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.     

The effects of customers’ perceptions of brand personality in casual theme restaurants

Although existing studies recommend that restaurant chains develop and communicate salient brand personalities, no research to date provides empirical evidence that perceptions of unique brand personality by consumers lead to positive outcomes in the restaurant business. Therefore, using a sample of 336 adults, this research models the causal relationships between brand personality perceptions, brand preference, attitudinal loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth (W-O-M) behavior for the Olive Garden and Chili's restaurant chains. It was found that for both chains, brand personality perceptions have a positive effect on brand preference and attitudinal loyalty, brand preference has a positive impact on attitudinal loyalty, and attitudinal loyalty has a positive influence on positive word-of-mouth (W-O-M) communication. In addition, for the Olive Garden and Chili's brands, it was also found that there is a direct link between brand preference and word-of-mouth behavior.     

Forecast of realized covariance matrix based on asymptotic distribution of the LU decomposition with an application for balancing minimum variance portfolio

We derive the asymptotic distribution for the LU decomposition, that is, the Cholesky decomposition, of realized covariance matrix. Distributional properties are combined with an existing generalized heterogeneous autoregressive (GHAR) method for forecasting realized covariance matrix, which will be referred to as a generalized HARQ (GHARQ) method. An out-of-sample forecast comparison of a real data set shows that the proposed GHARQ method outperforms other existing methods in terms of optimizing the variances of portfolios.     

The Relationships of On-Site Film-Tourism Experiences,Satisfaction, and Behavioral Intentions: The Case of Asian Audience's Responses to a Korean Historical TV Drama

Despite the growing interest in film-tourism research, little research has explored the extent to which on-site film-tourism experiences influence tourist satisfaction and post-visit behavioral intentions. Within the context of Asian audience's responses to a Korean historical TV drama, Daejanggeum, this article adopted a structured quantitative survey instrument. Exploratory factor analysis identified three salient dimensions to represent the on-site film-tourism experiences: Novelty and Prestige, Beyond Screen Experience and Re-enactment, and Intimacy and Memory. The on-site film-tourism experiences had a significant influence on satisfaction, re-visit intention, and intention to recommend. Novelty and Prestige had the strongest direct effect on satisfaction and intention to recommend, whereas Intimacy and Memory was the main vehicle to influence film tourists' re-visit intention.     

Pygmalion leadership: Theory and application to the hotel industry

ABSTRACT

This research investigates the role of Pygmalion leadership and the influences of employees’ trust in a leader, trust in an organization, and job engagement on task performance in the hotel industry. Through examining Pygmalion leadership, trust, and engagement in the literature, this research establishes and tests a model to identify the interrelation among four dimensions of Pygmalion leadership (e.g., climate, output, input, and feedback), trust in a leader, trust in an organization, job engagement, and task performance. Using data collected from hotel employees, this study finds that climate, output, and feedback are critical for nurturing two dimensions of trust that enhance job engagement and task performance.