An investigation of restaurant food safety performance: A comparison between ethnic and nonethnic and chain and independent restaurants in Louisiana

This study examines health inspection data from casual dining restaurants and compares differences of food code violations between ethnic and nonethnic restaurants. A total of 7,415 violations were retrieved from the restaurant inspection reports of 769 restaurants. Ethnic restaurants have more violations than nonethnic restaurant in categories related to food time/temperature violations, cross contamination, and food condition/surface/labels. Nonethnic and chain restaurants had fewer behavioral violations than ethnic and independently operated restaurants. Ethnic restaurants were 1.74 times more likely than nonethnic restaurants to have critical violations. Meanwhile, independent restaurants were 1.64 times more likely than chain restaurants to have critical violations.     

Segmenting Green Consumers in the United States: Implications for Green Marketing

The purpose of the current study was to segment U.S. consumers into four distinct clusters based on their beliefs and motives regarding pro-environmental consumer behavior. Using a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults from Experian Simmons (N = 22,348), this study revealed that: (a) there are four clusters of consumers in the United States with a unique set of beliefs and motives regarding consumer environmentalism; (b) the clusters have distinct demographic and media usage profiles; and (c) the groups have varying responses to the industry's initiatives to protect the environment. Implications of the research are discussed in light of developing message and media strategies for green marketing.     

Developing a quality prioritization procedure for IPTV service

This study developed a procedure to determine the quality priorities of the internet protocol television (IPTV) service. First, a set of key elements of IPTV service quality was developed based on a literature review and a focus group interview. Second, analytic hierarchy process and the Kano model were applied to identify the requirements of experts and customers, respectively. The experts measured the importance and difficulty of management, whereas the customers measured the satisfaction level and importance of each quality element. Third, quality priorities were calculated through the entropy principle and scenario-based analysis. The proposed procedure is illustrated with a case study of a telecommunications company in Korea.     

How to catch their attention? Taiwanese flashpackers inferring their travel motivation from personal development and travel experience

Backpackers first appeared in the seventeenth century. The twenty-first century has witnessed the rise of a new backpacker subculture given the changing times: one that is closely related to technology use is called flashpackers. The research discussed in this article explores the relationships between travel experience, personal development, and travel motivation of flashpackers. The study uses convenience sampling taken in the lobby of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. A total of 400 questionnaires were issued and 375 valid questionnaires were recovered; the rate of return was 93.8%. The results of this study are the following: (1) there are differences between travel experience and travel motivation for Taiwan’s flashpackers; (2) there is a relationship between personal development and travel experience of Taiwan’s flashpackers; (3) there is a correlation between personal development and travel motivation for Taiwan’s flashpackers; and (4) personal development moderately affects the relationship between travel experience and travel motivation for Taiwan’s flashpackers. This study contributes to the tourism industry by enhancing direct targeting of customers, and it provides hospitality and travel agency managers with the means to determine appropriate marketing strategies for flashpackers.     

Inside the Crystal Ball: New Approaches to Predicting the Gasoline Price at the Pump

Appropriate real‐time forecasting models for the US retail price of gasoline yield substantial reductions in the mean‐squared prediction error (MSPE) at horizons up to 2 years as well as substantial increases in directional accuracy. Even greater MSPE reductions are possible by constructing a pooled forecast that assigns equal weight to five of the most successful forecasting models. Pooled forecasts have lower MSPE than the US Energy Information Administration gasoline price forecasts and the gasoline price expectations in the Michigan Survey of Consumers. We also show that as much as 39% of the decline in gas prices between June and December 2014 was predictable. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Subsidiary staffing,cultural friction,and subsidiary performance: Evidence from Korean subsidiaries in 63 countries

Drawing from the notion of cultural friction and based on the agency theory rationalization of multinational enterprise (MNE) headquarter–subsidiary relationship, we examine the impact of cultural friction in foreign subsidiaries on subsidiary performance. We argue that cultural friction, arising due to a high presence of parent country nationals (PCNs) in culturally distant locations, has a detrimental effect on subsidiary performance. This effect is the strongest when the cultural friction is at the top management team (TMT) level and the weakest when friction is at the regular employee level. However, this relationship is contingent on factors that work as drags or lubricants for cultural friction between PCNs and host country nationals (HCNs). We identify governance mode and language differences between home and host countries as drag parameters and host country experience and subsidiary interdependence as lubricants that condition the effect of cultural friction on subsidiary performance. Empirical findings based on a longitudinal sample of 7,495 foreign subsidiary observations of 467 Korean MNEs in 63 countries during 1990–2014 provide robust support for our theoretical predictions.     

The prospect of decent work,decent industrial relations and decent social relations in China: towards a multi-level and multi-disciplinary approach

Abstract

Decent Work is a key initiative launched by the International Labour Organization in 1999. The initiative is to promote decent and productive employment with decent conditions of freedom, equality, security and human dignity. In reviewing academic literature on decent work, existing studies have been conducted primarily from a legal and political economic perspective. It is also largely situated outside any national industrial relations framework, both theoretically and practically. Decent work is an advocacy initiative of ILO, but the promotion of universal values embodied in the notion (e.g. equality, fairness, justice and dignity) needs to be tailored to specific societal contexts. Drawing on existing academic literature, this review article examines ideological, institutional and cultural distances between decent work and the reality of employment in China. It argues that achieving decent work requires an ideological transition of ‘traditional’ Chinese work ethics and a cultural transition from collectivism and altruism towards individualism and an emphasis on individual rights. This study also examines and highlights regulatory enforcement deficits and the inadequate role of the trade union in facilitating the advancement of decent work at various levels. Finally, the article argues that the study of decent work should be mainstreamed as an integral part of decent industrial relations and ultimately, decent social relations. It calls for a multi-level and multi-disciplinary approach to examining the historical, political, economic, ideological and cultural context of specific countries in fulfilling the ‘Decent Work’ agenda.     

The synergistic effect of insurance and banking sector activities on economic growth in Africa

It is widely understood that the insurance and banking sectors of every economy perform some functions in driving economic growth. What is not yet well documented is whether their roles are complimentary or substitutive. With the aid of the dynamic panel generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique, this paper evaluates the synergistic effect of both sectors on economic growth in a panel of 10 African countries that are responsible for most of the activities in the continent’s financial sector. The insurance-banking-growth nexus was also examined through bootstrap panel causality tests. The results show that the life insurance market and the banking sector, as well as the non-life insurance market and the banking sector, are complimentary. We find that, overall, the relationship between the insurance and banking sectors in Africa is a complimentary one and that their synergistic impact on economic growth is positive. The feedback hypothesis was also confirmed in the relationship between the insurance sector and economic growth and between the banking sector and economic growth.     

Corporate Governance and Corporate Bond Liquidity

Using a unique dataset of corporate bond trading information and corporate governance evaluation scores, this study examines the determinants of corporate bond market liquidity in Korea. In particular, this study explores whether corporate governance performance of a company influences liquidity of bonds issued by the company. The paper reports three important findings. First, the issue size and age of bond are important determinants of bond liquidity. Second, liquidity of corporate bonds is influenced by changes in macroeconomic conditions. Third, and most importantly, better corporate governance increases liquidity of corporate bonds. This result suggests that corporate governance is an important determinant of bond liquidity, as it lowers transaction costs by improving transparency and reducing asymmetry of information. This paper contributes to the literature by providing new evidence that corporate governance performance is an important determinant of liquidity in corporate bond markets.