Influence of price and brand image on restaurant customers’ restaurant selection attribute

The study examines the influence of price and brand image on three major restaurant quality attributes (ambiance, food quality, and service quality). A total number of 363 cases from the survey were used to assess the proposed model for structural equation modeling. The results of this study indicated that brand image significantly affected customers’ restaurant attribute preference. Living status (residents vs. tourists) partially affected customers’ restaurant attribute preference. This study provides valuable information about restaurant customers’ preferences. The results also demonstrate how restaurant operators attract new customers and retain existing customers by improving their ambiance, food, and service quality.     

The adequacy of volatility for the elaboration of technology valuation based on real options

When evaluating the economic value of a technology or business project, we need to consider the period and cost for commercialisation. Since the discounted cash flow (DCF) method has limitations in that it can not consider consecutive investments or does not reflect the probabilistic property of commercialisation cost, we often take it desirable to apply the concept of real options with key metrics of underlying asset value, commercialisation cost, and volatility, while regarding the value of technology and investment as the opportunity value. We provide more elaborated real options model, which reflects the uncertainty in the option pricing model (OPM).     

On the Economics of Callback Services

This paper investigates the economic effects of callback services, an issue which has previously brought much disputes and conflicts. Whereas the existence of callback services has been attributed to a rate disparity between countries, we show that it can arise either from the inefficiency of domestic markets or from the accounting rate which is far from cost-based. Although callback service is an inefficient means of utilizing resources, its introduction may lead the international telephony markets in an efficient direction when inefficiencies exist in the market. It also helps us understand why conflicts occur among the agents with respect to the legitimacy of callback services by comparing the international telephony markets before and after the introduction of callback services.     

Evaluation of students’ satisfaction with three all-you-can-eat university dining facilities

With the growing number of dining options, both on and off campus, university dining facilities need to assess their ability to meet the needs of the student population, considering the competitive alternate dining options. The purposes of this study were to (1) measure university students’ satisfaction with, and importance of, nine key attributes of three unique, all-you-can-eat, university dining facilities and (2) compare and contrast students’ ratings of attributes among the three dining facilities. A one-way ANOVA determined that participants at Dinning Facility 1 rated 8 of 9 attributes significantly higher on satisfaction compared to Dining Facilities 2 and 3. Attributes with highest satisfaction were cleanliness, atmosphere/environment, and image/reputation. Attributes with lowest satisfaction were menu variety, food quality, and healthy options. These results can guide dining facilities in efforts to improve customer satisfaction.