Creating an Effective Support System for Small and Medium-Sized Farm Operators to Succeed in Agritourism

Agritourism has the potential not only to keep small farms in business but also to provide important local economic development spillover effects.  However, key barriers prevent many farmers from diversifying to include agritourism. These barriers represent opportunity costs and include not only lack of information among producers, consumers, supporting organizations and policy makers, but also regulatory gaps across states.   Project objectives include understanding the roles and educational needs of various organizations in supporting agritourism; understanding the factors that contribute to growth in agritourism across U.S. counties; and delivering educational materials to farmers and supporting organizations and policy makers.

Sponsors:  National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), Oklahoma State University, Penn State University, University of Vermont

PI/PDs:  Stacy Tomas

Penn State University:  Claudia Schmidt, Stephan Goetz, Sarah Rocker, Suzanna Windon

University of Vermont:  Lisa Chase

 

Hospitality Training for Wineries

Increased visitation and sales at Oklahoma wineries can be the result of positive staff interactions through great customer service and wine knowledge.  The purpose of this project is to develop a research-based hospitality training program specific to Oklahoma wineries to help staff more fully engage with visitors and to increase tourism in many rural communities across the state.  The curriculum will be developed by Oklahoma State University in consultation with an advisory committee comprised of Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, the Oklahoma Grape Industry Council and Oklahoma winery owners.  The curriculum will be delivered state-wide through regional trainings.  

Sponsors:  Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, Oklahoma State University

PI/PD:  Stacy Tomas

 

National Agritourism and Direct Sales Research

From a national perspective the understanding of agritourism, as both a tourism product and as a strategy for income diversification is limited.  While regional research exists across the country, a holistic and comprehensive understanding of this industry segment does not.  This multi-state research study is led and orchestrated by the University of Vermont.  The Oklahoma portion of this study is being managed by OSU.  Results of this project will provide comprehensive data on the industry not only in Oklahoma, but across the country, and will also be used to develop tools and resources to increase the success of agritourism enterprises.

Sponsors:  Oklahoma State University, University of Vermont, Oregon State University

PIs/PDs:  Stacy Tomas

University of Vermont:  Lisa Chase

Oregon State University:  Mary Stewart

 

Applying Psycho-Physiological Methods to Comparison of Virtual Reality Visualizations to Traditional Visualizations in Hotel Settings.

VR visualizations of a hotel room will be compared to 2-D hotel room images in terms of emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral responses utilizing psycho-physiological measurement methods in addition to traditional survey methods.

Sponsor: Oklahoma State University

PI/PDs: Lisa Slevitch, Tilanka Chandrasekera, Luis Meja, Kate Korneva

 

Empirical Comparison of Kano Categorization Methods.

The aim of the study is to conduct a comprehensive empirical comparison of the existing Kano methods. The accuracy of the methods will be tested using a generated dataset simulating the relationships between attribute performance and customer satisfaction as proposed in the original Kano Model. Additionally, bootstrapping technique will be used to compare the generated dataset with a real data set. The findings will assist with choosing the most appropriate method and also help with application in a technically fitting manner.

Sponsor: Oklahoma State University

PI/PDs: Lisa Slevitch, Mindy McCann, Josephine Acosa, Aisya Larasati

 

Optimizing Frontline Shift Composition for Increased Customer Satisfaction and Firm Performance.

The effects of shift composition on customer satisfaction and firm performance will be examined in OSU dining services using qualitative approach.

Sponsor: Oklahoma State University

PI/PDs: Tom Arnold, Lisa Slevitch

 

The Bleisure Travel Experience: Combining Business and Leisure

The study aims to examine how travelers experience bleisure travel, explore how they balance leisure and business as the two purposes of their trips, and to find out how bleisure travel experience impacts each component individually. Identifying the differences between leisure or business experiences can help tourism companies to respond to the preferences of the different traveler segments. It is vital for tourism practitioners to look beyond the traditional classification of leisure and business travelers and to consider the new growing segment in order to customize their products or services accordingly and by doing so better satisfy bleisure travelers.

Sponsor: Oklahoma State University

PI/PDs: Bardia Batala, Lisa Slevitch

 

Foodservice Mobile Application Quality Determinants’ Impact on Customer Satisfaction and Repeat Usage Intentions: The Role of Perceived Risk

The current study aims to examine foodservice mobile commerce success model and investigate the relationships among its quality components, customer satisfaction, and repeat usage intentions in the restaurant context. The study can assist practitioners involved in the restaurant industry by showing how to configure quality components to satisfy customers and make them more willing to use food delivery mobile applications in casual dining restaurants.

Sponsor: Oklahoma State University

PI/PDs: Joo Ahn, Lisa Slevitch

 

When Employees Feel Envy: The Role of Psychological Capital

This study explores the relationships between LMXSC, malicious and benign envy, and Psychological Capital (PsyCap) in the hotel industry. This study found that the employees with low LMXSC were likely to experience not only negative envy but also positive envy as the emotional responses towards the unpleasant low LMXSC. The employees’ PsyCap impacted the ability for employees to manage their emotional responses: employees can alleviate hostile emotions towards the envied coworkers (malicious envy) and focus on improving their current situation rather than annoying the envied coworkers (benign envy).

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Daegu University

PI/PDs: Choonghyoung Lee, Bill Ryan

Daegu University, South Korea: Jahyun Song

 

Examining the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Hotel Employees Through Job Insecurity Perspectives

The purpose was to examine hotel employees’ perception of AI and its impact by identifying the critical role of job insecurity, job engagement, and turnover intention through a pragmatic approach. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was used by conducting a quantitative study with an empirical survey method followed by a qualitative study with a case study. Results from the quantitative study demonstrated that perceived job insecurity significantly affected perceived job engagement and perceived job insecurity indirectly affected turnover intention through intermediary variable of perceived job engagement. There were no statistical differences between nonmanagerial positions and managerial positions.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Florida Gulf Coast University

PI/PDs: Bonhak Koo, Bill Ryan

Florida Gulf Coast University: Catherine Curtis

 

Employee Brand Love and Love Behaviors: Perspectives of Social Exchange and Rational Choice

Marketing scholars study customers’ love for a brand, but little attention has been paid to understanding employees’ love for their brands. The study proposed that forgiveness behavior, supportive voice behavior, and helping behavior are three love behaviors improved through employee brand love. Organizational culture types are shown to moderate the relationship between brand love and these love behaviors. Testing the moderating effects of organizational cultures reveal that forgiveness behavior may be strengthened through a hierarchy culture, that supportive voice behavior can be strengthened via clan culture, and that helping behavior can be strengthened under a hierarchy organizational culture.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, University of Arkansas, Ling Tung University, Taiwan 

PI/PDs: Bill Ryan

University of Arkansas: Yao-Chin Wang

Ling Tung University, Taiwan: Chu-En Yang

 

Hotel General Managers’ Brand Love: A Thematic Analysis

Literature has identified support from top managers as one key success factor in internal branding, a knowledge gap remains regarding understanding general managers’ (GMs’) mindset toward their brands. This study conceptualizes brand love and explores factors influencing brand love identified through interviews. Thematic analysis is applied with three raters to code the information collected. This study identifies five dimensions of hotel GMs’ conception of brand love: affinity, experience, pride, loyalty, and reputation. Four dimensions of positive factors (employee benefits, organization, product, community) and four dimensions of negative factors (individual, organization, product, guests) emerged with several sub-dimensions.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, University of Arkansas, University of New Orleans

PI/PDs: Bill Ryan

University of Arkansas: Yao-Chin Wang, Courtney Troxtel, Mackenzie Cvar

University of New Orleans: Han Chen

 

Engage More and Burnout Less Through Love! Examining the Mechanism of Hotel Department Managers’ Brand Love and Health

This research investigates brand love from hospitality managers’ perspective to see whether this concept can also influence their three work-related attitudinal outcomes, namely work engagement, burnout and positive affect. When individuals have a passion or emotional attachment toward their organizations’ brand, they essentially have identified themselves with their organizations. The rationale of organizational identity theory indicates people highly identified with their organizations would exhibit positive work-related attitudes such as increased work engagement and reduced burnout. This study proposes that hospitality managers who develop love emotions toward their organizations’ brand should also be likely to display these positive work-related attitudes.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, University of Arkansas, National Taiwan Normal University

PI/PDs: Bill Ryan

University of Arkansas: Yao-Chin Wang

National Taiwan Normal University: Allan Cheng Chieh Lu

 

A Meta-Analysis of Customer Loyalty: A Decade of Empirical Research

Customer loyalty has long been recognized as a critical driver of business success in the tourism and hospitality industry. Despite extensive research on loyalty formation, findings regarding interrelationships between loyalty and its key drivers are inconclusive and often contradictory. This study aims to synthesize and analyze findings from 71 articles published in eight top-tier tourism and hospitality journals between 2006 and 2020 using meta-analytic structural equation modeling. This study contributes to the literature by reconciling and synthesizing inconclusive findings from prior research.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Temple University

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So

Temple University: Yang Yang, Xiang (Robert) Li

 

Customer Experience in Tourism and Hospitality Research: Bibliometric Analysis, Topic Modeling and Research Agenda

Customer experience has attracted significant attention in past two decades. This study aims to provide the evolution of scientific research on customer experience articles published in 12 tourism and hospitality journals between 1998 and 2019. Using the Web of Science database and the PRISMA technique, relevant articles will be retrieved for quantitatively bibliometric and qualitatively thematic content analyses. The results will illustrate publication outlets, trajectories, the most influential papers, co-citation, and keyword co-occurrence of the lexical and temporal networks, as well as proposing a conceptual model of customer experience that includes the theoretical building blocks of customer experience.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, University of South Carolina

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So

University of South Carolina: Hyunsu Kim

 

A bibliometric analysis of customer engagement: A comparison of the marketing and tourism/hospitality fields

The concept of customer engagement has dominated many industry and practitioner discussions in the tourism industry. Using bibliometric analysis, this study covers an 11-year publication period and targets specific marketing/service and hospitality/tourism journals to systematically assess the structure of research related to customer engagement. By following the recommendations suggested by Koseoglu, Rahimi, Okumus, and Liu (2016) and Zupic and Čater (2015), this study is among the first to conduct all three techniques of bibliometric analysis: 1) systematic literature techniques, 2) evaluative techniques, and 3) relational techniques. This study comprehensively identifies current trends and future research avenues.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, University of South Carolina, Temple University

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So

University of South Carolina: Hyunsu Kim

Temple University: Ceridwyn King

 

Artificial intelligence in service management: Service robots and customer responses

The emergence of artificial intelligence and the increasing adoption of service robots in service organizations have called for more research on human-robot interactions. This study investigates the role of different attributes of service robots in influencing trust and attitude by adopting a multi-study approach to test the theoretically derived hypotheses. Study 1 adopts Connie to empirically analyze the structural relationships between constructs, while Study 2 adopts Pepper to replicate the model with a different robot to improve external validity. Study 3 and Study 4 provide further investigate the customer responses to service robots and the relevant mechanism through multiple experimental research.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, University of South Carolina, Ohio State University, National University of Singapore

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So

University of South Carolina: Hyunsu Kim

Ohio State University: Stephanie Liu

National University of Singapore: Jochen Wirtz

 

Actor value formation in a peer-to-peer accommodation: Insight from text-mining

The sharing economy including Airbnb has been described as a disruptive innovation transforming many traditional businesses. To capture actor value formation (AVF) in the context of Airbnb, this study proposes two stages of investigation. Stage One adopts a hybrid approach involving deductive and inductive thematic analyses to evaluate 586,778 existing Airbnb reviews. This study then investigates the effects of AVF on value, communication, accuracy, and overall rating. Stage Two subsequently investigates the linkages through primary consumer data capturing negative and positive Airbnb experience. The moderating effects of valence experience on the relationships among AVFs, accuracy, communication, value, and satisfaction will also be tested.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, University of South Carolina, The Hong Kong Polyethnic University

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So

University of South Carolina: Hyunsu Kim

The Hong Kong Polyethnic University: Hailey Shin

 

Social influencers and argument quality on online engagement and behavior

This study focuses on social influencer marketing in tourism. The research draws on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and examines social influencers as a peripheral cue and argument quality as a central cue to identify how customers process information differently in different service settings. Through a series of experiments, this study investigates the effects of social influencers and argument quality on online engagement and behavior intention. Follow investigations examines (1) self-esteem and (2) brand familiarity as moderators of the effects of a dual-route on online engagement and behavior intention.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, University of South Carolina

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So

University of South Carolina: Hyunsu Kim

 

Post-disaster recovery strategies in tourism destinations

Covid-19 has devastated the global travel and tourism industry. The aim of this proposal is four-fold. First, by reconciling the literature on disaster management with the findings from automatic and manual text analysis, this study develops a framework of post-disaster recovery strategies for tourism destinations. Second, this study empirically examines the effects of post-disaster recovery strategies on behavioral outcomes in tourism destinations. Third, this study investigates spatial-temporal behavioral patterns of tourism destinations by using the UNWTO Tourism Recovery Tracker. Fourth, this research uses user-generated contents and cutting-edge big data mining techniques to identify the most frequently mentioned areas and extract main themes in the reviews.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, University of South Carolina

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So

University of South Carolina: Hyunsu Kim, Bryan Mihalik

 

Customer touchpoints with co-creation experience: Scale development and validation

This study explores the role of the emerging concept of customer touchpoints in building a co-creation experience in the context of tourism and hospitality services (i.e., hotels, restaurants, and airlines). The scale, developed from a restaurant, hotels, and airline customers survey, is further tested to demonstrate strong psychometric properties across multiple samples and service settings. This article contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive conceptualization of customer touchpoints within the tourism context, developing a scale to measure customer touchpoints with the cocreation experience effectively, and using evaluations of the critical customer touchpoints to predict the co-creation experience.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, University of South Carolina

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So

University of South Carolina: Hyunsu Kim, Bryan Mihalik, David Cardenas, Simon Hudson

 

Customer touchpoints, customer engagement, and co-creation experience: Insight from symmetric and asymmetric approaches

This study focuses on the empirical relationships between customer touchpoints, customer engagement, and the co-creation experience. From an analytical standpoint, this study uses symmetric structural equation modeling (SEM) and asymmetric fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to test the research hypotheses. In addition to using SEM to examine the effects of the transactional and relational antecedents of the co-creation experience, this study uses fsQCA to reveal general patterns and synergy effects of several equifinal configurations, which contribute to the co-creation experience. The findings uncover the important customer touchpoint dimensions and their combinational synergy effects, which in turn affect business performance.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, University of South Carolina

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So

University of South Carolina: Hyunsu Kim, Bryan Mihalik, David Cardenas, Simon Hudson

 

How does Airbnb experience transfer to memorability and platform loyalty? Findings from a sequential mixed method approach

While the sharing economy has been boosted by platform and has received increasing attention from academics and industry practitioners, the role of Airbnb experience in transforming memorability and platform loyalty remains unexplored. As such, a sequential mixed method approach is adopted to achieve fill the research gaps. Building on the memory-dominant logic, Study 1 proposes a conceptual framework to investigate how the three dimensions of Airbnb experience form memorability and subsequently build platform loyalty. Study 2 adopts in-depth interviews to further explain and contextualize the findings of Study 1. The findings of this study make significant theoretical and practical contributions to the current understanding of Airbnb experiences.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Texas Tech University, University of South Carolina

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So

Texas Tech University: Jing Li

University of South Carolina: Simon Hudson

 

Touch vs. Tech service in the hospitality

Due to COVID-19, both scholars and industry professional suggest applying innovation technology such as self-service kiosk and service robots in the tourism and hospitality industry. Previous studies have suggested that consumers wanted to have service robots in the areas such as front desk, concierge, and room service within a hotel. However, the interaction comfort and perceived service quality with service robot at these three settings remain sparse. Thus, this study investigates the effects of service encounter types and service settings through a number of scenario-based experiments on customer behavioral intentions together with context-dependent factors informed by prior consumer research.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Texas Tech University

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So

Texas Tech University: Jing Li

 

Platform branding vs. pipeline business branding

Despite increasing attention has been paid to platform business models (e.g., Van Alstyne et al., 2016; Wirtz et al., 2019), studies focused on branding in platform business remain sparse. Pipeline business models are significantly different from platform business models, as aforementioned. The triatic business model has made the branding process different from the pipeline business models (Van Alstyne, Parker, & Choudary, 2016; Wirtz et al., 2019). Thus, it is critical to investigate branding related issues with both pipeline business and platform businesses to understand the factors that keep customers with the platform (Wirtz et al., 2019). Taken together, this study aims to explore if platform branding differs from pipeline business branding, as well as the role of customer engagement in building customer loyalty.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Texas Tech University, University of South Carolina

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So

Texas Tech University: Jing Li

University of South Carolina: Simon Hudson

 

Inside the feeling economy: understanding consumer adoption behavior of empathetic artificially intelligent device

AI has significantly transformed the economy as mechanical tasks have largely been taken over by machines. A number of studies have investigated customers’ adoption motivation of AI, such as utility, capacity, and usefulness of AI devices. However, research on the potential acceptance of empathetic AI applications remain sparse. This study investigates consumers’ adoption of empathetic AI applications in the tourism and hospitality industry. Building on sRAM and extended TAM models, this study includes social-emotional and relational elements to explore the adoption motivation of empathetic AI applications.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Texas Tech University

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So

Texas Tech University: Jing Li

 

The effects of travel experiences across time: A three-wave longitudinal investigation

This study examines the effects of travel experiences across time. Using three-wave data collection, this study investigated the lagged effects of travel experiences on customer engagement, subjective well-being, and revisit intention. The findings are expected to offer critical insight into the interrelationships among the well-established components of the consumer evaluative process underlying travel experiences. This study is one of first to provide longitudinal evidence of the potential fading of the impacts of travel experiences on destination specific factors as well as the more general subjective well-being.   

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Texas Tech University

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So, Yueying He

Texas Tech University: Jing Li

 

Reciprocal links between destination brand experience and social media stickiness: a three-wave longitudinal study

This study aims to investigate how tourists’ remembered experience interplays with social media usage and their consequences on tourists’ intention to revisit. The model was tested using 3-wave longitudinal data collected across three time points. The finding suggests that positive remembered destination brand experience could lead to increased social media stickiness among tourists, and then the increased social media stickiness enhanced the destination brand experience recalling, which could evoke tourists’ intention to revisit.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Texas Tech University

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So, Yueying He

Texas Tech University: Jing Li

 

The reciprocal relationships between remembered destination brand experience, emotions, and brand attachment: A cross-lagged panel model

Creating a memorable destination brand experience has been recognized as the ultimate competitive advantage of tourism destination management organizations. Prior research has largely concentrated on the use of cross-sectional data to draw statistical inferences. The study aims to evaluate the reciprocal associations between remembered destination brand experience, emotions, and brand attachment using a cross-lagged model using 3-wave longitudinal data collected across three months after a recent trip. The findings of the research will offer an longitudinal perspective on the casual chain of remembered destination brand experience, emotions, and brand attachment.

Sponsor: Oklahoma State University

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So, Yueying He

 

A bibliometric investigation of service innovation literature and a research agenda

To identify the knowledge structure and offer a synthesis of findings on service innovation in hospitality and tourism, this study conducts bibliometric investigation by assessing peer-viewed articles sampled from Web of Science (WOS) database. Through BibExcel, Pajek, Gephi, and VOSviewer, citation analysis, co-citation analysis, co-authorship analysis and co-occurrence analysis, the literature will form a service design-delivery-evaluation theoretical model that combines both the organization perspective and customer perspective.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Temple University

PI/PDs: Kevin Kam Fung So, Yueying He

Temple University: Xiang (Robert) Li

 

Measuring Restaurant Service Sabotage Behaviors: Developing and Validating a Scale

Despite the prevalence and profound negative impact of restaurant service sabotage behaviors (RSSB) worldwide, it has been a challenge for researchers to properly gauge such a construct and understand its contextualized specifications. The purpose of the study is to develop a reliable and valid scale to measure RSSB. A mixed-methods research design, consisting of scale development, refinement, and initial validation, was applied. A tri-dimensional 10-item RSSB scale was developed. This psychometrically valid and conceptually sound scale can be adapted in future research to further explore the criterion network while providing pragmatic insights to the restaurant industry professionals.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Kansas State University

PI/PDs: Willie Tao

Kansas State University: Junehee Kwon

 

"We learn; we share": Culinary knowledge management practices of the 2019 World Pastry Champion

Culinary knowledge is hard-earned and passed down frugally from one culinarian to another. This attitude is gradually diminishing as elite culinarians are becoming increasingly altruistic and open-minded in disseminating their knowledge. Based on a four-year qualitative project, the authors explore how an elite culinarian—the 2019 World Pastry Champion—navigates his responsibilities as a culinary knowledge bearer. Analysis yields three themes showing how one embraces the roles of a “fundamentalist,” “culinary ambassador,” and “generative culinarian.” Findings converge into the “generative model of culinary knowledge sharing,” a new conceptualization offering implications to both theory and practice in knowledge management and marketing.

Sponsor: Oklahoma State University

PI/PDs: Willie Tao, Kai-Sean Lee

 

What affects dining services at continuing care retirement communities? Manager’s perspective

Many older adults prefer to reside in continuing care retirement communities (CCRC). However, only limited research investigated the dining aspects of CCRC, and the perspective of foodservice managers was overlooked. This qualitative study explored the factors that influence CCRC dining service by interviewing 15 CCRC foodservice managers. Nine major subcategories under generic, aging-related, and organizational aspects of dining services emerged and guided the subsequent thematic analysis. Managers’ shared vision of “brining in hospitality to older adults” for the future CCRC dining services was also identified and discussed, providing pragmatic strategies for CCRC operators and managers to strengthen the dining services.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Kansas State University

PI/PDs: Willie Tao, Kiyan Shafieizadeh, KyongSik Sung

Kansas State University: Junehee Kwon

 

What attracts older adults when dining at restaurants? A mix-methods study

Aging is a complex process; however, previous restaurant studies regarding older adults were conducted from managerial perspectives without considering the effect of aging itself. Drawing on the three pillars of aging and Kano Model, this mixed-methods research aims to identify the most influential factors affecting older adults’ dining behaviors when dining at restaurants. By integrating perspectives from gerontology into restaurant research, this study has broadened our understanding of the wide range of factors influencing older adults’ dining behaviors. Our study also provides and practical implications for the restaurant industry to better accommodate the aging population.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Kansas State University, University of North Texas, Macao Institute of Tourism Studies

PI/PDs: Willie Tao

Kansas State University: Junehee Kwon

University of North Texas: Han Wen

Macao Institute of Tourism Studies: Xiaoye Li

 

Experience is the apple of tourist’ eyes: A vicarious viewpoint of authenticity

This study applied big data techniques to collect and analyze a sizable data set of travel blog postings, aiming to identify the experiential components of tourists’ authentic experiences. While a sense of authenticity of tourists’ experiences in locals’ daily lives appears to entail a mix of different types of authenticity to a certain degree, several aspects remain insufficiently captured by the existing types of authenticity.  Based on the results, this study shows several remarkable findings from a vicarious viewpoint. 

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

PI/PDs: Willie Tao, Li Miao

Hong Kong Polytechnic University: Gemmy Moon

 

Evaluating the Impact of Food Safety Messages on Customers' Perceptions and Attitudes Toward the Restaurants

The purpose of this project is to investigate how customers' perceptions and attitudes toward a restaurant would change based on the type of online food safety messages that are provided to customers by the restaurant marketers. Moreover, the moderating effect of customers' health consciousness level will also be examined. The preliminary analysis indicates that all hypotheses of the direct associations are significant, and the proposed moderating effect of customers' health consciousness is also significant.

Sponsor: Oklahoma State University

PI/PDs: Willie Tao, Kiyan Shafieizadeh, Salman Alotaibi

 

Older Consumers’ Acceptance of Mobile Food Delivery Apps: Moderating Effects of Aging

Interweaving the theory of consumer acceptance technology with the three pillars of aging, this study aims to investigate the influential app attributes that affect older adults’ acceptance of mobile food delivery apps. The current research consists of two 2x2 experimental studies while assessing the moderating effects due to biological, social, and psychological aspects of aging.

This study will be one of the first FDA research focusing on older consumers and the critical FDA attributes for technology adoption, raising the awareness of the aging society and its impact on technology use in the restaurant industry.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Auburn University, East Carolina University, University of South Carolina

PI/PDs: Willie Tao

Auburn University: Alecia C. Douglas

East Carolina University: Seung Hyun (Jenna) Lee

University of South Carolina: Haemoon Oh

 

Navigating Social Media Firestorms in Hospitality: Investigating Brand Hate and Negative Consumer Behaviors
Academic research concerning social media firestorms (SMFs) have only recently gained momentum in the marketing and consumer behavior literature. SMFs imply the sudden occurrence of many, predominantly negative social media expressions against a brand. Given the high velocity of these negative messages, SMFs are an important threat to a firm’s reputation and, ultimately, its performance and brand assets. The current 2x2 experimental study will be set in a simulated social media environment where a luxury hospitality brand is in the midst of a SMF, addressing the call for more research on the diffusion of negative messages on brand management.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Auburn University, East Carolina University, University of South Carolina 

PI/PDs: Willie Tao

Auburn University: Alecia C. Douglas

East Carolina University: Seung Hyun (Jenna) Lee

University of South Carolina: Haemoon Oh

 

TOSIC: A Data-Driven Framework for Making Strategic Choices in the Industry Cycle

An industry cycle captures the recurrent fluctuation of the output of an industry. It consists of a set of phases that present different opportunities and threats to companies. A major challenge for companies is to determine what and when to make strategy choices in the industry cycle for survival and growth. In this study, TOSIC, a data-driven framework, is presented in a rigorous and precise manner using formal notations. TOSIC supports systematic analysis of industry cycles, strategic choices, financial performance and their relationships.

Sponsors: Oklahoma State University, Oakland University

PI/PDs: Yeasun Chung

Oakland University: Daekyu Kim

 

Institutional ownership, innovation, and firm value: Entry, exit, re-entry and investment horizon of institutional investors

Changes in corporate governance affect a company’s strategy, resource allocation, and financial performance. Amid a significant increase in the share of corporate equity held by institutions in the hospitality and tourism industry, existing studies show inconsistent evidence of the impact of institutional ownership on innovation and performance. This study, which examines the entry, exit, and reentry of institutional investors, aims at clarifying the impact of institutional ownership. The concentration, distribution and investment horizon of institutional investors are also examined.

Sponsor: Oklahoma State University

PI/PD: Yeasun Chung

 

Managing diversity and inclusion: D & I maturity model

A systematic approach to diversity and inclusion is an important strategic planning process that supports a company's D&I development and boosters innovation and financial outcomes. As part of this effort, this study aims to propose a D&I maturity model. The D&I maturity model is a useful tool for assessing where a company is today and setting strategic goals for the next step. We also identify competencies and constraints related to D&I, and examine innovation and financial performance according to the stage of diversity and inclusion maturity.

Sponsor: Oklahoma State University

PI/PDs: Yeasun Chung, Jinyoung Im