Advertising and Firm Risk: A Study of the Restaurant Industry

Incorporating recent calls for understanding firm equity risk in relation to a firm's marketing efforts, this study examined the impacts of firm-level advertising spending on firm equity risk with publicly listed firms in the restaurant industry—a key hospitality industry. This study hypothesized and tested the effects of firm-level advertising expenditures on different types of firm equity risk (i.e., total, systematic, and unsystematic risk). Unlike previous empirical findings, we found that an increase in advertising expenditures significantly increased total and unsystematic risk of sampled restaurant firms. The findings provide new insights into the effects of advertising on firm equity risk in the literature, and important theoretical and managerial implications for restaurant firms.     

Taming wicked problems: towards a resolution of tourism access to Traditional Owner lands in the Kimberley region,Australia

This paper names and describes the longstanding issue of tourism access to the Kimberley coast region in northwest Australia. Tourism access is a problem because it occurs without appropriate permissions from the Traditional Owners. The granting of access permission is a fundamental component of the local Traditional Owner ontology, or concept of being. Tourism activities cannot be culturally sustainable without appropriate Traditional Owner permissions. We argue that this seemingly simple issue is a “wicked problem” and must be recognised as such to facilitate its “taming” to create a culturally sustainable local tourism industry. The paper first examines the cultural and historical context, establishing a more nuanced understanding of the problem. Framed in Rittel and Webber's definition of a wicked problem, it then describes its complex and intercultural nature, highlighting repeated and continuing efforts and failures by key parties to address it, linked to an ingrained lack of political will. We conclude that operators could take ownership of the wicked problem and contribute to taming it by proactively engaging in a direct relationship with Traditional Owners based on transformational learning. The paper contributes to tourism planning studies, to the concept of the Just Destination and to indigenous tourism understanding.     

THE EFFECTS OF SITUATIONAL AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS ON CONSUMER COMPLAINT BEHAVIOR IN RESTAURANT SERVICES

This study developed and tested a model to investigate the effects of situational and individual differences on consumers' propensity to complain in a restaurant setting. A structural equation modeling analysis revealed that convenience of complaining and expectation of resultant benefits, consumers' attitude toward complaining, consumer involvement with a dining experience (e.g., dining on a special occasion and expensive food), and perceived self‐importance, are factors associated with the likelihood of engaging in complaining behavior. Theoretical and managerial implications of the results of the study are discussed in detail.     

Segmenting Overseas Golf Tourists by the Concept of Specialization

A main goal of this study was to use the concept of specialization to segment and better understand Korean overseas golf holiday tourists' demographics, motivations, overseas golf tourism destination attributes, and preference for overseas golf tourism destination attributes. A total of 424 questionnaires were collected and 370 questionnaires were used for further statistical analysis. According to results of data analyses, the advanced segment was more likely to be motivated by the quality of overseas golf resorts and other benefits (such as business opportunities), compared to the beginner and intermediate segments. The beginner group was more likely to be a company employee or housewife who earn the least at between US$35,000–US$50,000 per annum, travel on full package tours, use information from family or relatives, and have a stronger preference for the Philippines or China as golf destinations. The study's results showed potential benefits using the concept of specialization in a sport tourism setting even though the concept has been popularly applied in the outdoor setting.     

Classification of Asian Complainers in Restaurant Services

In restaurant businesses, customer dissatisfaction must be accounted for and thus avoided in order to generate revenue. In the literature, researchers have confirmed a positive relationship between complaint behaviour and consumer dissatisfaction. Three types of complaint behaviour have been discussed in previous studies: voice response, private response and third-party response. This study targeted Asian consumers (n = 300) and segmented them based on their complaint behaviour. These results signify that Asian internationals' complaint behaviour is not homogenous and can therefore be segmented in terms of their complaint behaviour. Personal characteristics as well as socio-demographics were also investigated with consumer complaint behaviour of research participants.     

Mobile Technology: An Exploratory Study of Hotel Managers

Hospitality businesses provide a natural context for mobile technology, especially given the dynamic nature of the business, the size and complexity of many hotel operations, and the need to have managers visible and overseeing multiple areas of the business (and sometimes, multiple properties) concurrently. To explore the potential for mobile technology in hospitality business contexts, we surveyed 70 full-service hotel property managers. The survey was based upon two theoretical frameworks: technology adoption model and innovation diffusion theory. Specifically, this study addressed (a) hotel property managers’ intentions to use mobile technology at work, (b) factors influencing their intentions, (c) their suggestions for implementing mobile applications in different departments, and (d) demographic characteristics of those who are inclined to adopt certain types of mobile applications. This study identified the top opportunities for mobile applications and found adoption differences based upon the respondents’ demographics as well as the factors of perceived enjoyment and relative advantages as significant determinants of hotel property managers’ intentions to use mobile technology. This study concludes with recommendations for industry practitioners and suggestions for future research opportunities related to mobile technology adoption and usage in hospitality.     

Serious Leisure,Life Satisfaction,and Health of Older Adults

This study explored the relationships among serious leisure, life satisfaction, and health. The study sample consisted of 454 older adults from two annual events: the 2008 Indiana Senior Olympic Games and 2008 Colorado Senior Olympic Games. Cluster analysis was used to identify distinct groups based upon patterns of serious leisure involvement. In addition, relations among life satisfaction, health, and membership in serious leisure clusters were documented. This analysis resulted in three clusters, and they were named high/medium/low involvement groups. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was employed to determine cluster differences in life satisfaction, physical health, and mental health. MANOVA results revealed significant differences among the clusters on dependent variables. The findings document significant heterogeneity in the expression of serious leisure involvement among the Senior Games participants. The results also suggest that there are positive relationships between level of involvement in serious leisure and life satisfaction and health.     

Presidential Agenda Building and Policymaking: Examining Linkages Across Three Levels

To investigate the role of strategic political communication in governing, this study comprehensively examined presidential agenda-building associations at three levels during the first six months of U.S. president Barack Obama’s second term. Multiple presidential information subsidies, national news content, and policymaking activity were monitored. The results revealed solid support for all three levels of agenda-building (i.e., object salience, attribute salience, and network associations among objects or attributes), but the linkages with media coverage and policymaking were not uniform across information subsidy types. Based on the analysis, presidential news releases, blog posts, and presidential speeches were the most effective all-around strategic agenda-building tools for media management and policymaking purposes during this time period. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Exploring the Perceptual and Behavioral Outcomes of Public Engagement on Mobile Phones and Social Media

Mobile technology and social media exert a substantial impact on our society and daily lives. Employing a survey of 633 college students in the United States, this study examined the effects of college students’ public engagement on mobile phones and social media on their organizational identification and attachment and positive electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) communication. Findings suggested that college students’ public engagement with mobile phones and social media significantly impacted their attachment toward and identification with the university. Moreover, this study found that students’ public engagement and university identification strongly predicted their positive e-WOM communication about their university. Furthermore, students’ mobile phone engagement indirectly influenced positive e-WOM communication through organizational identification. The theoretical and practical implications of this study were also discussed.     

Influence of the measurement of distance on assessment of recreation access

Residents’ recreation behavior is highly influenced by their level of access to recreation opportunities. Distance is an important component of access. The purpose of this study was to measure levels of access to public beaches in the Detroit Metropolitan Area (DMA) using four travel distances (1, 6, 10, and 20 miles) and three access measures (minimum distance, travel cost, and covering), with the intent of demonstrating the sensitivity of findings to both the distance and measure employed. Findings indicate that while public beaches are geographically accessible for a majority of the DMA population within 20 miles according to all access measures, at distances less than 20 miles level of access varies substantially with the access measure used. Future access studies should consider a range of travel distances rather than the single distance typical of most prior analyses and should also be sensitive to the differentials produced by the access measure employed.