Economic research and economic growth: Evidence from East Asian economies

Based upon page counts of articles published in 60 quality economics journals, the role of economic research is examined for five East Asian economies. In Hong Kong, causality runs bi-directionally between research productivity and economic growth; in Japan, the causal effects tend to be one direction from economic growth to research publications; in Korea and Taiwan, causality runs the other way around from publications to growth; and in Singapore, the causal effects are small and insignificant. Socioeconomic differences in each economy help to explain the various causal directions found.     

Publications in mathematical economics and econometrics: ranking of Asian universities and an application of Zipf's law

This paper ranks Asian universities in two related economics fields: mathematical economics and econometrics. Key findings are that Japanese universities dominate in mathematical economics, while Hong Kong universities are fairly evenly balanced in these two specialty areas of quantitative economics. The results of the analysis also show that Zipf's law applies to research-based university rankings.     

The profitability impact of REIT requirements: A comparative analysis of hotel REITS and hotel C-Corporations

Under the influence of regulatory requirements, REITs have evolved into entities that have distinct financial and organizational characteristics from their C-Corporation counterparts. This study aims to investigate whether hotel REITs are more profitable than hotel C-Corps and how REIT regulations contribute to this difference. The results indicate that despite the differences in tax obligation, operating expense, and dividend policy, hotel REITs and hotel C-Corporations are not significantly different in profitability. However, the analysis suggests that hotel C-Corps have advantage over hotel REITs in improving profitability through dividend payout increases. The findings also suggest a possible non-linear relationship between profitability and dividend payout, presenting an opportunity to extend Jensen's (1986) agency cost theory.     

Perceived justice in service recovery and behavioral intentions: The role of relationship quality

This study examined restaurant customers’ perceptions of justice according to service recovery effort levels and whether perceived justice influences customers’ future behavioral intentions. This study also investigated whether the effects of perceived justice on future behavioral intentions vary across customers’ relationship quality levels. The results showed that high recovery efforts were consistently evaluated highly in terms of perceived justice when compared to low recovery efforts, regardless of the level of relationship quality. Additionally, perceived justice brought about by service recovery efforts has a positive effect on customers’ future behavioral intentions. Hierarchical regression analyses suggested that relationship quality plays a moderating role between perceived justice and behavioral intentions in the distributive and procedural justice dimensions. Implications for the restaurant industry are also discussed.     

Revisiting the financing behavior of restaurant firms: The firm-size perspective

In International Journal of Hospitality Management, Jang and Ryu [Jang, S., Ryu, K., 2006. Cross-balance sheet interdependencies of restaurant firms: a canonical correlation analysis. International Journal of Hospitality Management 25 (1), 159–166] published a research article about the financing behavior of restaurant firms, using a canonical correlation analysis. Even though the study presents a general picture of financing in restaurant firms, the financing behaviors of firms of different sizes may differ because they often face different financing environments. Thus, this study re-examines restaurant firms and compares the results with Jang and Ryu [Jang, S., Ryu, K., 2006. Cross-balance sheet interdependencies of restaurant firms: a canonical correlation analysis. International Journal of Hospitality Management 25 (1), 159–166] to further enhance the understanding of the financing behaviors. The results show that, despite the differences in firm sizes, overall financing behaviors are similar to those reported by Jang and Ryu [Jang, S., Ryu, K., 2006. Cross-balance sheet interdependencies of restaurant firms: a canonical correlation analysis. International Journal of Hospitality Management 25 (1), 159–166], although they also suggest that restaurant firms of different sizes do indeed exhibit some different cross-balance sheet interdependencies including relatively more reliance on accounts payable among small and medium firms and more use of long-term debts among large firms. Moreover, long-term assets related to stockholder equity more among large firms but related to supplier credit more among small and medium firms.     

Moderating effects of self-image congruity on the relationship between advertisement message strength and revisiting intention

This research note delineates the effect of restaurant customers’ perceived self-image congruity (i.e., the match between the image of a product or brand and customers’ image of themselves) on the relationship between the strength of a restaurant advertisement and customers’ intention to revisit that restaurant. This study posits that customers’ preference for a restaurant brand, formed by their perceived self-image congruity, can alter the effects of ad message strength on their revisiting intention. More specifically, due to the biasing effect caused by self-image congruity, the effect of an ad’s argument strength on behavioral intentions may be diminished when customers have a high perceived level of self-image congruity. The findings indicate that strong ad messages elicit significantly higher revisiting intentions than weak ad messages when customers perceive a mismatch between the image, the brand, and themselves; however, no significant difference in revisiting intentions was detected between strong and weak ad messages when customers perceived a match between image and restaurant brand. Furthermore, this study examines how gender-based information-processing tendencies influence this effect of self-image congruity on the relationship between ad message strength and revisiting intention. Overall, this study provides a theoretical understanding of the biasing effect of self-image congruity on customers’ information processing and has important managerial implications for restaurant marketing.     

An expectancy theory model for hotel employee motivation

The purpose of this study is to apply expectancy theory to employee motivation in the hotel setting and confirm the validity of expectancy theory. The proposed expectancy theory model for motivation was tested using data from 289 hotel employees. The results show that a modified expectancy theory with five components (expectancy, extrinsic instrumentality, intrinsic instrumentality, extrinsic valence, and intrinsic valence) best explains the process of motivating hotel employees. This study also indicates that intrinsic motivation factors are more influential than extrinsic factors for hotel employees, suggesting that hotel managers need to focus more on intrinsic factors to better motivate employees.     

When do consumers feel betrayal and face-loss? Examining service communality and social presence types in service failures

This study investigates the importance of consumer–restaurant relationship norms (service communality) in connection with consumer–companion social presence types (business versus private) in producing consumers’ feelings of betrayal and face-loss in service failures. The results suggest that consumers felt more betrayed and face-loss in service failures as service communality increased. In addition, social presence types moderated the effect of service communality on face-loss, suggesting consumers in private social presence situations were more sensitive to face-loss as service communality increases. These findings were integrated into a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications regarding restaurant service management.