Impact of a sustainable brand on improving business performance of airport enterprises: The case of Incheon International Airport

This research attempted to help understand brand management from a new perspective suited to the digital age. The purpose of this research is to empirically analyze direct and indirect influences on the relationships between sustainable brands and the enhancement of airport business performance by examining the relationships between social media, transparency, social responsibility, sustainable brand and airport business performance. For this testing, 304 questionnaires were collected from employees of Incheon International Airport. Results of the testing indicated that social media, transparency, and social responsibility had a significant influence on airport business performance through a sustainable brand. It was found that the mediation effect of a sustainable brand was significant as well. Results of this research are meaningful in that they provide implications and insights for enterprise brand management in the digital environment.     

Unintended consequences in demarketing antisocial behaviour: project Bernie

Unintended consequences are recognised as a potential risk for well-intentioned social marketing interventions and as a comparatively under-researched topic in the field. This case study uses an intervention tackling deliberate grassfires to explore the application of social marketing in a novel context, its potential effectiveness in demarketing antisocial behaviours and the potential of such interventions to generate positive and negative unintended consequences. The intervention’s evaluation confirms social marketing’s potential value in tackling ingrained antisocial behaviours within communities. It also revealed unexpected benefits accruing from changes within the target community, within the sponsoring fire service and in the relationship between the two. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of potential unexpected and unplanned consequences for intervention planning, conduct and evaluation.     

Third-party remanufacturing mode selection: Outsourcing or authorization?

Many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) allow third-party remanufacturers (3PRs) to perform remanufacturing operations of branded or patented products – through either outsourcing or authorization. This study compares these two modes by modeling the game between the OEM and the 3PR on equilibrium quantities, prices, and profits. The results suggest that when consumers perceive the remanufactured products with a low value, the 3PR prefers the authorization approach; otherwise the 3PR prefers the outsourcing approach. However, in both scenarios, the OEM obtains higher profit through outsourcing than through authorization. Our further analysis compares two modes’ impacts on consumer surplus, social welfare, and environment.     

The effect of continuous improvement capacity on the relationship between of corporate social performance and business performance in maritime transport in Singapore

Drawing on organisational learning theory, this study argues that shipping firms with high continuous improvement capacities have better success in transforming corporate social performance (CSP) into business performance. Survey data were collected from 223 shipping firms in Singapore and analysed using multi-sampling analysis, hierarchical regression modelling, and simple slope analysis. The results support the study’s argument and show that business performance is maximised when continuous improvement programmes targeted at CSP are carried out at a gradual pace and at regular intervals. This implies that shipping firms should adopt a dynamic, value-driven approach to improving CSP.     

Responding to negative online reviews: The effects of hotel responses on customer inferences of trust and concern

Our research examines the perceptions and evaluations of prospective customers toward an online negative review and any accompanying hotel response. The study explores two main issues: whether the presence (versus absence) of an organizational response to negative customer reviews affects the inferences potential consumers draw about the target business, and which aspects of responses affect their impressions. We test the effects of four variables associated with a response: source of response, voice of responder, speed of response, and action frame on two outcomes variables (i.e., customer concern and trust inferences). The provision of an online response (versus no response) enhanced inferences that potential consumers draw regarding the business's trustworthiness and the extent to which it cares about its customers. Using a human voice and a timely response yielded favorable customer inferences. Inferences did not vary with response source or action frame. Implications are drawn for effective management of negative online reviews.     

Warfare tourism experiences and national identity: The case of Airborne Museum ‘Hartenstein’ in Oosterbeek,the Netherlands

This paper examines through an analysis of Dutch warfare tourism whether there is a relationship between the subjective perceived salience of Dutch identity and heritage tourists' motives, emotions and overall satisfaction. Using a social identity theory framework, this study provides a view of motives for Dutch warfare heritage tourism and the ways in which this specific variant of heritage tourism evokes different emotions and satisfaction evaluations in visitors. Specifically, we found that visitors who identified strongly as ‘being Dutch’ (the ‘in-group’) have stronger self-enhancement motives compared to those who identify less strongly, and that edutainment features strongly in the museum experience. Visitors seeking initiative/recognition express feelings of disappointment suggesting that the museum's symbolic function as a place of national in-group identity could be more highlighted. We demonstrate that an affirmative and engaged experience can manifest at nationally symbolic sites through positive historical narratives and entertainment, and through ‘in-group’ self-enhancement activities.     

Making innovation happen through building social capital and scanning environment

Both new service development and existing service improvement are critical tools for hotels to gain competitive advantages, but pursuing new services while simultaneously improving existing services is difficult for hotel managers. The success of highly proactive hotel managers has been credited to their ability to change the environment effectively, and such managers may be able to lead hotels to resolve the trade-off dilemma and deliver better services. To elucidate the contributions of proactive managers in making innovation happen, this study explored two key activities that hotels may undertake when prompted by the proactive managers, namely, environmental scanning and social capital building. The process involved in developing new services and improving current services was examined using empirical data collected from the general managers of 226 hotels in Taiwan. The results confirm that environmental scanning and social capital fully mediate the relationship between proactive personality of managers and capacity for service innovation as well as service improvement of hotels, indicating that hotel managers with a proactive personality are helpful at implementing innovation.     

Linking customer-employee exchange and employee innovative behavior

Employee innovative behaviors lay the foundation for organizational innovation and are of importance to business success, especially for service firms. Although these innovative behaviors are performed at the individual level, employees still need to have frequent exchanges with others, such as customers. As there is little research investigating customer-employee exchange (CEX) and its influence on employee innovative behavior in services, this study aims to fill this gap in a hotel context. The results of a survey with 180 respondents indicate that both the solidarity and harmonization components of CEX have positive effects on employee innovative behavior, yet the information exchange between customers and employees does not significantly influence employee innovation. Also, higher level of CEX leads to higher level of perceived social psychological climate for innovation. The mediating effect of social psychological climate in the relationship between CEX and employee innovative behavior is partially supported. The findings contribute to the understanding of the role of social exchanges in facilitating employee innovative behavior and provide implications for the management of employee innovative behavior in hospitality firms.     

Celebrity chef adoption and implementation of social media,particularly pinterest: A diffusion of innovations approach

Pinterest research is beginning to emerge, in part due to the importance of visually stimulating photos within hospitality and tourism. Photos are popular with many chefs for marketing, with some actively using Pinterest and other social media. Some of the world’s top celebrity chefs are a growing phenomenon as influential leaders of their personal brand as well as other goods, services, and causes. This research reports on a pilot study of how celebrity chefs have adopted and implemented social media, especially Pinterest, using the Diffusion of Innovations as a theoretical framework. The study found that of the top 48 chefs, all adopted Facebook, closely followed by 47 adopting Twitter; just 17 adopted Pinterest. The chefs’ social media and Pinterest implementation varied widely. This study sheds insights about social media, particularly Pinterest, extends innovation diffusion research, and serves as a base for future research of both celebrity chefs and social media.     

A Pathway Forwards for the Social Capital Metaphor

A major topic in economics is the analysis of a broad class of phenomena associated with interpersonal relationships, a topic that originally grew from theories of “social capital.” While the concept has been instrumental in bringing increased attention to social effects on economic outcomes, it has increasingly been replaced with approaches that consider instead networks and discrete interactions rather than aggregate measures of social capital. This has been an analytical improvement, but a great deal of work remains to bring empirical validity and relevancy to social network analysis. This paper presents two important approaches for achieving this, statistical analysis and agent-based modeling, and discusses their benefits, limitations, and complementary nature. Rather than waiting for either approach to achieve an ambiguous quality of maturity, integrating statistical analysis with simulation models of networks must begin now to push the frontiers of social network analysis forward.