8Th International Conference on Services Management Creating

8th International Conference on Services Management Creating Value, Innovation in Delivering Services November 28-30, 2015 Washington D.C., Metropolitan Area Conference Proceedings

Conference Hosts

Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech)

Prof. Muzaffer Uysal and Prof. Mahmood Khan

The Department of Hospitality & Tourism Management is one of the six departments in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. Our curriculum and program are fully integrated into the College of Business and is accredited by AACSB (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.) The Department is consistently ranked in the top five of HTM programs worldwide. Recent rankings include top five rankings for the quality of its faculty and its undergraduate, masters, and PhD programs. The Department offers a BS in Business with a major in Hospitality and Tourism Management, and a PhD in Hospitality and Tourism Management. The department is offering a new degree program leading to MSBA (Master of Science in Business Administration with concentration in Hospitality & Tourism Management) in the National Capital Region. In all of our programs, we provide students with a first class business education taught by an internationally recognized faculty who are actively engaged in professional practice and research. Students who graduate from our program go on to work in: Hospitality Operations Management, Global Tourism Management, Restaurant and Food Management, and Hospitality Event Management. The Department is a tier one recruiting school for many of the major hospitality corporations in the USA, including Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Sodexo, Darden, and many others.

Oxford Brookes University, School of Hospitality Management (UK)

Prof. Levent Altinay

The Oxford School of Hospitality Management is recognized as a center of excellence for research in international hospitality and tourism. In 2011, a study published in the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research ranked the school as Number One in Europe for top quality hospitality research, and top in the world for research productivity. Our aim is to conduct rigorous research that advances academics' understanding about the management of hospitality and tourism organizations and destinations nationally and internationally, addresses the needs of organizations and policy makers and informs teaching and learning practices. The school has a very supportive and collegiate research culture developing knowledge and skill capacities in hospitality and tourism management with particular focus to the international business development and ethics and corporate social responsibility. The staff publishes in prestigious top tier internationally rated journals including Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management, The Service Industries Journal, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Services Marketing, International Small Business Journal and Journal of Small Business Management. They serve on the editorial boards of prestigious journals including Journal of Services Marketing, International Journal of Hospitality Management and International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. They also speak at both academic and practitioner conferences as key note speakers, edit special editions of the journals including International Journal of Service Industry Management and Contemporary Hospitality Management. They make strong

representations in prestigious bodies such as CHME, CHRIE, Tourism and Complexity Society, Global Council in Crisis Management of the International Hotel and Restaurant Association and use their enhanced academic credibility to undertake consultancy activities.

Institute for Tourism Studies, Macau (China)

Prof. Fanny Vong

The Institute for Tourism Studies, Macau (IFT) is the only higher education institution in Macau specially dedicated to the training and professionalization of the hospitality and tourism industry, the mainstay of Macau's economy. Set up in 1995 with full funding support from the Macau Government, IFT delivers degree programs in hotel, tourism, events and heritage management and, more recently, in hospitality retail and culinary arts. In 2000, IFT was the first tourism institute in the world to receive the UNWTO TedQual program certification. IFT's Tourism Research Centre (ITRC) conducts public relevant and policy-shaping research that supports decision- and policy-makers in Macau, in addition to the scholarly research it undertakes and supports.

Vedatya Institute

Prof. Sandeep Munjal

Vedatya Institute, formerly known as the Institute for International Management & Technology (IIMT), is an educator for the service industry. The institute is an initiative of IIT & the Wharton School alums who wish to replicate their own quality educational experience for the benefit of students in India. It is funded by the holding entity of Radisson Blu Plaza Delhi, Radisson Blu Varanasi and a restaurant chain called The Great Kabab Factory. Vedatya was founded in the year 2000 with a long term objective to provide best-in- class, internationally recognized, undergraduate, post graduate, doctoral and executive education programs of study in the service sector related areas of hospitality, business, technology, healthcare, retail and arts. It currently offers undergraduate and postgraduate programs in Hospitality and Business Management.

Contents

Distinguished Speakers

Prof. Roland T. Rust, Distinguished University Professor and David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing - the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, USA Title of Presentation: Service Innovation: What Is It and Where Does It Come From?"

Prof. M. Joseph Sirgy, the Virginia Tech Real Estate Professor, Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), USA Title of Presentation: Leisure Well-Being: Toward an Integrated Model

Regular and Extended Abstracts Existence and future of rate parity in Indian hospitality scenario Anmole Singh & Anjana Singh 01

It’s not just clowning around: Strategic insights into creativity and innovation in the cultural entertainment services Pandora Kay 02

The weight of hotel attributes for visitors of Disneyland Paris & co-creation of value Mustafeed Zaman, Tan Vo Thanh & Laurent Botti 04

Co-Creation value of an Australian whale watching tourism experience Aaron Tkaczynski 13

Using Fullerton’s model of country concept to investigate how the United Arab Emirates (UAE) communicates itself to its external stakeholders – A content analysis approach Noela Michael, Serra Gorpe & Ian Michael 15

The role of language use in services and challenges in managing a multilingual company Saloomeh Tabari & Hadyn Ingram 17

Factors influencing the forming of visitor experiences by presentation platforms at managed tourist attractions Øystein Jensen 19

Visual analysis of image and experience toward destination services: Perspective on Seoul's photos and videos in Instagram services Jiyeon Park & Chulwon Kim 20

Combatting human trafficking in hospitality and tourism Maureen Brookes 25

Historical hotels as tourist experiences: Challenges in conveying history Soelvi Lyngnes 26

Job Passion: Is there any contribution in the service setting Dia Ahmad Zeglat 27

The role of service climate on psychological capital, quality of work life, organizational citizenship behave and turnover intention Annette Kang, James Busser & Hyung-Min Choi 39

Framework of culture and consumer complaint behavior: A cross-national study of consumers from a developed and developing country context Sean Benedict Chung 40

Trust development in cross-cultural social entrepreneurship: Preliminary findings Na Dou, Levent Altinay & Roberto Daniele 41

Motives, barriers, and restaurant environmental factors of restaurant customers’ healthy menu choice: A scale development study EunHa Jeong & SooCheong Jang 43

Exploring the key dimensions of service quality at wineries Kyuho Lee & Melih Madanoglu 49

Building value co-creation in restaurant industry: what are the roles of customers? Eojina Kim, Liang Tang & Robert Bosselman 50

Impact of prior experience on purchase motivation and variety seeking in meeting/event planners’ venue selection: Sport stadiums as a meeting/event service venue Seungwon Lee & Charles Parrish 52

How and why scholars write: A typology of scholarly writing Nina Prebensen 57

Middle East public relations association and its engagement with communication students: learning lessons Noela Michael & Serra Gorpe 58

An unstructured approach to RM in Railways: A special case of premium passengers trains in India Arvind Kaushal & Anjana Singh 59

A Comparative study on the effect of food image on Seoul as a tourism destination: Asian and Non-Asian perspectives 60 Ling Yu, Seungha Sim, Jiyeon Park & Chulwon Kim

Multi-level investigation of relationships among servant leadership and customer service: A moderated mediated model of employee engagement and self-efficacy 65 Jichul Jang & Jay Kandampully

A bibliometric analysis of service management literature on Macau Aaron Yankholmes 71

Impact of using E services on customer’s satisfaction and subjective well-being of tourists and customers of hospitality industry in India 75 Arvind K. Birdie

Cellular industry issues, trends and opportunities for development in the Republic of Kazakhstan Armiyash Nurmagambetova, Republic of Kazakhstan 76

Posters

Expos 2020 and Tourism Asma Al Hamed, Khadija Al Sayegh & Shamma Al Suwaidi 84

Identification of Visitor Groups in Cultural Heritage Tourism Market Jeongyong Jew 85

Effects of corporate social responsibility on financial performance in the hospitality industry: The Mediating role of Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) Woo-Hyuk Kim & Jichul Jang 86

Participants 87

Distinguished Speakers

Roland T. Rust is a Distinguished University Professor and David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. Here, he is founder and Executive Director of two research centers: the Center for Excellence in Service and the Center for Complexity in Business. He is also Visiting Chair in Marketing Research at Erasmus University (Netherlands), International Research Fellow of Oxford University's Center for Corporate Reputation (UK) and Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth at Fudan University (China). His lifetime achievement honors include the AMA Irwin McGraw-Hill Distinguished Marketing Educator Award, AMA Fellow, Fellow of the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science, the Paul D. Converse Award, AMA's Career Contributions to the Services Discipline Award, AMA's Churchill Award for Lifetime Achievement in Marketing Research, the Distinguished Marketing Educator Award from the Academy of Marketing Science, AMA's Mahajan Award for Career Contribution to Marketing Strategy, the Outstanding Contributions to Research in Advertising award from the American Academy of Advertising, Fellow of the American Statistical Association, the Elsevier Distinguished Marketing Scholar Award from SMA, two distinguished doctoral alumnus awards from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an honorary doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) from the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland). He has also won numerous best article and best book awards, including four best article awards from the Journal of Marketing. He served as Editor of the Journal of Marketing, founded the annual Frontiers in Service Conference, and was founding Editor of the Journal of Service Research. He is currently Vice President of External Relations for the European Marketing Academy (EMAC), and is Editor-Elect of the International Journal of Research in Marketing (IJRM). He has consulted with many leading companies worldwide, including such companies as American Airlines, AT&T, Comcast, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Eli Lilly, FedEx, Hershey, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, NASA, NCR, Nortel, Procter & Gamble, Sears, Sony, Unilever, and USAA. A national class distance runner in his collegiate days, he has been inducted into the DePauw University Athletic Hall of Fame.

Prof. M. Joseph Sirgy, the Virginia Tech Real Estate Professor, Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), USA

Title of Presentation: Leisure Well-Being: Toward an Integrated Model

Joe Sirgy is a management psychologist (Ph.D., U/Massachusetts, 1979), the Virginia Tech Real Estate Professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He has published extensively in the area of marketing, business ethics, and quality of life (QOL). He is the author/editor of many books related to consumer marketing and quality of life. He co-founded the International Society for Quality-of- Life Studies (ISQOLS) in 1995, served as its Executive Director/Treasurer from 1995 to 2011, and as Development Director (2011-12). In 1998, he received the Distinguished Fellow Award from ISQOLS. In 2003, ISQOLS honored him as the Distinguished QOL Researcher for research excellence and a record of lifetime achievement in QOL research. He also served as President of the Academy of Marketing Science from which he received the Distinguished Fellow Award in the early 1990's and the Harold Berkman Service Award in 2007 (lifetime achievement award for serving the marketing professoriate). In the early 2000's, he helped co-found the Macromarketing Society and the Community Indicators Consortium and has served as a board member of these two professional associations. He co-founded the journal, Applied Research in Quality of Life, the official journal of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, in 2005; and he has served as editor (1995-present). He also served editor of the QOL section in the Journal of Macromarketing (1995- present). He received the Virginia Tech's Pamplin Teaching Excellence Award/Holtzman Outstanding Educator Award and University Certificate of Teaching Excellence in 2008. In 2010, ISQOLS honored him for excellence and lifetime service to the society. In 2010 he won the Best Paper Award in the Journal of Happiness Studies for his theory of the balanced life; in 2011 also he won the Best Paper Award in the Journal of Travel Research for his goal theory of leisure travel satisfaction. In 2012 he was awarded the EuroMed Management Research Award for outstanding achievements and groundbreaking contributions to well-being and quality-of-life research. He also was the editor of ISQOLS/Springer book series on handbooks in QOL research and the community QOL indicators best practices. Based on Google Scholar Impact Indices, his total Citations count (up to June 29, 2015) is 13,729; his h-index is 55; and his i10 index is 134.

Existence and Future of Rate Parity in Indian Hospitality Scenario

Anmole Singh, VEDATYA, India Anjana Singh, VEDATTA, India

Abstract

Objective: There has been continuous debate in the revenue management discipline regarding the application of Rate Parity principle across various distribution channels. Off late the discussion, application and evaluation of the fore mentioned principle has been limited to the online distribution channels like OTAs and Direct websites. The aim of the paper is to examine and analyze on consistency of Rate Parity applications on selected online and offline distribution channels of selected individual hotels and further analyze the viewpoints of Business managers on the same.

Methodology/Approach: The paper will be based on data collected through a multi-method approach. Extensive literature review will be done to collect themed data. A primary research will be conducted to gather information for analysis of rate parity practices in online and offline channels. Further, to validate the analysis, interviews will be conducted where Business managers will be giving arguments on Rate Parity as a favorable practice for Hotel Revenue Managers

Major findings: This paper will attempt to present the existing role and impact of Rate parity as part of the Revenue Management practices in hotels, across online (OTAs and Hotel Website) and offline (sales representative and hotel reservation staff) distribution channels, in India. It will also shed light on the longevity of rate parity in the revenue management practices.

Conclusions: The paper look forward to prove the existence of Rate Parity between online and offline channels and the forward path in the Indian Hospitality scenario.

Implications: The practical implication of this study is to suggest hotel operators, Owners and OTAs about the current scenario and future implications of rate parity and strategies they could adopt proactively to achieve their targeted goals and objectives.

Keywords: Revenue Management, Rate Parity, Best practices, Indian hospitality, Hotels, Online Travel Agents

It’s not just clowning around: Strategic Insights into Creativity and Innovation in the Cultural Entertainment Services

Pandora Kay, Deakin University, Australia Ruth Rentschler, Deakin University, Australia

Abstract

Objective: Creativity and innovation are no longer confined to the arts and cultural realms, but are now seen as common elements of social and economic innovation. Meanwhile arts and cultural industries have evolved, shifting towards the service sector and the rise of ideas such as the knowledge economy and the growth of cultural and creative industries into the experiential cultural economy of entertainment services. This raises a research need to re-examine creativity and innovation in terms of their connections with the arts in the present creativity-commerce framework where driving forces of marketization, subsidization, efficiency and effectiveness have been observed. Research questions are whether there are elements of creativity and innovation which the arts and cultural industries are particularly well placed to engender? What are these elements of creativity and innovation in the arts? Are they more interpretative or analytical? Does an interpretative phase need to precede an analytical phase? Is creativity and innovation always a good thing? What are the driving forces of the present creativity-commerce framework that have implications for managing creativity and innovation in cultural entertainment services?

Methodology: A case-based, discovery-oriented qualitative approach to understand the phenomena in situ by addressing ‘how’ and ‘why’ type questions was adopted (Yin, 1984). Two Australian cases from the circus arts were selected as the sector within the cultural entertainment services of interest. Both circuses are national organizations that tour internationally and have been operating since the late 1970s with some government subsidy. With more than three decades of full-time operations, these are iconic Australian organizations within the arts and cultural realm with extensive expertise and experience of the circus arts sector, nationally and internationally. Twenty eight in-depth interviews were conducted with managerial executives and board directors to obtain insight into creativity and innovation within these cultural organizations from the perspective of those leading them.

Major Findings: Elements of creativity and innovation that arts organizations within the cultural entertainment services are particularly well placed to engender are the ability to perceive opportunities, take risks, and deal with uncertainty. Those leading these circus arts organizations combine highly developed strategic, analytical and interpretative elements of creativity and innovation. By comparing the findings of this study of creativity and innovation in the circus arts sector with extant findings from non-cultural businesses, a new paradigm for creativity and innovation in cultural entertainment services is presented.

Conclusions: These leaders of these circus arts organizations, function as agents of creativity and innovation, who could be classified as ‘cultural entrepreneurs’. They take their organizations in new directions and pursue new initiatives by developing new structures and processes and by finding the necessary inputs of resources, collaborations and networks that result in innovative creative outputs in cultural entertainment services.

Implications: The understanding and insight gained into creativity and innovation from the circus arts cases of the cultural entertainment services has implications for the theory and practice of development, delivery, marketing and leadership of circus arts and other cultural entertainment services within Australia and internationally.

Acknowledgement The authors would like to thank Professor Marc Jones, The University of Sydney Business School, Australia for his valuable input in the development of the research project and assisting with data collection.

The Weight of Hotel Attributes for Visitors of Disneyland Paris & Co-creation of Value

Mustafeed Zaman1*, University of Perpignan Via Domitia, France Laurent Botti2, University of Perpignan Via Domitia, France Tan Vo Thanh, La Rochelle Business School, France

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to confront the “weight of guest-satisfaction determined attributes” with the “perceived value by the guests of Disneyland Paris partner hotels”. In this regard, the weight of attributes/criteria has been calculated by Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) – Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. And, perceived value by the guests on the respective attributes has been calculated from the user generated content (UGC) websites (e.g. Trip Advisor). 200 tourists stayed in one of the 15 partner hotels of Disneyland Paris (France) have been interrogated in order to evaluate the weight of criteria/attributes. Therefore, this study permits the respective hotel managers to understand the gap between the need/expectation of their guests and perceived value. This paper suggests respective hotel managers to create a higher-value for their guests according the importance/weight of guest-satisfaction attributes.

Keywords: MCDA, AHP Method, Hotel Attributes, Value Co-creation, Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM), Guest Satisfaction, Disneyland Paris

Introduction

Disneyland Paris is the most visited tourist destination in Europe with 14.2 million tourists in 2014 (Euro Disney Associés S.C.A.). The Euro Disney group operates 7 hotels (capacity of 5800 rooms) and with another 8 partner hotels, Disneyland Paris ensures the best Disney Experience for their guests. Recently, due to competitive business environment, all these hotels of Disneyland Paris are struggling to meet their customer needs and expectations and, as a result, the occupancy rate for the respective hotels is decreased by 2.2% in 3rd semester of 2014 (Euro Disney Associés S.C.A). However, the overall occupancy rate in Paris region was increased by 1% for the same period of time (Paris Tourist Office), it is obvious that the Disneyland Paris partner hotels are losing their market share. Therefore, it has become indispensible for respective hotel managers to understand and identify the needs and expectations of the guests in order to improve the service and to deliver a higher-value. In this regard, it is necessary for hotel managers to evaluate the weight of guest- satisfaction determined attributes/criteria.

Multiple researches have been done in order to understand the importance/weight of criteria/attributes that play a vital role in guest satisfaction and the hotel selection process (e.g. Zaman, Botti, Vo Thanh, 2015; Albayrak & Caber, 2015; Chu & Choi, 2000; Tsaur & Tzeng, 1996). And, the importance/weight of attributes helps hospitality professionals to improve their services/products for their customers (i.e. by creating a higher-value).

The co-creation of values consists of exchanging information between the hotels and the customers. Some researchers found that it was very difficult for hotel managers to exchange information with customers (e.g. Chathoth et al., 2013) but the emerge of user-generated content websites (e.g. TripAdvisor) has made it easier (O’Connor, 2008). UGC websites not only help hotel managers to exchange with their customers, but also

help potential customers to choose the right hotel (e.g. Zaman, Botti & Vo Thanh, 2015). According to Nielson (2013) report, 70% of potential customers trust online reviews for making any purchase and, the perceived value that is expressed on the UGC websites (e.g. Trip Advisor); plays a vital role in decision- making process of potential customers. However, UGC websites permits customers to express themselves but does not allow them to prioritize their needs and expectations (i.e. guest-satisfaction attributes).

In this regard, the weight of criteria/attributes helps the hotel managers to understand the contribution of each attribute/criterion in guest-satisfaction and, the guests’ reviews on UGC websites, help them to evaluate their performance vis-à-vis the respective attributes by their guests as a post-experience point of views (i.e. perceived value by the guests). By confronting these two results, this study suggests the respective hotel managers to allocate the resources accordingly in order to deliver a higher-value for their customers.

By taking into consideration the criteria/attributes from previous researches, official website of Disneyland Paris, and the interviews of 3 hotels employees of partner hotels; we have validated 9 attributes/criteria for further evaluation.

Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) – AHP (Analytics Hierarchy Process) method has been applied in order to calculate the weight of these 9 attributes by pair-wise comparison between criteria/attributes. The data was collected from 200 tourists in Disneyland Paris; mainly from couples and families with children, traveling for leisure purpose and stayed in one of those 15 hotels. On the other hand, notes/rating for each attribute/criterion from UGC websites have been taken in order to state the perceived value by the customers.

Therefore, this paper is organised as follows. In section 2, we conduct a literature review on value co-creation for hotels. The section 3 presents the methodology. In section 4, we present the results & discussion. In section 5, we present the managerial implication. And, the final part emphasizes on the limits and perspectives of our study.

Weight of Attributes and Co-Creation of Value for Hotels: Researchers have mentioned two types of value-creation approaches: co-production and co-creation (Chathoth et al., 2013). This paper only focuses on the second one, the co-creation of value for hotels. The basic concept co-creation of value is that customers use their skills and knowledge from their previous experiences and co-create the value for the product/service in question (Vargo et al., 2008). On the other hand, the co-creation process consists of exchange between the hoteliers and the customers in order to learn more about the customers and their needs (Matthing et al., 2004; Yen et al., 2004; Normann, 2001). However, some researchers found that it was very difficult to exchange information with customers (e.g. Chathoth et al., 2013). But, by the development of information and communication technologies (TIC), the tourism & hospitality industry has been changed as well as the way of exchanging the information (Buhalis & Law, 2008). Thus, the growing importance of user-generated content websites / eWOM (e.g. TripAdvisor) has made it easier for hotel managers to exchange with their customers (O’Connor, 2008). Although, there are very few researches on impact of UGC websites/eWOM on co-creation of value; Se-To & Ho (2014) have explained that there is certainly a positive impact of eWOM on value co-creation.

On the other hand, hotel sector is a service industry where materials (e.g. installed facilities) and skilled & friendly staffs (e.g. human touch) have equal importance. In order to stay competitive, hotel managers need precise information and attribute preferences of their customers (Tsaur & Tzeng, 1996). So far, researchers

have identified a total number of 173 attributes on hotel and they were ranked according to their importance (e.g. Dolnicar & Otter, 2003). However, by taking into consideration the attributes of UGC websites (e.g. TripAdvisor); services proposed by hotels on Disneyland Paris website (see list of the hotels: http://www.disneylandparis.fr/hotels/), and the interview of 3 employees of concerned hotels; we have validated 9 attributes: distance of the hotel from the park, comfort & equipment, service/personnel, cleanliness, value for money, free Wi-Fi, hotel transfer/shuttle service, package (hotel + park ticket), health- club/gym.

So, in value co-creation process, the customers were involved in two steps. In the first step, the preference/importance of attributes have been calculated via pair-wise comparison and in the second step, their perception of respective attributes have been taken into account via UGC websites/eWOM.

Methodology & Data

Multi-Criteria AHP method has been used in order to calculate the importance/weight of these attributes by a pair-wise comparison matrix (e.g. Zaman, Botti, Vo Thanh, 2015; Tsaur & Tzeng, 1996). In order to do so, Saaty Scale (1977, 1980) has been used because it is very useful when the decision maker is unable to construct a utility function (Ishizaka & Nemery, 2013). Thus, decision maker gives a relative verbal appreciation between two criteria rather than a numerical judgement.

Verbal Appreciation Numeric Rating Reciprocal Value Extreme importance 9 1/9 Very, very strong 8 1/8 Very strong 7 1/7 Strong plus 6 1/6 Strong importance 5 1/5 Moderate plus 4 1/4 Moderate importance 3 1/3 Weak 2 1/2 Equal importance 1 1 Table 1: Insight of Saaty Scale

If two criteria ch and ck are compared, ehk indicates the evaluation of the criteria ch relatively to the criteria ck. The pair-wise comparison matrix A is composed of all the relative evaluation by considering that ahk = 1/ akh.

Figure 1: Numeric rating of a pair-wise comparison (Zaman, Botti & Vo Thanh, 2015)

By talking into consideration the Eigen-Value formulation,

Aw = mw (1)

T Where w = (w1, …, wm) ; m= associated Eigen-value.

Since the observed matrix A might not be consistent, the estimation of w could be calculated as follow (where

λmax represents the maximum Eigen-Value of matrix A):

Aw = λmax w (2)

In order to measure the inconsistency (A is consistent if λmax=m and we always have the λmax ≥m), consistency ratio (C.R.) could be calculated by using the following steps:

Consistency Index (C.I.) = (λmax – m) / (m – 1) (3)

Therefore, C.R. = C.I. / R.I. (4)

Consistency Ration (C.R.) should be less or equal to 0.1 in order to get the result acceptable. The C.I. of a randomly generated pair-wise comparison matrix (Saaty, 1980) & m = order of matrix.

m 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

R.I. 0.00 0.00 0.58 0.90 1.12 1.24 1.32 1.41 1.46 1.49

Table 3: Random indices from Saaty (1977).

The data was collected from 239 tourists in Disneyland Paris in August/September 2015. We only focused on the leisure travellers who stayed in one of 15 hotels listed on the park’s official website. Please note that those 239 questionnaires consist of 117 couples and 122 families with children; which are two major segments of clients for Disneyland Paris. However, after the consistency test, we have retained only 200 valid questionnaires, 100 for each segment. UGC website - Trip Advisor has been analysed in order to state the perceived value and the note of each attribute.

Result & Discussions

Result shows that “Value for Money” (16.75%) is the most important criteria/attribute for respondents followed by distance of the hotel from the park, cleanliness, package, and quality of service by the staff. All the partner hotels of Disneyland Paris maintain a politic of higher price and guests are looking for a higher-value for their money during their stay. Therefore, the main challenge for the concerned hotel managers and marketing experts will be:

• How they could communicate the perceived value for the customers? • How they could offer a higher value for their customers?

Distance between the hotel and the park (14%) plays a vital role in hotel selection however varies from families to couples. We have interviewed 3 employees from 3 hotels and hotel staffs explained that families, who were visiting Disneyland Paris, usually stay close to Disney (i.e. in one of the partner hotels). On the contrary, couples usually stays in between Paris and Disneyland Park; and take the advantage to visit Paris in the same time.

Cleanliness (14%), which is a basic attribute for guest satisfaction, also plays a significant role in hotel selection. Previous studies on hotel attributes (e.g. Zaman, Botti & Vo Thanh, 2015; Ryan & Huimin, 2007) found “cleanliness” the most important attribute for guest satisfaction and play a vital role in decision-making process for potential clients.

Disneyland Paris hotels propose special packages (13.5%) (i.e. hotel with park entry ticket, Disney personalities in the hotels, etc.), which is one of the important criteria for hotel selection but doesn’t have any contribution in guest satisfaction. During the interviews, the staffs from 3 hotels confirmed that around 50% of the tourists of their hotels buy a package. So, the package could be considered as a added-value for the customers and it’s a promotional tool.

Friendly staffs/service (12%) plays an important role in service industry. Transfer from Hotel to Park (11%) is considered as an important element however all the hotels propose free shuttle services. It could be considered as a basis service for the hotels. Without any surprise, the comfort and equipment of the rooms; free Wifi and, gym/health-club have very little importance (Fig. 2).

Weight of Guest Satisfaction Attributes (Couple + Family)

Distance of the hotel from the park 5% Comfort & equipment of room 14% 14% Service / Staff

7% Cleanliness

11% Value for money 12% Free Wifi 6% Hotel Transfer

14% Package 17%

Figure 2: Weight of Hotel Attributes for Disneyland Paris

As we have already explained, two major segments and results show that how it varies from couples to families (with children) (Fig. 3). Value for money is the most important criteria for couples while families with children prefers to take a package and stay close to the park, and have a free shuttle service. Without any surprise, the quality service/staffs has the equal importance for each segment.

Weight of Attributes for Two Major Segment

Gym/Health-club Package Hotel Transfer Free Wifi Value for money Cleanliness Service / Staff Confort Distance of the hotel from the park

0 5 10 15 20 25

Family with children Couple

Figure 3: Weight of Hotel Attributes by Segment

After determining the weight of hotel attributes, we have illustrated the perceived value of 4 main/top attributes: value for money, distance of the hotel from the park (location), cleanliness and service/staff for 5 hotels. Result shows that only Hotel Elysée proposes a higher-value for their customers (4.5 out of 5). As Disneyland Hotel is situated inside the Park, it has the highest satisfaction for location (Fig. 4) but very poor performance on value for money.

Perceived Value on top 4 Guest Satisfaction Attributes (from Trip Advisor)

Disneyland Hotel Disney's Newport Bay Club Disney's Hotel New York Magic Circus Hotel Hotel Elysée 5 4.5 4.5 4.5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3

Value for Money Location Cleanliness Service

Figure 4: Illustration of perceived value from Trip Advisor (for only 5 hotels)

By analysing the customers’ reviews for respective hotels, here is a guest comment on Disneyland Hotel stayed in September:

“1000 USD a night and not even a free bottle of water in the room!!!”

« …we booked via Expedia 2 nights and called after 5 minutes to change to 1 night and were promised by Expedia that this changed in the system and we just need to show up in the hotel. We did and this massively expensive hotel for absolutely no reason refused to change our booking and we had to pay the extra night which was a bit less than a 1000 USD a night desire standing on the reception desk for 2 hours and calling the central reservation people who were so strict and unfriendly.

Anyways I will never book there again because it's in no way value for the money. The rooms are very simple and not 5 stars and nothing in them indicates that you are in Disneyland. Even water upon arrival is not for free. There isn't a kettle or any complementary drinks. They charge even infants for lunch buffet. There isn't ANY thing special about this hotel. The breakfast you can easily have in a 3 star hotel. Plus it's too crowded that you have to stand in line and wait to be able to enter the breakfast area. No personal touch or treatment whatsoever.

Other hotels are few minutes away and way cheaper so why to pay all this money???.... »

This review not only unsatisfactory vis-à-vis value-for money but also reflects the poor and unfriendly service.

Therefore, we have two results. Firstly, the weight of hotel attributes which permits us to understand the preference of guests in Disneyland Paris. Secondly, the analysis of UGC websites permits us to evaluate the performance of hotels for these respective attributes.

Managerial Implications

Because of tough competition in hospitality industry, the main objective of hospitality professionals is to ensure a higher level of customer satisfaction by delivering a higher-value. The weight of attributes facilitates the understating of real needs & expectations of the guests, and, the UGC websites help managers to evaluate their performance for respective attributes and explain how the guests perceived their performance.

Hotel managers should allocate more resources for important attributes such as service/staffs training and cleanliness rather than complementary services such as health-club/gym. They should anticipate the need of customers by an internal questionnaire and provide a higher-value for their product/service.

Conclusion, Limits and Perspectives

This article explains how weight of guest-satisfaction attributes and UGC websites could be used for co- creation of value for hotel customers. In addition, this study facilitates the understanding of preferences of Disneyland Paris partner hotel customers. Study shows that all the attributes don’t have the same importance and it permits the respective hotels to offer the right value for their customers in order to stay competitive. The questionnaire does not take into account the socio-demographic situation (e.g. age, sex, annual revenue) of the guests. So, a future study with more detailed information could be more appropriate in order to get more precise information. On the other hand, customer reviews on UGC websites should be analysed in order to better understand the gap between the customer need, delivered value and perceived value.

References

Albayrak, T. & Caber, M., (2015). Prioritisation of the hotel attributes according to their influence on satisfaction: A comparison of two techniques. Tourism Management 46, 43–50. Buhalis, D. & Law, R. (2008). Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet - The state of eTourism research. Tourism Management, 29(4), p. 609-623. Chathoth, P., Altinay, L., Harrington, R. J., Okumus, F. & Chan, E. S. W. (2013). Co-production versus co- creation: A process based continuum in the hotel service context. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 32, p. 11-20.

Chu, R.K.S. & Choi, T., (2000). An important-performance of hotel selection factors in Hong Kong hotel industry: a comparison of business and leisure travellers. Tourism Management 21(4), 363 – 377. Dolnicar, S. & Otter, T. (2003). Which Hotel Attributes Matter? A Review of Previous and a Framework for Future Research, in Griffin, T. & Harris, R. (eds.) Proceedings of the 9th Annual Conference of the Asia Pacific Tourism Association (APTA), University of Technology Sydney, 1, p. 176-188. Euro Disney Associé S.C.A. Retrieved on 15/10/2015 from: http://radiodisneyclub.fr/euro-disney-s-c-a- resultats-3eme-trimestre-2014/ Ishizaka, A. & Nemery, P. (2013). Multi-Criteria Decision Making Analysis –Methods and Sofrware. John Wiley & Sons Ltd. UK. Matthing, J., Sanden,́ B. & Edvardsson, B. (2004). New service development: learning from and with customers. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 15(5), p. 479-498. Nielsen, (2013). Global Trust in Advertising & Brand Message, The Nielsen Company, New York, USA. Normann, R., (2001). Reframing Business: When the Map Changes the Landscape. Wiley, Chichester, England. O’Connor, P. (2008). User-Generated Content and Travel: A Case Study on Tripadvisor.Com. Information & Communication Technologies in Tourism, p. 47-58, Springer Vienna. Paris Tourist Office. Retrieved on 15/10/2015 from: www.parisinfo.com Ryan, C. & Huimin, G., (2007). Perceptions of Chinese hotels. Cornell Hotel & Restaurant Administration Quarterly 48(4), 380–391. Saaty, T. (1977). A scaling method for priorities in hierarchical structures. Journal of Mathe- matical Psychology, 15(3), p. 234-281. Saaty, T. (1980). The Analytics Hierarchy Process, McGraw-Hill, New York. See-To, E. W.K. & Ho, K. K.W. (2014). Value co-creation and purchase intention in social network sites :The role of electronic Word-of-Mouth and trust – A theoretical analysis. Computers in Human Behavior 31, p. 182 – 189. Tsaur, S.H. & Tzeng, G.H., (1996). Multiattribute Decision Making Analysis for Customer Preference of Tourist Hotels, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing 4(4), 55–69. Vargo, S. L., Maglio, P. P. & Akaka, M. A. (2008). On value and value co-creation: a service systems and service logic perspective. European Management Journal 26(3), p. 145-152. Yen, H. R., Gwinner, K. P. & Su, W. (2004). The impact of customer participation and service expectation on locus attributions following service failure. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 15(1), p. 7-26. Zaman, M., Botti, L. & Vo Thanh, T. (2015). Weight of Criteria in Hotel Selection: An Empirical Illustration Based on Trip Advisor Criteria. Proceedings / Working Paper.

Co-Creation Value of an Australian Whale Watching Tourism Experience

Aaron Tkaczynski, University of Queensland, Australia

Objective: This research has two objectives. Firstly, this study aimed to extend current value co-creation research by including customers as active participants in the creation and production of a tourism experience. Based on these research findings, the study then sought to identify whether this self-defined value can, similarly to the literature, significantly predict variance in their satisfaction, repurchase intentions and word- of-mouth recommendations of a customer co-created tourism experience.

Methodology/Approach: A self-administered questionnaire was designed based on a literature review (e.g. Sweeney & Soutar 2001; Yi & Gong, 2013). All items were designed in a 7 point Likert scale and measured customers’ evaluation of an Australian whale watching experience. After a purification process, face validity was confirmed and 68 value and 3 post-purchase evaluation items were included. 470 responses were collected during August and September 2015 across three different whale watching vessels.

Major findings: An exploratory factor analysis was employed. After all items that did not exhibit validity were removed from analysis, 11 factors based on the remaining 51 items were produced. These factors were labelled as (in order of variance importance): 1) staff; 2) self-perception; 3) my behaviour; 4) value for money; 5) feedback 6) emotions; 7) helping; 8) self-actualisation; 9) tangibles; 10) tolerance; and 11) my interaction. Next, regression analysis determined that 10 factors significantly predicted the variance in the three post- purchase items. Self-perception did not significantly predict the variance in satisfaction or word-of-mouth recommendations, and tolerance was not significantly related to repurchase intentions.

Conclusions: This study extended current research into the customer co-creation of value for tourism experience. It identified that customer input factors, such as feedback, helping and interaction, which were determined in Yi & Gong’s (2013) conceptualised model, were relevant dimensions for value co-creation of an Australian whale watching experience. Consequently, in addition to the physical setting and employees, tourism providers need to consider customer co-creation when designing and promoting a whale watching experience. Furthermore, this study confirmed current research (e.g. Al-Sabbahy et al. 2004; Chen & Chen 2010) that value largely contributes to post-purchase evaluation of a service. Interestingly, self-perception, which is largely internal, was not exposed as relevant to satisfaction and recommending to others the experience. Future research across different contexts is necessary to identify the value of a tourism experience.

Implications: The major implications from this study are to consider customers as active participants in the creation of a tourism experience. Whilst whale watching will require: 1) appropriate facilities; 2) staff to manage the tourism experience; and 3) the exhibition of whales to drive visitation; tourism providers need to consider how involved customers should be when promoting and designing this type of experience. Furthermore, based on the potential size of the whale watching vessel and the number of customers experiencing the same service offering being different, it is likely that different service evaluations could be identified. Consequently, determining what is particularly relevant for customers when experiencing a whale watching experience is essential for promoting the service and facilitating, happy, returning customers.

References

Al-Sabbahy, H. Z., Ekinci, Y., & Riley, M. (2004). An Investigation of Perceived Value Dimensions: Implications for Hospitality Research. Journal of Travel Research, 42(3), 226-234. doi: 10.1177/0047287503258841 Chen, C.-F., & Chen, F.-S. (2010). Experience quality, perceived value, satisfaction and behavioral intentions for heritage tourists. Tourism Management, 31(1), 29-35. doi: 10.1016/j.tourman.2009.02.008 Sweeney, J., & Soutar, G. N. (2001). Consumer perceived value: The development of a multiple item scale. Journal of Retailing, 77(2), 203-220. doi: 10.1016/S0022-4359(01)00041-0 Yi, Y., & Gong, T. (2013). Customer value co-creation behavior: Scale development and validation. Journal of Business Research, 66(9), 1279-1284. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2012.02.026

Using Fullerton’s Model of Country Concept to Investigate How the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Communicates Itself to Its External Stakeholders – A Content Analysis Approach

Noela Michael, Affiliation: Zayed University, UAE Serra Gorpe, Zayed University, UAE Ian Michael, Zayed University, UAE

Objective: The aim of the study is to systematically understand how the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is building its country concept through its official communication to the external stakeholders. This will be examined against the Model of Country Concept (Fullerton, 2014)

Methodology/Approach: The research method that will be used for this study is qualitative in nature, using text mining and expert judgment to undertake a content analyses of all communication, narrative and visual information from various government and tourism websites and social media websites like Facebook.

Major findings: The analysis focuses on only the sub- elements of the Model of Country Concept (Fullerton, 2014-16, see Figure 1 below) limiting it to government websites and social media platforms. The results will provide a deeper understanding as to how the Emirates and the country are trying to create opinions about itself. Also the study will compare and contrast the seven Emirates similarities or differences and its function in the UAE country concept.

Conclusions: Using Fullerton’s (2014-16) Model of Country Concept, this paper will help the UAE government to understand better its position towards building its country concept through its official communication to the external stakeholders. Implications: Based on the findings, the study aims to create guidelines/suggestions on how the government can develop a more proactive and positive role in its strategy and policy formulation by using a very different positioning strategy such as its Emirati and Arab cultural heritage and legacy as a USP (Unique Selling Proposition)

References

Fullerton, J. (2014-16). CPD Research Fellowship project titled "A Model of Country Concept: How Attitudes toward Nations are formed". University of Southern California (USC), Centre on Public Diplomacy (CPD).

Source:

Fullerton, J. (2014-16).

The Role of Language Use in Services and Challenges in Managing a Multilingual Company

Saloomeh Tabari, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK Hadyn Ingram, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK

Abstract

There can be few organizations, which are as multi-lingual and multi-cultural as hospitality firms in London. The Evening Standard reports on 8th May 2014 that London is the world’s top attraction for tourists who need use hospitality services such as hotels, pubs and restaurants. Providing services to multi-cultural customers by multi-cultural staff presents an ongoing challenge for hospitality organizations. Opportunities for cultural miscommunication exist in every service encounter. The Tabari/Ingram Cultural Dissonance Diagnostic Tool (Tabari and Ingram, 2014) suggests that service organizations can effectively measure the extent to which cultural dissonance in service interactions is present in their organizations. Having measured the extent of the cultural problems, this paper considers possible solutions and remedial action which might be taken. Merging social and organization culture, the conclusions suggest that low levels of cultural dissonance can be rectified by cultural awareness training, while higher levels are more intractable and may require more fundamental organizational culture change.

Service interaction: According to Barker and Härtel (2004) service encounters are increasingly made up of culturally diverse customers, since the growth of purchasing behavior of ethnic minorities are growing (Pires and Stanton, 2000). Furthermore, most service providers evaluate customers based on a range of attributes including appearance and communication. According to the theory of Similarity Attraction Paradigm, interaction paradigm, interpersonal attraction happens where harmonies exist(Byrne, 1997; Riordan and Shore, 1997).Arguably, service providers are more attracted to customers who match their cultural profile (Härtel and Fujimoto, 2000). Härtel and Fujimoto (2000) state that pre-existing positive attitudes towards cultural diversity may persuade some individuals to form and sustain intercultural friendships, while pre- existing negative attitudes may discourage other persons from pursuing such intercultural.

Meanwhile, authors believe that in any interaction two ways of communications (verbal and non-verbal) need to be considered. In contrast, Barker and Härtel (2004) in their research highlight that provider’s attitude towards culturally diverse customers is communicated through verbal and non-verbal channels, which are in turn observed and evaluated by customers in shaping future patronage and level of satisfaction. In a time of interactions, both customer and provider engage in an exchange process, where both parties are seeking for a shared belief space and linguistic system in order to reduce uncertainty. Measuring intercultural sensitivity in different cultures and the growth of globalization and diversity has increased the needs of awareness and ability to communicating with people of different cultural backgrounds. In other words, intercultural communication represents the ability of individuals to develop a positive attitude towards different cultures.

Methodology: Qualitative method has been chosen for this research, interviews with manager of hospitality and service industry has been conducted as well as customers. Template Analysis has been chosen to analyses the data.

Discussion:

Awareness and monitoring of these cultural variables, especially by hospitality organizations can help to minimize cultural dissonance and misunderstandings, which can lead to negative outcomes. These include customer dissatisfaction and consequent loss of reputation and business as well as suboptimal employee morale and staff turnover. As, Barker and Härtel (2004) mention in their research current situation of world events, the necessity for cross cultural understanding and application at the societal, organizational and individual level is vital.

Factors Influencing the Forming of Visitor Experiences by Presentation Platforms at Managed Tourist Attractions

Oystein Jensen, University of Nordland, Norway

Abstract

There is a plethora of studies that focus on the antecedents for visitor experience in destinations and tourist attractions. One example is how antecedents, such as expectations, motivation and pre-knowledge among visitors can be linked to the measurement of psychological, social and behavioral dimensions of the experiences. Systematic analysis aiming to explore discriminating effects on tourist sites among different types of on-sight factors as such, have, however, been scarce. The research attention has predominantly been subject-oriented (psychological) and less object-oriented and more oriented towards inner-directed values and motivations than towards outer-directed values. An object-orientation would embrace both the focus on on- sight attraction properties embracing both structures, that is, fix parts of an attraction, such as constructions, displays, artefacts, technology and available information, as well as processes, such as the performance of activities, flow-charts, special events. The main focus of this paper is the visitors’ evaluation of the on-sight factors, such as tools for presentation of attraction phenomena and service support tools as well as on a few antecedents for the experience evaluation. A basic question is whether and to what extent it is possible to identify some distinct sub-categories of the on-sight factors with discriminating effects on the visitors’ perceptions and experiences. Additionally antecedents linked to demographic factors and travel/visitation context is also elucidated. The data are based on visitor surveys from five tourist attractions in Northern Norway including more than 700 respondents. The findings indicate that the influence on visitor experiences vary with regard to type of attractions, nationality and specific pre-dispositions among the visitors. Especially the specific influences of the different categories of on-sight presentation platforms and support service factors are revealed. The results offer new research insights into the role of different presentation and service support tools at visitor attractions with regard to the specific tool characteristics, visitor background and attractions category. They also contribute to valuable knowledge for attraction managers.

Visual Analysis of Image and Experience toward Destination Services: Perspective on Seoul’s Photos in Instagram Services

Jiyeon Park, Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea Chulwon Kim, Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea

Abstract

What makes a tourist be tourist is intimately related to an action of taking photography at the tourist site. Researchers in tourism field have continuously explained how much photography means to tourists. Images that tourists perceive at certain destination are presented through the lens of camera, photography and this can be an important factor since recently, photography or other forms of visual images are being shared online via easily accessible applications. Instagram is one of them, which is yet new, but it is being used widely and rapidly. This paper focused on analyzing the meaning and characteristics of the photography taken by the tourists which are posted on Instagram. It aimed to explore the contemporary touristic images perceived by international tourists visiting Seoul by applying visual analysis method. The result of the study presents diverse aspect of Seoul as a tourism destination in denotative and connotative forms by analyzing how tourists photograph Seoul as well as people, attractions and events they encounter during their stay.

Keywords: Touristic photography; Instagram; Visual analysis; Destination image;

Introduction

Instagram, a new type of photo and short video sharing Social Network Services (SNS), is steadily gaining popularities since its first launch in 2010 and being used widely these days. Though it is one of the most popular applications and thus actively utilized as a marketing tool in many areas, only few studies in tourism research field have mentioned usage of Instagram in tourism destination marketing sector. Since people share their experiences and information by posting their photographs, the users can also form their own image toward certain destination at the same time. Therefore, this study aims to focus on how international visitors view and depict Seoul as a tourism destination via their Instagram.

The basic methodology of this paper is a visual analysis and in order to do so, visual materials-photographs- depicting Seoul were collected from the Instagram Application Programming Interface (API). The Instagram API offered both qualitative and quantitative data of photos with captions and tags, the characteristics of the users. These data distinguished the visitors and their postings and these were further utilized in analyzing the different viewpoint within same tour attraction postings. After the content analysis, the visual materials were sorted into categories and both denotative and connotative meanings were identified in each category. Also, these datasets enabled the investigation of popular tour attractions and activities in Seoul through the frequency of photos.

The study reveals the overall understanding of how Seoul is viewed by visitors within Instagram services. The study implies both theoretical and practical perspectives in terms of destination service management. As for a theoretical perspective, it is a new academic approach to utilize the Instagram API by applying the visual analysis method. It is identified that the visual analysis method can investigate what kind of information or explanation posted with photographs of a destination would be. Furthermore, it will be a more meaningful research by using a big data regarding destination’s images and experiences. In practical perspectives, tourism

operators or destination marketing organizers can take advantage of effective and efficient management strategies in terms of segmenting and diversifying the source markets as well as positioning Seoul as a unique tourism destination. Moreover, identifying different aspect of Seoul’s images and experiences perceived by international visitors might lead a new way for destination service and branding management. Literature Review

Tourists and Photography: Over the past decades, the images formed by the tourists toward tourism destination have been highlighted as an important area in academic literature (Dilley, 1986; Etchner & Ritchie, 1991; Dann, 1996; Mackay & Fesenmaier, 1997; Baloglu & McCleary, 1999; Andreu, Bigné & Cooper, 2000; Jenkins, 2003; Garrod, 2009; Donaire, Camprubí & Galí, 2014). This is due to the fact that tourists decide tourism destinations based on the images they hold toward each destinations (Chon, 1990; Etchner & Ritchie, 1991; Prebensen, 2007; Donaire, Camprubí & Galí, 2014). Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the images perceived by tourists. Among various definitions about tourism image, photography seems to play an important role and it is becoming deeply concerned with tourists’ perception during tour activities these days.

Accordingly, photography take by tourists can be regarded as a core element of the perceived image. However, there are some controversies whether the photograph and reality are always the same. According to MacKay & Couldwell (2004), photography enables people to gain more understanding of the tourist experience. In addition, Markwick (2001) presented photography as a direct representation of reality as well as a true reflection of actual places, people, and events. On the other hand, Albers & James (1988) opposed to Markwick and expressed his belief that photography is just an illusion since it is almost difficult to provide an objective representation. Moreover, photography can work as a medium of understanding symbolic construction of destinations (Camprubí & Galí, 2014).

According to Chalfen (1979), tourist photography can be divided into two different categories: photographs taken by tourists; and photographs produced for tourists by members of a host community. Since there have been numerous researchers analyzing the relationship between photography and tourism (Albers & James, 1988; Markwell, 1997; Jenkins, 2003; Mackay & Couldwell, 2004; Garrod, 2008), this study will only focus on identifying the characteristics of photography taken and shared by tourists visiting Seoul as a tourism destination.

Instagram Services: Instagram is a mobile application with location-based social network service. It enables its users to take photographs, apply various effects for decorations easily and share it in real time so that other users can view and make some comments or express likes. Users can tag the location, people as well as products and the tag is connected to other photography depicting same location, people or products. Actually, numerous photographs with certain tag of location are being posted on Instagram every second. Moreover, a study conducted by Performics in 2012 shows that when social media users engage with friends online, mostly it is pictures and images that they enjoyed the most. Accordingly, Instagram is a prominent communication platform and photography posted on it can explain diverse images and perceptions held by people who actually took the photographs at certain destination. Therefore, with Instagram, users have more opportunities to share their experiences by posting photography (Weilenmann, Hillman & Jungselius, 2013).

Along with Instagram, the Instagram Application Programming Interface (API) provides users with a web access to their photos and the features. Some of the previous literatures have utilized this Instagram API in

order to identify geological information of the photographs, simple characteristics of users, cultural visual rythms and even framed conflict photographs. Especially, in marketing field, Instagram has been analyzed for explore customers’ preference toward certain brands or products. In this context, Instagram can be utilized as a tool for understanding how tourists to Seoul view and in which aspect they prefer.

Visual Analysis: Visual analysis is utilized in order to understand the culture and representations through visual materials such as photography that appears in published media (Crouch, 2006). Initially, it included certain techniques that analyze video and photography by collecting primary data (Pink, 2007) and visual data with similar analyzing method such as content analysis and semiotics (Rose, 2003).

Some of the previous studies have focused on analyzing the photographs and text published and presented online (Govers & Go, 2005; Stepchenkova & Morrison, 2006). The research method used in this study builds on previous visual research in tourism (Hunter, 2008; Hunter, 2010) that focused on the identification of pictorial elements of photographs uploaded by the tourists visiting Seoul. In this case, photographic data are limited to those online, in Instagram. This is supported by the fact that in tourists’ perspective, photographs are a common way to communicate personal trip experiences and perceived destination images (Schmallegger & Carson, 2010).

Next, in this study, the visual analysis is being conducted including a content analysis approach of visual research techniques (McGregor, 2000; van Leeuwen & Jewitt, 2001; Rose, 2003). This analysis includes total of four steps: first, collecting visual data (sampling) from Instagram; second, sorting and categorizing visual data by three coders and eliminate unnecessary images; third, identifying denotative elements through content analysis and conduct literal interpretations and; finally, identifying connotative elements via semiotic analysis and interpret the relationships between categories. The entire process of visual analysis is summarized and detailed in Table 1.

Table 1: Visual Analysis Process

Sampling Collecting photographs from Instagram

Sorting & Categorizing Team coding: 3 coders roughly eliminate, sort images

Content analysis Identify frequency, type of denotative element - Denotative → Literal interpretation

Identify connotative elements & relationships between Semiotic analysis categories - Connotative → Theoretical interpretation

Method

The photographs used in our analysis are a dataset collected (crawled) during July and August 2015, the most active season for Korean tourism industry. Data was collected using the aforementioned Instagram Application Programming Interface (API).

Since this study focused on the photographs posted by the tourists to Seoul, two steps were taken when gathering photographs from Instagram: first, photographs with geo-location tag “Seoul, Korea” were collected; second, among those, 500 photographs with international profiles excluding Korean accounts were left for analysis. The features of the photographs (Identification number, Total number of tags - terms with #, List of tags, Total number of likes, List of users who commented and liked the post, Time and Day) were also collected in order to identify the photographs. An analysis based on these Instagram data can be a qualitative categorization of Instagram photographs and a quantitative examination of users’ characteristics with respect to their photos (Hu, Manikonda & Kambhampati, 2014).

References

Albers, P., & James, W. (1988) Travel photography, a methodological approach. Annals of Tourism Research, 15(2), 134-158. Andreu, L., Bigné, J.E., & Cooper, C. (2000) Projected and perceived image of Spain as a tourist destination for British travellers. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, 9(4), 47-67. Baloglu, S., & McCleary, K.W (1999) A model of destination image. Annals of Tourism Research, 26(4), 868- 897. Chalfen, R. M. (1979). Photograph's role in tourism: Some unexplored relationships. Annals of Tourism Research, 6(4), 435-447. Chon, K.S. (1990) The role of destination image in tourism: A review and discussion. Tourism Review, 45(2), 2-9. Crouch, D. (2006). Tourism, consumption and rurality. Handbook of rural studies, 25, 355-363. Dann, G.M.S. (1996) Tourists’ images of a destination – An alternative analysis. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, 5(1/2), 41-55. Dilley, R.S. (1986) Tourists brochures and tourist images. Canadian Geographer, 30, 59-65. Donaire, J. A., Camprubí, R., & Galí, N. (2014). Tourist clusters from Flickr travel photography. Tourism Management Perspectives, 11, 26-33. Echtner, C.M., & Ritchie, J.R.B. (1991) The Meaning and Measurement of Destination Image. The Journal of Tourism Studies, 14(1), 37-48. Garrod, B. (2008) Exploring place perception. A Photo-based Analysis. Annals of Tourism Research, 35(2), 381-401. Garrod, B. (2009) Understanding the relationship between Tourism Destination Imagery and Tourist Photography. Journal of Travel Research, 47, 346-358. Govers, R. & Go, F. M. (2005) Projected destination image online: website content analysis of pictures and text, Information Technology and Tourism, 7, pp. 73-89. Hu, Y., Manikonda, L., & Kambhampati, S. (2014). What we instagram: A first analysis of instagram photo content and user types. Proceedings of ICWSM. AAAI. Hunter, W. C. (2008). A typology of photographic representations for tourism: Depictions of groomed spaces. Tourism Management, 29(2), 354-365. Hunter, W. C. (2013). The Visual Representation of Border Tourism: Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and Dokdo in South Korea. International Journal of Tourism Research.

Jenkins, O.H. (2003) Photography and Travel Brochures: The Circle of Representation. Tourism Geographies, 5(3), 305-328. Mackay, K.J., & Couldwell, C.M. (2004) Using Visitor-Employed Photography to Investigate Destination Image. Journal of Travel Research, 42, 390-396. Mackay, K.J., & Fesenmaier, D.R. (1997) Pictorial elements of destination in image formation. Annals of tourism Research, 24(3), 537-565. Markwell, K. (1997) Dimensions of photography in a Nature- Based Tour. Annals of Tourism Research, 28(2), 417-438. Markwick, M. (2001) Postcards from Malta: Image, Consumption, Context. Annals of Tourism Research, 28(2), 417-438. McGregor, A. (2000) Dynamic texts and tourist gaze, Annals of Tourism Research, 27(1), 27-50. Pink, S. (2007) Doing Visual Ethnography (London: Sage). Prebensen, N.K. (2007) Exploring tourists’ images of a distant destination. Tourism Management, 28, 747- 756. Rose, G. (2003) Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials, 2nd ed. (London: Sage). Stepchenkova, S. & Morrison, A. M. (2006) The destination image of Russia: From the online induced perspective, Tourism Management, 27, pp. 943-956. Schmallegger, D., & Carson, D. (2010). Is tourism just another staple? A new perspective on tourism in remote regions. Current Issues in Tourism, 13(3), 201-221. van Leeuwen, T. & Jewitt, C. (Eds) (2001) Handbook of Visual Analysis (London: Sage). Weilenmann, A., Hillman, T., & Jungselius, B. (2013, April). Instagram at the museum: communicating the museum experience through social photo sharing. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1843-1852. ACM.

Combatting Human Trafficking in Hospitality and Tourism

Maureen Elizabeth Brookes, Oxford Brookes University

Abstract

Objective: This paper reports the findings from a project funded by the European Commission’s Directorate of Home Affairs under the Internal Security Fund’s targeted call for Trafficking of Human Beings. The ILO (2012) estimates there are approximately 21 million victims of trafficking, the majority of which are women over the age of 18 years. A significant proportion of trafficking is done, often unwittingly, through travel and tourism businesses (travel agencies, airlines, hotels, etc.) which, by their nature, facilitate the movement and accommodation of traffickers and their victims. There is also evidence that tourism businesses are used for sexual and labor exploitation of trafficking victims. In this project, human trafficking is explored from the business, law enforcement and victims’ perspectives in order to develop appropriate preventative and remedial training toolkits to combat trafficking.

Methodology: In the first stage of the project, over 30 qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted in the UK, Romania and Finland across a range of different stakeholders. Key informants included those working within the corporate offices of international hotel groups, tourism associations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and law enforcement and security agencies. The purpose of this stage of the research was to identify specific cases, both in and outside the employing organizations of participants, where hotels had been used as 'vehicles' for trafficking either in the 'front' or at the 'back' of house or through their supply chains.

Major Findings: The findings suggest that whist the corporate hotel industry recognizes, and is attempting to address, the problem (both individually and in working with professional associations); the full extent of trafficking is less recognized in the industry as a whole. Much emphasis in terms of awareness-building and the development of training tools is on child trafficking; this is the most emotive form of trafficking and does the maximum amount of reputational damage. Cases in the back of house illustrate that trafficking is often hidden and demonstrates a high level of sophistication. The data also identifies problems in supply chain management where trends in outsourcing and the use of agency staff result in a lack of transparency and detailed auditing. The utilization of asset-light business models and increased automation also create challenges in terms of the awareness and implementation of human trafficking initiatives.

Conclusions: It is clear that there is a need to raise awareness of trafficking across all the relevant hospitality and tourism stakeholders and to design a preventive and remedial training toolkit which will offer unique, practical, step-by-step guidance for businesses to combat trafficking in human beings.

Implications: The ‘signals’ of trafficking as well as the general and industry- specific barriers have implications for the training toolkits developed as well as for the formulation of policies and strategies to improve the identification, reporting and law enforcement of human trafficking. More dissemination of this research is required to raise the issue on an industry-wide basis.

References: International Labour Organization (2012) ‘ILO Global Estimate of Forced Labour 2012: Results and Methodology’, Geneva, ILO.

Historical Hotels as Tourist Experiences. Challenges in Conveying History

Soelvi Lyngnes, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway

Abstract

Objective: History and storytelling are essential in organizing for tourist experiences. Usually, presentation of history and culture are related to attractions, activities and experience offer, but there are examples of other companies like historical hotels offering experiences. The present study explores potential challenges in staging, conveying, communicating and co-creating the historical hotels different aspects of history to the visiting tourist.

Methodology/Approach: This research is exploratory in nature. Interpretative and qualitative techniques are used. Nine historical hotels have been visited for participating observations and interview with managers using a semi-structured interview-guide. The study is based on a convenient sample of hotels meeting the criteria of defining a historical hotel. The research questions focuses on the processes in bridging history and storytelling into tourist experiences.

Major findings: The manager’s point at the hotels history as a unique opportunity for experiences, such as a journeys in historical time, contemplation, learning, entertainment and aesthetic. The employed should know and identify with all aspects of the history. For some new knowledge in conveying history will be useful and there are some challenges in creating arenas for co-creating and involvement. Conclusions: History and storytelling are presented in various venues for tourists. The historical hotels are contributors to what and how tourists experiences history. The way this is performed and conveyed will effect most of the attending tourist’s experiences.

Implications: The findings contributions for the historical hotels will increase the experience value for the visiting tourist and thereby add value to the company.

Job Passion: Is There Any Contribution in the Service Setting

Dia Zeglat, The Hashemite University, Jordan

Abstract

Objective: This theoretical paper aims to offer a better understanding of the concept of job passion in terms of definition, forms and types, antecedents and consequences and to identify what has been done in this field in order to identify some new directions and contributions. Methodology/Approach: Reviewing the relevant literature concerning job passion was the main key approach for developing this theoretical paper. Arguments were drawn from key published papers that discussed this construct and revealed new research concerns and questions. Major Findings: This study confirms that job passion implies a process of cognitive and affective efforts undertaken by employees about their work. In addition, this study confirms the relevant literature classifications of the two common types and forms of job passion: obsessive versus harmonious passion. This theoretical paper also highlights the main antecedents and consequences of this construct by referring to the positive and negative sides of job passion. Conclusions: This study confirms the distinction between the two types of passion as mentioned in the relevant literature. However, more work remains to be done by future researchers, such as confirming the validity of such a construct in more business and service settings as well as in new and different cultures. Moreover, this theoretical paper finds that more efforts are still needed to explore and confirm the link between job passion and some marketing (customers’ perspective) consequences and the impact of job passion on individual, group, and organizational outcomes.

Implications: Having done this research in the service context may help in improving mutual relationships among all stakeholders for any organization. Moreover, further investigation of this construct and linking it with more personal, group and organizational variables can help in adding more theoretical implications and contributions for scholars.

Keywords: passion, employees, service provider performance, literature review.

Introduction: The human capital perspective considers the management of people in the workplace a vital asset and investment. Permarupan et al. (2013) highlight the idea that considering the people process perspective is more important than the system process (e.g., TQM). The rationale behind adopting this approach is that when people are not well prepared for a change, a company will fail with its systems initiatives, improvements, and goals.

Permarupan et al. (2013) also argue that having a good set of employees forms the antecedent of an organization’s success and growth. In order to do that in the service setting, organizations have to maximize and energize the inspiration of its human capital. In this regard, job passion must be considered as one of the valuable tools for achieving this inspiration. Accordingly, passion emerged as one of the most important topics in the area of social psychology (Ho et al., 2011). This perspective was conceptualized as a job attitude

comprising both affective and cognitive elements that embody the strong inclination that one has toward one’s job.

On the one hand, when a person has an affective dimension, a strong liking for and enjoyment toward a specific job can occur; on the other hand, when a person has a cognitive dimension, it is likely that a specific job will be of greater importance to that person (Cardon et al., 2009; Vallerand et al., 2003). Having both aspects of passion, a person will show an intense liking for his/her job along with considering the job to be of high importance for his /her self-concept.

Thorgren et al. (2013), claim that, originally, the subject of passion was reviewed and investigated mainly in non-work activities such as gambling, romance, and sports, without such a topic being considered in the working environment (e.g., Amiot et al., 2006; Rousseau et al., 2002; Seguin-Levesque et al., 2003). Later on, several studies were conducted to investigate the relationship between work passion and other variables such as leadership, loyalty, organizational performance, and so on. Moreover, some evidence emerged concerning the importance of job passion in the job setting using a qualitative perspective through conducting interviews with managers and workers (e.g., Hill, 2002; Marques, 2007; Neumann, 2006).

Subsequently, researchers have investigated the concept of job passion and its forms in more work-related settings (e.g., Burke et al., 2011; Carbonneau et al., 2008; Ho et al., 2011; Philippe et al., 2010; Vallerand et al., 2010). As a result, a considerable number of recent studies have addressed the concept of job passion and its relation to the organizational behavior field (e.g., Boyatzis et al., 2002; Moses, 2001). Permarupan et al. (2013) claim also that work passion can be used as a fundamental element to measure employee behavior and organizational commitment, which in turn leads to evaluating the value system of the employee indirectly.

Therefore, the aim of this theoretical paper is to shed some light on the concept of job passion in terms of definition, forms and types of job passion, antecedents and consequences and to understand and explore what has been done in this area of research in order to find some new directions and contributions to the service literature.

Definition of Work Passion: The concept of passion has some different perspectives and roots. According to a psychological perspective, several names and meanings have been attributed and assigned to this concept. For instance, Hatfield and Walster (1978) view passion as romantic relationships between people, while Krapp (2002) views such concepts as personal interest. Forest et al. (2011) claim that such diverse meanings and names of passion lead to only a single phenomenon called engagement and emotional attachment to an activity. In this regard also, Perrewé et al. (2014) introduce some other terms to describe passion such as enthusiastic, driven, persistent, blissful, intense, and dedicated.

In terms of definition and meaning, Perrewé et al. (2014) define work passion as “an individual’s emotional and persistent state of desire on the basis of cognitive and affective work appraisals, which results in consistent work intentions and behaviors” (p. 146). Such consistency of intentions and behaviors created by being passionate about one’s work leads to persistence in completing work tasks, significant organizational citizenship behaviors, and taking the initiative to solve problems at work. Also, Vallernad et al. (2003) define passion as “a strong inclination toward a self-defining activity that individuals like (or even love), that they value (and thus find important), and in which they invest time and energy.” Zigamri et al. (2009; p. 2) define work passion as “an individual’s persistent, emotionally positive, meaning-based state of well-being stemming from continuous,

reoccurring cognitive and affective appraisals of various job and organizational situations, which results in consistent, constructive work intentions and behaviors.”

Permarupan et al. (2013) view work passion as a constant and emotionally positive state of well-being developed from having a cognitive and affective appraisal, which in turn leads to consistent and constructive work intentions and behaviors. Hence, Permarupan et al. (2013) offer some antecedents of the positive feelings of work passion, including: employee’s autonomy and flexibility, growth opportunities, recognition, fair and consistent applications of process, and connectedness with others in the job setting. Permarupan et al. (2013) also refer to employee passion as a chain of interrelated constructs. In other words, the authors (2013) state that employees are often most likely to have a constant and emotionally positive state of well-being emerging from some previous process of appraisals. Such a process that has happened somewhere in advance includes cognitive and affective appraisals of some different elements, such as: job and organizational situations and dimensions, which in turn can lead to more consistent and productive work intentions and behaviors.

Based on his extensive review of employees’ work passion, Blanchard (2009) offers eight elements that answer what we mean by and how we conceptualize work passion, including: meaningful work, collaboration, fairness, autonomy, recognition, growth, connectedness with leaders, and connectedness with colleagues. Thus, passion refers to a strong engagement in an activity that people may like, consider essential, and in which they pay a considerable amount of time and energy as claimed by Vallerand at al. (2003). Also, Forest et al. (2011) conclude that passion in general means “an engagement toward an activity, an emotional component attached to the activity, and a level of value toward the activity” (p. 28).

Forms of Job Passion: In their conceptual paper, Zigamri et al. (2009) discuss the study of the Ken Blanchard Companies, which was advocated to conceptualize the employee job passion and identify what elements and factors attached to the job and an organization’s environment to enhance job passion. Based on their data, Zigamri et al. (2009) state that 12 variables exist that can be captured that refer to the concept of job passion. This set includes six variables mentioned in the existing previous literature (i.e., growth, connectedness to colleagues, connectedness to a leader, meaningful work, autonomy, and collaboration). However, the authors (2009) identify a further six factors, including: feedback, distributive justice, procedural justice, labeled task variety, performance expectations, and workload balance.

Zigamri et al. (2009) offered a classification for the above 12 factors, including: organizational group, job group, and moderating factors group. The organizational group includes distributive justice, procedural justice, growth, and performance expectations; the job group includes meaningful work, autonomy, workload balance, and task variety; and the moderating group includes connectedness to leaders, connectedness to colleagues, collaboration, and feedback. On the one hand, Zigamri et al. (2009) claim that organizational factors are influenced by the organization’s senior leadership, policies, procedures, and organizational systems. On the other hand, job factors are influenced by aspects of the job, colleagues, or leader. Finally, moderating factors influence an individual’s perception of both organizational factors and job factors.

As a different set of variables, Blanchard (2009) identifies eight elements for understanding job passion (i.e., meaningful work, collaboration, fairness, autonomy, recognition, growth, and connectedness with leader and connectedness with colleagues). Those eight elements explain 64% of variance of employee job passion.

Passions can be either controlled or autonomous (Deci and Ryan, 2000; Sheldon, 2002). On the one hand, Forest et al. (2011) state that when a person has an autonomous internalization, his/her activity will be controlled, which in turn means a harmonious passion will be gained. On the other hand, uncontrolled internalization can lead to an obsessive passion since an activity controls individuals. Forest et al. (2011) confirm that according to the concept of harmonious passion, individuals freely devote time and energy to the activity while controlling their activities and engagements, i.e. establishing a harmony and balance between all activities and personal interests.Gorgievski and Baker (2010) simply differentiate between harmonious passion and obsessive passion, in the sense that the first one does not overpower personal life and interests of the concerned individuals, since they control their activities. However, an activity performed by individuals that controls their life and identity (obsessive passion) leads to the creation of conflict within these people with other personal issues.

In this regard also, Gorgievski and Baker (2010) offer a link between the two forms of passion: the first concept is called work engagement, which to some extent imitates theoretically harmonious passion. Schaufeli et al. (2006, p. 195) define work engagement as “a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption.” In other words, engaged employees mean having more energetic employees who work harder. Moreover, engaged employees will have the feeling of being more involved in, absorbed in, and dedicated to their jobs with feelings of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, and pride. However, the second concept is workaholism, which can be a concept similar to that of obsessive passion. In this regard, Scott et al.’s (1997) description indicates that workaholism means hard workers who spend a great deal of time doing work-related activities. Moreover, workaholism means a more private behavioral process through having persistent and more frequent thoughts about work when they are not at work.

Ho et al. (2011) state that although the two forms of passion have some similarities, these are to some extent different and expected to have different consequences. In other words, despite the beliefs that the two types of passion are similar in forcing and driving individuals toward their activities, the main distinction between them is the activities that are important to them and, in turn, how the activity is internalized within their personalities. Thus, the two forms of passion capture two different perspectives of internalization (voluntary vs. pressured).

Thorgren et al. (2013) also differentiate between the dualistic conceptualization of passion (i.e., harmonious and obsessive) as concerns the extent to which individuals internalize an activity in their self-concept and personal life. They conclude that by studying and conceptualizing passion as a two-dimensional perspective, as suggested in the Dualistic Model of Passion, more opportunities will be guaranteed for examining these complex phenomena in organizational settings, such as exploring the consequences of job passion. Thorgren et al. (2013) claim that the dual model enables scholars and individuals to understand the risks and benefits of being passionate toward a field of work depending on whether it is a harmonious or obsessive passion.

In addition, Dirk et al. (2013) confirm and highlight the two types and forms of work passion mentioned in the relevant literature; the first one is obsessive passion and the second one is harmonious passion. Dirk et al. (2013) also view work passion as not only an emotional construct, but they also view it as a cognitive construct. The reason behind that lays in the idea that passion indicates what level of cognitive efforts employees are willing to apply to work-related activities.

In this regard also, Vallenard et al. (2010) confirm the dualistic model of passion through introducing two distinct forms of passion, namely, obsessive and harmonious. On the one hand, Vallenard et al. (2010) argue that obsessive passion implies and results from a controlled assignment of an activity into a person’s identity. In other words, for an obsessive passion to occur, one of two reasons is required: namely, first, intra- and/or interpersonal pressure emerges by some contingent factors related to the task, such as a person experiencing feelings of social acceptance or self-esteem, and second, having feelings of excitement generated from feelings of being engaged in specific activities. However, Vallenard et al. (2010) claim that obsessive passion may lead to negative feelings and consequences due to the rigid and uncontrollable pressures that being engaged in such activities are likely to generate. As a result, conflicts and negative feelings are likely to occur.

On the other hand, Vallenard et al. (2010) give a better and more positive view about harmonious passion, which derives from its being autonomously internalized into the person’s identity. In other words, individuals will have positive feelings when they are engaged in activities that they perform voluntarily. In this form of passion, people do not feel that they are forced to be involved in the activity. In contrast, in this form of passion, people feel that they are enjoying their activities since such passionate activity is compatible with these individuals’ identity and with their lives. Thus, such passion results in greater flexibility and better task engagement for these individuals. Therefore, harmonious passion should lead to a positive affect and task satisfaction and the minimization of any negative feelings and impact. Moreover, such people will be able to easily disengage from the activity, which will prevent any conflict between those harmonious activities, other activities, and personal life.

Antecedents and Sequences of Work Passion (Modeling of Work Passion): Zigmari et al. (2009) developed a comprehensive model of job passion through identifying and illustrating its antecedents and consequence. The model they developed highlights the cognition and affect aspects of passion simultaneously. Based on this, individuals can judge their current situation in order to develop a conclusion about what is happening, how it will affect them, how they feel about it, what they intend to do, and finally what they actually do. Zigmari et al.’s model concludes that the process of judgment includes organizational, job, and moderating factors (i.e., the previous 12-work passion identified previously). In other words, individuals make assessments about how they feel about the 12-job passion factors. Accordingly, a positive assessment leads to positive well-being, whereas a negative assessment leads to negative well-being. Thus, the presence or lack of well-being leads to the intention to behave in a certain way within both the job itself and the organization. Such intentions can be divided into five intentions, including: the intent to perform one’s job well, the intent to remain with the organization, the intent to be a good organizational citizen, the intent to endorse the organization as a great place to work, and the intent to put forth discretionary effort. Finally, intentions should lead to either positive or negative job or organizational behavior, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The Employee Work Passion Model

As we can see from the above figure, Zigmari et al. (2009) proposed a model that conceptualizes the employee’s work passion by adopting and adapting the social cognitive theory as a foundational framework.

In terms of the consequences of the two different forms of job passions, Ho et al. (2011) conclude that harmonious passion leads to a positive affect and cognitions (e.g., concentration) during and after pursuit of the passionate activity, while obsessive passion contributes to negative outcomes when conducting an activity, such as anxiety, feelings of shame and guilt, and a lack of concentration, which is supported in the previous

studies (e.g., Mageau et al., 2005; Ratelle et al., 2004; Vallerand and Houlfort, 2003). In addition, harmonious passion was confirmed in the literature as leading to positive consequences (e.g., experience of work flow by Vallerand et al., 2003; positive emotions and feelings about job by Mageau, et al. 2005; Vallerand et al., 2003; Vallerand et al., 2006) and leads also to low levels of negative emotions (Mageau et al., 2005; Vallerand et al., 2003).

On the other hand, obsessive passion leads to negative consequences such as having negative emotions during activity engagement, as confirmed by Vallerand et al. (2003). Moreover, obsessive passion was confirmed to lead to low levels of psychological adjustment and to have high levels of negative physical symptoms (as suggested by Rousseau and Vallerand, 2008; Vallerand et al., 2008; Vallerand et al., 2007). Lavigne et al. (2014) claim that harmonious job passion got similar results regarding consequences in the work domain. In other words, harmonious passion was associated with work satisfaction, positive emotions, and flow experiences as well as low levels of emotional exhaustion and psychological problems (e.g., Carbonneau, et al., 2008; Forest et al., 2011; Houlfort et al., 2012; Lavigne et al., 2010; Vallerand, 2010). On the other hand, obsessive passion for work has been associated with high levels of cognitive symptoms (e.g., concentration problems, memory impairments), emotional exhaustion, anxiety, and conflicts as well as negative emotions (Houlfort et al., 2012; Lavigne et al., 2010; Vallerand et al., 2010).

In this regard, Lavigne et al. (2014) also conclude by using a longitudinal approach design that harmonious passion is positively associated with job control and positive support and negatively with work overloads. Moreover, their study finds that harmonious passion is associated negatively with work overloads. In contrast, obsessive passion was positively linked with work overload and negatively with job control and positive support. Thorgren et al. (2013) reviewed the previous empirical research in the area of consequences of passion; they conclude that most of the job passion studies were undertaken in non-work settings. However, it was found that both types of passion (i.e., harmonious passion and obsessive passion) lead to distinctive consequences. Perrewé et al. (2014), also, claim some negative and dark sides of job passion, including: uncontrolled rumination that results from the excessive feelings of obsessive passion, inflexibility, unsanctioned and unmonitored behavior, social stress for high-passion employees, aggressive behavior and rigid persistence for employees with high levels of passion that hinder task completion and interfere with interpersonal relationships among other employees within the same organization.

Conclusions and Directions for Future Research: According to the preceding discussion, it was confirmed that job passion implies a process of cognitive and affective efforts undertaken by employees concerning their work environment. As a result, after being involved in cognitive processing and affective status of their work experience, employees will be able to define the level of well-being that influences their five levels of work intentions, as suggested by Zigamri et al. (2009).

Based on this, different questions and agendas have been conducted in this area of research; for example, which form and type of passion contributes more to individuals’ performance? On the one hand, previous studies have found that harmonious passion has a more positive association with positive affect and well- being; on the other hand, obsessive passion has a positive relationship with negative effects, such as shame and cognition (e.g., rumination) after engagement with the activity (e.g., Rousseau and Vallerand, 2008; Vallerand and Houlfort, 2003; Vallerand et al., 2003; Vallerand et al., 2008; Vallerand et al., 2006; Vallerand et al., 2007).

Unfortunately, Gorgievski and Baker (2010) claim that very little research has been undertaken for measuring job passion. Moreover, these authors (2010) ask for more research to measure the influence and impact of work passion on some other variables, as suggested by the consequences mentioned in Figure 1, especially employees’ performance. In this regard also, Ho et al. (2011) addressed the influence of the two types of passion on employees’ work performance through using the mediating role of cognitive engagement. They found that employees with higher harmonious passion performed better at their work and that this relationship was fully mediated by cognitive absorption. Unfortunately, obsessive passion was negatively related to cognitive attention (i.e., the amount of cognitive resources spent thinking about work), which in turn produces an insignificant impact on work performance.

Ho et al. (2011) also claim that all previous studies in the field of job passion have addressed the link between passion and non-work activities (affective and cognitive outcomes), as suggested by Zigamri et al.’s (2009) model. Moreover, only one study conducted by Vallerand and Houlfort (2003) investigated the impact of job passion on employees’ psychological adjustment. Accordingly, Ho et al. (2011) urge scholars to explore and confirm whether job passion benefits and enhances employees’ work performance since the latter concept represents the ultimate outcome in organizations. Moreover, Ho et al. (2011) ask scholars to investigate the mechanisms of how passion relates and contributes to employees’ work performance. In addition, Ho et al. (2011) state that more research is needed to offer a better conceptualization of job passion, as they stated, “Despite this growing interest in job passion, however, the conceptualizations of job passion offered in previous work have been imprecise, incompatible, or completely lacking” (Ho et al., 2011, p 26).

Ho et al. (2011) also provide three categories of job passion that emerged and were suggested in the wide, relevant literature: first, passion in the form of loving one’s job, as mentioned by Marques (2007); second, passion in the form of personal meaning from the job, as mentioned by Boyatzis; and third, passion in the form of engaging employees and customers, as mentioned by Tucker (2002). Thus, passion’s meaning is still unclear due to the overlap between considering it as an affective, psychological, or behavioral construct.

Ho et al. (2011) conclude that there are shortages of formal conceptualization and meaning about what job passion really means through their statement, “There is a dearth of scientific studies that link job passion to actual performance ratings or other critical work outcomes” (2011, p. 27). Moreover, it was suggested to measure the relationship between job passion and employees’ work performance by using the longitudinal approach, since most researchers measured this relationship by using a cross-sectional approach. Thus, Ho et al. open the door for future research with new and different ideas and perspectives. For instance, they asked to test the impact of job passion on other vital organizational consequences, such as turnover, absenteeism, and citizenship behavior, as well as other work-related dimensions, such as job affect and psychological well-being. Moreover, new and more variables that are important to employees, such as promotions, salary, and bonuses can be tested and investigated. Moreover, Ho et al. (2011) asked future researchers to test and investigate the antecedents of job passion, such as, e.g., individual traits, degree of job autonomy, organizational size and constraints. Having done this will help in informing managers about how to better design jobs’ policies that might enhance employees’ job passion.

It is obvious from the former discussion and literature reviewed in this paper that the distinction between the two types of passion have been confirmed and approved, as mentioned in the previous studies (e.g., Houlfort et al., 2012; Rousseau et al., 2002; Vallerand et al., 2003). In this regard also, Thorgren et al. (2013) conclude

that although the research in the job passion construct has undergone less than a decade of investigation since the development of the Dualistic Model of Passion introduced by Vallerand et al. (2003), extensive support and a growing body of research exist in the area of job passion and its consequences. Table 1 tries to summarize the main and key studies that address the concept of job passion with some other variables related to the organizational behavior field.

Table. 1 Summary of key studies that address the concept of job passion and its relationship to some other variables. Scholars Industry Outcomes of Job Passion Examined Carbonneau et al. (2008) Teaching Work satisfaction, burnout Ho et al. (2011) Insurance industry Cognitive engagement (comprising attention and absorption) Lafreniere et al. Coaching Autonomy support, controlling (2011) behavior Mageau et al. (2011) Gaming State of self-esteem Philippe et al. (2010) One’s work (teachers Positive emotions; negative or working in emotions; quality of education) interpersonal relationships Ratelle et al. (2004) Gambling Problem gaming, ruminations, anxiety, feelings of guilt, vitality, concentration, positive emotions Rousseau and Vallerand (2008) Physical exercise Subjective well-being (older adults) Stenseng (2008) Leisure activity Intrapersonal conflict, life domain outcomes Stephan et al. (2009) Running Perceived susceptibility Vallerand et al. (2008) Sports Deliberate practice, performance, goal orientation, subjective well-being Vallerand et al. (2008) Football watching (Mal)adaptive behaviors, psychological health, partners’ conflict Vallerand et al. (2010) One’s work (nurses) Work satisfaction, conflict, burnout Vallerand et al. (2006) Sports Harmonious passion, obsessive passion, subjective well-being Vallerand et al. (2007) Drama studies/ Subjective well-being, deliberate psychology studies practice

In a very recent recommendation and suggestion, Perrewé et al. (2014) claim that there many things remain yet to be done in the field of job passion, such as: exploring whether the definitions of job passion presented in the literature sufficiently explain the job concept domain of work passion or researchers need to expand it further (dimensionality of the concept of job passion), contract, or reshape such a concept. Moreover, Perrewé et al. (2014), in other words, argue that researchers need to discover and explore the underlying

dimensionality of job passion. Future researchers are advised and encouraged to validate, confirm, and expand the multidimensionality of job passion in new settings and cultures. Finally, Perrewé et al. (2014) encourage researchers to expand the existing and confirmed connection between the work passion construct and some other constructs. Perrewé et al. (2014) ask to discuss all unexamined relationships between job passion and some employees’ attitudes and behavior, on the grounds that, to date, our knowledge of work passion is modest.

Thus, this paper recommends future researchers to confirm the meaning and dimensionality of job passion and its impact on some organizational outcomes in new settings and cultures. More importantly, the use of all types of validity tests (i.e., exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses) is advised in new settings and cultures. Moreover, it is clear from the previous literature that no single study has investigated the link between job passion and customers’ perceptions and feelings, such as service quality, customer satisfaction, and behavioral intentions and whether this relationship is mediated by the organizational variables or not. Accordingly, future research should answer the question of the relationship and impact of job passion on some consequential variables related to employees at the three levels (individuals, groups, and organizations) as well as on customers.

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The Role of Service Climate on Psychological Capital, Quality of Work Life, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, and Turnover Intention

Hee Jung (Annette) Kang, Virginia Tech, USA James A. Busser, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA Hyung-Min Choi, Florida State University, USA

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to develop a theoretical model of service climate in hospitality that tests its relationship with psychological capital (PsyCap), quality of work life, organizational citizenship behavior, and turnover intention.

Methodology/Approach: The sample consisted of employees working at a major hotel company across five properties, in the Southwestern, US. After a pilot test, an intercept survey approach was used at each property and data collected either on-line at Qualtrics.com or paper copies provided to employees who did not have internet access. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the hypothesized relationships among the constructs. The hypothesized model was tested with SPSS 18.0 and AMOS 18.0 programs by imposing the structure of direct and indirect effects on the data.

Major findings: This study revealed that service climate had a strong direct effect on psychological capital and quality of work life in addition to indirect effects on quality of work life, organizational citizenship behavior, and turnover intention. Employees’ level of psychological capital showed its powerful impact on quality of work life, organizational citizenship behavior and turnover intention. Also, the results demonstrated the importance of employees' quality of work life that contributed to enhanced extra role behavior and reduced turnover intention. Specifically, employee’s quality of work life was a critical mediator (full mediation) between psychological capital and turnover intention.

Conclusions: This study offers a new theoretical model representing employees' perceptions of service climate that influence their attitude and behavior outcomes. Service climate had a strong effect on employee’s psychological capital and provides support in the hospitality literature for its role as a critical antecedent. A direct relationship between service climate and quality of work life represents a new finding and demonstrates the significant importance of service climate in enhancing employee’s positive work life. Also, the results revealed the importance of employees' quality of work life that contributed to enhanced extra role behavior and reduced turnover intention.

Implications: This study contributes to the service climate literature in hospitality based on the Theory of Work Adjustment (TWA). Also, this study extended and provided additional insights regarding the effect of service climate on employees’ critical human resource attributes and attitudes that affect behaviors. While there is very limited research examining the relationship between quality of work life and OCB (e.g. Helmiatin, 2014; Nafei, 2015), this study found that employee’s quality of work life was a critical mediator (full mediation) between psychological capital and turnover intention. Implications for Hospitality mangers are also addressed.

Framework of Culture and Consumer Complaint Behavior: A Cross-National Study of Consumers from a Developed and Developing Country Context

Sean Benedict Chung, Manchester Business School, UK

Abstract

Objective: To garner a comprehensive understanding of the consumer complaint behavior in two different contexts with regard to service failure, with emphasis on the potential influence of culture on behavioral processes and outcomes. The intention was to uncover factors that drive consumer reactions and determine whether there are emic (context specific) or etic (universal) drivers of complaint behavior.

Methodology: A qualitative, semi-structured interview approach was adopted in order to gain an in-depth and incisive understanding of the phenomenon under investigation. Furthermore, an emic approach allowed the researcher to remain open to the identification of aspects of culture that may be distinctive to the countries under investigation or not yet identified in the extant literature. The cross-national sample consisted of 30 respondents, 15 nationals each from Britain and the twin island republic of Trinidad & Tobago. Thematic analysis as a qualitative technique facilitated meaningful insights into the lived experiences of consumers through recall of episodes of service failure or bad service experiences.

Major Findings:

Data analyses of the cross-national data set revealed a comprehensive Framework of Culture and Consumer Complaint Behavior (FCCCB) inclusive of consumers’ behavioral processes and post-interaction behavioral outcomes. There were four key processes—cognitive, motivational, environmental and emotive—with emotions playing a central role. Culture and specifically cultural triggers unique in each context had overarching influence on these behavioral processes which in turn impacted behavioral outcomes. Cultural triggers were defined as a phenomenon, activity, or institution with which most citizens of a country identify, consciously or unconsciously, providing frames of reference of what is valued, what is normal, and what is reflective of a larger cultural pattern The cultural triggers identified provide new empirical evidence of cultural variables that influence consumer behavior beyond those typically identified in established cultural frameworks such as that proposed by Hofstede.

Conclusions: A key contribution of the study is that although culture is widely acknowledged to influence consumer behavior, the study’s empirical work demonstrated cultures influence on consumer complaint behavior from the instance of service failure, to the behavioral process that influence complaint intentions and the eventual behavioral outcomes or channels choices consumers made. The study extended cross-national insight into complaint behaviors of nationals in a developed and developing country context and identified unique cultural triggers in each context that drives consumer compliant behavior.

Implications: Service failures are an inescapable consequence of service provision due to the centrality of the human element in most service encounters. The FCCCB is a comprehensive

Trust Development in Cross-Cultural Social Entrepreneurship: Preliminary Findings

Na (Luna) Dou, Oxford Brookes University, UK Levent Altinay, Oxford Brookes University, UK Roberto Daniele, Oxford Brookes University, UK

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this paper is to present initial findings for an on-going doctoral research project, which explores trust development between social enterprises and local communities in culturally-distant and resource-deprived environments. The importance of social entrepreneurship and its potential of fostering positive social change have been widely acknowledged. Today, many Western social entrepreneurs choose to undertake their activities in developing countries, e.g. in Eastern Africa, where resource deprivation is a major challenge. In order to overcome this, social entrepreneurs must engage local communities to obtain required resources for social innovation. As such, building a trusting relationship with local communities and being mindful of any influence of cultural differences is key. Drawing on Social Exchange Theory (SET) and Cultural Mosaic Theory (CMT), the larger research project aims to explore how social enterprises build trust with culturally-distant communities and what factors contribute to the development of trust.

Methodology/Approach: With an interpretivist worldview and an exploratory case study strategy, the larger research project examines two purposefully selected Western tourism social enterprises operating in Eastern Africa. This paper reports the findings from the first case, where qualitative data was gathered through 33 semi-structured interviews with the management team, direct beneficiaries and partners of the social enterprise, complemented by participant observation and document analysis.

Major Findings: 1. The social enterprise underwent a two-staged process of trust development: a. building a team of locals; and b. co-creating value with local communities. The whole process entails a series of resource (information, labor, monetary) exchanges and individual empowerment between the social enterprise and local communities. 2. The openness of the Western social entrepreneur plays a pivotal role in local communities’ assessment of the social entrepreneur’s trustworthiness. 3. Enlarging common cultural tiles shared by the social enterprise and local communities facilitates the development of trust.

Conclusions: First, one cannot assume that a trusting relationship can simply be built between culturally- distant social enterprises and local communities. Cross-cultural trust development involves a process of continuous resource exchanges and requires the social entrepreneur to be open and culturally sensitive, and to build a team of local people as a ‘bridge’ to local communities. Second, SET offers a useful framework for analyzing the reciprocal interactions between the social enterprise and local communities. Third, CMT, which emphasizes both common and specific cultural tiles, helps to explain the influence of multiple cultural elements on the particularities of trust development.

Contribution and Implications: This paper offers insights into the cultural complexities of trust development in the context of social entrepreneurship by proposing a cross-cultural trust development framework. In particular, the paper exploits the SET to analyze the relationship and trust development and

adopts the CMT to understand what elements of culture facilitate trust development between social enterprises and local communities. It also provides suggestions to social enterprises and policy-makers on how to facilitate trust development with local communities in culturally distant and resource constraint environments.

Motives, Barriers, and Restaurant Environmental Factors of Restaurant Customers’ Healthy Menu Choice: A Scale Development Study

EunHa (Lena) Jeong, Iowa State University, USA SooCheong (Shawn) Jang, Purdue University, USA

Background/Study Objectives

As a result of increased awareness of the obesity crisis, consumers have become more interested in healthy eating and healthy lifestyles, and their demand for healthier restaurant menu options is increasing as well (NRA, 2010). In order to meet this consumer demand, restaurant industry professionals are adding more healthful options to their menus and thinking of effective ways to promote them. Even though recent studies in marketing and restaurant management have attempted to discover effective ways to promote healthy menus by testing the influence of stimulus-based marketing tactics such as how calorie information, nutrition information, and health claims influence consumers’ healthy food consumption (Hwang & Lorenzen, 2008; Kozup, Creyer, & Burton, 2003; Yoon & George, 2012), the development of durable and systematic marketing strategies to promote such menus might be difficult without research to investigate the fundamental and comprehensive understanding of why or why not people are engaged in healthy menu item consumption in a restaurant.

The extant studies in public health, nutrition, and eating behavior mainly focus on identifying internal factors such as motives or barriers, influencing people’s healthy eating in general (Satia et al., 2001; Eikenberry & Smith, 2004; Michaelidou, Christodoulides, & Torova, 2012; Pelletier, Dion, Slovinec-D'Angelo, & Reid, 2004). Even though these provided a great conceptual guideline to understand internal factors influencing individuals’ eating behaviors in general, a study with a reliable and valid measure for assessing the intra- and inter-personal factors influencing restaurant customers’ healthy menu consumption behaviors should still be conducted.

Furthermore, previous researchers have stated that the major driving force of the increase in obesity is an increase in the obesogenic environment (Egger et al., 1997); thus, it is a widely accepted fact that changes in eating behaviors are largely due to one’s environment. Based on this notion of a salient influence of the environment on human eating behavior, restaurant customers’ menu item consumption behavior can also be influenced by a nutrition environment formed with the salient physical attributes of a restaurant, such as the availability of healthier options and the presentation of advertisements promoting healthy menu items. The extant research has mentioned the effect of environmental influence on customer healthy eating behavior; however, limited research has been done to identify these external factors (physical environmental components) especially in the restaurant environment.

To comprehensively understand customer healthy menu item consumption in the context of restaurant management, this study identify the restaurant customers’ internal motives and barriers, and external factors, including restaurant environmental factors (promoters and demoters) for why or why not restaurant customers engage in healthy menu consumption behavior.

Methodology & Result of study

To achieve its objectives, this study executed the scale development procedure supported by Churchill (1979) and other literature on scale development (Gerbing & Anderson, 1988; Harrison & McLaughlin, 1993; Hinkin, 1998; Ryu & Jang, 2008). To develop an appropriate set of measures to assess the internal and external factors related customers’ healthy eating behavior including the procedure of identifying the underlying subconstruct for each domain of the internal and external factors for healthy eating, the current study undertook five steps of scale development: 1) Specifying the domain of constructs; 2) Generating a pool of initial measurement items; 3) Assessing content adequacy, 4) Administering questionnaires (an online survey method); and 5) Purifying and finalizing the measurement (via EFA – using 410 samples and CFA – using 803 samples).

The first step of the scale development involved specifying the domain of the relevant constructs. As recommended by), the literature in various fields of study—public health and foodservice management—was thoroughly reviewed, and commonalities of the domain were sought for specifying the study domains and further conceptualizing constructs regarding the internal and external influences on healthy eating. Four major sub-domains (motives, barriers, promoters, and demoters) of the study considering both internal and external influences on healthy eating were specified. Through the literature review, the two sub-domains (motives and barriers) classified in internal influence were conceptualized into 14 different constructs. These are motives (six constructs): feel better, for health, weight control, self-image management, peer pressure, and medical concern; and barriers (eight constructs): lack of self-control, price perception, unappealing food, negative influence of others, lack of knowledge, stress management, unfamiliarity, and resistance to change. The other two sub-domains (promotors and demoters), classified as external influences, were conceptualized into 8 different constructs – promoters (four constructs): availability, positive social influence, healthy menu offering practice, healthy menu indication; and demoters (four constructs): higher charge, unhealthful menu offering practices, unhealthful menu indication, and negative social influence.

The second step of scale development was to build a pool of initial measurement items that represented each construct specified in the previous stage. For the preliminary item creation process, the study used the deductive scale development method (Hinkin, 1998). A thorough review of the literature regarding healthy eating behavior in various fields of study was conducted to generate the initial pool of measurement items. The existing instruments were studied, and the result of in-depth interviews from previous studies was also reviewed. Furthermore, a group interview with three graduate students in hospitality management was conducted to pull additional items for measuring pre-defined constructs. A total of 94 initial items were generated at this stage.

To ensure the adequacy of the measurement items, initially constructed measurement items were evaluated by three Ph.D. students who have more than 3 years of management experience in the foodservice industry. The content and face validity of the measurement items were checked by evaluating each item on how well the item represents the construct to which it belonged. The items that were ambiguous, such as an item representing multiple constructs, were excluded to prevent confusion among potential respondents (Harrison & McLaughlin, 1993). The wording of the each item was refined to ensure the readability. Furthermore, using the initially refined items, a web-based survey questionnaire was developed for the purposes of conducting a pretest. The survey was distributed to 50 randomly selected online panel members in the United States. The correlations for each set of items representing the predefined conceptual constructs were assessed,

and the items that were deemed to be conceptually inconsistent (correlation less than .5) were deleted. Through this procedure, five items were eliminated, and a total of 89 items remained for the questionnaire administration stage.

An online survey questionnaire was developed using the 89 items refined from the previous scale development stage. Respondents were asked to rate each item measuring the internal and external influence of people’s healthy eating behaviors using a 7-point Likert scale, where 1 indicated “strongly disagree” and 7 indicated “strongly agree.” The option of “not applicable (99)” was also included in each question to avoid biases which can occur through forced response. The survey questionnaires were distributed by Amazon Mechanical Turk to randomly select online panel members from across the United States. To ensure an adequate sample size for conducting measurement purification (Exploratory Factor Analysis), the ratio of a number of measurement items to a number of sample (i.e. items: sample =1:4) suggested by Rummel (1988) were utilized. Therefore, a total of 410 usable responses were collected for conducting measurement purification.

With the data collected, exploratory factor analyses (EFA) were performed for further scale refinement (Churchill, 1979). Due to the distinctive characteristics of internal influence and external influence regarding people’s healthy eating, the unidimensionality of those two influences might not be theoretically valid. Therefore, two separate EFA analyses were executed for internal and external factors. Prior to conducting EFA, corrected item-total correlations were examined for each set of items representing a predefined conceptual dimension, and any items that correlated at less than .4 were deleted from the further data analysis (Kim & Mueller, 1978). With the remaining measurement items, two EFA were performed. For both internal and external influence, principle axis factoring with varimax rotation was used, and items with factor loading greater than .4 were retained for each factor group, and items with high cross-loadings (>.40) or low communalities (<.50) were deleted (Hair et al., 1998). Also, factors with eigenvalues greater than 1 were reported as final constructs within internal and external influences. Each factor was labeled based on the characteristics of its items; Appendix 1 and 2 present the results of the factor analysis for internal and external influence delineated by the final EFA.

Lastly, in order to verify to assess the factor structure and finalize the measurement item, different set of samples (N=810) were collected by online survey method to perform confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) for the internal and external influence models. For the internal model, the goodness of fit statistics for the measurement model indicated that the measurement model reasonably reflected a good fit to the data ( 2 = 2176.479, df = 878, p < .001, 2/df = 2.479, NFI = .937, TLI = .957, CFI = .962, IFI = .962, RMSEA = .043). The level of internal consistency for the eleven constructs ranged from .88 to .97, which exceededχ the minimum requirement of .70 (Hairχ et al., 2010). Composite construct reliabilities ranged from .878 to .968. All measurement items had standardized loading estimates of .5 or higher (ranging from .62 to .98) and were all significant at an alpha level of .001. The AVE of eleven constructs (ranging from .64 to .88) exceeded the minimum hurdle of .5, ensuring that the variance extracted by the selected measurement items was greater than the variance due to measurement error (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988; Fornell & Larcker, 1981) and providing evidence of acceptable convergent validity. For the external model, the goodness of fit statistics indicated that the measurement model for external factor reflected a good fit to the data ( 2 = 460.705, df = 174, p < .001, 2/df = 2.648, NFI = .952, TLI = .959, CFI = .969, IFI = .936, RMSEA = .045). The values of Cronbach’s for all five constructs in the external model exceeded the minimum requirementχ for reliability of .70, ranging fromχ .721 to 915 (Hair et al., 2010). Composite reliabilities of constructs ranged from .745 to .916, which α exceeded the cutoff value of .70, indicating adequate internal consistency as well. All measurement items for

the external model had standardized factor loadings (ranging from .547 to .960) that exceeded the minimum value of .5, and significance at an alpha level of .001. Furthermore, the average variance extracted (AVE) of the five constructs exceeded the minimum hurdle of .5, ensuring that the variance extracted by the selected measurement items was greater than variance due to measurement error (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988; Fornell & Larcker, 1981) and suggesting evidence of acceptable convergent validity. Please see the Appendix 3 and 4 for the detailed results of the CFA for internal and external model.

Conclusions/implication of the study

The results of the study determined there are ten internal factors (four motives, and 6 barriers) and five restaurant environmental factors (3 promoters, and 2 demoters) for why or why not customers engage in healthy menu choices in restaurants. From these results, we can conclude that restaurant customers are consuming healthy menu items because of their concern about health, body image, and weight control, and a desire to feel better. Restaurants’ availability to deliver healthy menu options, indicate the healthiness of menu items, and provide other social supports were the important external factors for restaurant customers’ healthy menu choices. However, customers’ perceptions of healthy menu items as being unappealing and costly and customer lack of knowledge about healthiness of menu items, their state of mind (stress), lack of self-control, and negative influence from others can be negative factors on customer healthy food choices. Further, restaurants’ price policies, and promotion of less healthful menu items may be the important external factor that discourages customers to choose healthy menu items.

The current study provided several important theoretical implications to the literature of consumers’ healthy menu item consumption behavior. The study developed a model that can explain the restaurant customers’ healthy menu consumption within the restaurant environment by considering internal and external factors of customers’ healthy eating. Unlike most of the extant studies in public health and nutrition, which mainly consider the consumers’ individual factors (which are intrapersonal factors, thus internal) such as motives and barriers for eating healthy, the current study takes restaurant nutrition environmental factors (external factors) into account and expands upon the scope of possible influential factors on healthy eating choices, which can be applied in a restaurant setting.

Unlike published studies regarding healthy eating, which often employed a qualitative study method with a limited number of study samples to merely focus on categorizing the fundamental factors influencing healthy eating, the current study developed a reliable and valid measure for effectively assessing why or why not people are engaged in healthy eating behaviors in a restaurant setting. As noted by Wippold et al. (2015), limited studies have been conducted to develop a measurement for assessing factors for engaging in promoting healthy behavior. To fill the research gap, the current study executed the five different steps of rigorous scale development procedures and identified ten underlying internal factors along with five underlying external factors influencing a restaurant customer’s healthy eating intentions.

The findings of internal factors influencing restaurant customers’ healthy meal consumption intentions can be utilized as a specific guideline for restaurateurs in order to develop effective marketing strategies to promote healthy menu options. More specifically, this can be used to develop the contents of the marketing materials. For instance, when restaurant industry professionals design an advertisement for healthy menu options, the ad contents, which emphasize potential health benefits of menu items and other benefits, such as weight loss and

positive feelings after consuming a healthy meal, can be embedded in advertisement to effectively elicit customers’ healthy menu item consumption intentions.

However, it is also noteworthy to mention that use of such contents and the degree of the contents usage might need to be carefully planned. Advertisements, which emphasize too much about the health benefits, may result in a reverse effect on healthy menu consumption because it may increase customers’ pessimistic attitudes toward such menu items. As the current study results have indicated, the unappealing taste, smell, or texture of the healthier option were one of the internal barriers that customers have, and some of the industry examples also show possible risk effects. Based on recent consumer insight reports, about 40 percent of consumers believe that healthy foods such as low calorie food do not taste good (Weingarten, 2011). In order to alleviate the customers’ negative predispositions toward healthy menu items, restaurant manager should use the term fresh, flavorful, or in season to describe the menu item instead of using the term which heavily emphasizes healthfulness of the menu items (Glanz et al., 2007).

Also, restaurant industry professionals should put extra effort toward increasing the availability of the healthy menu items to help encourage customers’ healthy menu consumption intention. As recommended by Glanz and Hoelshcer (2004) in their study of interventions, offering healthier options (i.e., fruits) in multiple locations, serving more entrees by switching to healthier cooking methods, such as steamed or grilled, instead of fried can be suggested; along with offering more side dishes, beverages that are healthier can also be recommended to restaurant managers to increase the availability of healthy menu options, which, in turn, may raise customers’ healthy meal consumption intentions.

Reference

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Harris, M. B., Waschull, S., & Walters, L. (1990). Feeling fat: motivations, knowledge, and attitudes of overweight women and men. Psychological Reports, 67(3 Pt 2), 1191–202 Harrison, D.A. & McLaughlin, M.E. (1993). Cognitive processes in self-report responses: Tests of item context effects in work attitude measures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 129- 140. Hinkin, T. R. (1998). A brief tutorial on the development of measures for use in survey questionnaires. Organizational research methods, 1(1), 104-121. Hwang, J., & Lorenzen, C. L. (2008). Effective nutrition labeling of restaurant menu and pricing of healthy menu. Journal of Foodservice, 19(5), 270-276. Kim, J.-O., & Mueller, C. W. (1978). Introduction to factor analysis: What it is and how to do it (Vol. 13): Sage Beverly Hills, CA. Kozup, J. C., Creyer, E. H., & Burton, S. (2003). Making healthful food choices: The influence of health claims and nutrition information on consumers’ evaluations of packaged food products and restaurant menu items. Journal of Marketing, 67(2), 19-34. Michaelidou, N., Christodoulides, G., & Torova, K. (2012). Determinants of healthy eating: A cross‐national study on motives and barriers. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 36(1), 17-22. NRA (2010). 2009/2010 NRA Restaurant Industry Operations Report Retrieved from https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/291534/t288 nrarept2010.pdf Pelletier, L. G., Dion, S. C., Slovinec-D'Angelo, M., & Reid, R. (2004). Why do you regulate what you eat? Relationships between forms of regulation, eating behaviors, sustained dietary behavior change, and psychological adjustment. Motivation and Emotion, 28(3), 245-277. Rummel, R. J. (1988). Applied factor analysis: Northwestern University Press Ryu, K., & Jang, S. (2008). DINESCAPE: A scale for customers' perception of dining environments. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 11(1), 2-22. Satia, J. A., Kristal, A. R., Curry, S., & Trudeau, E. (2001). Motivations for healthful dietary change. Public Health Nutrition, 4(05), 953-959. Story, M., Kaphingst, K. M., Robinson-O’Brien, R., & Glanz, K. (2008). Creating healthy food and eating environments: policy and environmental approaches. Annual Review of Public Health, 29, 253–72. Story, M., Neumark-Sztainer, D., & French, S. (2002). Individual and environmental influences on adolescent eating behaviors. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 102(3), S40–S51. Weingarten, H. (2011). 40% of Shoppers: Healthy Food Tastes Bad. Fooducate. Retrieved from http://blog.fooducate.com//2010/11/28/40-of-shoppers-healthy- food-tastes bad/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_ campaign=Feed%3A+Fooducate+%28Fooducate%29. Wippold, G. M., Tucker, C. M., & Smith, T. M. (2015). Motivators of and Barriers to Eating Foods and Snacks Among Adolescents. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. Yoon, H. J., & George, T. (2012). Nutritional information disclosure on the menu: Focusing on the roles of menu context, nutritional knowledge and motivation. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(4), 1187-1194.

Note: Tables are available upon request from Dr. Lena Jeong [email protected]

Exploring the Key Dimensions of Service Quality at Wineries

Kyuho Lee, Sonoma State University, USA Melih Madanoglu, Florida Atlantic University, USA

Abstract

Winery cellar door sales have emerged as an important part of winery sales among US wineries. Particularly, small wineries have placed a significant importance on the cellar door sales due to the high profit margin of cellar door sale and the complicated US winery distribution regulations based on three-tier system (Insel, 2011). The wine industry has become fiercely competitive. The number of wineries in US has increased sharply. For example, there were a total of 1,800 wineries in 1995 (Swindell, 2015). However, the number of wineries in US has increased up 5,000 in 2008 (Swindell, 2015). Nonetheless, the number of wine distributors in US has decreased from 3,000 in 1995 to 700 in 2008 (Swindell, 2015). It means that it has become more difficult for small wineries that do not have economies of scale to sell their wines through wine distributers.

Carlsen (2011) argues that service quality is crucial in increasing winery visitors’ satisfaction and loyalty which lead to cellar door’s sales of wineries. Up to date, a variety of research papers related to winery tourism ranging from winery tourists’ behaviors and motivation to winery festivals and events have been published. Nonetheless, there have been a few research published with respect to winery’s service quality related to wineries. Winery service quality is multidimensional since it involves service quality not only inside cellar door such as but also outside cellar door such as winery landscape.

Extant studies have not explored how multidimensional winery service quality influences winery visitors’ satisfaction and loyalty. Also, it is not clear which service quality dimension influences winery visitors’ satisfaction and loyalty significantly. Thus, this study is designed to answer the following question.

• What are the service quality dimensions that influence winery visitors’ satisfaction and loyalty significantly?

Reference

Insel, B. (2011). Wine tourism: An overview of the Economics, Stone Bridge Research Group, St Helena, CA. Carlsen, J. (2011). Assessing service quality at wineries and cellar doors through service mapping, International Journal of Wine Business Research, 23(3), 271-290. Swindell, B. (2015). Small wine, beer, spirits producers seek freedom to bypass wholesalers, The Press Democrat, Retrieved on July 2, 2015 from http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/3687269- 181/small-wine-beer-spirits-producers?page=3

Building Value Co-Creation in Restaurant Industry: What are the Roles of Customers? Eojina Kim, Liang (Rebecca) Tang, and Robert Bosselman Abstract

Introduction: Customers’ experiences are vital to the service industry. Innovations that result in the acquisition of new customers and the retention of existing ones are imperative for most organizations. Generating customer-oriented mind-sets and tailored service are believed to be innovative ways of integrating resources for value creation. While realizing the importance of the linking service marketing and co-creation customers in the intensely competitive marketplace, there are a lack of studies, especially in hospitality contexts, that have investigated the role of customers’ perceptions and behaviors to create value co-creation and the role of firms in innovation across the value process. Specifically, some key research questions to identify the factors and process dynamics of value co-creation from customers’ perspectives by applying the conceptual Service-Dominant (S-D) logic in the context of restaurant industries remained to be answered. To overcome this theoretical knowledge gap, a new holistic concept of consumers’ value co-creation and firm’s innovativeness needs to be investigated. Therefore, the S-D logic approach in the hospitality industry needs to focus on engagement, interaction, and collaboration between the firm and customers as well as customers’ needs in the service interaction process. The necessity for more comprehensive value co-creation framework has recently risen to prominence in the discipline. Research Questions & Purposes: The purpose of this study is to identify the factors and process dynamics of value co-creation from customers’ behavior and service channels perspectives by applying the conceptual Service-Dominant logic in the context of restaurant industry. Three specific research questions arise: • What is innovative service delivery process in foodservice business from a consumers’ perspective? • What are the value co-creation factors (customer value creation processes) for customers’ behavior in their restaurant experiences? • How should the restaurant industry approach co-creation given that they are at the co-production end of the spectrum, and what are the benefits of applying the co-creation? Methodology: The data of this study will be collected through the panel of an online survey marketing company using a structured questionnaire administered to customers in the restaurants. The condition for inclusion in this study is participants who have visited certain brand restaurants within the last six months. The data of the study will be analyzed using SPSS and AMOS. The profiles of the respondents would first be presented, followed by the results of the statistical analysis including confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Significant of Study and Expected Outcome: In spite of the widely acknowledged benefits of value of the co-creation process in service marketing (e.g. Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Vargo et al., 2008; Zwass, 2010), scant research exists which investigates the role of value co-creation in hospitality industry, especially in restaurant industry. The proposed model of the present study in the context of the restaurant industry lies within S-D logic. As one of the pioneer studies of value co-creation in restaurant contexts, the present study contributes to the field by providing specific theoretical and practical implications for how the restaurant industry develops co-creation strategies in the process of interaction with customers.

References Prahalad, C. K., & Ramaswamy, V. (2004). Co-creation experiences: The next practice in value creation. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 18(3), 5-14. Vargo, S. L., Maglio, P. P., & Akaka, M. A. (2008). On value and value co-creation: A service systems and service logic perspective. European Management Journal, 26(3), 145-152. Zwass, V. (2010). Co-creation: Toward a taxonomy and an integrated research perspective. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 15(1), 11-48.

Impact of Prior Experience on Purchase Motivation and Variety Seeking in Meeting/Event Planners’ Venue Selection: Sport Stadiums as a Meeting/Event Service Venue

Seungwon “Shawn” Lee, George Mason University, USA Charles Parrish, West Carolina University, USA

Introduction

Meeting and event planners are increasingly seeking a wide variety of venues during the site selection process in an effort to meet hosting organizations’ and attendees’ desire for a one-of-a-kind experience. Many sports stadiums are marketed as unique meeting/event service venues as stakeholders (including sports teams and stadium authorities) strive to maximize and diversify facility related revenue streams. This strategy is consistent with Mark Johnson’s (2010) perspective that business organizations, including event service providers, should identify and capitalize on new revenue separate from the core function of the existing business in order to achieve fiscal sustainability.

In order to successfully position sports stadiums as host venues for meetings and events an understanding of the site selection process and identifying key factors influencing purchase decisions are critical. The literature on the key factors influencing meeting planner decision making and site selection in the context of meeting purposed venues (e.g. convention centers, conference centers, conference hotels) is well developed (Elston & Draper, 2012). However, research examining the factors influencing meeting/event planners’ site selection in the context of unique meeting/event venues is scarce. Currently, there is a need for additional empirical studies on the past experiences and factors that may influence meeting planners’ purchase intention of professional sports stadiums as a specific type of meeting/event venue. Therefore, the objective of this study is to measure the impact of several key factors identified in the site selection literature. Specifically, this study will test the role of prior experience on consumer attitude and variety seeking in the context of outdoor professional sports stadiums.

Background

Meeting/Event planners’ perception of sport stadiums as a meeting/event service venue: Several previous studies have examined stadiums as meeting/event venues. Fenich and Bordelon (2008) categorized sports stadiums as a type of public assembly facility with infrastructure to accommodate a wide variety of events and meetings. Lee, Kim, and Parrish (2012) and Parrish, Lee, and Kim (2014) studied the e-marketing (via websites) of major professional sports stadiums and minor league baseball stadiums in the United States. Finally, Lee, Parrish, and Kim’s (2015) study on the positioning of professional outdoor stadiums as meeting/event venues identified planner misperceptions about quality (Food & Beverage and Audio & Video) and pricing. The researchers also noted major professional outdoor sports stadiums are perceived by planners as capable of providing a unique one-of-a-kind experience for attendees and identified a critical need for additional empirical studies on the experiences and factors influencing meeting planners’ purchase intention of professional outdoor sports stadiums as a specific type of meeting/event venue.

Consumer attitude toward product category: Voss, Spangenberg, and Grohmann (2003) developed a parsimonious generalizable scale that measures the hedonic and utilitarian dimensions of consumer attitudes toward product categories and different brands within categories. Citing this research, Okada (2005) later

argued that hedonism and utilitarianism should not be conceptualized as being at two ends of a one- dimensional scale. Specifically, he emphasized that different products can be high or low in both hedonic and utilitarian attributes (Crowley, Spangenberg, and Hughes 1992). Within the context of this study, the researchers conceptualized sports stadiums as a specific product type within the broad category of meeting/event host venues.

Variety Seeking: With respect to product categories where the benefits are primarily utilitarian rather than hedonic and where there is clearly one best-performing product, one may expect that people would evaluate one’s decision to stick with a favorite more favorably as opposed to switching for the sake of variety. Interestingly, Ratner and Kahn’s (2002) study indicated that individuals incorporate more variety in their choices in the public domain rather than in private in order to make a favorable impression on others. The researchers suggested (in the context of food items) that refusing to venture beyond one’s favorite choices might be perceived as narrow-minded, whereas choosing among a varied set of options allows one to portray himself/herself as interesting, open-minded, and creative. This finding is consistent with Choi et al. (2006), who found that variety seeking behavior occurs when people make choices for others, especially when they are held accountable for their choices.

Variety Seeking and Past Experience; The relationship between variety-seeking behavior and past experience has not been examined extensively in the hospitality context. In a previous study by Oh (2000), past experience was identified as one of the key variables that predicted intentions to patronize in the context of the restaurant industry. Prior studies (Kahn & Isen, 1993; van Trijp, 1995; van Trijp, Hoyer & Inman, 1996) suggest that variety-seeking behavior may be an important variable affecting restaurant choice. It is plausible to conceptualize customers with past experience with a particular choice may demonstrate differences in their variety seeking behavior.

Objectives / Methodology

The purpose of this study was to test the role of past experience on meeting planner attitudes towards sports stadiums as event venues and meeting/event planners’ variety seeking behavior. Criteria for inclusion in this study required respondents to be a professional meeting/event planner with the capacity to make site selection decisions for his/her organization. Prior attendance at a meeting/event hosted at a sports stadium (Yes/No) was also used as a filter to categorize respondents. A total of 456 complete responses were collected through the use of a panel service company. The study utilized t-test and regression analysis to measure the impact of prior experience on the two key site selection factors (customer attitude and variety seeking) relationship between customer attitude and variety seeking.

Major Findings

Of the 456 respondents included in this study, 218 have experience with planning meetings/events at sports stadiums and 319 indicated they have experience through attending meetings/events at a sports stadium (a minority of the sample had experience in both planning and attending meetings/events at sports stadiums). With this in mind, it is not surprising that the descriptive statistics indicate respondents in this study considered themselves familiar with outdoor professional sport stadiums as a meeting/event venue. Specifically, 82.7% of respondents indicated high familiarity (5 or higher on 7 point Likert scale) while only 17.3% were not familiar (3 or lower) with stadiums as meeting/event venues. The respondents were asked

about their attitude towards sport stadiums as a meeting/event venue in terms of the venue’s hedonistic and utility qualities. Two composite index scores for 5 hedonistic and 5 utility measuring items were created. The mean score for hedonism (5.67) and utility (5.02) were calculated and the difference between the two was statistically significant (t= 15.09, p= .000). The result shows that meeting/event planners perceive sports stadiums as a venue with both hedonistic and utility qualities, though the hedonistic qualities were rated higher.

Impact of prior experience on consumer attitude: The respondents were divided into two groups based on their prior meeting experience (attendance) at sport stadiums (yes vs. no). Each was asked about their attitude regarding sport stadiums as a meeting/event venue in terms of the venue’s hedonistic and utility qualities. Respondents with prior attendance experience indicated a higher hedonistic attitude than utility (M = 6.01 /5.76) on a 7 point Likert scale. Respondents with no prior meeting/event attendance experience at sport stadiums also indicated a higher hedonistic attitude than utility However, those with no prior attendance experience showed that their overall brand attitude of sport stadiums as a meeting/event venue is lower (M = 5.67/ 4.57) than those who had prior experience.

An independent sample t-test was performed to test the difference between the two groups with respect to prior attendance experience and their attitude towards venue hedonistic and utility qualities. The test showed that the difference in utility quality between the two groups is not statistically significant. However, the difference in hedonistic quality between the two groups was statistically significant (t = 6.85, p = .000).The results indicate that respondents with prior experience with attending a meeting/event at a sports stadium possess a customer attitude that measures higher in hedonistic quality than respondents with no prior meeting/event attendance experience at a sports stadium.

Impact of prior experience on variety seeking; The meeting/event planners in this study were asked about their variety seeking behavior when selecting a host venue. A composite index score for the seven variety seeking measurement items was created. The mean score of the variety seeking construct for all respondents was 5.40. The respondents were divided into two groups based on their prior meeting experience (attendance) at sport stadiums (yes vs. no). Respondents with prior attendance experience at a sports stadium indicated higher variety seeking behavior (M= 5.55) than those with no prior meeting/event attendance experience at a sports stadium (M = 5.06). An independent sample t-test was performed to test the difference between the two groups with respect to variety seeking behavior. The test showed that the difference between the groups is statistically significant (t = 4.66, p = .000).

The following hypothesis was developed and tested based on an extensive literature review.

H: Meeting/event planners’ with higher Variety Seeking (VS) behavior will have higher hedonistic attitudes toward sports stadiums as a meeting/event venue. A simple linear regression was calculated to predict hedonistic attitude toward sport stadiums as a meeting/event venue based on variety seeking behavior. A statistically significant regression equation was found (F (1, 425) = 245.5, P <.000), with of .366. This study confirmed that meeting/event planners with higher variety seeking behavior possess higher2 hedonistic attitudes towards sports stadiums as meeting/event venues. 𝑅𝑅

Conclusion

The impact of past experience on customer attitudes and variety seeking behavior were examined in the context of selecting an outdoor sports stadium as a meeting/event venue. These constructs were identified in the literature as key variables that influence meeting/event planners’ site selection decisions. Based on the findings of this study, it can be inferred that past experience with attending a meeting/event at an outdoor sports stadium influences customer attitudes towards services and features available at sports stadiums. Specifically, past experience is consistent with meeting/event planners having higher hedonistic attitudes towards sports stadiums. Also, the regression analysis confirmed the inherently logical connection between variety-seeking behavior and hedonistic attitudes. Meeting/event planners possessing high variety seeking tendencies perceive sports stadiums as having hedonistic qualities.

Implications

Past research indicates variety seeking behavior is more likely to occur when people make choices on behalf of others, especially in public domains, in order to make a favorable impression, even if it means choosing their non-favorite products/services. Considering the nature of the meeting/event planner site selection process, contracting with a unique venue (sports stadium) on behalf of association members (association meeting planners), corporate employees (corporate meeting planners) and customers (special event planners) is well aligned with the case of greater variety seeking. Today’s meeting/event planners are charged with making a favorable impression on attendees and hosting organizations by providing a one-of kind experience. In fact, planners’ success is largely defined by their ability to meet this expectation. The authors suggest there is high variety seeking behavior involved in the context of selecting sports stadiums as a meeting/event venue. It is important to note, planners can experience situations in which they change products and/or services despite having a high degree of satisfaction with a current choice (i.e. convention center, conference center) as new information or knowledge may position other options (sports stadium) as desirable. Such changes may occur when variety-seeking behavior is stimulated. Therefore, lesser known event venue service providers (sports stadiums) should position themselves accordingly by emphasizing the positive aspects of diversity in their marketing and branding efforts. Interestingly, stadium stakeholders and meeting/event planners both appear to share an interest in positioning sports stadiums as unique venues with hedonistic qualities for their customers. Stadiums should capitalize on this scenario by emphasizing their ability to deliver variety through their features and services in order to achieve a maximum return on investment (ROI) in pursuit of financial sustainability.

Future Research

The researchers tested the impact of past experience on customer attitude and variety seeking behavior however they did not explore the possible relationship between the two key variables or the possible moderating effect past experience may have on the relationship. This should be tested in future studies to determine if customer attitudes regarding the hedonistic and utilitarian qualities of a sports venue influences customer variety seeking behavior and if past experience has a moderating effect on the two variables. Also, meeting/event planner future purchase intention is a key construct sports stadium stakeholders are likely interested in. The researchers acknowledge a need to design a study testing the effect of customer attitudes,

past experience, and variety seeking behavior (among other variables) on meeting/event planners’ future intent to select a sports stadium as host venue.

References

Choi, J., Kim, B., Choi, I., & Yi, Y. (2006). Variety-seeking tendency in choice for others: Interpersonal and intrapersonal causes. Journal of Consumer Research, 32, 590–595. Crowley, A.E., Spangenberg, E.R., and Hughes, K.R. (1992). Measuring the hedonic and utilitarian dimensions of attitudes toward product categories. Marketing Letters, 3(3), 239-249. Elston, K. & Draper, J. (2012). A review of meeting planner site selection criteria research. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 13, 203-220. Fenich, G. G., & Bordelon, B. (2008). Is there an optimal type of ownership and organizational structure when developing convention and entertainment facilities? Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 9, 182-198. Johnson, M. (2010). Seizing the white space: Business model innovation for growth and renewal. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. Kahn, B. E., & Isen, A. M. (1993). The influence of positive affect on variety-seeking among safe, enjoyable products. Journal of Consumer Research, 20, 257–270. Lee, S. S., Kim, J-H., & Parrish, C. (2012). Are you ready for the extra inning? An exploratory study of the evaluation of professional sports teams’ websites as marketing tools to prospective meeting/event customers. Journal of Convention and Event Tourism, 13, 270-289. Lee. S., Parrish, C., & Kim, J. (2015). Sports stadiums as meeting and corporate/social event venues: A perspective of meeting/event planners and sport facility administrators. Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality and Tourism, 16(2), 164-180. Oh, H. (2000). Diners’ perceptions of quality, value and satisfaction: A practical viewpoint. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 41(3), 58-66. Okada, E. (2005). Justification Effects on Consumer Choice of Hedonic and Utilitarian Goods. Journal of Marketing Research. Vol. XLII (February 2005), 43–53. Parrish, C., Lee, S. S., & Kim, J-H. (2014). Marketing stadiums as event venues: Modified balanced scorecard (mBSC) evaluation of minor league baseball websites as an eMarketing tool. Journal of Applied Sport Management, 6(3), 20-46. Ratner, R.K., & Kahn, B.K. (2002). The impact of private versus public consumption on variety-seeking behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 29, 246-257. van Trijp, H.C.M. (1995). Variety-seeking in product choice behavior: Theory with applications in the food domain. Thesis Landbouwuniversiteit Wageningen, The Netherlands. van Trijp, H.C.M., Hoyer, W.D., & Inman, J.J. (1996), “Why Switch?: Product Category-Level Explanations for True Variety Seeking Behavior,” Journal of Marketing Research, 33 (August), 281- 292. Voss, K., Spangenberg, E., & Grohmann, B. (2003).Measuring the Hedonic and Utilitarian Dimensions of Consumer Attitude. Journal of Marketing Research, 40, 310–320.

How and Why Scholars Write: A Typology of Scholarly Writing

Nina Prebensen, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Norway

Abstract

The present article explores the purpose and the structure signifying scholarly writing. Science is delineated as a “big, noisy dialogue that takes place mainly through scholarly journals and books” (Nygaard 2008). Trying to make sense of – and being heard in – this boisterous environment is mainly about learning and communicating new ideas and concepts, and furthermore exploring, delineating and testing relationships between relevant constructs. In this, academic communication writing plays a significant role. For this reason, writing and being productive in it has always been a challenge to many and the difficulty continues to be. This tendency has seen numerous volumes and research papers dedicated to the “how to write” topic with various strategies recommended (Becket 1986; Goodson 2013; Murray 2013). A central question regarding scholarly writing is how and why academics partake in this negotiation? One obvious reason for scholarly writing is because it is part of the academic profession and the scientific environment. Consequently, an academic scholar writes because it is expected that he or she does so. The result of writing in an academic context may lead to new knowledge, promotion and furthermore inner growth for the scholar. As much as the writing process may be challenging and tedious, it can also produce pleasant experiences. In a performance situation when the challenges are matched by the person’s skills, feelings delineated as “flow” may occur (Csikszentmihalyi 1990). The flow concept is designated by Csikszentmihalyi to describe an experience that is totally satisfying beyond a sense of having fun. Academic writing may then to some extent be placed within the experiential learning outlook (Kolb 1984), reflecting emotions as important work motivators (Seo et al. 2004). As research recently argues for the importance of work-related emotions (e.g. Ashkanasy et al. 2000), writing a book chapter within a scientific context should include feelings and experience value, such as having fun and sense of flow feelings, as much as reflecting utilitarian objectives and rational goals. Depth interviews with academics participating in a writing seminar over four days reveal that writing may be actions reflecting instrumental or autotelic (here and now) purposes. Writing may further be performed alone and/or together with other scholars. The interviews further mirror that writing a scholarly text may be a way to process information, to develop knowledge, to enjoy and to have fun, and to present oneself and to network. By acknowledging the diversity of scholarly writing in terms of structure and purpose, academic management and boards could implement motivation and learning strategies to enhance and inspire operative academic writing.

Middle East Public Relations Association and Its Engagement with Communication Students: Learning Lessons

Noela Michael, Zayed University, UAE Serra Gorpe, Zayed University, UAE

Abstract

Objective: Public relations associations are becoming more engaged with communication students and faculty. The suggested study aims to look at the engagement of the Middle East Public Relations Association (MEPRA) with Zayed University communication students and faculty. The objective is to learn more about this engagement for a better academic and professional cooperation, which could be beneficial to set a good benchmark for other public relations associations in the region.

Methodology/Approach: A quantitative approach is used to understand the students’ perception about a MEPRA event targeting them. The survey administered to students who attended the MEPRA- Zayed University Spring 2015 event will provide feedback on its impact to students’ learning. Moreover, in-depth interviews with key faculty and the association leaders will provide further information on a positive collaboration with the academia and the professional world.

Major findings: The research will provide a picture on what has been aimed and accomplished with MEPRA and Zayed University collaboration, reflecting the associations’ achievements in this part of the world. The students’ analysis on MEPRA events carried out in cooperation with them will provide the faculty, students and the professional association further information for future activities.

Conclusions: This paper, which is in progress, will help to understand the expectations of communication students from their professional associations, and will also be helpful to associations like MEPRA in analyzing their relationships with universities, for a value-added cooperation between academia and the professional world.

Implications: Based on the challenges and opportunities discovered, the study aims to create guidelines/suggestions on how academia and professional associations can cooperate. Moreover, this could be helpful for associations in the UAE and neighboring countries.

An unstructured approach to RM in Railways: a special case of premium passengers trains in India

Arvind Kaushal, RevSmart Trainee, Haryana – India Anjana Singh, VEDATYA, India

Abstract

Objective: The Indian Railways has equal potential to implement Revenue Management practices to those found in Airlines, Hotels and Restaurants and so on. Unlike the airline Industry, very little attention has been made in the area of prominence of Revenue Management in Indian Railways. The aim of this paper is to examine and critically reflect the Revenue Management opportunities in premium passenger trains in India.

Methodology/Approach: The paper is based on qualitative research and will identify the International best practices around Railways Revenue Management based on extensive review of literature. The paper will also propose new framework which will define an approach to implement Revenue Management in premium trains of Indian railways.

Major findings: This paper will attempt to present a view point to policy makers on strategies of Revenue Management that can be formulated for premium passenger trains in India. The paper will also explore and showcase best practices from other countries and will suggest customized changes under various sub heads. The findings will be placed in the framework of Revenue Optimization and will accentuate the need to implement in the business decisions.

Conclusions: This paper will assert the success of revenue management in railways and can play an important role in boosting the revenue of Indian Railways.

Implications: The practical implication of this study is to suggest strategies that Indian railways policy makers can adopt to overcome challenges and implement revenue Management effectively in premium passenger trains and make Revenue Management as “Responsible Railway Revenue Management”.

Keywords: Revenue Management, Indian railways, Best practices, Premium, passenger train

A Comparative Study on the Effect of Food Image on Seoul as a Tourism Destination: Asian and Non-Asian Perspectives

Ling Yu, Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea Seungha Sim, Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea Jiyeon Park, Kyung Hee, Republic of Korea Chulwon Kim, Kyung Hee, Republic of Korea

Abstract

This paper attempts to discuss that food image, as a core factor for tourism destination selection, is having an important impact on the formation of tourism destination image. Aside from the basic necessity of eating and drinking, food is now playing the role of a tourism attraction of some destinations. Seoul, as the capital of South Korea as well as a popular tourism destination of Asia, is known for the uniqueness and authenticity of its local food. Thus, by building a better food image, the paper aims to help Seoul to market local tourism or even culinary tourism to attract more international tourists. Key words: food image; destination image; culinary tourism; Seoul food; Asian and non-Asian perspective Introduction

Today several scholars have agreed that destination image plays a significant role in the destination choice process (Asli & Gartner 2007; Chen & Kerstetter 1999; Gartner 1993; Um & Crompton 1990). Food, as a tourism attraction, has now become one of the important motivations for tourists to visit the destination. In fact, it is not only appealing to tourists, but also contributes to the social, economic and environmental development of a destination (Corigliano 2002). The food of destination can symbolize the image and distinctiveness of the destination (Karim, Chi & Qing 2010). Food image, which specially represents an effective attraction for culinary destinations where tourists travel for food, drives bustling tourists to visit the places and try their food. (Karim, Chi& Qing 2010; Cohen & Aviali 2004) This paper intends to look how food image impacts on the destination image of Seoul and how they are closely related by developing the framework built by previous researchers. Through this study, the crucial influence food can bring about on the destination image of Seoul is explored, based on which, the destination is able to capitalize on its endowed food resources to promote its destination image and market local tourism or even culinary tourism.

Literature Review

Food consumption and culinary tourism: Generally, food consumption is conceptualized not only as daily substance but a social bond to connect people in terms of social, cultural and political areas (Oosterveer 2006). First of all, food consumption is considered as an ‘obligatory’ tourist activity according to Richards (2002) because it keeps our body in health with energy and essential nutrients. Second, it brings economic profits to the tourism industry. Previous research has shown that 40% of tourists’ consumption is spent on food during their trip (Boyne, Williams & Hall 2002), which absolutely contributes a great proportion to the tourism revenue. Last but not least, it should be noted that the meaning behind food consumption can be more than generating revenues for a destination.

As food becomes more and more important for the tourist experience, tourists have a stronger desire to eat authentic local food during their trip. It has introduced a new form of tourism to the industry: food/culinary tourism. (Smith & Costello 2009) The definition of culinary/food tourism is explained in detail by Hall and Mitchell (2005) as ‘visitations to primary and secondary food producers, food festivals, restaurants, and special locations for which food tasting and/or experiencing the attributes of specialist food production as the primary motivation for travel’. In brief, culinary tourism provides opportunities to tourists whose primary motivation of the trip is to enjoy the different and unique food of the destination (Wolf 2002).

To sum up, food is nowadays regarded as a cultural and social symbol of a country (Rand & Heath 2006). As a result, try of local food is also becoming a part of cultural experience.

Destination image: The destination image has arose great attention in the tourism field in recent years for the public awareness that image will affect tourists’ destination choice. The destination image contributes to both overall satisfaction and tourists’ behavior intentions, which means a better image of the destination can promote tourists’ overall satisfaction and evoke their future intention to revisit the destination and recommend it to others. (Mendes & Valle 2012; Prayag 2009; Wang & Hsu 2010)

Relationship between food image and destination image: Aside from the basic necessity of eating and drinking, food is now playing the role of an attraction of some destinations (Cohen & Avieli 2004; Okumusa, Okumusb & McKercherc 2007). An increasing number of studies related to food and tourism indicates that food of a destination can be a crucial factor to influence their destination choice (Bessiere 1998; Cohen & Avieli 2004; Hall & Mitchell 2001; Hall & Sharples 2003; Hjalager & Richards 2002; Long 2004). There are limited source of studies focusing on the relationship of food image and destination image, but according to previous studies, it can be supposed that if the destination enjoys a good reputation for its unique food image, it may attract more tourists. Destinations can utilize their food to build national identity and promote their culture, which suggests that a successful establishment of food image can bring more food consumption, and ultimately it will optimize the destination image. (Quan & Wang 2004) In accordance with arguments above, it was hypothesized that:

H1: Food image positively influenced the destination image.

Overall satisfaction: Overall satisfaction of a destination can be defined as an impression of post-purchase and consumption after the vocation. (Fornell 1992) In the context, previous studies indicate that there is a positive relationship between the destination image and tourism satisfaction. (Kandampully & Suharatanto 2000; Loureiro & Gonzalez 2008; O'Leary & Deegan 2005). Moreover, some studies point out that tourists' satisfaction has an influence on their future behavior intentions as well. (Alexandris, Kouthouris & Meligdis 2006; Kozak & Rimmington 2000; Yoon & Uysal 2005). According to recent studies, it can be concluded that the destination image-satisfaction-intentions model is supported due to the positive relationship among these three variables. (Wang & Hsu 2010; Pratminingsih, Rudatin & Rimenta 2014) Therefore, it was hypothesized that:

H2: The destination image positively influenced the overall satisfaction. H3: The destination image positively influenced the future behaviors. H3: The overall satisfaction positively influenced the future behaviors.

Methodology

A survey method was applied to this paper by conducting a questionnaire survey among Asian (excluding Korean) and Non-Asian tourists. Data were collected from both perspectives that show their different attitudes to food images and destination images towards Seoul. A model that presents the relationships among food image, destination image, overall satisfaction and tourists’ future behaviors was developed based on previous studies (Figure 1). A detailed questionnaire was developed based on above variables. By means of factor analysis, food image and destination image of Seoul were divided into several categories. Then regression analysis was utilized to indicate the relationships among food image, destination image, overall satisfaction and tourists’ future behaviors. Mean variance analysis was applied to compare the different perspectives between Asian and Non-Asian tourists based on five-point Likert scale survey.

Future Food image behavior

H3 H1 H4

Destination Overall image H2 satisfaction

Figure 1

Results: Consequently, the results revealed that the food image of Seoul has an effect on its destination image. Regression analysis showed that there are positive relationships among Seoul food image, destination image, overall satisfaction and tourists’ future behaviors. All the four hypotheses are not rejected based on the observed data.

Conclusion

In this study, it was concluded that the food image of Seoul has a positive effect on it as a tourism destination. Different opinions from Asian and Non-Asian tourists were showed in the survey. Both of them are satisfied with Korean food in Seoul. But there are also some dissatisfied points for each of the group on a basis of different culture and values. The comparisons between Asian and Non-Asian tourists gave some implications to Seoul on how to build it an internationally popular destination and how to take a solid step towards culinary tourism by promoting and enriching its food image.

Since few studies have focused on how food image impacts on the destination image differently compared between Asian and non-Asian tourists, this study can be an implication to all the tourism destinations, especially those having a feature of their authentic cuisines, to improve the food quality and service when faced with tourists from different cultural backgrounds. Their destination image can be optimized with better

food served during the trip. As a result, tourists will be further motivated to revisit the place and recommend it to others.

Reference Ab Karim, S., & Chi, C. G. Q. (2010). Culinary tourism as a destination attraction: An empirical examination of destinations' food image. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 19(6), 531- 555. Alexandris, K., Kouthouris, C., & Meligdis, A. (2006). Increasing customers' loyalty in a skiing resort: The contribution of place attachment and service quality. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 18(5), 414-425. Bessière, J. (1998). Local development and heritage: traditional food and cuisine as tourist attractions in rural areas. Sociologia ruralis, 38(1), 21-34. Boyne, S., Williams, F., & Hall, D. (2002). On the trail of regional success: tourism, food production and the Isle of Arran Taste Trail. Tourism and gastronomy, 91-114. Chen, P. J., & Kerstetter, D. L. (1999). International students’ image of rural Pennsylvania as a travel destination. Journal of Travel Research, 37(3), 256-266. Cohen, E., & Avieli, N. (2004). Food in tourism: Attraction and impediment. Annals of tourism Research, 31(4), 755-778. Corigliano, M. A. (2002). 10 The route to quality: Italian gastronomy networks in operation. Tourism and gastronomy, 166. Du Rand, G. E., & Heath, E. (2006). Towards a framework for food tourism as an element of destination marketing. Current Issues in Tourism, 9(3), 206-234. Fornell, C. (1992). A national customer satisfaction barometer: the Swedish experience. the Journal of Marketing, 6-21. Gartner, W. C. (1993) Image Formation Process. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 2(2/3):191–215. Hall, C. M., & Mitchell, R. (2005). Gastronomic tourism: Comparing food and wine tourism experiences. Niche tourism: Contemporary issues, trends and cases, 73-88. Hall, C. M., & Mitchell, R. D. (2001). Wine and food tourism. Hall, C. M., Cambourne, B., Sharples, L., Macionis, N., & Mitchell, R. (2003). Food Tourism Around the World development, management and markets. Hjalager, A. M., & Richards, G. (2002). 13 Still undigested: research issues in tourism and gastronomy. Tourism and gastronomy, 224. Kandampully, J., & Suhartanto, D. (2000). Customer loyalty in the hotel industry: the role of customer satisfaction and image. International journal of contemporary hospitality management, 12(6), 346-351. Kozak, M., & Rimmington, M. (2000). Tourist satisfaction with Mallorca, Spain, as an off-season holiday destination. Journal of travel research, 38(3), 260-269. Long, L. (2004). Culinary tourism: Exploring the other through food. Loureiro, S. M. C., & González, F. J. M. (2008). The importance of quality, satisfaction, trust, and image in relation to rural tourist loyalty. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 25(2), 117-136. Matos, N., Mendes, J., & Valle, P. O. D. (2012). Revisiting the destination image construct through a conceptual model. O’Leary, S., & Deegan, J. (2005). Ireland’s image as a tourism destination in France: Attribute importance and performance. Journal of travel research, 43(3), 247-256.

Okumus, B., Okumus, F., & McKercher, B. (2007). Incorporating local and international cuisines in the marketing of tourism destinations: The cases of Hong Kong and Turkey. Tourism Management, 28(1), 253-261. Oosterveer, P. (2006). Globalization and sustainable consumption of shrimp: consumers and governance in the global space of flows. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 30(5), 465-476. Pratminingsih, S. A., Rudatin, C. L., & Rimenta, T. (2014). Roles of motivation and destination image in predicting tourist revisit intention: A case of Bandung–Indonesia. International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology, 5(1), 19-24. Prayag, G. (2009). Tourists' evaluations of destination image, satisfaction, and future behavior intentions— the case of Mauritius. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 26(8), 836-853. Quan, S., & Wang, N. (2004). Towards a structural model of the tourist experience: An illustration from food experiences in tourism. Tourism management, 25(3), 297-305. Smith, S., & Costello, C. (2009). Culinary tourism: Satisfaction with a culinary event utilizing importance- performance grid analysis. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 15(2), 99-110. Tasci, A. D., & Gartner, W. C. (2007). Destination image and its functional relationships. Journal of travel research, 45(4), 413-425. Um, S., & Crompton, J. L. (1990). Attitude determinants in tourism destination choice. Annals of tourism research, 17(3), 432-448. Wang, C.-Y. & Hsu, M. K. (2010) The relationships of destination image, satisfaction and behavioral intentions: an integrated model. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, 27: 829-843 Wolf, E. (2002). Culinary Tourism: A Tasty Proposition. URL (consulted 14 March 2005): http://www. culinarytourism.org /faq.php. Yoon, Y., & Uysal, M. (2005). An examination of the effects of motivation and satisfaction on destination loyalty: a structural model. Tourism management, 26(1), 45-56.

A Multi-Level Investigation of Relationships among Servant Leadership and Customer Service: A Moderated Mediated Model of Employee Engagement and Self-efficacy

Jichul Jang, Kansas State University, USA Jay Kandampully, The Ohio State University, USA

Introduction

Recently, a servant leadership which places emphasis on the development of employees and leaders’ ethical behaviors has gained considerable attention among scholars and practitioners (e.g., Ehrhart, 2004; Walumbwa, Hartnell and Oke, 2010; Wu, Tse, Fu, Kwan, and Liu, 2013). Indeed, prior studies have shown that servant leadership is positively related to job performance (Jaramillo, Grisaffe, Chonko, and Roberts, 2009), employee creativity as well as team innovation (Yoshida, Sendjaya, Hirst, and Cooper, 2014) and high level of service quality (Koyuncu, Burke, Astakhova and Cetin, 2013).

Despite advances in recent year in our understanding of servant leadership which might be linked with employee work-related outcomes, there are particular four areas in which more research is needed. First, with a few exceptions (e.g, Hui et al., 2007; Yoshida et al, 2014; Walumbwa et al, 2010), researchers have yet to consider the dynamic interplay between the individual-level process and store-level as a whole. So, our study extends to previous hospitality studies by examining leader behaviors, employee outcomes and customer outcomes at both individual level and store-level. Second, further research is needed to examine the underlying mechanisms by which servant leadership influences employee behaviors. To our best knowledge, limited studies have focused on employee engagement as a core mediator for explaining the impact of servant leadership on employee outcomes. Given that employee engagement plays an important role in understanding the underlying mechanism in the workplace (e.g., Reich, LePine and Crawford, 2010), it is important to examine the mediating role of employee engagement in the link between servant leadership and service- oriented organizational citizenship behavior. Third, little is known about the boundary conditions under which servant leadership might encourage employees to engage in their job. Our study extends previous hospitality studies by examining the moderating role of self-efficacy in the link between servant leadership and employee engagement. We propose that relationships between servant leadership and employee engagement will be stronger when the service employee has a high level of self-efficacy. Fourth, given that the concept of servant leadership is especially necessary in hospitality industry (Brownell, 2010), few studies have been conducted in the restaurant industry.

In summary, this study proposes and tests a conceptual model that links employee perceptions of servant leadership with important behavioral outcome, namely service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior in the restaurant industry. More specifically, we propose that employee engagement is the mechanism that triggers these relationships. In addition, we examine whether the relationship between employee perception of servant leadership and employee engagement are moderated by employee self-efficacy. Finally, we investigate the relationship between service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior at the store-level and two customer outcomes, namely customer satisfaction and customer loyalty at store-level in the restaurant industry.

Literature Review and Hypothesis Development

Servant leadership and employee engagement

Schaufeli et al. (2002, p.74) defined employee engagement as “a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption.” Vigor is defined as “high levels of energy and mental resilience while working, the willingness to invest effort in one’s work, and persistence even in the face of difficulties.” Dedication is described as having “a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge. Absorption is defined as “a state of being deeply engrossed in one’s work, where by time passes quickly, and one has difficulties with detaching oneself from work” (Schaufeli et al., 2002, p.74). This study proposes a positive relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement. The researcher draws on job demand-resource model (JD-R Model) (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007) and social exchange theory (SET) (Blau, 1964) to explain the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement. According to the JD-R model, job resources (e.g., social support in the workplace) are shown to be positively related to employee engagement. Empirical evidence has supported that job resources significantly contribute to employee engagement (Mauno et al., 2007; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). As one of the job resources, servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1977) is a style of supportive leadership that places the interest of followers before the self-interest of a leader. Servant managers believe that encouraging employees to grow and develop their skills is a top priority for an organization’s success (Ehrhart, 2004). Thus, this type of leadership would encourage employees in the service industry to express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally on the job based on JD-R model. In addition, the effect of servant leadership on employee engagement may also be explained by SET (Blau, 1964). According to SET (Blau, 1964), the beneficial acts of an individual toward another create obligations that must be reciprocated by that person. Servant leaders help their employees grow and succeed by placing the best interests of their employees first, which causes the employees to feel obligated to reciprocate that treatment by being engaged in their in-role performance based on SET. In view of this, it is likely that servant leadership will have a direct effect on employee engagement, leading to the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Employee perception of servant leadership is positively related to employee engagement.

Employee engagement and service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is defined as organization members’ discretionary behavior that are beneficial to the organization and/or its members, and such behaviors are beyond their job descriptions, yet, those voluntary behaviors are not rewarded in the formal system (Organ, 1988). There have been few studies on the relationship between employee engagement and service-oriented OCB. However, there is some empirical evidence indicating that employee engagement could affect OCB. Since the general idea of service- oriented OCB derives from OCB, such empirical evidence helps to explain the role of employee engagement in increasing service-oriented OCB. For instance, Saks (2006) reported the positive relationship between employee engagement and OCB. That is, employees who are engaged in their work become more involved in discretionary behaviors, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system. A recent study by Babcock-Roberson and Strickland (2010) tested a meditation model linking charismatic leadership and OCBs through employee engagement. The results of the study indicated that employee engagement was significantly associated with organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB). Therefore, on the basis of previous empirical evidence, we developed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: Employee engagement is positively related to service-oriented OCB at the individual-level.

Through hypotheses 1 and 2, we propose employee engagement to be a significant mediator in the link between servant leadership and service oriented OCB. In this study, we explore the mechanism of how servant leadership influences service-oriented OCB. In short, we propose that the employee perception of servant leadership has an indirect effects on service-oriented OCB through employee engagement

Hypothesis 3: Employee engagement mediates the relationship between employee perception of servant leadership and service-oriented OCB at the individual-level.

Drawing from social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1977), we argue that employee self-efficacy moderates the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement. Self-efficacy refers to “an individual’s belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the course of action required to produce given attainments” (Bandura, 1977, p.3). According to social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1977), individuals can learn standard behaviors by imitating the behavior of others (modeling). A servant leader can be described as the ideal and most attractive role model for service employees because he/she truly emphasizes the development of employees by encouraging them to develop new skills and to reach career goals (Hale & Fields, 2007; Walumbwa et al, 2010). For an employee with a high level of self-efficacy, they may develop and enhance their confidence in their abilities to perform job related duties by identifying their leader as an attractive role model and observing his or her behaviors. Individuals with a positive self-evaluation of their abilities may be better facilitate personal growth and enhance their job performance (Hobfoll, Johnson, Ennis, & Jackson, 2003). In sum, in conjunction with a social cognitive theory, we further expect that this relationship would be strengthened under a high level of employee self-efficacy. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4: Employee self-efficacy moderates the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement such that the relationship is stronger for individuals perceiving high levels of self-efficacy.

In the current study, the researcher argues that store-level service-oriented OCB is positively related to store- level customer outcomes in the restaurant context. This study focuses on both service-oriented OCBs and customer outcomes at the store-level rather than individual-level. This is because overall customer outcomes at the store-level are often determined by several moments of interactions that customers have with multiple service employees in the service establishments (Liao, Toya, Lepak, & Hong, 2009). In reality, restaurant managers require employees to meet various customers’ needs and demands; however, it is impossible for the restaurant managers to supervise all interactions between service employees and customers. However, restaurant employees with high level of service-oriented OCB are willing to respond to customers’ requests quickly and politely for meeting or exceeding customers’ needs and demands. They also strive to provide customers with personalized service to make customers feel important. In addition, restaurant employees with high service-oriented OCBs not only make considerable efforts to improve the restaurant’s image, but also propose significant suggestions for improvement of services. In sum, given that the employee behaviors play a vital role in shaping the perceptions customers have about the service encounter and the service organization, employees with high levels of service-oriented OCB at the store-level are more likely to provide high quality services, which are then perceived by customers and increases customer satisfaction and loyalty at the store- level. This above discussion leads to the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 5: Store-level service oriented OCB is positively related to (a) store-level customer satisfaction and (b) store-level customer loyalty.

Method Sample and Data Collection: The data in this study were drawn from questionnaires distributed to employees and customers in casual dining restaurants located in the Midwestern United States. Restaurant employees provided data on their perception of managers’ servant leadership, their own self-efficacy and engagement, and service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. Restaurant customers were asked to evaluate their satisfaction with the services and their willingness to return to the restaurants in the future. Questionnaires for both employees and customers were coded to ensure that responses pertaining to the same restaurants could be matched.

Measure: The servant leadership measure consisted of a 14-item scale developed from Ehrhart (2004). Employees rated their perceptions of their immediate supervisor on the seven-point Likert scale. The scores related to the seven dimensions of servant leadership were averaged to create an overall score for the analysis, because this study focused on the overall pattern of servant leadership. To measure employee self-efficacy, this study used 8 items from Jones (1986). Higher scores demonstrated higher employee self-efficacy. For employee engagement, the researcher used the nine-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9), a short version of the UWES, developed by Schaufeli, Bakker, and Salanova (2006). Service-oriented OCB was measured with the 16 items drawn from Bettencourt, Gwinner, and Meuter (2001), which constitute three underlying dimensions: loyalty, participation, and service delivery.

Discussion

Drawing upon the JD-R model, social exchange and social cognitive theories, we developed and tested a framework to examine how and when the employee perception of servant leadership may enhance employee engagement and service-oriented organizational citizenship behaviors, and thereby, enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty in the restaurant industry using a multi-level design that involved data collected from multiple sources including employees and customers. Our findings provided the first evidence of the importance of servant leadership in promoting employee engagement which can lead to service-oriented OCB in the restaurant industry. Second, our findings also suggested that employee self-efficacy strengthens the relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement. Third, at the store level, service-oriented organizational citizenship was related positively to positive customer outcomes including customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the restaurant industry.

Managerial implications

This study provides useful practical implications for restaurant managers. First, in order to foster the level of employee engagement, restaurant firms should implement intensive leadership training programs for restaurant managers/supervisors to help them understand the importance of servant leadership and to develop practices such as healing, serving, behaving ethically, empowering employees to grow, building community, and inspiring employee loyalty. Second, restaurant firms should develop effective strategies for enhancing employee self-efficacy. One way that restaurant firms may accomplish this is to provide mentoring program. More experienced employees (i.e., mentors) may provide skills, knowledge and guidelines to newer employees, which may help assist them with career development. When restaurant firms give employees opportunities to learn more about their jobs and enhance and develop their career skills, this leads to greater confidence and job success. Third, our results show that store-level service-oriented OCBs were positively

related to store-level customer outcomes. This result highlights the importance of service-oriented OCBs for promoting positive customer outcomes. Restaurant managers should make great efforts to help their employees to cultivate service-oriented OCBs. Restaurant firms should consider employees as the restaurant’s most valuable asset instead of costs, the restaurant firms will gain a competitive advantage.

References

Babcock-Roberson, M. E., & Strickland, O. J. (2010). The relationship between charismatic leadership, work engagement, and organizational citizenship behaviors. The Journal of Psychology, 144(3), 313-326. Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The job demands-resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309-328. Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. Transaction Publishers. Brownell, J. (2010). Leadership in the service of hospitality. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 51(3), 363-378. Ehrhart, M.G. (2004). Leadership and procedural justice climates as antecedents of unit-level organizational citizenship behavior, Personnel Psychology, 57, 61-94. Greenleaf, R.K. (1977). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness, Paulist Press, New York, NY. Hui, C. H., Chiu, W. C., Yu, P. L., Cheng, K., & Tse, H. H. (2007). The effects of service climate and the effective leadership behaviour of supervisors on frontline employee service quality: A multi‐level analysis. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 80(1), 151-172. Jaramillo, F., Grisaffe, D. B., Chonko, L. B., & Roberts, J. A. (2009). Examining the impact of servant leadership on salesperson's turnover intention. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 29(4), 351-366. Koyuncu, M., J. Burke, R., Astakhova, M., Eren, D., & Cetin, H. (2014). Servant leadership and perceptions of service quality provided by front-line service workers in hotels in Turkey: Achieving competitive advantage. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 26(7), 1083-1099. Mauno, S., Kinnunen, U., & Ruokolainen, M. (2007). Job demands and resources as antecedents of work engagement: A longitudinal study. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 70(1), 149-171. Organ, D.W.(1988). Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Good Soldier Syndrome. D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington, MA/Toronto. Rich, B. L., Lepine, J. A., & Crawford, E. R. (2010). Job engagement: Antecedents and effects on job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 53(3), 617-635. Saks, A. M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21(7), 600-619. Schaufeli, W. B., & Bakker, A. B. (2004). Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: A multi-sample study. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25(3), 293-315. Schaufeli, W. B., Salanova, M., González-Romá, V., & Bakker, A. B. (2002). The measurement of engagement and burnout: A two sample confirmatory factor analytic approach. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3(1), 71-92. Walumbwa, F. O., Hartnell, C. A., & Oke, A. (2010). Servant leadership, procedural justice climate, service climate, employee attitudes, and organizational citizenship behavior: A cross-level investigation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(3), 517. Wu, L. Z., Tse, E. C. Y., Fu, P., Kwan, H. K., & Liu, J. (2013). The impact of servant leadership on hotel employees’ servant behavior. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 54(4), 383-395.

Yoshida, D. T., Sendjaya, S., Hirst, G., & Cooper, B. (2014). Does servant leadership foster creativity and innovation? A multi-level mediation study of identification and prototypicality. Journal of Business Research, 67(7), 1395-1404. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191. Hale, J. R., & Fields, D. L. (2007). Exploring servant leadership across cultures: A study of followers in Ghana and the USA. Leadership, 3(4), 397-417. Liao, H., Toya, K., Lepak, D. P., & Hong, Y. (2009). Do they see eye to eye? Management and employee perspectives of high-performance work systems and influence processes on service quality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(2), 371. Jones, G. R. (1986). Socialization tactics, self-efficacy, and newcomers' adjustments to organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 29(2), 262-279. Schaufeli, W. B., Bakker, A. B., & Salanova, M. (2006). The measurement of work engagement with a short questionnaire a cross-national study. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 66(4), 701-716. Bettencourt, L. A., Gwinner, K. P., & Meuter, M. L. (2001). A comparison of attitude, personality, and knowledge predictors of service-oriented organizational citizenship behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(1), 29.

A Bibliometric Analysis of Service Management Literature on Macau

Aaron Yankholmes, Institute for Tourism Studies, Colina de Mong-Hà Macau.

Abstract

This paper presents results of a bibliometric analysis of service management literature on Macau retrieved from the SCOPUS database. The findings suggest that service management research are mostly produced in tourism and hospitality related journals and faculty members at the Institute for Tourism Studies were leading contributors of articles in those journals. Results are discussed with regard to strengthening the nexus between teaching and research.

Keywords: Macau, service, service industry, teaching, research, institutions of higher learning

Introduction

Macau’s institutions of higher education are operating in new complex environments. The economy of the city increasingly depends on the service industry since the central government is committed to making her a world-class entertainment and leisure hub in the Pearl Delta Region. The service industry, in general, and gaming and the related tourism sector, in particular, has boosted the city’s rapid economic growth and development in the last decade. Though total receipts from the sector have recently seen a precipitous drop, it remains the mainstay of the economy (DSEC, 2015).

The breakneck speed of economic growth bears witness to the rising profile of the city’s major institutions of higher education, particularly in responding to increasing demand for qualified personnel. The changing dynamics of the service industry, spurred by rapid advances in technologies and the Internet, has also contributed significantly to the environment in which the city’s institutions of higher education must systematically update their curricula in order to achieve a balance between thinking and acting. As Lavery (1989) notes, quality human resource in the tourism and hospitality industry allows service providers gain a competitive edge and enhance service delivery.

These developments have made the gaming and related services an attractive area for teaching and research. While the general status of teaching in Macau has improved since the handover to Chinese sovereignty in 1999, concerns are beginning to emerge about a perceived disjunction between teaching and research (Marsh & Hui, 1991). Even though previous studies did not establish a correlation between teaching and research (Hattie & Marsh, 1996), there is reason to believe that, in the case of Macau, the relationship between teaching and research could complement each other as they create ideas and new applications in both directions. Given the recency of the industry, the capacity of faculty members to write content and stay updated could be enhanced, as is the possibility to gain experience in service course management. Nevertheless, no comprehensive state-of-the art and contemporary review of service research on Macau exists even though previous studies suggest a modicum of service research is produced in the region as a whole (Tan, Goudarzlou & Chakrabarty, 2010).

The broad objective of this study is to examine the service management research over the last 14 years. Specifically, it identifies which journals have published articles on Macau’s service industry and the institutional sources of such scholarship. The reasons for undertaking an analysis on service research productivity on Macau were threefold: first, researchers and instructors need a contemporary and comprehensive state-of-the-art account of the field so that they can align teaching and research interests. Second, for prospective students attracted to any of the institutions of higher education, it is important to know which institutions are spearheading research and scholarship in the area given that quality education and training requires quality research. Lastly, the study is likely to provide industry watchers and other commentators who may not necessary be actively engaged in academic work yet may be interested in locating important scholarly publications being done in their field.

Procedure

This study analyzed service management literature conducted on Macau and the institutional contributions to that body of knowledge. The data for the study was obtained from the SCOPUS database. However, the search was limited to English Language only journal articles written in the 14-year period from 2002 through 2015. The consideration of English only articles is partly due to the fact that journals in other languages are underrepresented in SCOPUS and partly due to the need to delimit the study to a feasible linguistic scope. In addition, only journal articles were examined since they are the most prestigious publication type among social scientists. No attempt was used to differentiate journal articles based on ranking or their perceived quality (McKercher, Law & Lam, 2006). It is worth noting that service research conducted on Macau may not, of course, contain these exact words (i.e. ‘service’ and ‘Macau’) or their variants; but there is a fair degree of probability that journal articles that contain them may be related to the subject matter. This is particularly true because of the city’s name. Macao is the traditional Portuguese spelling whereas Macau is the English spelling. Both are generally used interchangeably in official and academic circles. Relevant materials were sought using the query “service AND Macau”, “service AND Macao”, “Macao AND service quality” and “Macau AND service quality”.

The search of article title, abstract or keyword fields retrieved 100 service management articles from 81 journals from August 2 to November 6, 2015. The database that was produced included the journal name, title of paper, author name(s) and institutional affiliation, placement in authorship order, number of authors and publication date. In this study, credit is given to an institution if an individual authors or co-authors a paper using its mailing address. The institution of a sole authored article was credited with 1.0 point. But if an article had multiple authors, Howard, Cole and Maxwell’s (1987) formula was used. As such, a second author in a co-authored article was given 0.40 credit unit, third authorship in a three-authored article, 0.21, and so forth. In light of this, the articles were crosschecked on the author’s institution of affiliation or library to resolve any differences. Full credit was given to an institution even if the author had moved since the article was published.

Results Where has service research been published? Although service management articles were published in wide variety of journals, Table 1 lists the journals contributing at least two articles in the field. It shows the

dominance of tourism and hospitality related journals with the International Journal of Hospitality Management leading the pack. This is not surprising given the attention that the industry attracts and the current focus and growth in number of institutions of higher learning offering hospitality and tourism education and training programs. Another observation worth noting in Table 1 is that all the tourism and hospitality related journals were identified by McKercher et al.’s (2006) as top-notch journals in the field.

Table 1: Journals with at least 2 articles on service

Journal # of articles published International Journal of Hospitality Management 9 International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 3 Energy 2 Journal of Vacation Marketing 2 Psychology and Marketing 2 Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research 2 International Journal of Tourism Research 2 Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality and Tourism 2 Tourism Management 2

Institutional productivity: Table 2 ranks institutions’ (i.e. those contributing 2 articles, with affiliate as single author or co-author) contribution to service research on Macau and the credit received for each journal. As mentioned earlier, it reports the author’s affiliation at the time of the publication of the journal article. Although this may overemphasize past affiliation for faculty who has since moved, the idea was to indicate the publication records of the institution. The result shows dominance of Macau-based institutions with the Institute for Tourism Studies publishing the most service management articles. The appearance of institutions not based in Macau is partly is explained international collaborative scholarship.

Table 2: Ranked institutions in productivity of the 9 journals

Institution Location Score IJHM EN IJCHM IJTR JHTR JQAHT JVM TM PM

Institute for Macau 7.27 1.07 — 3 — 0.6 0.6 2 — — Tourism studies University of Macau 5.55 3.03 0.6 0.52 — — 1.4 — — — Macau Macau Macau 2.26 0.47 — — 0.789 1 — — — — University of Science and Technology Macau Macau 1.92 1.28 0.63 — — — — — — — Polytechnic Institute The Hong Hong Kong 1.91 — 0.28 — 0.315 — — — 1.31 Kong Polytechnic University

Swinburne Australia 1.84 0.72 — — — — — — — 0.92 University University of UK 0.94 — — 0.47 — — — — 0.47 — Surrey Boston Boston 0.87 — — — — — — — — 0.87 College Providence Taiwan 0.42 — — — 0.21 — — — 0.21 — University Note: IJHM= International Journal of Hospitality Management; IJCHM= International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management; EN= Energy; JVM= Journal of Vacation Marketing; PM= Psychology and Marketing; JHTR= Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research; IJTR= International Journal of Tourism Research; JQAHT= Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality and Tourism; TM= Tourism Management

Conclusion

In summary the results of this paper is a good assessment of service management literature produced on Macau. While it does not take into consideration the institution’s size, purpose or reputation, it portends how Macau’s institutions of higher education can respond to claims of irreducible linkage between teaching and research given the city’s continuing dependence on the service industry.

Acknowledgment: The author would like to thank Chung-En (Joanne) Yu (student helper at the Institute for Tourism Studies) for the assistance in creating the data base.

References

Hattie, J. & Marsh, H. (1996). The relationship between research and teaching: a meta analysis. Review of Educational Research, 66(4), 507-542. Howard, G. S., Cole, D. A., & Maxwell, S. E. (1987). Research productivity in psychology based on publication in the journals of the American Psychological Association. American Psychologist, 42(11), 975–986. Lavery, P. (1989). Education and training in tourism. In S. Witt & L. Moutinho, (eds.), Tourism marketing and management handbook (pp. 119-122). London: Prentice Hall Marsh, C. & Hui, P. (1991). Curriculum development in Macau. In C. Marsh & P. Morris (eds.), Curriculum development in East Asia (pp. 181-201). London, Falmer. Tan, K.C., Goudarzlou, A., & Chakrabarty, A. (2010). A bibliometric analysis of service research from Asia. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 20(1), 89-101. McKercher, B., Law, R. & Lam, T. (2006). Rating tourism and hospitality journals. Tourism Management, 27:1235 – 1252. Statistics and Census Service (DSEC, 2015). Gaming sector survey. Retrieved November 8, 2015 from http://www.dsec.gov.mo/Statistic.aspx?NodeGuid=f5c8d76d-4db1-4ac1-8541-f578907583b2

Impact of using E services on Customer’s satisfaction and Subjective well being of tourists and customers of hospitality industry in India

Arvind K Birdie, VEDATYA, India

Abstract

Objective: Today the Internet and development in information technology has revolutionized service industry especially hospitality and tourism. The present paper studies the impact of E services practiced by the hotel/travel agencies in enhancing and creating satisfaction and subjective well-being among customers of tourism or hotel industry.

Methodology: The paper uses an exploratory research design and convenient sampling technique. Data were collected using structure questionnaire of customer satisfaction and subjective well-being and an interview schedule was employed to customers/tourists and managers of leading travel portals and hotels in India.

Major Findings: Findings revealed that providing e services by the travel portals and using e services by the customers enhances customer’s satisfaction. Results also revealed that subjective well-being of tourist’s increases with customer satisfaction. The challenges and opportunities including better service quality, information management, processing costs faced by the leaders, managers and general client servicing executives as well as customers are underlined. Results also highlights the customer satisfaction and subjective well-being in comparison between traditional methods of travel booking to usage of e services.

Conclusion: As findings revealed that using e services enhances customer’s satisfaction and subjective well- being, the hotel industry and travel portal should focus their customer orientation towards smooth functioning of e services for customers.

Implications: The research creates awareness and develops insights for enhancing e services for business model developers, marketing professionals, researchers and general client service executives working in travel portals which can be used as recommendations for creating new innovative practices for enhancing customer satisfaction and subjective well-being.

Keywords: E services, Customer satisfaction, Subjective well-being, hotel industry.

Cellular Industry Issues, Trends and Opportunities for Development in the Republic Of Kazakhstan

Armiyash Nurmagambetova, Republic of Kazakhstan

Abstract

The aim of this study is to collect and systematize information on the market of cellular communication of Kazakhstan to stimulate entrepreneurial activity, as well as the provision of research results to entrepreneurs to obtain objective information on the industry. Based on the analysis of market trends and industry cellular the study identified challenges hindering the development of the market of services of cellular communication of Kazakhstan, found a point of saturation of the market. It offered new opportunities for growth. Statistical data analysis and evaluation of the factors affecting the cellular industry have revealed that the market prospects cellular industry shaped by - political, economic, technological and socio-cultural factors. Prospects for the industry are associated, primarily, with the intensification of work with the existing customer base, the development of technology and innovation. It is necessary to increase the penetration of telecom services industry in the daily lives of people and organizations.

Keywords: mobile communications, consumer services, telecommunications operator, Kazakhstan.

Introduction

The growth of telecommunications services points to the economic development of any country, and is one of the key aspects of the social life of mankind. Products telecoms contribute to improving the quality of life, the development of modern business, good governance, the strengthening of international economic relations. The current state of the global telecommunications market is characterized by deep structural changes related to the computerization of telecommunications equipment. Saturation of the market offers plenty of communication products, enhances competition among telecommunications operators. As a result of falling prices for telecommunications services, expanding their range, and users have the choice.

The telecommunications industry is developing rapidly in Kazakhstan, which is associated with the role of communications in the life of Kazakhstan. According to the Ministry of Transport and Communications at the beginning of 2013 Internet users were 62.8% of Kazakhstan's population. However, growth in the availability of telecommunications in Kazakhstan has not yet reached its peak, and that the development and availability of such services is a pressing issue today. For the availability of telecommunication services the state is using economic levers by which the telecommunications companies are able to maintain communication market in Kazakhstan, and the population is provided service.

Literature review

Being a high-yield, communication services attracted new players to the market, which inevitably affects the decrease in profitability of the business and makes it necessary to find, first, new offers technologies and services, and, secondly, ways to improve the efficiency of the operators. In the face of rising competition to telecom operators face challenges define and achieve the optimum ratio of the indicators characterizing the position of the operator on the market (volume of subscriber base, market share) and financial performance (profitability per subscriber, profit margins).

On how to effectively control and built correctly identified goals and objectives as a service provider depends on the positive dynamics of its development, and the value of the company, which is reflected in the dynamics of stock price. Research issues performance management operators [see also Bulgakov&Varakina,1998] and enhance its effectiveness papers (Reznikova, Demina & Bulgakov, 2005; Mkhitaryan,2004). Their work offers a variety of approaches and methods of management of operators, taking into account the specificity of the telecommunications market and the current level and trends (Kuzovkova,2003; Stoychev,2004; Perminov,2003; Bart,2005) of its development. As one of the most widely used and effective approaches to the management of the activities of operators highlighted the strategic management. Strategic management of telecommunication companies covered in such studies as Ankoffa,1985; Reznikova,2005; Buhalkova,2005; Ilina, 2003; Salyutin & Timoshenko, 2004; and Demidkina & Dobronravova,2002. In the works of these authors described the essence of strategic management, the scope and the main differences compared to the tactical control, the benefitsа of using strategic management of organizations. As a strategic management tool providing authors identify strategies - strategies in each of the functional areas of the organization. On the other hand, some reported studies by Golubitskaya,2004; Parfenov,2006; Lyakhovetsky,2004; and Tikhvin,2002 deal with the formation and implementation of strategies to ensure as manufacturing, financial, investment, marketing, and others. An analysis of the available literature revealed that existing publications adequately address the issues enhancing the effectiveness of service provider by optimizing production strategies and costs, the financial management of the organization and investment strategy, as well as questions of marketing activity in terms of pricing.

Analysis of the cellular market in Kazakhstan

For Kazakhstan, the development of effective information and communication industry, progressive integration into the global network, is a determining factor of economic growth. The share of the telecommunications industry in the country's GDP in 2013 was about 2.5%. The scope of telecommunications services traditionally includes mobile services, fixed telephone line connection and access services to the Internet, services and means of postal and courier activities and communications. In the mobile market of the CIS countries, Kazakhstan holds fourth place in terms of cellular proliferation (CN research, 2013). According to the study CNR subscriber base of mobile communication services in the past three years, Kazakhstan amounted to 32.5%, Russia 10.6% and 27.1% of Belarus which is significantly less than in other CIS countries, the trend is associated with high levels of development and saturation of the market, compared to other countries of the Commonwealth (ComNews research, 2013). The growth rate of revenues from telecommunications services in the period from 2009 to 2013 in the Republic of Kazakhstan steadily increased, 1.47 times. The most profitable area is in the revenues of mobile services, which increased by 1.21 times. Figure 1 shows structure of the telecommunications industry revenue in 2013 by types of services provided. The figure also shows the structure of income for 2013, the share of mobile services accounted for 45.8% and Internet services for 21.3%, the share of other communication services for 32%.

other services 12,4% International connection 6,6 %

local telephon connections 8%

data transfer 3,1%

Internet 21,3%

mobile communication 45,8 %

wireless connections 2,8 %

Figure 1- Structure of the telecommunications industry revenue in 2013 Source: Report of the National Statistics Agency,2013

Mobile telephone services (voice, etc.) of today are the most dynamic sector, far ahead of the pace of growth of other sectors. The revenue in 2013 reached 296.6 billion. Tenge (297.6 billion. Tenge in 2012.). This represents 46% of total revenues in the market (Review of the telecommunications industry, 2013) The development of cellular communications in Kazakhstan began with the issuance of the first state-exclusive license to operate in the field of cellular communications in 1994. And ten years later, in 2004, the number of subscribers has reached two million abroad. By mid-2005, in Kazakhstan there were about four million Cellular users.

From 1994 to 1998 there was one mobile operator in the market place. In 1998, the cellular market has been de-monopolized: the market has several mobile operators. By this time the number of mobile subscribers in Kazakhstan amounted to more than 20 thousand people.

The development of the gas market in the period 1999-2000 was characterized by capitalization of emerging companies of mobile operators, the emergence of their dealer network, as well as buying and installation of expensive telecommunications equipment. The cost of cellular services was high, so in the period from 1998 to 2001 the number of mobile phone users has increased significantly. With the growth of scientific -technical progress, increasing income Kazakhs, as well as after the initial phase of development of the mobile operators, the subscriber base in Kazakhstan began to grow more rapidly. To create a competitive environment that leads to rapid saturation of the market with quality and affordable services since 2004, the country carried out

liberalization (removal and easing of restrictions) of the telecommunications market. As a result of liberalization in the telecommunications market today offer mobile services - Operator 4: LLP «GSM Kazakhstan" LLP "Kar-Tel" LLP, "Mobile Telecom Service» and «ALTEL."

Altel 5,1 Mobile Telecom 10,3

Kcell 45,8 Kartell34,2

Figure 2 - The share of companies in the mobile market in 2013 (Report of the National Statistics Agency, 2013)

JSC "Kazakhtelecom" is a representative of the two mobile operators LLP «GSM Kazakhstan» and «ALTEL." Previously, this group was part of LLP "Mobile Telecom Service" with the trade brand «NEO». Some key observations are noted. 1) «ALTEL" with the trade brand «Pathword» and «Dalacom». «Pathword», which appeared on the market in Kazakhstan 13 February 2004, is the first in Kazakhstan mobile communication network of CDMA2000 1X operating at a frequency of 800 MHz. «Dalacom», it was founded in late 2003. This third generation mobile communication, and is based on advanced standards of CDMA2000 1X in the frequency range of 800 MHz. (Review of the telecommunications sector Kazahstana.- JSC "Rating Agency of the Regional Financial Center of Almaty.- 2011, p.19). Services are provided on postpaid, the subscriber can use communication services on credit and pay for them during the billing period. After 2 months of February 13, 2004 entered the market brand «Pathword». Today's customer base «ALTEL" is 1.04 million. Subscriber ARPU (average revenue per user 1) is 636 m. 2) Open Company «Mobile Telecom-Service" with the trademark «Tele2», was presented recently in Kazakhstan, in April 2011. «Tele2» is a European service provider, which was first launched in 1992 in Sweden. «Tele2» acquired a stake (51%) of the third GSM-operator of Kazakhstan «NEO» in December 2009, the national fixed-line operator JSC "Kazakhtelecom". Operator «NEO», in turn, is a Kazakh mobile operator providing mobile services standard GSM 900. The operator «NEO», which is also a brand of "Kazakhtelecom", appeared on the market in Kazakhstan in February 2007 (Review of the telecommunications sector Kazahstana, 2011). 3) Reorganized in 2012. LLP «GSM Kazakhstan" JSC "Kcell" with the trade brand «Activ» and «Kcell» provide services in GSM-900/1800. The company was founded in 1998, and in February 1999 began offering cellular services under the brand name «Kcell», and in September of the same year founded the brand mobile «Activ» (Review of the telecommunications sector Kazahstana, 2011).

4) "Kar-Tel" - one of the leading cellular operators in Kazakhstan, as the current standard of GSM- 900, which offers services under the trademark «KMobile», «Beeline». Now, however, a controlling stake «K- Mobile» belongs to the brand «Beeline» (Review of the telecommunications sector Kazahstana, 2011). In the 1st quarter of 2014, the share of "Kcell" in the mobile market declined slightly (51% in the 1st quarter of 2013.), and the customer base was less than 789 thousand subscribers. Reducing the number of subscribers was due to last cleaning operator of its subscriber base (remove inactive for a long time subscribers). LLP "Kar-Tel" occupies 34.2% of the market. This suggests consolidating the company's position in the market resulted in the rapid increase in the customer base and its income. Tele2 purged in the second quarter of 2013. By reducing its customer base by 811 thousand subscribers, which undoubtedly affected the results of the current period. Thus, the share of LLP "Mobile Telecom Service" for the 1st quarter of 2014 decreased by 3.2% and amounted to 10.3%. The share "Altel" in the 1st quarter of 2014 was 5.1% and the increase in the number of subscribers associated with a fairly active marketing policy of the company, coupled with the launch of telecommunications services in the format of 4G. According to the EPSI Rating (independent organization, part of pan-European index of consumer satisfaction), the weighted average index of satisfaction with the quality of mobile operators in Kazakhstan in 2013 was 76.5 points (unchanged from 2012). At present, the mobile Internet is offered in completely new formats due to the constant advances in mobile broadband. Today, mobile devices are connected to the Internet via cellular networks (3G and 4G / LTE network) or Wi-Fi networks used in offices, homes and public places. For example, the volume of sales in the segment of providing Internet access and data transmission in mobile networks in 2013. was 47.4 bln., more than 40% higher than in 2012, while the market for broadband access in fixed networks in 2013 was 72.7 bln., having increased by only 18%. According to the analytical agency «IKS-Consulting», the number of active devices with Internet access and data transmission in mobile networks was about 2.8 million units in 2013. Kazakhstan has introduced 3G-technology is the third generation of mobile communications. Its main advantage - high speed data transmission, access to the Internet. 3G network allows to organize video telephony, watch mobile video streaming, etc. In 2011, mobile operators commissioned 3G network in the cities of Astana, Almaty and all regional centers of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Currently, in the Republic of Kazakhstan introduced the technology 4G, the development of broadband networks (hereinafter - BBA) to the Internet by using technologies such as: ADSL, CDMA / EVDO, 3G, FTTH. Technology CDMA / EVDO. CDMA / EVDO (EvolutionDataOptimized) - high-speed data technology used in networks of mobile communication standard CDMA. The number of subscribers using the technology CDMA / EVDO in 2012 was 7737. Technology 4G allows you to develop the penetration of access services to the Internet, including to expand the range of related services (mobile TV, video on demand, etc.), improve quality and reduce tariffs. It is expected that over the next decade, networking may include cellular networks 5G, satellite services and, possibly, Wi-Fi long-range (Trends in the development of the telecommunications market in Kazakhstan). New networks offer faster data transfer, who allows users to seamlessly move from home and office wireless broadband network services to mobile voice call and data transfer. The market of telecommunication systems for the period 2010-2013 experienced rapid change. During this period, there was a steady decline of interest in fixed telephone and this significantly increased penetration of mobile services. At the same time there was a qualitative increase in consumer devices that expand the range of services consumed by each device.

In general, the dynamics of the market volume of communication services in Kazakhstan is positive. Consider the size of the market for mobile services, the claimed almost 50% of total revenues in the market and is the fastest growing sector. The revenue in 2013 reached 296.6 billion (Tinge, 2012). According to experts, the potential capacity of the mobile market is higher by at least 5% of the volume of the market to date. The specifics of the industry is such that the potential for expanding the market in parallel with the constant and continuous development of technologies and increasing the range of services. According to consultancy Ernst & Young, there are a number of risks in the telecommunications sector. According to a study of the company, from overcoming these risks depends on the development of the telecommunications industry, both in the domestic and foreign markets: • Failure due to redistribution tariff structure of mobile operators from voice to data communications; • Failure to respond to rapidly changing fast customer expectations; • Lack of confidence in the return on investment - tight control of capital may limit the ability of operators to build new services; • Lack of information and knowledge in order to reduce the time from the initial design of a new service to its introduction to the market; • The lack of regulatory certainty for new market structures by the government and regulatory authorities; • Failure to benefit from new forms of communication, such as M2M, from the established understanding -this compounds in human terms; • The vague wording of mergers and acquisitions, partnerships and strategies that are essential for success in the emerging market segments such as mobile advertising and cloud computing; • Failure to define new business indicators (KPI) that reflect the redistribution of tariff structure "of megabytes minutes"; • Uncertainty responsibilities of operators in areas such as the fight against terrorism and the maintenance of children, as well as issues of privacy and security in the new areas of services such as cloud computing and mobile applications; • Lack of organizational flexibility - lack of synchronization of operations units and branches to maximize economies of scale. The main purpose of Kazakh companies, operators and the state is today the expansion of telecommunications infrastructure, the implementation of new ideas, new technologies. New broadband Internet services provide access to various official information on the website of municipal and state agencies, private organizations. Therefore, the telecommunications industry also has an important public function, helps to control the entire structure of the country and to control the political and economic life of the state. The main trends in the telecommunications industry is the development of infrastructure based on high-speed optical and wireless technologies, to provide multimedia services to people and organizations, the implementation and development of digital broadcasting technologies, as well as an increase in the level of digitalization of local telephone services. In addition, for the development of the Kazakh segment of the Internet requires the willingness of telecommunications networks for the provision of broadband services, the establishment of data centers, increasing the number of electronic public services provided through the portal of "electronic government", the development of portals of state bodies, the creation of socially significant Internet resources increase in the number of projects on e-commerce. An analysis of the current situation suggests Kazakhstan's readiness to implement large-scale and complex public policies Information Development and formation of an effective system of public administration.

Thus, analysis of the telecommunications services in Kazakhstan showed that during the years of independence, the market place developed dynamically and is gaining great momentum, with revenues from communications services in the aggregate annual income more than from the oil and gas industry, so we find the market of telecommunication services in Kazakhstan, in particular the cellular one of the most promising and sought-after for the development of the national economy.

Conclusions

Low domestic demand for information technology by citizens and businesses is a deterrent to the development of domestic companies. Low penetration of broadband Internet among the population, scarcity of Kazakh web resources and the lack of original content in the Kazakh segment of the Internet reduces the investment activity of businesses in relation to the development of e-business and e-commerce. However, the most significant challenge for the development of the telecommunications industry in Kazakhstan is the lack of qualified specialists. Manpower insecurity industry led to the fact that the growth of wages in the sphere of information technologies significantly exceeded the growth of labor productivity, which reduces the competitiveness of the industry in foreign markets. Part of the demand is satisfied by involving experts from related industries and training at the expense of employers.

Recommendations for small and medium business in the telecommunications industry wireless communication: 1) Market Outlook telecommunication systems are influenced by a host of different including political and legal, economic, technological and socio-cultural. Prospects for the industry are associated, primarily, with the intensification of work with the existing client base. The goal is to increase the penetration of telecom services industry in the daily lives of people and organizations, as well as full deployment of outsourcing with the maximum possible involvement of the achievements of modern telecom industry. Statistical data analysis, evaluation of the factors affecting the market situation and the major trends in the industry, lead to the conclusion that the market will grow in the future. 2) A relatively small proportion of SMEs in the field of telecommunication services due to the presence in the market of large enterprises with high capital intensity is an issue. Today, the industry is monopolized, since more than 90% of the total telecommunications market in Kazakhstan is concentrated within the top 10 operators. However, their dominant position on the market does not allow to grow in this market segment for small and medium businesses, as a result of access to new players in the sector difficult. 3) Telecommunication industry in Kazakhstan today is undergoing a stage of reform aimed at creating a liberal, competitive and open markets, promote competition for small and medium-sized businesses, the formation of new mechanisms of state regulation. However, there are a number of problems and barriers to competition, liberalization of the sector and the transparency of decision-making in this area. 4) At present, wireless communication in the regional section, in the countryside are not widely held, so a small business is able to use a niche for the telecommunications services in coordination with the companies that are proven in the wireless market. 5) Small and medium enterprises in the field of wireless communication in order to improve customer service create the most comfortable working conditions of subscribers to the Internet can provide services for the use of modern transparent billing system that allows subscribers to, in real time, to obtain detailed information on the amount consumed services.

References

Ankoff P.(1985) Planning for the future of the corporation, M .: Progress, p.326 Barte T. (2005) Net profit is more important than the income of the telecommunications market, Herald Communications, №2 Bukhalkov M. (2005) Planning for the enterprise: -M .: INFRA-M, p.416 Bulhak B.V, Varakin L.E.(1998) Basics of Communications of the Russian Federation. M .: Radio and Communications, p.184 Demidkin D., Dobronravov A. (2002) Economic Analysis of the organization of mobile communication based on the reconstruction of the "Altai", Telecommunications, №3 Golubitskaya E., Zhigulskaya G., Gittin VY & et al.(2004) The economy of communication. M .: Radio and Communications, p.391 Golubitskaya E., Kukharenko E. (2005) Basics of marketing in telecommunications. -M.: Rice, p.320. Ilyin A.(2003) Planning for the enterprise, Minsk: OOOiNovoe knowledge ", p.634 Kuzovkova T.(2003) Statistics communications, Radio and Communications, p. 623 Kuzovkova T., Stoychev S. (2004) Improving the efficiency of resource use organizations based communication resource model , Telecommunications, №8 Kuzovkova T., Salyutina T. & Tymoshenko L. (2004), Evaluation of the market potential of telecommunications organizations based managed dynamic simulation, Telecommunications, №11 Lyakhovetsky L. (2004) The effectiveness of options for investing in the company of telecommunications, Telecommunications, №8 Mkhitaryan Y. (2004) Improving business on the basis of quality assessment and management services. M .: Interecoms, p.191 Parfenov B. from rate regulation to competition services // Herald Communications, №1, 2006. Reznikova N.(2005) et al. Improving the efficiency of business processes, Herald regard, №4 Reznikov N. Demina EV, Bulgakov V. (2005) Management in telecommunications. M .: Eco-Trendz, p. 392 Report of the National Statistics Agency,2013 Review of the telecommunications sector Kazahstana.- JSC "Rating Agency of the Regional Financial Center of Almaty.- 2011, p.19]. Review of the telecommunications sector Kazahstana.- JSC "Rating Agency of the Regional Financial Center of Almaty.- 2013, p.21].

EXPO 2020 and tourism

Asma Al Hamed, Zayed University, UAE Khadija Al Sayegh, Zayed University, UAE Shamma Al Suwaidi, Zayed University, UAE

Abstract

Objective: Expo is a worldwide six-month exhibition that showcases massive global innovations and provides a great opportunity for cultures to meet and for ideologies to interact. Dubai is the first city in the Middle East, Africa and South East Asia (MENASA) region to take part in Expo. The objective of this research is to further explore the impacts that this mega event will have on the UAE, and Dubai in particular.

Methodology/ Approach: A qualitative approach is used to gain knowledge from employers and employees within different sectors about their perception of hosting Expo 2020 in Dubai. The interviewees were from companies that the mega event is most likely to have major impacts on. The interviews were conducted via email to assure convenience for both interviewees and interviewers.

Major findings: The research focuses on the possible anticipated impacts that Expo 2020 will have on the UAE and its citizens. It highlights the economic and sociocultural impacts as well as the strategic initiatives that the country has laid in preparation for this mega event.

Conclusions: This research will act as an important tool for the SWOT analysis that follows every event. It will provide information that could help to compare the impacts and actual outcomes of Expo 2020.

Implications: Based on our findings, the research will act as an important reference for mega events held in the MENASA region since not much research has been conducted regarding this issue in these countries yet.

How to Identify Groups in the Cultural Heritage Tourism Context

Jeongyong Jew, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia tech), USA,

Abstract

Introduction; There is a plethora of studies that focus on cultural heritage tourism (CHT) as an important aspect of tourism activities. However, there is, if any, very limited work that explores how to identify different types of tourists in cultural heritage tourism destinations. Thus, the main objective of this study is to identify the different types of cultural heritage tourists based on motivation attributes unique to cultural heritage attractions. Using data related to cultural heritage tourism, this particular study was an attempt to analyze the factors between cultural heritage tourists' motivations and cultural heritage attributes. The study used a factor-cluster segmentation approach to identifying existing groups of tourists within the cultural heritage visitor market

Methods; The study used a survey data collection technique. The questionnaire was developed and pilot- tested before it was administered to the selected samples of respondents who have visited America's Historic Triangle (Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown in the State of Virginia) at least once in the last two 2 years. From each attraction site 350 cases were secured. The study collected data using a marketing firm. The analysis of the study was carried out in several related steps. The first step was about the development of scales that would measure types of tourist motivations and attributes in the context of cultural heritage tourism (CHT). The second step used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the mentioned scales related to tourist motivations and cultural heritage attributes. The third step conducted cluster analysis of cultural heritage attributes to classify respondents into mutually exclusive groupings of tourists. This step used delineated factor scores to do the cluster analysis of tourists. Lastly, the study profiled each cluster based on both demographic and behavioral variables.

Results/Discussion: Based on the analysis, the study revealed two segments that exist within the cultural heritage visitor market. The first segment is named “cultural heritage enthusiasts” (63%) and the second segment is labeled “casual visitor group” (37%). Additionally, in terms of demographic variables, the variables of ethnicity and household income revealed statistically significant difference between the two groups. However, regarding satisfaction with CHT, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. In terms of tourist well-being items, some differences were noted. The following items – (1) important things in life; (2) better conditions of my life; (3) better mental health; (4) meaningful and fulfilling life; and, (5) pride of my life – all showed statistical significance differences at the 0.05 or better probability level. These findings support the notion that visiting a CHT attraction could appeal more to higher order needs of participants who are members of the cultural heritage enthusiast segment. It is hoped that this study about identifying cultural heritage tourists would contribute to the growing body of knowledge in the context of cultural heritage tourism.

References Available Upon Request

Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility on Financial Performance in the Hospitality Industry: The Mediating Role of Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)

Woo-Hyuk Kim, Kansas State University, USA Jichul Jang, Kansas State University, USA

Abstract Objectives: The aim of this paper is to incorporate customer satisfaction as a mediator in examining CSR– firm performance relationship in the hospitality industry.

Background Information: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is defined as a company’s voluntary activities “that appear to further some social good, beyond the interests of the firm and that which is required by law” (McWilliams & Siegel, 2001, p. 117). Considerable research has been examined the link between CSR and firm performance (Brammer & Millington, 2006; Inoue & Lee, 2011; Kitzmueller & Shimshack, 2012; Lee et al., 2013; Lee & Park, 2009; Makni et al., 2009; Margolis & Walsh, 2001; Mishra & Suar, 2010; Orlizky et al., 2003; Park and Lee, 2009; Singal, 2014). Although substantial empirical evidence supports the importance of CSR, the evidence of its role in financial performance is inconsistent (Brammer & Millington, 2006; Gatti et al., 2012; Harrison et al., 2010; Kang et al., 2010; Kim & Kim, 2014; Makni et al., 2009; Orlitzky et al., 2003). Thus, whether CSR influences firm performance needs further examination (Saeidi et al., 2015; Youn et al., 2015; Zhu et al., 2014) In order to capture the dynamic nature of the relationship, recent studies have investigated that mediating variables could play a crucial role in the relationship between CSR and firm performance. For instance, Alafi and Hasoneh’s (2012) suggested the role of brand reputation as a mediator in this relationship. However, missing from this list of mediator is the grouping of customer satisfaction (Luo & Bhattacharya, 2006). This absence is striking, given that customer satisfaction plays a crucial role in improving firm performance (Denizci & Li, 2009; Morgan et al., 2005).

Methodology: Data were collected from three main sources: 1) KLD STATS, 2) COMPUSTAT, and (3) American Customer Satisfaction Index for data analysis (ACSI). More specifically, CSR data were drawn from KLD STATS containing annual ratings of approximately 3600 publicly traded U.S. companies in the S&P 500 and Russell 3000 indexes. ACSI data were collected from the official website for the American Customer Satisfaction Index (www.theacsi.org). Financial performances were collected from COMPUSTAT.

Major finding: Our findings provide evidence that customer satisfaction mediated the relationship between CSR and financial performance in the hospitality industry. In other words, the degree of CSR may enhance customer satisfaction, which can, in turn, lead to financial performance. Conclusions: Previous studies have shown that relationship between CSR and financial performance is mixed. As a result, our study extend to previous literature by examining the underlying process through which CSR influences financial performance in the hospitality industry. Our findings indicates that customer satisfaction operates as a mediator in the relationship between CSR and financial performance. Implications: The current study advances the relationship between CSR and financial performance literature by looking at the customer satisfaction as a potential mediator. This study also gives insights for marketers in the hospitality industry to establish strategic marketing plan.

Participants

Name Email Institution and Country Roland Rust [email protected] University of Maryland, USA Joseph Sirgy [email protected] Virginia Tech, USA Mahmood Khan [email protected] Virginia Tech ,USA Muzaffer (Muzzo) Uysal [email protected] Virginia Tech, USA Jessica Brow [email protected] Virginia Tech, USA Hye Lin (Lina) Kim [email protected] University of Nevada, Las Vegas Levent Altinay [email protected] Oxford Brookes University, UK Maureen Brookes [email protected] Oxford Brookes University, UK Meghan Beardsley [email protected] Virginia Tech, USA Jeongyong (JJ) Jew [email protected] Virginia Tech, USA Sandeep Munjal [email protected] Vedatya Institute, India Anjana Singh [email protected] Vedatya Institute, India Muhammet Kesgin [email protected] Rochester Institute of Technology Kaylyn Bailey [email protected] Virginia Tech – Northern Virginia

Kumaran Ravi [email protected] Virginia Tech – Northern Virginia Shawn (Seungwon ) Lee [email protected] George Mason University - USA Dia Zeglat [email protected] The Hashemite University, Jordan Aaron Tkaczynski [email protected] The University of Queensland, Australia Armiyash [email protected] L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Nurmagambetova Kazakhstan Khadija AlSayegh, [email protected] Zayed University, Dubai, UAE Sean B. Chung [email protected] Manchester Business School, UK Na (Luna) Dou [email protected] Oxford Brookes University, UK Tevhide Serra Gorpe [email protected] Zayed University, Dubai, UAE Jichul Jang [email protected] Kansas State University, USA Oystein Jensen [email protected] Universitetet i Stavanger – Norway EunHa Jeong, [email protected] Iowa State University, USA Pandora Kay [email protected] Deakin University, Australia Chulwon Kim [email protected] Kyung Hee University, Korea Eojina Kim [email protected] Iowa State University, USA Kyuho Lee [email protected] Sonoma State University, USA Solvi Lyngnes [email protected] BI Norwegian Business School, Norway Noela Michael [email protected] Zayed University, Dubai, UAE Jiyeon Park [email protected] Kyung Hee University, Korea Nina Prebensen [email protected] UiT-The Arctic University of Norway, Norway Haywantee Ramkissoon [email protected] Curtin University, Australia Sim, Seungha [email protected] Kyung Hee University, Korea Saloomeh Tabari [email protected] Cardiff Metropolitan university, UK Aaron Yankholmes [email protected] Institute for Tourism Studies, Macao – China Ling Yu [email protected] Yung Hee University, Korea Mustafeed Zaman [email protected] University of Perpignan, France