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In recent years, a major food consumption trend in the USA and Canada is that more people are eating more meals outside their homes. It is predicted that this trend will accelerate in the future. As a result, fast‐food markets will offer greater growth opportunities for marketers. Presents consumers′ perceptions of and preferences for fast‐food restaurants in the USA and Canada. The results of this study may have very important implications for developing successful marketing strategies for fast‐food restaurants. Findings of the study offer need‐oriented marketing strategies for both franchisers and franchisees in the US and Canadian fast‐food sectors to enable them to be more competitive in this fast‐changing business environment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between daily television (TV) viewing duration and weekly fast food consumption of Japanese high school students.

The total of 325 Japanese high school students from Miyazaki, Japan (148 female and 176 male students and one student with no gender identification) answered the survey in order to assess their daily TV viewing duration and weekly fast food consumption.

The results indicated that low TV viewers spent significantly less money on weekly fast food consumption than either moderate or high TV viewers; and male students spent significantly more money on weekly fast food consumption than female students.

Owing to the limited sample size, the results of this study might lack generalizability. Further research on this issue should be conducted in the future.

Similar to studies conducted in different countries, the results of the present study provided evidence to suggest that cumulative exposure to TV was linked to the increase of fast food consumption in Japanese high school students.

There were few studies that investigated the media effects on fast food consumption of Japanese high school students. This study might be the first one.

Fast‐food and franchising should present a formidable marriage when coping with declining economic performance. Compares the performance of 54 (18 franchisors; 18 fast‐food franchisees; 18 fast‐food companies) between 1987 and 1990 using Taffler′s Z‐score analysis. Finds that franchisors′ performance during the period declined but remained better than that of fast‐food franchisees and fast‐food companies. Fast‐food franchisees have remained buoyant but there are incidences of potential failures. Outlines differing solutions to return these companies to health.

To help fast‐food restaurants enhance their competitiveness and then increase their market share, the purpose of this paper is to measure the service performances of fast‐food restaurant franchises in the USA and identify salient factors influencing the service performances of fast‐food restaurants over time.

This paper develops a set of benchmarks that helps fast‐food restaurants monitor their service‐delivery process, identify relative weaknesses, and take corrective actions for continuous service improvements using analytic hierarchy process and competitive gap analysis.

This study reveals that a service attribute considered most important to the fast‐food restaurant customers' impressions of service quality is taste of food. This preference has not been changed over time. Also, we found a pattern of the correlation between the overall level of customer satisfaction with the fast‐food restaurant and its word‐of‐mouth reputation. Furthermore, we discovered that the customers tended to be more favorable to easily accessible and national fast‐food restaurant franchises than less accessible, relatively new, and regional counterparts.

The current study is limited to the evaluation of comparative service quality in the USA. Thus, this study may not capture the national differences in the restaurant customers' perceived service quality.

For the last four decades, Americans' obsession with fast serving, cheap meals has made the fast‐food restaurant a mainstay in their daily life. As the appetite for fast food grows, every corner of the American Society has been infiltrated by fast‐food restaurants. With the increasing number of fast‐food restaurants competing in the market, their survival often rests on their ability to sustain high‐quality services and meet changing needs/preferences of customers. This paper provides practical guidelines for enhancing the competitiveness of the fast‐food restaurant franchise.

This paper is one of the first to compare the service quality of fast‐food franchises in the USA and develop dynamic service quality standards for fast‐food restaurant franchises using a longitudinal study.

The fast food industry has become a focus of media criticism for its apparent lack of interest in environmental and nutritional issues. Demonstrates the scale of the industry′s response and provides an objective assessment of current initiatives which have been specifically designed to improve the image of fast food companies. The greatest momentum for change has inevitably been associated with the major American fast food chains which are introducing more environmentally‐friendly packaging, accessory‐recycling and lower fat products. In the process they are gaining a competitive advantage over smaller domestic fast food companies and this fact alone will ensure the introduction of more initiatives in the future. Care for the environment and for consumer health have consequently become high‐profile marketing concerns.

The purpose of this paper is to study differing demographic factors affecting fast-food customers loyalty towards national or international fast food chains. It also compares the variation between global and local fast food chains as the products offered are culturally different.

A variety of variables used to gain a holistic view, which includes factors such as quality, price, food and demographic profile of consumers affecting loyalty of fast food chains. The study adopts the theory and method of the trust-commitment-loyalty explanation chain and examines the consumer survey adapted from Fast food by Sahagun et al. (2014). The present analyses 542 filled questionnaires in which systematic sampling is used. Systematic sampling procedure is adopted.

Indians prefer global fast food chains compared to Indian fast food chains. Loyalty towards global brands is higher than that for Indian brands because they are found to be of better quality which leads to higher frequency of visit and recommendation of the brands to their friends and colleagues. There are ethnic variations towards global and Indian fast food chains. Global brand of food chains generated more good word of mouth publicity compared to Indian food chains. Demographic factors play a role in the patronage of fast food chains.

One of the limitations of this research is the study adapts the theory and method of the trust-commitment-loyalty explanation chain and examines the consumer survey adapted from a study of Sahagun et al. (2014) on fast food for emerging markets. Only India is studied, but the addition of other countries like Brazil, China, Russia and South Africa can add value.

Fast food managers had to illustrate the satisfaction on affective response, such as quality of food, convenient location, variety, service and value for money. Demographic variables like gender, age, education, income and ethnicity, global and local Brand will affect the perceptions.

This is the first attempt to study the loyalty of consumers in emerging markets, which is witnessing the entry of many fast food global chains. It studies the demographic variables effect on the loyalty and the behaviour of consumers and compares to local and global brand fast food chains. The research will be use to global managers who are planning to expand in emerging markets like India.

The purpose of this paper is to help fast‐food restaurants successfully penetrate foreign markets and then strengthen their foothold in those markets by identifying cross‐cultural differences in the perceived service quality of fast‐food restaurants; and by examining how those differences affect the globalization of fast‐food restaurant franchises based in the USA and Korea.

This paper develops a set of target performance standards that helps fast‐food restaurants monitor their service delivery process, identify relative weaknesses, and take corrective actions for continuous service improvements in cross‐cultural settings using analytic hierarchy process and competitive gap analysis.

This study reveals that a service attribute considered most important to the fast‐food restaurant customers' impressions of service quality differs from one country (USA) to another (Korea). It was found that US customers valued taste of food most whereas Korean customers valued cleanliness most. Also, it was discovered that Koreans considered employee courtesy far more important for their service impression of service quality than Americans, while they were less concerned about food price than their US counterparts. Furthermore, Koreans tended to be more brand‐conscious than Americans and thus considered word‐of‐mouth reputation more seriously than Americans for restaurant selection.

The current study is limited to the evaluation of comparative service quality of fast‐food restaurants in only two countries (namely the USA and Korea). Thus, this study cannot be generalized to the restaurant customers' perceived service quality in other countries or cultural settings. Also, this paper focuses on the performance aspect of benchmarking rather than the strategic aspect of benchmarking.

Saturated with the US restaurant market selling fast‐serving and cheap meals, a growing number of US fast‐food restaurant franchises began to explore foreign markets to increase world‐wide customer bases. However, it is not easy for them to duplicate their domestic success in foreign soils due to different needs, tastes, and preferences of foreign customers. This paper helps the fast‐food restaurant franchises develop viable market penetration and localization strategies and then provides practical guidelines for enhancing their competitiveness in the emerging foreign markets.

This paper is one of the first to compare the service quality of fast‐food franchises in the USA to that of Korean fast‐food restaurant franchises from the cross‐cultural perspectives.

This paper seeks to estimate importance of various factors affecting the choice of fast food outlets by Indian young consumers.

The study applies multivariate statistical tools to estimate importance of various factors affecting the choice of fast food outlets by Indian young consumers. In addition, the authors analysed the consumption patterns, impact of hygiene and nutritional values, and rating of various attributes of McDonald's and Nirula's.

Results indicate that the young Indian consumer has passion for visiting fast food outlets for fun and change but home food is their first choice. They feel homemade food is much better than food served at fast food outlets. They have the highest value for taste and quality (nutritional values) followed by ambience and hygiene. Three dimensions (service and delivery dimension, product dimension, and quality dimension) of fast food outlets' attributes are identified based on factor analysis results. The two fast food outlets' rating differs significantly on the seven attributes. McDonald's scores are higher on all attributes except “variety”. Further, consumers feel that fast food outlets must provide additional information on nutritional values and hygiene conditions inside kitchen.

Fast food providers need to focus on quality and variety of food besides other service parameters. There is need to communicate the information about hygiene and nutrition value of fast food which will help in building trust in the food provided by fast food players.

Estimates importance of various factors affecting the choice of fast food outlets by Indian young consumers.

McJobs in the fast‐food sector are a major area of youth employment. This paper explores young people's perceptions of work in this industry.

The paper discusses the results of a survey of students' experiences of McJobs in Australia.

Fast‐food workers were generally dissatisfied with the industrial relations and work organisation aspects of their jobs. Nonetheless, they were generally much more satisfied with the human resource management and social relations aspects of their jobs.

Our research has implications for understanding the human capital development practices adopted by employers in the fast‐food industry and in other sectors, especially those that employ young people. Much of the context for work and employment relations in Australia is comparable with those in most English‐speaking countries. Therefore, our findings have implications for work in similar sectors in other countries, in particular, other English‐speaking countries.

This paper has implications for people who devise recruitment policies and design of jobs. It is a useful reminder that it is no longer appropriate for people to talk in simple terms of satisfaction at work per se; it is vital to differentiate between various aspects and contexts of job satisfaction, or the of the lack of it.

Earlier studies of fast‐food work have tended to be polemical and polarized: either apologias or very critical. This paper adopts a more balanced approach and it puts the findings into context.

Cultivating customer loyalty is extremely crucial for fast-food players to remain competitive in the industry. This research is discovering the path to cultivate customer loyalty through experience that is built based on auditory, gustatory, haptic, olfactory and visual cues.

Quantitative research has been conducted by distributing survey questionnaires to customers at selected fast-food restaurants in urban areas. The collected data has been analyzed by descriptive and structural equation modeling analysis.

The customers' loyalty to fast food can be cultivated through gustatory, haptic and olfactory cues. However, auditory and visual are not functioning as marketing cues to cultivate customer loyalty.

The fast-food players may emphasize gustatory, haptic and olfactory marketing cues to cultivate customer loyalty. These cues can be shared through experience.

This study has discovered the potential ways to cultivate customer loyalty in dining at fast-food restaurants within the Malaysian market.