The effects of acculturation and uncertainty avoidance on foreign resident choice for Korean foods

This study attempts to identify dining-out patterns among foreign residents in South Korea, examining the differences in foreign residents’ attitudes toward Korean foods and behavioral intentions to patronize Korean restaurants based on their acculturation and uncertainty avoidance levels. The results show that foreign residents in South Korea dine out frequently and intend to revisit Korean restaurants. However, the high acculturation group has a more positive attitude toward, better understanding of, and more preference for Korean foods than the low acculturation group. Satisfaction, revisiting, and recommendation intentions for Korean restaurants are higher among the high acculturation group than the low. The low uncertainty avoidance group spends more money for dining out than the high uncertainty avoidance group, who perceive Korean foods as expensive. Attitudes toward, understanding of, and preference for Korean foods, do not differ significantly between the two uncertainty avoidance groups; nor do satisfaction and behavioral intentions to Korean restaurants.     

The impact of CSR on relationship quality and relationship outcomes: A perspective of service employees

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained increasing attention over the past decade. While many studies examined an impact of CSR on consumers, only dearth of research is found that attempts to understand the impact of CSR on employees from the relationship marketing perspective. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of CSR in predicting relationship quality and relationship outcomes. The four dimensions of CSR used in the study include economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic aspects. Data were collected via survey from employees of franchised foodservice enterprises located in South Korea. The findings of the study show that not all dimensions of CSR have the same effect on relationship quality. While economic and philanthropic dimensions have a significant influence on organizational trust, only ethical dimension has a positive effect on job satisfaction. As expected, relationship quality has a significant impact on relationship outcomes.     

The role of family decision makers in festival tourism

This study assessed the role of family decision makers in participating in a festival according to five stages of festival participation. A survey process was conducted using two sampling groups: the sample for families with children and the sample for families without children. According to the results of the study, a number of marketing implications were generated. For example, the husband was revealed to more actively join transportation-related activities including driving, deciding travel routes, automobile safety checks, and filling up with gasoline. The wife was a strong decision maker in selecting restaurants or menus in the festival tourism management process. Likewise, the role of the wife is very significant, from suggesting the festival participation at the first stage to determining a revisit to the festival at the last stage. However, the children or joint decision-making patterns were not distinctive as they are said to be in other tourism literature. Findings of the study are expected to offer valuable insights for all festival stakeholders including festival vendors, local government, local residents, and festival organizers.     

The relationships between food-related personality traits,satisfaction, and loyalty among visitors attending food events and festivals

This study applies the concept of food-related personality traits to hospitality and tourism and identifies relationships between personality, satisfaction, and loyalty. An on-site survey was carried out with 335 visitors attending the Gwangju Kimchi (local food) Festival in South Korea between 15th and 19th of October, 2008. The relationships between 4 latent constructs (food neophobia, food involvement satisfaction, and loyalty) and 16 indicators were measured using structural equation modelling. The findings showed that food neophobia had a negative effect on satisfaction and loyalty, food involvement had a positive relationship with loyalty, and satisfaction and loyalty showed a significant positive relationship.     

When does an employee not help coworkers? The effect of leader–member exchange on employee envy and organizational citizenship behavior

Using a sample of 233 front-line hotel employees, we examined leader–member exchange (LMX), envy, and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The results from path analysis support the research model that employees who have a relatively poor working relationship with their supervisor (i.e., low-quality LMX relationship) were more likely to show higher levels of envy than employees who have relatively closer working relationships with the same supervisor (i.e., high-quality LMX relationship). Ultimately, higher levels of envy decreased employee voluntary helping behavior (i.e., organizational citizenship behavior, OCB) toward coworkers. This finding suggests that employees perceiving a poor working relationship with their supervisor committed less voluntary helping behavior toward coworkers than their counterparts. Implications for managers and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

The impact of mood states and surprise cues on satisfaction

Mood effects have been studied in consumer behavior literature, but prior research investigating the joint impact of mood and surprise on satisfaction is scant. To bridge this gap, this study examines the relationship among these three constructs. We manipulated customers’ pre-consumption mood and provided surprise cues with hypothetical scenarios in a 2 by 2 factorial design in a restaurant setting. The results show that a positive surprise yields high satisfaction without a significant effect from customers’ pre-consumption mood. Conversely, with a negative surprise, customers in a negative pre-consumption mood indicate lower satisfaction than those in a positive mood.     

Understanding Japanese tourists’ shopping preferences using the Decision Tree Analysis method

This study was designed to assess the factors affecting Japanese tourists’ shopping preference and intention to revisit Korea. The analytical method applied in this study was Decision Tree Analysis, which is under-utilized in tourism studies. A total of 300 questionnaires were collected on the basis of on-site survey method and used for data analysis. Among interesting findings, three groups including ‘respondents who were satisfied, accompanied, and spent US$50–300 on shopping’, ‘respondents who were satisfied, accompanied, and had a shopping expenditure of US$300–1000’ and ‘respondents who were satisfied, accompanied, and had a shopping expenditure of US$1000–5000,’ showed a high level of intention to return to Korea for the purpose of shopping. In addition, two groups ‘those who were interested in shopping in Korea, preferred a shopping mall as a shopping destination, and had an educational level of below high school’ and ‘those who were interested in shopping in Korea, preferred a shopping mall as a shopping destination, and had an educational level of a college graduate or above’ showed a higher level interest in merchandise than in shopping venue attractiveness.     

The impact of product placement on TV-induced tourism: Korean TV dramas and Taiwanese viewers

This study examines of the ways in which Korean TV dramas affect Taiwanese consumers’ attitudes toward the locations where the dramas are filmed (onscreen locations). Previous studies have incorporated balance theory into product–character association models and have demonstrated that consumers tend to align their attitudes toward products with the valence of a character’s attitudes toward the products. Unlike previous studies, this article attempts to investigate the product–character association model in a cross-cultural setting where the ‘products’ considered are the onscreen locations. To account for the effect of similarity between Taiwanese culture and Korean culture, the concept of perceived cultural proximity is introduced into the balance-theory-based model. The results show that consumers’ parasocial relationships with a character and consumers’ attitudes toward the character are related to their attitudes toward the location. However, this relationship is significant only for those viewers with high perceived cultural proximity between Taiwan and Korea.     

Cognitive,affective, conative,and action loyalty: Testing the impact of inertia

Research increasingly emphasizes the significance of customer loyalty to a firm's success. In order to provide a clearer understanding of hotel customers’ loyalty-formation process, this study proposed and tested an extended Oliver's (1997) four-stage loyalty model by employing a multi-dimensional approach for each attitudinal loyalty stage while considering the moderating impact of inertia. The original model was slightly altered to improve its fit and predictive ability. Results from the structural model generally supported proposed paths among the variables in the model (cognitive, affective, and conative loyalty components and action loyalty) and verified the mediating roles of study variables in forming action loyalty. Further, findings from structural group comparisons using invariance tests indicated that the links from satisfaction to commitment and intention and from intention to action loyalty were stronger for the low inertia group, supporting the moderating role of inertia. Implications are discussed, and limitations of this study are briefly outlined.     

Moderating effect of capital intensity on the relationship between leverage and financial distress in the U.S. restaurant industry

During the recent and ongoing economic turmoil, countless businesses have been facing financial distress and many have filed for bankruptcy. This issue is especially critical for the restaurant industry due to restaurants’ sensitivity to economic fluctuations. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the financial distress issue in the U.S. restaurant industry. In particular, the study examines a moderating effect of capital intensity on the relationship between a firm's leverage and degree of financial distress. The dataset includes publicly traded U.S. restaurant firms during the period 1990–2008. The study measures the degree of financial distress by modified Z-scores, and findings suggest a positive moderating effect of capital intensity on the relationship between leverage and financial distress.