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This article evaluates the impact of non‐purveyor‐instructed wine training on the waitstaffs of restaurants. The instruction consisted of product knowledge, sales training and service techniques. Specific questions of this study include: 1. What factors contribute to the amount of wines sold by the waitstaff? 2. What effect does wine instruction have on the sales of wine in restaurants? 3. What effect does wine instruction have on the participants' product knowledge, selling skills and service techniques? 4. What are the attitudes of the food servers toward wine instruction? 5. Is a wine instruction programme cost‐effective for a restaurateur?

The purpose of this article is to understand how academics in management deal with the concept of generation in the workplace. We begin by conducting an interdisciplinary literature analysis, thereby elaborating a conceptual framework concerning generational diversity. This framework consists of four levels of analysis (society, career, organisation and occupation) and three dimensions (age, cohort and event/period). We then conduct a meta-analysis using this conceptual framework to analyse papers from the management field. The results from this analysis reveal the existence of a diversity of generational approaches, which focus on the dimensions of age and cohort on a societal level. Four factors seem to explain these results: the recent de-synchronisation of generational dimensions and levels, the novelty of theoretical models, the amplification of stereotypes by mass media and the methodologies employed by researchers. In sum, this article contributes to a more realistic view of generational diversity in the workplace for both academics and practitioners.

Wine as a research topic continues to address a plethora of diverse contexts. In consideration of this scope and abundance of wine literature, this study aims to provide guidance for future meaningful contributions to this existing body of wine knowledge through a comprehensive scholarly review.

A total of 22 wine business, hospitality and tourism journals were selected and used to identify 739 refereed articles addressing wine-related topics over a 26-year period from 1990 to 2015. This was segmented using five wine research time frames, which were then separately investigated using content analysis and keyword network analysis.

Results support the importance for continued refinement of certain research areas to add understanding to wine research. In particular, the topics of marketing and tourism pertaining to wine research have fragmented into much more specialized sub-segments over this 26-year period.

Limitations include generalizability of findings because of the study’s use of 22 journals, along with the selected 26-year period. Future research should examine other time periods using other publications in peripheral and in non-related areas to seek topics potentially and inadvertently overlooked by this process. Significant topics and trends regarding wine research were identified and classified according to time periods. Information has been provided for future directions and new research agendas.

Based upon an examination of time periods segmented by half-decades, keyword network analysis was used to explore wine research trends. Using keyword network analytics, this method for identifying networks between key words produced findings that have brought the literature regarding wine research to a current status allowing academics to gain insights into potential direction for future research needs.

In this chapter, we assume the following: (1) the root cause of most organizational problems is culture and leadership, (2) executives seldom want to deal with these root causes, (3) because life is uncertain, organizational change is an emergent process, (4) most change processes unfold by reconstructing social reality, (5) the change process is inherently relational, (6) effective change efforts are enhanced by increasing the virtue of the actors, (7) change is embedded in the learning that flows from high-quality relationships, and (8) change agents may have to transcend conventional, economic exchange norms in order to demonstrate integrity and to build trust and openness. Drawing on the field of positive organizational scholarship, we focus on the change agent. We review the literature on self-change and offer several paths for becoming a positive leader.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between internal marketing practices, employee job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention in the foodservice industry.

The target population was employees who were currently working at a restaurant in the USA. All respondents were recruited from different states for the generalization of the study results. A confirmatory factor analysis validated the measurement model, and subsequently, structural equation modeling tested the proposed model.

Three internal marketing practices – vision, development and rewards – were good indicators for predicting employee job satisfaction, and two internal marketing practices – development and rewards – in addition to job satisfaction were significant predictors for employee organizational commitment. Finally, the findings indicated that job satisfaction and affective commitment had a significant impact on lowering employee turnover intention.

In further research, more internal marketing practices – such as employee motivation, customer orientation, sharing information, employee empowerment – can be added to the model to increase employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Foodservice operators should focus on internal marketing practices to have satisfied employees who, in turn, are more likely to deliver high service quality to customers.

This study has not only extended the influential scope of the internal marketing theory to organizational commitment, but has also proposed the antecedents of organizational commitment (i.e. internal marketing practices and employee job satisfaction) and clarified the relationships among them.

The purpose of this study is threefold: to use an innovative metafrontier‐to‐data‐envelopment analysis (MDEA) model incorporating multiple outputs and inputs – including the item revenue, gross profit, food costs, time‐driven labor costs, and other operating expenses (OOEs) – to distinguish four quadrants based on efficiency and profit to offer different strategies to the restaurateur under study; to compare the proficiency levels of the different meal categories of the à la carte and combo set menus using the metatechnology ratio (MTR) via the MDEA; and to use slack‐based analyses with simulation to improve the financial performance of a teppanyaki‐style restaurant.

Six months of point of sale (POS) data are obtained from a teppanyaki‐style restaurant. The proposed inputs are categorized into total food costs, total labor cost, the number of processes, and OOEs. Two outputs (total revenue and gross profit) are used to assess the efficiency of the menu items. The MTR is used to differentiate the proficiency level of the heterogeneous meal categories and to create four quadrants based on the efficiency index and financial performance.

The MTR is lower for the combo set category than for the à la carte category. Four quadrants are obtained based on the efficiency and financial performance to provide further menu suggestions. The MDEA analysis yields menu suggestions that could enhance the overall efficiency and profitability of the menu items. A simulation using these two models is conducted and shows that the restaurant profitability would be 22 percent greater using the MDEA than using the menu engineering model.

Because there are no publicly listed teppanyaki‐style restaurants in Taiwan and it is difficult to find the same menu in different restaurants, this study consists of only a single restaurant, and the results may not be generalizable to other types of restaurants.

This paper contributes to menu analysis by establishing an efficiency index and using financial performance as criteria for determining which menu items to improve in a teppanyaki‐style restaurant. The MTR of the metafrontier model can differentiate the proficiency level of the heterogeneous categories, such as à la carte and combo set menus. This paper offers empirical results pertaining to the classification of menu items and describes a slack‐based analysis for improving menu items.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the role individual fantastical thinking (FT) plays in increasing the returns of value co-production by using technology-based services (TBSs).

This research combines 3 laboratory experimental studies with a survey, collecting data from 373 participants in total. An ad hoc customization Web-based tool – TBS - was created for the purpose of the studies.

FT increases the outcomes of value co-production via a chain reaction, as follows: FT increases the perceived ease of value-production; perceived ease of value coproduction increases enjoyment; enjoyment increases a broad range of key outcome variables of value co-production, namely, attitude and purchase intention toward the co-designed products; the number of interactions and time of interaction in the value co-production process, which measure its efficiency; expert perceived quality and novelty of the co-designed products; ordinary perceived quality and novelty, satisfaction and willingness to pay for the co-designed products.

The procedure to activate FT requires relatively long training for participants, which might reduce the applicability of the procedure in other settings.

This study suggests a way to prevent failures in value co-production at the design stage mediated by TBSs. The proposed framework supports a decrease in task complexity for the consumer, thus reducing the stress experienced by participants. As a side effect, this study presents a useful framework to better highlight the benefits and costs associated with value co-production, thus making the return on investment measurement easier to perform.

The relevance of the findings to existing marketing literature lies in the advancement of knowledge related to value co-production processes by introducing the role of FT, a cognitive process designed specifically for consumer research and marketing.

This study aims to explore the effect of two digital nudging technologies that is overt digital nudging (ODN) and covert digital nudging (CDN), on consumers’ choices of nudged options in the context of online customization systems (OCS).

This paper designed a 2 (ODN: yes/no) by 2 (CDN: yes/no) full factor between-subject lab experiment in the context of online travel package customization. This paper collected and analyzed the number of nudged options (the intermediate options) of choices among consumers in these four scenarios.

ODN and CDN have positive effects on consumers’ choices of nudged options in online customization (OC). In addition, mixed nudge (a combination of ODN and CDN) has a more significant effect on consumers’ choices of nudged options in OC than using CDN only.

This study focused only on the choice behavior of consumers in the customization context and did not analyze their attitude change. The present study used vendor recommendation as the proxy variable of ODN and default option as the proxy variable of CDN. A future study could explore other instances of ODN and CDN.

This study explores the effects of digital nudging technologies in the context of OCS. The study provides clear guidance for customization vendors on whether to use digital nudging tools and their combinations, and which tools should be preferred.

Vendors can adopt digital nudging technology to persuade consumers to choose nudged options. This nudging effect can make consumers’ choices predictable and less uncertain, thus adding profits for vendors.

First, the study focuses on the impact of digital nudging on consumers’ choices and enriches the understanding of the impact of customization system design on consumers’ choices. Second, this paper put forward a new classification method for digital nudging and proposed, respectively, the effect mechanisms on consumers’ customization choices. Third, this study explores the effect of combining multiple nudging tools in OC context on consumers’ choices, which deepens the understanding of the interactive effects of different types of nudging tools.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on online sales configurators (SCs), also known as mass-customization toolkits, which enable consumers to self-customize their product solutions online. The paper aims to provide new insights into which characteristics of an online SC increase the consumer-perceived benefits of possessing a mass-customized product.

Previous studies on mass customization (MC), sales configuration, and learning psychology are used to develop the research hypotheses, which are tested by analyzing data from 675 configuration experiences from a convenience sample of potential consumers using 31 real online SCs for laptops/notebooks, economy cars, and sport shoes/sneakers.

The paper finds support for the hypotheses that SCs with higher flexible-navigation, focused-navigation, and easy-comparison capabilities enhance not only the traditionally considered utilitarian benefit (UT), but also the consumer-perceived uniqueness benefit (UN) and self-expressiveness (SE) benefit (SE). Furthermore, consistent with the study’s hypotheses, SCs with higher benefit-cost communication and user-friendly product-space description capabilities are found to improve UT. The hypotheses that these two capabilities enhance UN and SE, however, are not supported. Post-hoc analyses suggest that the examined SCs are generally UT-centered and need improvement of their ability to communicate the UN and the SE a consumer could derive from the purchase of his/her configured product.

While prior research has primarily been concerned with conceptually arguing and empirically showing that uniqueness and self-expressiveness are two additional sources of consumer value in business-to-consumer MC, this is the first empirical study that offers insights into which characteristics online SCs should have in order to draw from these two value sources.