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1 – 10 of over 6000This current research aims to reveal customers’ behaviours who purchased Ă la carte menu service in a chain hotel operating in Istanbul, TĂĽrkiye after the Covid-19 outbreak. In…
Abstract
Purpose
This current research aims to reveal customers’ behaviours who purchased à la carte menu service in a chain hotel operating in Istanbul, Türkiye after the Covid-19 outbreak. In addition to this main objective, customers’ main course preferences, tipping, complaining, maintaining eating and drinking habits, local food preferences, photograph taking and food waste behaviours were determined as the sub-research objectives.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative research method was adopted, and naturalistic observation was chosen as the data collection tool in this study. Firstly, an observation form was created based on the literature. To ensure the content validity, seven experts (five researchers and two experienced hotel employees) were consulted on 15 July 2021. After revising the form, a pilot study was carried out between 4 August and 29 September 2021. By conducting the pilot study, it was aimed to prevent any unpredictable behaviours of customers. As a result, four new items were added to, and two items were removed from the form. Then, 341 customers who purchased Ă la carte menu service in the restaurant of the hotel chain were observed between 7 October 2021 and 28 January 2022.
Findings
It was revealed that 52% of the customers who purchased à la carte menu services did not make any reservations, while approximately 59% of the customers with reservations did not stay at the hotel in which the research was conducted. In addition, 69% of them started to eat meal together; 56% of them paid in “cash”; 48% of them preferred local food and beverages; 41% left food on the plate; and 43% of them gave tip. In contrast, very few customers (6%) engaged in complaint behaviour.
Research limitations/implications
First, data were collected during the post-pandemic period when international travels were mostly restricted and thus, the researcher observed mostly Turkish customers at the restaurant. Second, only those customers sitting at the six tables close to the guest welcoming were observed. Third, just one observer took part in the data collection process. Fourth, the researchers chose one out of two restaurants of the hotel because only Asian cuisine was served and children under 12Â years of age were not allowed to enter the other restaurant. Fifth, focusing on only a hotel and using naturalistic observation as a data collection tool may be shown among the limitations of this study.
Originality/value
This paper presents the customers’ behaviours who preferred à la carte menu service in a chain hotel operating in İstanbul, Türkiye after the Covid-19 outbreak. Although there are some studies focusing on changing of customer preferences during the post-pandemic period, “observation” was not preferred as a data collection tool by most of the researchers; hence, the findings of this study are useful for both researchers and educationists in tourism industry.
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Kristin B. Munksgaard, Morten H. Abrahamsen and Kirsten Frandsen
This study aims to investigate how companies’ understanding of the business network influences the creation of value in business-to-business relationships. The authors do this by…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how companies’ understanding of the business network influences the creation of value in business-to-business relationships. The authors do this by analysing dimensions in actors’ “network pictures” and illustrating how value perception and network understanding influence actors’ mutual effort to create value. Approaching relationship value from the point of actors’ cognitive understanding of their business network has so far been largely overlooked in relationship value research.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applies a qualitative case study methodology whereby dyadic data from a well-established business-to-business relationship is collected from 18 company representatives through personal interviews and group interviews supplemented by participant observations and company data.
Findings
The findings contribute with new insight into how companies’ understanding of their surrounding network influence (facilitates or limits) relationship value creation. The authors find that companies continuously reflect on changes in their networks and the related changes in partners’ value perceptions. Through value articulations, companies seek to explicitly express their value perception. Value reflections and value articulations create a dynamic process formed not only by the individual actor but also through their relationship and engagement in their network environment. This requires companies to develop their networking capabilities.
Research limitations/implications
This paper presents findings, insights and contributions limited to a case study of a particular business relationship within an industrial setting. Although the findings and contributions are valid and in line with the criteria for rigorous qualitative research, the authors advocate and call for additional studies that investigate relationships value creation and address the interplay between actors’ network understanding and their actions and behaviour. One way to approach this would be to test the four propositions derived and presented as part of the present study.
Practical implications
The findings imply that management needs to be aware not only of the value created and delivered to a specific partner but also of how the partner’s understanding of the wider network will influence the value delivering and capturing process.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the growing literature on relationship value creation by outlining a dynamic process where relationship partners reflect upon and articulate value. Such activities are influenced by the partners’ network understanding and form the basis of the mutual relationship value creation effort. The findings also contribute to the network pictures literature by emphasizing insights into the formation of value perceptions through actors’ understanding of their surrounding networks.
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Carlos González and Daniel Ponce
This paper aims first to describe the most prevalent teachers’ and students’ behaviors in synchronous online classes in emergency remote teaching; second, to discern behavior…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims first to describe the most prevalent teachers’ and students’ behaviors in synchronous online classes in emergency remote teaching; second, to discern behavior profiles and third, to investigate what features explain the observed behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach
An adapted COPUS observation protocol was employed to observe 292 online classes from 146 higher education teachers.
Findings
The most prevalent behaviors were: Presenting for teachers and Receiving for students, followed by Teachers Guiding and Students Talking to Class. Furthermore, cluster analysis showed two groups: Traditional and Interactive. The variables that better explained belonging to the Interactive lecture group were disciplinary area – social sciences and humanities –and teaching in technical institutions.
Practical implications
In a context where higher education institutions intend to project the lessons learned into post-pandemic learning experiences, this study provides observational evidence to realize the full potential expected from online and blended teaching and learning.
Originality/value
Despite the prevalence of synchronous online lectures during COVID-19, there is a paucity of observational studies on the actual behaviors that occurred in this context. Most research has been based on surveys and interviews. This study addresses this gap.
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This study investigates human behavior, specifically attitude and anxiety, toward humanoid service robots in a hotel business environment.
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates human behavior, specifically attitude and anxiety, toward humanoid service robots in a hotel business environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The researcher adopted direct observations and interviews to complete the study. Visitors of Henn-na Hotel were observed and their spatial distance from the robots, along with verbal and non-verbal behavior, was recorded. The researcher then invited the observed hotel guests to participate in a short interview.
Findings
Most visitors showed a positive attitude towards the robot. More than half of the visitors offered compliments when they first saw the robot receptionists although they hesitated and maintained a distance from them. Hotel guests were also disappointed with the low human–robot interaction (HRI). As the role of robots in hotels currently remains at the presentation level, a comprehensive assessment of their interactive ability is lacking.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to the HRI theory by confirming that people may treat robots as human strangers when they first see them. When a robot's face is more realistic, people expect it to behave like an actual human being. However, as the sample size of this study was small and all visitors were Asian, the researcher cannot generalize the results to the wider population.
Practical implications
Current robot receptionist has limited interaction ability. Hotel practitioners could learn about hotel guests' behavior and expectation towards android robots to enhance satisfaction and reduce disappointment.
Originality/value
Prior robot research has used questionnaires to investigate perceptions and usage intention, but this study collected on-site data and directly observed people's attitude toward robot staff in an actual business environment.
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This paper aims to present an approach to intercultural training (IT) in which course participants are informed about various approaches to differences between peoples. Pitfalls…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present an approach to intercultural training (IT) in which course participants are informed about various approaches to differences between peoples. Pitfalls in communication are identified that are due to overgeneralization of incidental observations of behavior and to psychological mechanisms such as stereotyping, ethnocentrism and attribution. Effects of poor command of a second language and paralinguistic factors are also included.
Design/methodology/approach
Intercultural communication training or IT programs often over-generalize incidental observations and make attributions about broad differences between “us” and “others”. An approach to IT is described that challenges the way in which notions about “culture” and “cultures” tend to be used.
Findings
A training module based on the principles mentioned is described that was originally developed for military officers preparing for international peace-keeping and peace-building missions and later has been administered in various settings and countries.
Research limitations/implications
An exit questionnaire and postmission interviews have suggested positive effects of the training, but more systematic evaluation research is needed.
Practical implications
Cross-cultural communication (3C) training is mostly about how other people differ from “us”. Better understanding may be gained with an approach that emphasizes how much humans everywhere are alike and that perceived differences can also be in the eye of the beholder.
Social implications
Mutual understanding is critical to positive interaction. The approach to 3C training taken here explains how much humans everywhere are alike and puts manifest differences into perspective.
Originality/value
The training module builds on available knowledge, notably from cross-cultural psychology. Except for a questionnaire to demonstrate ethnocentrism, there is hardly new information. However, the approach arranges available knowledge in a way that is rather novel for the field of 3C training.
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Hongyu Hou, Feng Wu and Xin Huang
The development of the digital age has made data and information more transparent, enhancing the strategic perspectives of both buyers (strategic waiting) and sellers (price…
Abstract
Purpose
The development of the digital age has made data and information more transparent, enhancing the strategic perspectives of both buyers (strategic waiting) and sellers (price fluctuations) in their decision-making. This research investigates the optimal dynamic pricing strategy of the content product developer in relation to their consideration of consumer fairness concerns to elucidate the impact of consumer fairness concerns on the dynamic pricing strategy of the developer.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper assumes that monopolistic content developers implement a dynamic pricing strategy for the content product. Through constructing a two-period dynamic pricing game model, this research investigates the optimal decisions of the content developer, contingent upon their consideration or disregard of consumer fairness concerns. In the extension section, the authors additionally account for the influence of myopic consumers on these optimal decisions.
Findings
Our findings reveal that the degree of consumer fairness concerns significantly influences the developer’s optimal dynamic pricing decision. When a developer offers content products with lower depth, there is a propensity for the developer to refrain from incorporating consumer fairness concerns into a dynamic pricing strategy. Conversely, in cases where the developer offers a high-depth content product, consumer fairness concerns benefit the developer. Furthermore, our analysis reveals a consistent benefit for the developer from the inclusion of myopic consumers.
Originality/value
Few studies have delved into the conjoined influence of consumer fairness concerns and strategic behavior on dynamic pricing strategy. Our findings indicate that consumer fairness concerns can enhance the efficiency of the value chain for content products under specific conditions. This paper not only enriches the existing literature on dynamic pricing by incorporating consumer fairness concerns theoretically but also offers practical insights. The outcomes of this research can guide content product developers in devising optimal dynamic pricing strategies.
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Luiza Gonçalves Ferreira Nicolau, Juliana Maria Magalhães Christino, Érico Aurélio Abreu Cardozo and Frederico Leocádio Ferreira
Sustainable fashion encompasses principles of ethical production, fair trade, and the use of organic materials. This study explores the antecedents influencing behavioural…
Abstract
Purpose
Sustainable fashion encompasses principles of ethical production, fair trade, and the use of organic materials. This study explores the antecedents influencing behavioural intentions to purchase sustainable fashion among Brazilian fashion consumers, utilising the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as a framework and examining the role of Eco-shame.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey involving 378 respondents was conducted, and structural equation modelling was applied to analyse the data.
Findings
The study revealed that Perceived Behavioural Control, Attitude, and Eco-shame significantly influenced Behavioural Purchase Intention toward sustainable fashion products. In contrast to prior research, Subjective Norms did not demonstrate a substantial influence on Behavioural Purchase Intentions.
Research limitations/implications
Enhancing the generalizability of findings necessitates expanding the sample size and employing a probability sampling method for future research endeavours.
Practical implications
In the realm of sustainable fashion consumption, it is imperative to understand consumer behaviour shifts, particularly amid the prevalence of fast fashion. This research aims to bridge this knowledge gap and underscore consumers’ motivations for selecting sustainable fashion products.
Originality/value
This study makes a theoretical contribution by introducing Eco-shame as an extension of the Theory of Planned Behaviour to evaluate Behavioural Purchase Intentions toward Sustainable Fashion Products, an innovation that has been absent from prior literature.
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Oswald A. J. Mascarenhas, Munish Thakur and Payal Kumar
Any credible agenda that seeks to eradicate global poverty must seek to correct the structural injustices and inequities that cause and perpetuate endemic poverty. Such an agenda…
Abstract
Executive Summary
Any credible agenda that seeks to eradicate global poverty must seek to correct the structural injustices and inequities that cause and perpetuate endemic poverty. Such an agenda must aim not merely to aid the poor with grants, welfare, and subsidies (that indirectly perpetuate poverty) but seek to enhance self-sufficiency and productive skills of the poor by ensuring them comparable access to opportunities of the market economies to participate, on more equitable terms, in the dynamic process of overall economic growth. In this context, we apply critical thinking to identify and recognize the structured injustices of the market system, which not only cause poverty but also compromise human dignity via social inequalities and inequities arguably caused by the free market and corporate capital systems of the world. Global poverty that affects more than a quarter of the human population is a pernicious self-serving system connected to the injustices of the business and political systems of the world. The persistent nature of poverty is in direct proportion to our inability to eradicate it as a whole in the cosmic system. Eradication of global desperate poverty and its unjust structural causes can be achieved, we submit, by tracing the roots of global poverty to corporate and free enterprise capital systems and their unexamined structures of social injustice and social inequalities.
Florian Magnani, Ali Siadat, Emmanuel Caillaud and Olivier Gaudichau
Previous research has managed to clearly define lean technical competencies. However, the behavioral competencies remain underestimated, and the roles of lean experts are not…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous research has managed to clearly define lean technical competencies. However, the behavioral competencies remain underestimated, and the roles of lean experts are not clearly stated: are they teachers, facilitators or technical experts? The present paper investigates lean behavioral competencies and their relationship to lean experts' roles.
Design/methodology/approach
This article serves as an exploratory study built on interviews, observations and focus groups conducted during a three-year longitudinal study accompanied by a three-year follow-up. The case takes place in an international automotive company in partnership with Toyota in which lean adoption was part of a consistent strategy over a period of 20Â years.
Findings
The study clarifies lean behavioral competencies related to organizational efficiency (nominal management, improvement management and respect for people) and relational efficiency (problem resolution, competencies development and systemic interactions). The study helped create a typology of lean experts' roles related to the maturity level of the environment in which they intervened. Moreover, Lean experts' roles in congruence with the environment seem to positively influence the creation of emerging human relationships that are beneficial to process improvement and competencies development.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to clarify behavioral competencies with respect to lean experts' roles and to study the temporality of the introduction of lean practices. The findings recommend that researchers better acknowledge the influence of lean behavioral competencies during lean adoption and their relationship to contextual factors and organizational performance. A practical methodology is proposed to measure the necessary behavioral adjustments of lean experts or employees.
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