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The authors review the small but growing literature linking cognitive biases to food safety problems and foodborne illness outbreaks.

The authors conducted a search of peer-reviewed articles utilizing empirical methods published since the year 2000 focusing on food safety or foodborne illnesses/outbreaks and cognitive biases.

The authors find that most research is conducted at the consumer side of the food system, with few studies examining the potential problems that can arise in the production and processing of food. The authors also observe that most research tends to focus on a few cognitive biases.

This is the most comprehensive study to date examining insights from the literature on cognitive biases and the related discipline of behavioral economics to the specific problem of foodborne illness outbreaks and food safety problems.

The objective is to determine if consumer preferences for grocery purchasing are impacted by the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and whether these preferences differ by demographic and psychographic characteristics.

The authors conduct an online discrete choice experiment (DCE) with 900 U.S. consumers to assess grocery shopping preferences under various scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e. decreasing, constant and increasing cases). The attribute of interest is the purchasing method (i.e. in-store purchase, in-store pickup, curbside pickup and home delivery) with minimum order requirements, time windows and fees as secondary attributes. Heterogeneity in individual-level willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates for the main attribute is analyzed by means of mixed logit and quantile regression techniques.

The mixed logit model reveals heterogeneity in WTP estimates for grocery purchasing methods across participants. According to estimates from quantile regressions, the heterogeneity is partly explained by the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the home delivery purchasing method is less preferred when the number of cases is decreasing. The results also show that consumer preferences for grocery shopping methods are affected more by psychographic characteristics than demographic characteristics. Consumers who comply with COVID-19 directives (e.g. wear face coverings) have stronger preferences for curbside pickup and home delivery, particularly at the tails of the WTP distributions.

Although there is much data on food consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic at the aggregate level, there are few analyses of grocery shopping preferences at the individual level. The study represents a first attempt to relate individuals' demographic and psychographic characteristics to their grocery shopping preferences during the COVID-19 pandemic, thus yielding numerous recommendations in terms of consumer segmentation.

The purpose of this study is to examine hotel managers’ perspectives on the promotion process of hotel employees based on the promoted employee’s gender, their perceived organizational justice and perceived gender discrimination against women. The moderating role of anti-male bias beliefs in the promotion process was examined.

The study adopted an experimental design (female vs male promoted) with a sample of 87 hotel managers. Data were analyzed using mediation and moderated mediation analyses.

The results indicated procedural and distributed justice mediates the effect of gender of the promoted employee on perceived gender discrimination against women. It was found that perceptions of anti-male bias moderate the relationship between gender of the promoted employee and distributed justice, demonstrating higher levels of perceived fairness within the organization when a female is promoted, especially when low levels of anti-male bias exist.

Many organizations may refrain from offering more promotional opportunities to women for fear of reverse discrimination. This research demonstrates that the organization will be perceived as fairer if it offers more opportunities to women, should create a stronger organizational culture and higher financial performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to address the gender inequity in promotional opportunities of hotel employees and demonstrate the overall benefit of combating such inequality. This is the first time that anti-male bias has been addressed in the hospitality context, suggesting the need for more research on reverse discrimination, especially in promotional situations.