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The purpose of this study is to propose a comprehensive benchmarking approach to help subsidiaries of a company to implement continuous improvement (CI).

The proposed approach classifies subsidiaries of a company into the three stages of CI. After that, the proposed approach employs data envelopment analysis (DEA)-super slacks-based measure (SBM) model and Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) to evaluate the operational efficiency of the subsidiaries and selects benchmarking targets and sets benchmarking goals based on the operational efficiency for benchmarking of input and output criteria. Then, the proposed approach suggests a four-step benchmarking process for benchmarking of detailed efficiency. Finally, the proposed approach makes the subsidiaries achieve CI by implementing the input and output benchmarking and the efficiency benchmarking.

The results show that the proposed approach can help subsidiaries of a company to implement a staged benchmarking which considers input and output criteria and Malmquist productivity and efficiency comprehensively.

Generally, benchmarking is implemented in many aspects. However, due to the restriction of a company’s resource level, a practical and staged benchmarking is preferred. This study proposes a comprehensive approach to benchmark systematically and gradually, and provides a more reasonable benchmarking process for implementing CI.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an optimal technology selection (OTS) method considering technology alternatives' required input levels of resource, to help companies select an optimal technology.

The proposed method clustered technology alternatives according to their required input levels of resource. After that, in each cluster, the proposed method used data envelopment analysis‐assurance region (DEA‐AR) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) rating method to evaluate the efficiencies and priorities of the technology alternatives, respectively. Finally, combined scores of the technology alternatives were calculated. A company can choose a proper technology cluster, and then select the technology alternative with the highest combined score within the selected cluster as the optimal technology.

The results showed that the OTS method cannot only select suitable technology which accords with a company's actual input capabilities, but also provide a more accurate selection result.

Traditionally, technologies are evaluated without considering the technologies' required input levels, and simply ranked for selection. However, there are differences between a company's actual resource levels and a selected technology's required input levels of resource. This study proposes an integrated method to evaluate technology systematically and provides a more reasonable selection process for selecting optimal technology.

Textual information about restaurants, such as online reviews and food categories, is essential for consumer purchase decisions. However, previous restaurant recommendation studies have failed to use textual information containing essential information for predicting consumer preferences effectively. This study aims to propose a novel restaurant recommendation model to effectively estimate the assessment behaviors of consumers for multiple restaurant attributes.

The authors collected 1,206,587 reviews from 25,369 consumers of 46,613 restaurants from Yelp.com. Using these data, the authors generated a consumer preference vector by combining consumer identity and online consumer reviews. Thereafter, the authors combined the restaurant identity and food categories to generate a restaurant information vector. Finally, the nonlinear interaction between the consumer preference and restaurant information vectors was learned by considering the restaurant attribute vector.

This study found that the proposed recommendation model exhibited excellent performance compared with state-of-the-art models, suggesting that combining various textual information on consumers and restaurants is a fundamental factor in determining consumer preference predictions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to develop a personalized restaurant recommendation model using textual information from real-world online restaurant platforms. This study also presents deep learning mechanisms that outperform the recommendation performance of state-of-the-art models. The results of this study can reduce the cost of exploring consumers and support effective purchasing decisions.

关于餐厅的文本信息, 如在线评论和食品分类, 对于消费者的购买决策产生至关重要。然而, 先前的餐厅推荐研究未能有效利这些文本信息去预测消费者喜好。本研究提出了一种新颖的餐厅推荐模型, 以有效估计消费者对多个餐厅属性的评估行为。

我们从 Yelp.com 收集了来自25,369名消费者对 46,613 家餐厅的 1,206,587 条评论。利用这些数据, 我们通过结合消费者身份和在线消费者评论生成了消费者偏好向量。然后, 我们结合了餐厅身份和食品分类来生成餐厅信息向量。最后, 考虑到餐厅属性向量, 本研究调查了消费者偏好和餐厅信息向量之间的非线性交互关系。

我们发现, 所提出的推荐模型相比于之前最先进的模型表现出更优秀的性能, 这表明结合消费者和餐厅的各种文本信息是预测消费者喜好的基本因素。

据我们所知, 这是第一项利用来自真实在线餐厅平台的文本信息开发个性化餐厅推荐模型的研究。本研究还提出了胜过最先进模型的深度学习机制。本研究的结果可以降低探索消费者行为的成本并支持有效的购买决策。

The purpose of this paper is to examine the structural relationships among lifestyle of health and sustainability (LOHAS), healthy food choices, trust, and emotional loyalty and the moderating role of age between seniors and non‐seniors in restaurants.

Partial least squares (PLS)‐graph software (version 3.0) was used to analyze the measurements and structural models. The authors employed a PLS regression analysis for both the formative and reflective constructs in the empirical test of the research model.

The study revealed that the senior market segment differs from the non‐senior market segment in the following ways: the magnitude of impact of LOHAS on healthy food choices is much stronger for senior diners than for non‐senior diners and the impact of LOHAS on trust and emotional loyalty is greater for seniors than non‐seniors.

The results of this study can guide the restaurant industry in its research on the implications of LOHAS for seniors.

Restaurant marketers should develop different strategies for the senior and non‐senior market segments, and they need to focus on target segments rather than attempting to appeal to the market as a whole.

This paper assists researchers and practitioners by shedding light on the differences among LOHAS, healthy food choices, trust, and emotional loyalty between senior and non‐senior diners.

This study aims to explain how the impact of COVID-19 on human mobility is affected by the perceived risk of the pandemic.

Using a statistical analysis and a geographic visualization technique, we investigate whether and how changes in people’s restaurant visiting patterns during COVID-19 vary with their level of risk perception.

The changes in people’s restaurant visiting patterns vary with their risk perception: the tendency to increase the number of visits to restaurants located in non-popular areas is related to the level of perceived risk.

This research confirms the importance of risk perception when examining the pandemic’s multi-dimensional impacts.

这项研究旨在解释 COVID-19 对人类流动性的影响如何受到大流行的感知风险的影响。

使用统计分析和地理可视化技术, 我们调查人们的餐厅是否以及如何变化COVID-19 期间的访问模式因他们的风险感知水平而异。

人们的餐厅光顾模式的变化随着他们的风险感知而变化：去位于非热门区域的餐厅的光顾次数增加的趋势与感知的风险水平有关。

这项研究证实了在检查大流行的多维影响时风险认知的重要性。

Mediante un análisis estadístico y una técnica de visualización geográfica, investigamos si los cambios en los patrones de visita a restaurantes de las personas durante COVID-19 varían en función de su nivel de percepción del riesgo y cómo lo hacen.

Esta investigación pretende explicar cómo el impacto de COVID-19 en la movilidad humana se ve afectado por el riesgo percibido de la pandemia.

Los cambios en las pautas de visita a restaurantes de las personas varían en función de su percepción del riesgo: la tendencia a aumentar el número de visitas a restaurantes situados en zonas no populares está relacionada con el nivel de riesgo percibido.

Esta investigación confirma la importancia de la percepción del riesgo a la hora de examinar los impactos multidimensionales de la pandemia.

There is significant amount of literature tackling different issues related to the port industry. The present chapter focuses on a single business unit of seaports aiming at the documentation of works related to container terminals.

An effort to review, collect and present the majority of the works present in the last 30 years, between 1980 and 2010, has been made in order to picture the problems dealt and methods used by the authors in the specific research field. To facilitate the reader, studies have been grouped under five categories of addressed problems (productivity and competitiveness, yard and equipment utilization, equipment scheduling, berth planning, loading/unloading) and four modelling methodologies (mathematics and operations research, management and economics, simulation, stochastic modelling).

The analysis shows that most works focus on productivity and competitiveness issues followed by yard and equipment utilisation and equipment scheduling. In reference to the methodologies used managerial and economic approaches lead, followed by mathematics and operations research.

In reference to future research, two fields have been identified where there is scope of significant contribution by the academic community: container terminal security and container terminal supply chain integration.

The present chapter provides the framework for researchers in the field of port container terminals to picture the so far works in this research area and enables the identification of gaps at both research question and methodology level for further research.

The digitization of the life has brought complexities associated with addressing digital life after one’s death. This paper aims to investigate the two related issues of the privacy and property of postlife digital assets.

The understanding of digital assets has not been fully unpacked largely due to the current policy complexities in accessing and obtaining digital assets at death. This paper calls critical attention to the importance of respecting user rights in digital environments that currently favor service providers’ interests.

It is argued that there are ethical blind spots when protecting users’ rights, given no ontological difference between a person’s digital beings and physical existence. These derive from the restrictive corporate terms and ambiguous conditions drafted by digital service providers.

Fundamentally, the transition to the big data era, in which the collection, use and dissemination of digital activities became integral part of the ontology, poses new challenges to privacy and property rights after death.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of two types of presentation formats (textual and imagery) involving online restaurant reviews (ORRs). The study examines ORRs on the basis of review usefulness and review enjoyment; the study investigates the effects of the two presentation formats on review usefulness and review enjoyment.

Data from 1,776 reviews were collected from Yelp.com using a Web data-harvesting technique. Hypothesized relations in the model were tested by Tobit regression analysis.

Empirical results show that different formats of ORRs affect review usefulness and review enjoyment in different manners; whereas both attributes of textual format (review length and readability) affect review usefulness, both aspects of imagery format (physical environment images and food and beverage images) are positively related to review enjoyment. However, review length and food and beverage images are the most important factors affecting both review usefulness and review enjoyment. In particular, the relation between the two formats of ORRs and review usefulness is mediated by review enjoyment.

The focus of this study is the two formats of ORRs in terms of dual coding theory and the mediating role of review enjoyment. The findings help online review website organizers manage the operation of various review formats in a proper manner. Managers can effectively select those formats that would achieve the desired effect.

Unlike previous studies on the relation of attributes to online reviews, this study examines the perceptions of ORRs’ usefulness and enjoyment. In addition, this study encompasses diverse ORR factors (review length, review readability, physical environment images, food and beverage images) for a more comprehensive interpretation of ORRs.

This study aims to ascertain whether technological diversification (TD) enhances firm performance and explores the effect of patent portfolio balancing (PPB) on firm financial performance and the moderating role of research and development (R&D) intensity.

This study empirically investigates a panel dataset based on 296 information and communications technology (ICT) small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) over 5 years, using a fixed-effects panel regression with time-lagged and moderating effects. Data are collected from a government survey and a firm and patent database.

The relationship between PPB and return on assets (ROA) is negative, indicating that TD in SMEs adversely affects firm performance. R&D intensity positively moderates the relationship between PPB and ROA, implying that follow-up R&D after creating new patents could weaken the negative relationship between TD and firm performance. This moderating effect only occurs when R&D intensity is sufficiently high, suggesting that high R&D firms could be more successful at diversification.

As TD consumes many resources, managers should set the optimal level of diversification and recognise the need for follow-up R&D for successful diversification.

This study conceptualises a unique theoretical framework for the PPB of ICT SMEs, revealing the moderating role of R&D intensity in changing the negative influence of PPB on firm performance.

This study aims to explore the relationships among antecedents (i.e. quality) and outcomes (i.e. trust, support, theme awareness and extension effect) of satisfaction at the 2013 Osong Cosmetics & Beauty (C&B) Expo held in Korea.

An onsite survey with self-administered questionnaires was administered for this study. A structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was used to analyze the relationships among ten constructs in the research model.

The results indicate that hospitality and product dimensions of quality positively affect satisfaction, satisfaction exerts positive influence on trust and theme awareness, trust performs an important role as a mediator between satisfaction and support and theme awareness significantly mediates satisfaction and extension effect.

This study encourages the Expo’s organizers to manage quality attributes to ensure Expo satisfaction and to consider extension effects of Expo experiences from long-term perspectives. This study also recommends that local governments develop symbolic products with exhibitors to strengthen the association of Expo themes with regions.

The current study highlights the role of quality as an antecedent of satisfaction with the C&B Expo, which has not been well-known despite its crucial role in the industry and the regional economy. It also improves the understanding of the inherent cause–effect relationships among antecedents and outcomes of Expo satisfaction. Therefore, this study provides crucial insights that the C&B Expo could be an effective means to reach target markets and stimulate trust from visitors, which, in turn, would encourage support for the C&B industry and extension effects for C&B products as a whole.