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Based on persuasion theories, the purpose of this paper is to examine relationships between four types of interactive consumer activities (viewing, liking, sharing and commenting) on hotel brand social networking sites (SNSs) and their cognitive and emotional responses to understand the psychological states underlying such actions and assess their influence on brand attitude and the brand–consumer relationship.

A survey was administrated using an online platform. Participants who had been following a hotel brand on any of its SNSs were screened to fill out the questionnaire. Eventually, 226 valid responses were collected and analyzed using structure equation modeling.

The findings suggest that although both emotional and cognitive involvement can enhance a consumer’s hotel brand attitude, cognitive involvement is associated with a slightly stronger effect in the context of SNSs. Three of the four interactive actions – viewing, liking and sharing – were found to be positively associated with emotional involvement, but only two actions – viewing and liking – were found to be positively related to cognitive involvement. No connection was identified for commenting.

The study suggests that practitioners should turn their attention to the emotional and cognitive responses their SNSs provoke in consumers, rather than simply on the number of likes, shares and comments they induce.

A recent research trend indicates widespread interest in the button functions offered by SNSs (such as “like,” “share” and “comment”) and many studies have tested means of stimulating such physical actions. This study is one of the few to explore the psychological states behind such actions and assess their influence on brand attitude and the self-brand connection.

This study aims to differentiate the brand personality of four basic hotel categories (e.g. limited-service, selected-service, full-service and luxury hotels) to draw an overall landscape of the lodging industry on symbolic attributes.

An online survey was conducted to assess the brand personality of eight popular hotel brands competing in the US market (two brands for each price category) by using Aaker’s (1997) brand personality scale. The categorical difference in brand personality was compared at both of the dimensional and individual trait level.

This study draws a picture of brand personality for four prevailing hotel categories in the US market. It suggests exciting luxury hotels, sincere select-service hotels and rugged limited-service hotels, but no distinctive personality for full-service hotels. This study positions the pros and cons of each hotel category. For instance, it shows at the dimensional level, full-service hotels advance select-service hotels in excitement but fall behind in sincerity. At the individual trait level, full-service hotels strike customers as contemporary, up-to-date and good-looking, but disappoint customers on the features like honest and wholesome.

This study informs hotel brand companies and hotel investors with the pros and cons of each hotel category to assist them to improve their marketing or investment strategies.

Although brand personality has been often used to assess hotel brand’s difference, it has been rarely used to capture the categorical difference. This study adds new insights to hotel banding practice by comparing different categories on symbolic attributes.

Applying signaling theory to Schein’s organizational culture framework, this study aims to explain how restaurants communicate that their establishments value wine through multiple cultural attributes.

A phenomenological research design was adopted to conduct three focus groups with 14 restaurateurs about wine culture. Conversational analysis with Straussian coding was used.

A comprehensive definition of wine culture was provided, and five factors emerged that signal the presence of a wine culture. A wine presence includes a wine list, marketing efforts, community involvement and restaurant aesthetics. Employee traits are defined by individual attributes, communications skills and overall knowledge (training). Restaurant identity reflects the cultural alignment and customer relationship expectations set forth by ownership. Organizational structure reflects a restaurant’s hierarchy within which an individual or department is afforded the freedom to invest in wine. Future alignment reflects generational differences and trends in wine preferences and consumption.

Researchers are provided a wine-culture definition and framework for wine research. Restaurants can use the study’s findings to formulate strategies for establishing a wine culture.

This study provided a framework for restaurateurs who wish to be known for wine to implement. Researchers and restaurateurs may facilitate communication between guests, staff and an organization regarding wine as a means of creating a competitive advantage.

Wine sales are at the highest volumes ever and warrant a robust understanding of consumption behavior. Consequently, this study aims to examine intrinsic motivational factors (e.g. personal attributes) – those that push the consumer toward wine products – and the extrinsic motivational product attributes (e.g. situational attributes) those that draw – or pull – the consumer toward wine products.

A model has been tested in which intrinsic and extrinsic motivations interacted to predict personal involvement (PI) with wine, which in turn predicted wine consumption, forming a mediated moderation model.

Support has been found for a mediated moderation model of wine consumption. Thus, this study improves the understanding of how interactive motivations are mediated by PI in their influence on wine consumption.

The sample is limited to participants in the National Restaurant Show, and thus the results may be limited to the sample investigated.

The findings suggest using intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors and PI with wine to influence marketing strategies.

This study has helped to expand the understanding of interactive and mediating forces that drive wine consumption.

Although previous research proposed that motivational factors interact to predict wine consumption, this interaction has not been tested empirically prior to the current study. Therefore, this study adds new insights into wine consumption by demonstrating that intrinsic and extrinsic motivators interact to predict PI with wine, which subsequently predicts wine consumption in a holistic, mediated moderation model.

This review looks firstly at a set of recent articles that examine basic concepts of interlending in particular and resource sharing in general. Some authors are supportive of resource sharing and interlending, while others question its validity, demanding better examination of its benefits or better local provision. A very forthright paper concentrates on access, whilst another foresees greater user involvement in interlending. New technological developments are reported in a review of several articles on the successes and failures of telefacsimile transmission, ending with a brief mention of a new development — CD—hypenROMs. The European Communities' Docolsys proposal is reported, and a series of contrasting articles on interlending and union catalogues in the USSR is discussed. Recent developments in Canada are briefly reported, and the review ends with a consideration of a paper on humanities interlending requests surveyed by a Spanish research institute.

A number of recent studies have suggested that many small businesses are opting to become members of strategic alliances with other firms in order to minimise the perceived barriers to adoption of electronic commerce (E‐commerce). This study compares the perception of barriers to E‐commerce adoption between a sample of Swedish small to medium enterprises (SMEs) that have become members of some form of strategic alliance and those that have remained outside such arrangements. The results show that, in general, SMEs that are part of a strategic alliance perceive barriers as less applicable than their counterparts that are not part of a strategic alliance.

Although dysfunctional behaviors by customers is increasingly being recognized by both scholars and practitioners, “illegitimate” complaining, in the form of fraudulent returns by customers, is under‐researched. The aim of this study is to address this gap in extant knowledge through explicitly focusing on uncovering factors which permit consumers to exploit retailers' liberal return policies when fraudulently returning products that they know they have used or damaged.

In‐depth interviews were utilized as the main data collection method. Interviews were conducted amongst service employees and customers. A total of 87 interviews were conducted with front‐line employees and managers of 12 general retail outlets. Customer interviewing involved 96 interviews. Potential customer informants were randomly contacted with a request to participate in a study of customer service and returning goods.

Data analysis revealed ten main factors that appear to be related to customers' likelihood of successfully, fraudulently returning products.

As with other similar studies of this nature, the findings and implications are limited by the research design and methods employed. However, these limitations also indicate potentially fruitful avenues of future research. Future studies could employ different methods and explore differing contexts to gauge the generalizability of findings.

The findings of the study have a range of implications for practitioners and policy makers. Insights are generated into the extent of fraudulent returning and the factors which facilitate successful fraudulent returns. As such, practitioners could use such insights to reduce the frequency of such episodes. Public policy implications centre on highlighting the issues which policy makers may wish to consider.

The current study is the first to explore how (rather than, why) consumers exploit firms' return policies and fraudulently defraud retailers. As such, a fundamental and stark contribution centres on the finding of widespread, recidivist fraudulent returning among those interviewed. Ten facilitators of fraudulent returning were identified, providing rich insights into how customers are able, successfully, to return used and damaged products.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi‐dimensional, holistic model that: avoids the variable interdependency found in earlier tools; and integrates multiple factors that characterize menu item costs more accurately by considering more than gross profit.

Using data gathered during a three‐month period from three same‐brand units of a full‐service chain restaurant firm, the paper applies data‐envelopment analysis (DEA), a non‐parametric approach that accounts for both controllable (discretionary) and uncontrollable (non‐discretionary) variables, producing a single relative‐to‐best index based on an efficiency rating calculated on a 0 to 1 scale.

The findings suggest that the DEA‐equipped model, which is not constrained by the limitations of traditional matrix approaches, supports a more robust approach by incorporating more cost determinants than traditional menu engineering approaches.

The paper consists of only a single restaurant concept and the evaluation results are purely theoretical. Future research should include the application of the menu analysis recommendations to an actual menu to determine the effectiveness of the model on actual operation profitability.

The research suggests that DEA is an effective tool in the evaluation of a restaurant menu by evaluating individual menu items based on attributes of labor and profitability factors.

The paper shows that by combining DEA with traditional menu analysis methodologies, a more efficient menu analysis tool may be utilized to evaluate menu items without the arbitrary allocation of non‐food costs.

This study evaluates the role of monetary incentives in the recruitment of crack-cocaine and injection drug users into an AIDS prevention program in Anchorage, Alaska. The study also looks at how seasonality impacted recruitment of this population. Data from interviews with 1,427 out-of-treatment drug users were aggregated to monthly levels. Forty-seven months of data were used in the analysis. Independent variables included monthly income, source of income, employment status, self-reported homelessness, incentive paid at intake, potential incentive at follow-up, and data on the local unemployment rate. A dummy coded variable for seasonality also was included. Regression analysis was used to develop a model using number of individuals recruited each month as the dependent variable. Only one variable, the incentive paid at intake, was significant at p < .05. A strong interaction effect was found between the amount of the incentive paid at intake and seasonality. The chapter concludes that the use of monetary incentives has a positive effect on the recruitment of hidden populations.

Recent research identifies several attributes that lead to the value proposition of a diversity-training program: corporate engagement in diversity training; participants' perceptions of how such programs aid their peers; self-analysis of participants in training; and perceptions regarding the benefit of diversity training for subordinates. The aim of this paper is to test a corresponding four-antecedent model of the value of diversity training from the point of view of hotel managers.

A survey instrument was devised and sent to a random sample of hotel properties that asked managers questions related to the value of diversity training. Multiple regression analysis and t-tests were used as methods of data analyses.

Results from 242 responses returned by managers of 96 hotels indicated that managers perceive themselves and the corporate executives to significantly add value to the organization through diversity training. Furthermore, ethnic minority managers do not value diversity training significantly more highly than their non-minority counterparts do; similarly, little difference exists between genders on the four indicators of diversity-training efficacy.

This study examined only one aspect of diversity management – diversity training. Among other limitations are the small sample and low response rates, which made it difficult to compare ethnic groups to one another.

Through this study, managers' perceptions about which groups of employees add value following diversity training are presented. The findings are likely to help hospitality corporations to implement diversity training more efficiently.

This study indicates that hotel managers value diversity training and suggests the need for organizations to understand how to prioritize various organizational levels for such training.