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This study aimed to investigate the impact of the board composition on financial performance in the restaurant industry from a stewardship theory perspective.

The composition of board was measured as the ratio of inside and outside directors. Firm performance was operationalized as return on assets (operational performance) and Tobin’s q (market-based performance). Panel regression analysis tested the research hypotheses.

Using data from 25 restaurant firms from 2007 to 2013, the study found an insignificant impact of board composition on operational performance. However, a higher proportion of inside board members increases market-based performance. A higher proportion of outside board members decreases market-based performance.

Supporting the basic tenets of stewardship theory, restaurant companies may consider changing the current practice of having a super-majority of outside directors and increase the inside board members. Because inside board member have greater experience with the organization and the industry, they have a better understanding of the status quo and are better able to respond to opportunities and threats in the environment.

Considering the scarcity of research on how the board composition affects firm performance in the hospitality context, the present study is a forerunner in its exploration of the impact of inside and outside directors on restaurant firms’ performance.

Based on the agency theory and risk management perspective, this study aims to examine the relationship between CEOs’ pay schemes and corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in the restaurant industry. Specifically, the authors propose that CEOs with a higher proportion of equity-based compensation (EBC), which induces a greater propensity for risk-taking, are prone to indulge less in CSR. In addition, the authors investigate how institutional ownership moderates the proposed main relationship.

This study performs two-way fixed-effects models and clustered standard errors to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results of the panel analysis show a significant negative effect of CEOs’ EBC on CSR. Also, the authors found a significant positive moderating effect of institutional ownership between CEOs’ EBC and CSR.

Given the lack of empirical studies that incorporate both agency theory and the risk management perspective, and given the importance of understanding the determinants of restaurant firms’ CSR activities, this study expands upon the existing literature by showing the relationship between CEOs’ compensation schemes and restaurant firms’ CSR activities.

This study aims to examine how geographic diversification affects firms’ risk by introducing the franchising strategy as a moderator.

The panel regression analysis was conducted with a sample of US restaurant firms. Specifically, a two-way random (or fixed) effects model clustered by firm was used to test hypotheses.

Findings show that geographic diversification does not significantly affect restaurant firms’ risk. However, franchising aggravates the negative effect of geographic diversification on restaurant firms’ risk, which contradicts the traditional theories of franchising.

The results are expected to contribute to the diversification literature in the hospitality management by providing in-depth evidence for the effects of geographic diversification strategies on firms’ risk. Specifically, the study provides relevant theories for explaining the effect of geographic diversification in the restaurant context by examining franchising, a prominent strategy in the restaurant industry.

The results encourage restaurant firms to improve their managerial capability to react to changes in a geographically wider scope of markets and develop franchising contracts specifically to prevent misbehavior and moral hazard on the part of franchisees.

Considering the lack of research on the effect of geographic diversification on restaurant firms’ risk, this study examines not only the link between geographic diversification and firms’ risk but also a contingent factor, franchising.

Through the lens of the upper echelons theory, this study aims to investigate how generalist chief executive officers (CEOs) affect social novelty. This paper also explores the moderating effect of CEO power on the relationship between generalist CEOs and social novelty.

This study uses generalized estimating equation models and robust standard errors by firm to correct for autoregressive disturbances within clusters in the data.

Restaurant firms with generalist CEOs are likely to feature gender diversity and member change in the top management structure. This positive effect of a generalist CEO on top management team’s (TMT) structure is enhanced by the CEO’s power over board members.

This study presents important evidence that CEOs’ characteristics largely influence the gender heterogeneity and dynamic of the TMT, which in turn promote and shape innovative initiatives and actions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first to investigate the effect of CEOs’ human capital on the way in which the TMT is composed and characterized in the restaurant sector.