Search results

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 examine how stakeholders perceive the motives behind fast food companies’ public health-related corporate social responsibility (CSR) and general social issue-related CSR initiatives, and their responses toward CSR in terms of supportive communication intent, investment intent, and purchase intent. The authors further examine the impact of perceived CSR motives on intent and whether a healthier chain image has an effect on stakeholder responses.

An online experiment was conducted. This study employed a randomized 2 (CSR type: health-related CSR vs generic social issue-related CSR)×2 (chain image: healthier chain vs general fast-food chain) full factorial design using general stakeholder samples.

For an ordinary fast food restaurant, generic social issue-related CSR programs elicited significantly more positive perceptions of CSR motives, supportive communication intent and investment intent, than public-health related CSR. When a company has a healthier image, stakeholders do not distinguish between CSR types. Stakeholders perceive both CSR types as stemming from mutually beneficial motives and show neutral to slightly positive reactions to both CSR. A positively perceived CSR motive plays a determinant role in anticipating communication, investment, and purchase intents.

This is the first study that examines stakeholder perception of motives behind and responses toward fast food chains’ health-related vs generic social issue-related CSR initiatives, in light of corporate image. The study findings help public relations practitioners, public health professionals, parent groups, and legislators understand stakeholders’ reactions toward CSR initiatives in the fast food industry and help them monitor practices for improvements.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the level of concern and practice of sustainability development and also policy failure in the fast food supply chain.

A questionnaire using Likert scoring recorded variations in current practice and attitudes toward sustainable business. A two-stage cluster analysis was conducted to analyze the multi-attribute ordinal data obtained from the questionnaire.

Significant differences were found among clusters of fast food businesses in terms of their sustainability concern and practice, which is of interest to policy makers, consumers and supply chain partners. Medium-sized fast food dealers emerge with high environmental and social concern, but poor practice; larger retailers and fast food chains appear to have both fair social and environmental awareness and practice; and there is a cluster of small takeaway-specific outlets that have particularly low levels of knowledge of sustainability or sustainable practices. Policy failure is prevalent amongst these businesses and without regulation this represents a possible threat to the sector.

Reliance on stated rather than revealed preferences of the study may limit the implications of this analysis but it is a major step forward in understanding what has in the past been a very difficult sector to investigate due to data paucity.

Fast food is a sector with a lack of transparency which has attracted little academic attention to date, due to the difficulties of empirical analysis rather than lack of interest in a key food consumption sector. The message for the sector is to monitor its act, across all business types or face regulatory and policy intervention.

The research conducts a three-dimensional sustainability analysis of fast food supply chains to investigate the differences and trade-offs between different sustainability dimensions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the interplay of institutional quality and market potential factors on the agglomeration of foreign fast-food franchises in major cities in Central America.

The authors approached the research question through a regression analysis of the main fast-food chains operating in the 41 largest cities in Central America. The exploratory analysis in this paper attempted to discover the statistical relationship between institutional quality and market potential factors on the agglomeration of fast-food chains in specific cities. The paper also examined the spatial distribution of fast-food units in selected cities to try to discover specific patterns on the selection of specific locations within each city.

The findings of this paper suggest that population size and institutional quality in terms of regulatory efficiency were the two most significant predictors of fast-food chains agglomerations in selected Central American cities. The authors also found a negative interaction between market potential and institutional quality on agglomeration of fast-food restaurants, whereby a relatively weak institutional environment might deter investors, even if initially a market offers moderate potential. Finally, they found specific geographic patterns for the chosen locations of fast-food places that signal to a preference for urban locations with easy access to main thoroughfares, high commercial traffic and more affluence.

The small sample size was a major constraint. Moreover, population size as a measure of market potential was available for all cities, but other city-level indicators were only available for a small number of cities. The preliminary results aligned with the predictions in this paper, yet the generalizability of the findings of this paper is limited by the sampling and measurement issues noted above. Finally, the paper did not include all fast-food chains in the cities examined, and inclusion of more foreign and domestic chains should be considered in future studies.

Local governments should consider the factors that impact franchise chains’ decisions to enter a market and the specific locations in which they choose to locate their units. Improving the quality of local institutions could be instrumental in attracting investment.

Very few studies have focused on Central America as a recipient of investment by fast-food chains. The region is less than attractive in terms of both market potential and risk. Yet fast-food franchises have continued to grow over the past two decades, making the examination of their investment decisions worth studying. The inclusion of institutional quality at the city level is an additional contribution of this paper. This paper furthers our understanding of the factors that drive investment decisions of global franchisors in regions with low to medium market potential and medium to high levels of institutional risk.

The studies which connect international marketing emotions with perceived service quality are scarce. The purpose of this paper is to fill this knowledge gap and take into account the consumers’ perceived animosity, religiosity, and ethnocentrism to connect these with perceived service quality and purchase intentions of US-based fast food brand chains currently operating in Pakistan.

The authors collected data by means of a self-administered questionnaire, distributed among 500 consumers, randomly selected, patronized the four US fast food brands, namely, McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Subway in the city of Lahore in Pakistan. The data are analyzed by employing Structural equation modeling (SEM) based on AMOS 21.0 software.

Results of this study reveal that religiosity and ethnocentrism among Pakistani fast food consumers are low and do not influence the decision to purchase fast food brands. However, consumer emotions influence service quality perceptions – ultimately leading to purchase intentions.

The study generally adds to marketing and specifically to international food service marketing knowledge by eliciting the role of religiosity, animosity, and ethnocentrism to delineate service quality and purchase intentions. Furthermore, the external validity of PAKSERV scale and the context of Pakistan – a collectivist Muslim country are also the unique products of this study.

This paper aims to explore how the power of salient stakeholders involved in the green waste management of franchise chains can impact the ability of the chains to change their green practices.

This qualitative study is based on interview data from 19 franchisors and their head office staff operating in the fast-food sector in France where franchise chains have been ‘named and shamed’ as continuing to ignore waste management regulation.

The findings suggest that both the form and bases of power of different stakeholder groups have important implications for the implementation of green practices, even those required by law. The authors find that the franchisees’ central network position alters the ability of franchisors to directly engage in dialog, consult with, and educate key stakeholders, creating additional challenges for franchisors in the implementation process.

The qualitative nature of the study limits the extent to which the findings can be generalized. Future studies could develop an instrument to assess franchisor perceptions of stakeholder power.

The findings suggest that franchisors should consider carefully how they communicate changes to green practices to their franchisees to ensure not only their compliance but also their motivation to engage with those stakeholders with whom they have regular interactions. The findings can also help governments to better understand how to involve other stakeholders to ensure effective environmental legislation.

The study is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to consider the role of stakeholders in the implementation of green practices in franchise chains. By examining franchise chains, this paper provides new insights into the role of an additional stakeholder, the franchisee, and enriches the literature on green practices in the hospitality sector.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the fast food market and customer attitudes in Russia, and outline successful and questionable strategies of the Western fast food companies in their attempt to penetrate the Russian market.

The objective has been achieved by reviewing the first Russian entry of the Belgian‐French fast food chain “Quick” by applying qualitative research method that included observational research, surveying, and interviewing customers and employees of the company both in Paris and Moscow. The topic has been approached by comparing “Quick's” strategies with the other mainly US‐based fast food chains that operate currently in Russia. The subject scope of the paper covers fast food sector development and trends under the early recession conditions of entry.

It was found that luxury or more upscale (“healthy”) positioning strategy of the new entrant “Quick” into the fast food market in Russia is not working. The company also exhibited a poor location strategy and possibly entered into an inefficient strategic alliance with the Russian partner Tashir group. Some meaningful adjustments are also required for the supply chain structure of “Quick” chain in Russia.

The paper is analyzing the experiences of the new entrant in Russia. It contains new ideas for the fast food sector in the country, and Russian‐foreign equity type joint ventures. This paper presents interest for the needs of the international executives and global marketing specialists.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of food anti-consumption in fast growing markets within an emerging economy context of Turkey.

Recently posted customer comments, complaints and suggestions related to the selected fast-food chains were examined from the following domains: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Sikayetvar.com. These comments were reviewed, assessed and classified by four trained independent raters. After examining the comments one-by-one the raters arrived at the final (triangulated) decision regarding the comment’s category after an iterative process including cross-examination.

Reasons for fast-food avoidance were primarily linked to customers’ negative past experiences (experiential avoidance). Identity avoidance, moral avoidance and interactivity avoidance.

The paper adds to the anti-consumption literature by examining the food avoidance framework of Lee et al. (2009) in an emerging market context. New categories were identified for reasons of food avoidance which have not been identified before in the anti-consumption literature such as interactivity avoidance.

The purpose of this review paper is to extend the literature on animal welfare in the hospitality industry by exploring how some of the major fast-food companies have publicly addressed this issue.

The paper reviews, and reflects on, the animal welfare statements and policies posted on the Internet by five major fast-food companies, namely, Yum! Brands, Restaurant Brands International, McDonald's, Domino's Pizza Group and Subway.

The findings reveal that four interlinked themes, namely, strategic corporate commitment, a focus on supply chains, policies on specific categories of animals and food products, and auditing, illustrated the selected companies approach to animal welfare. The authors also raise a number of issues about the selected companies' approaches to animal welfare including the aspirational nature of their commitments, the emphasis on regular audits, the role of external assurance in the reporting process, the role of animal welfare pressure groups and campaigns, and the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The paper's empirical material is drawn from the corporate websites of five fast-food companies, but the paper has theoretical and practical implications and provides a platform for future research.

The paper offers a simple review of the way five major fast-food companies have addressed the issue of animal welfare.

Services marketing and marketing strategy.

The case is basically aimed at post-graduate management students; it can be used in strategic management courses. Students can understand McKinsey's 7S model with the help of this case as well as the seven Ps of service industry. Students can also gain an insight into the hub and spoke model. The case can also be used in courses of entrepreneurship.

The case is primarily the entrepreneurial journey of Mr Samar Qureshi in a quick service restaurant business. The entrepreneur Mr Samar Qureshi at a very young age dreamt of opening up an Indian fast food chain. He worked hard to make his dream a reality. In a brief period of five years Qureshi's Fast Trax has reached the level of world-renowned fast food chains like McDonald's and KFC in terms of quality and ambience. Overcoming the hurdles and the challenges Fast Trax has 22 outlets in Delhi NCR. Samar has also introduced the fast food culture in a small town, Aligarh, and wishes to expand it further to other B class towns of India where people desire to go to fast food chains and to enjoy the high standards of food and service as are enjoyed by people living in metros. He has also been instrumental in changing the concept of canteen to restaurant in schools and colleges. The case discusses the challenges facing Fast Trax in the cut-throat environment of the fast food industry.

These include: highlighting the 7Ps of services in the context of a retail chain and establishing interlinkages between the seven Ss identified by McKinsey.

Teaching notes are available. Please consult your librarian for access.