, and then empirically test the model. The OSM has five dimensions: system quality, information quality, service quality, trust, and customer loyalty. The model posits the causal relationships between the dimensions. In order to empirically test the model, a research model is developed and empirically analyzed by structural equation modeling using data from 244 customers on 69 online store websites. The results show that system quality significantly influences service quality and trust; information quality significantly influences service quality and customer loyalty; service quality also significantly influences trust and customer loyalty; and trust has a significant influence on customer loyalty.     

Adding a freight network to a national interstate input–output model: a TransNIEMO application for California

The state of the nation’s infrastructure is the subject of widespread discussion and comment because it is thought to include many deteriorating and unsafe bridges. Ever since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, there has been increasing concern over the extent to which an attack on infrastructure could result in serious economic disruption. This research develops a model to analyze the economic consequences of an attack on a major element of the highway network. We add a freight network to a national multiregional economic impact model and make freight traffic flows endogenous. The use of a sub-national interstate model recognizes that most infrastructure planning is at the state level and most political leaders’ interest is local. We base our approach on the National Interstate Economic Model (NIEMO) and refer to an elaboration that we name Transportation network and the National Interstate Economic Model (TransNIEMO). The new model enables us to study the state-specific and industry-specific economic impacts of some significant changes in the nature of highway freight movements. We tested the model for selected freight movements in and out of California. The results are entirely plausible and encourage us to elaborate and test the model for hypothetical disruptions of freight traffic throughout the US.     

Can commodity futures risk factors predict economic growth?

This paper examines whether commodity futures risk factors can predict future economic growth. We test risk factors capturing various spot or term premia and find that only three factors capturing term premia on the basis-momentum, basis, and change in slope are robust predictors for future economic growth, especially for long horizons. Our findings highlight the importance of the term premia, rather than the spot premia on which the literature has mainly focused. Moreover, we find that possible explanations for predictability of commodity factors—the intertemporal asset pricing model and information diffusion explanation—are all inconsistent with our empirical results.     

Shopping plans,buying motivations,and return policies: impacts on product returns and purchase likelihoods

Product return behavior and factors that contribute to product returns are an under-researched area, despite significant importance to manufacturers and retailers. The current research attempts to fill the gap by focusing on two factors that shape consumer purchase behavior: (1) whether purchases are planned or unplanned, and (2) whether hedonic or utilitarian motivations drive purchases. The findings show that purchase plans and buying motivations have distinctive and interactive impacts on pre-purchase concerns, self-estimated likelihood of returning purchases, and purchase intentions with or without return policies. When hedonic motivation drives purchases, unplanned (vs. planned) purchases lead to higher return concerns, higher return likelihood, and lower buying intentions. When utilitarian motivation drives purchases, planned and unplanned purchases have comparable return concerns, return likelihood, and buying intentions. This interaction effect on buying intentions dissipates when a lenient return policy is offered.     

Leadership competency inventory: A systematic process of developing and validating a leadership competency scale

This article reports psychometric evaluation of the Penn State Leadership Competency Inventory (LCI). The 32‐item LCI was validated on a sample of 323 managers in the health care industry. Preliminary validity and reliability evidence of the LCI was established through exploratory factor analysis (EFA), item‐total correlations, Cronbach's alpha coefficients, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The four‐factor leadership competency scale, comprising supervisory and managerial competencies, organizational leadership, personal mastery, and resource leadership, accounted for 58% of variance. According to CFA results, the model fit of the four latent factors of the LCI was confirmed to be appropriate. Cross‐validation with other populations is needed to confirm the factor structure. Limitations and further research recommendations are discussed.     

Interdependence in the technology adoption decision among municipalities

This study examines the interdependence among municipalities in the discrete decision to adopt internet technology. Results from probit specifications with interaction effects suggest that cities are influenced by nearby neighbours with similar population size in developing a website. Evidence is also presented indicating interaction among municipalities in the decision to use internet technology to facilitate financial transactions.