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Considering the increasing significance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) in the corporate world, an exploration of ESG reporting in the hospitality context has received limited attention. Accordingly, based on the stakeholder and institutional theories, this study proposes to reveal the overall and contemporary status of the restaurant industry's ESG practices and further compare the ESG engagements of full-service restaurants and limited-service restaurants. This study collects data from publicly traded restaurant companies' ESG reports and employs automated content analysis based on a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis approach. The findings of this study provide value to the ESG literature and practical implications [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eco-innovation is the most promising way for enterprises to achieve green growth, and its adoption depends largely on executives' choices. Therefore, this study investigates how executives' ecological embeddedness affects the three dimensions of corporate eco-innovation by impacting two forms of executives' environmental awareness. Eco-innovation includes eco-management innovation (EMI), eco-process innovation (EPsI), and eco-product innovation (EPtI). Environmental awareness consists of environmental risk awareness (ERA) and environmental cost–benefit awareness (ECA). Furthermore, this study examines the interrelationships between the two forms of environmental awareness and among the three dimensions of eco-innovation. Data collected from 192 Chinese manufacturing firms were used to test the hypotheses. The results support most of the proposed hypotheses with some exceptions, such as ECA positively affecting EPtI only as a partial mediator between ecological embeddedness and EPtI. Our findings contribute to understanding the antecedents of eco-innovation and complement research on executives' social embeddedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivating employees to engage in pro-environmental behaviours is an essential topic in the tourism and hotel fields. This paper advances this research direction by integrating the mechanisms of cognition and incentives from the externalities/spillovers perspective. This paper argues that we can view the environmental and financial benefits received by hotels and natural environment as positive spillovers from employees' voluntary pro-environmental behaviours. Accordingly, internalization (the subject of positive spillovers cognitively perceives oneness with beneficiaries like hotels and physical environment) and compensation (beneficiaries offer incentives for positive spillovers' subject) are two leading solutions to the positive spillovers issue, which can improve employees' engagement in pro-environmental behaviours. Hence, this paper explores the impact of employees' cognitive internalization (work ethic) and positive incentives from the organization and nature (hotel's environmental benefit sharing and health rewards rooted in employees' ecological embeddedness) on employees' pro-environmental behaviours in the hotel industry. The empirical analysis of a sample of 324 employees working in Chinese luxury hotels suggests that employees' work ethic, hotel's environmental benefit sharing and employees' ecological embeddedness are significantly positively related to employees' pro-environmental behaviours and that the interplay of employees' work ethic and ecological embeddedness significantly and negatively affects employees' pro-environmental behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractPromoting customers’ pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) is crucial for greening the hotel industry. However, customers often hesitate to adopt resource-saving PEBs in public places like hotels due to a "dual positive externality/spillover" problem – extra positive economic spillovers and increased positive environmental spillovers, compared to conducting such behaviors in private households. This study explores habitual PEBs at home and two distinct environmental cognitions associated with key spillover beneficiaries (nature and hotels) to address this challenge and accelerate customers’ PEBs in hotel settings. The rationale is that customers’ habitual PEBs at home can automatically extend to hotels with insensitivity or low sensitivity to positive spillovers; the two beneficiary-linked environmental cognitions (general environmental awareness associated with nature and occasional corporate environmental responsibility attribution [CERA] linked to hotels) can make customers psychologically internalize the positive spillovers of their PEBs at home and hotels to different degrees by changing psychological boundaries between actors and beneficiaries, and/or enable them to realize the intrinsic psychological rewards or incentives (such as a sense of pride or identification) that serve as compensation for the spillovers. Furthermore, this study proposes that habitual PEBs at home mediate between general environmental awareness and PEBs at hotels by bridging the cognition-behavior gap. Moreover, there is a sequential decrease in the effects of habitual PEBs at home, altruistic CERA, and environmental awareness on PEBs at hotels. Empirical evidence from a survey of Chinese hotel guests supports most hypotheses, offering valuable insights for promoting PEBs in the hotel industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of debt is prevalent in the restaurant industry. While there have been numerous studies on restaurant capital structure, this study examines the relationship between firm performance and effective interest rate on debt used by restaurant firms. This study uses a sample of 56 publicly traded U.S. restaurant firms for the years 2012–2014. We examine the relationship between effective interest rates and firm performance as measured by approximate Tobin’s Q, return on assets, and return on equity. We find a significant and positive relationship between effective interest rates and return on equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate proactive environmental strategies (PESs), which are guided by proactive pollution prevention instead of passive pollution control, have attracted much attention from academia and industry in recent years. Thus, many previous studies have examined how manufacturers can be motivated to adopt PESs. Drawing on social embeddedness theory, this study investigates the main effect of executives' political ties (PTs) on PES and the contingent role played by executives' environmental awareness (EA) in this relationship. Considering the light and dark sides of PTs, this study proposes two competing hypotheses regarding the relationship between PTs and PES. Through a moderator analysis, this study further classifies EA into environmental risk awareness (ERA) and environmental cost–benefit awareness (ECA) and argues that these two types of environmental cognition play different roles in the relationship between PTs and PES. Using survey data collected from 167 Chinese manufacturing firms, the empirical analysis results show that executives' PTs are positively and significantly related to corporate PES. This positive relationship is strengthened for firms with executives with high ERA but weakened for firms with executives with high ECA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the influence of mobility on place attachment has received attention in the literature, this relationship varies between groups. Unlike those who move to enjoy their retirement, for example, older migrants arriving in Shenzhen come to the city 'passively,' drawn by the needs of their children. This paper advances understanding of the concept of place attachment by illustrating the relationships between its components. Analysis of interview and questionnaire responses revealed the following relationships between three focal components of place attachment. Place dependence first directly influenced affective attachment and then indirectly affected place identity. Leisure involvement had a positive impact on place dependence and affective attachment but no direct effect on place identity. Residential satisfaction was an antecedent of all three focal dimensions of place attachment. No direct relationship was found between leisure involvement and residential satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical research in hospitality marketing must be carefully conducted and calibrated so as to ensure reproducibility of results when the same set of experiments are repeated at a later point in time. Even when careful controls are put in place, the effects being demonstrated in psychological and pharmaceutical research have been known to diminish considerably over multiple replications, a phenomenon known as the decline effect. In order to improve the specification of parameters in hospitality marketing research, we propose a framework called CID, which essentially states that a study can be anchored in the context of a specific customer segment (C), industry vertical (I), and determinants of consumer behavior (D) in the context being studied. To illustrate the CID concept, our study addresses the influence of college students' (C) personality traits (D) on their perception of satisfaction, as well as their evaluation of various relational benefits offered in casual dining restaurants (I). A quantitative survey was conducted to measure college students' personality traits and level of satisfaction with restaurants and structural equation modeling was used to validate hypotheses relating various personality traits to satisfaction. The results indicate that two kinds of relational benefits, confidence in the abilities of the service provider and social benefits offered during the service experience, enhance customer satisfaction for college students, but surprisingly, special treatment benefits extended during service could negatively impact satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although geographical diversification is an emerging issue and has been considered a key competitive strategy in the casino industry, an examination of the effects of geographical diversification on casino firms’ risks and firm performances has been sparse. Thus, this study investigates the impact of the degree of geographical diversification on risk measured by the standard deviation of daily stock returns and firm performance measured by Tobin's q of publicly traded US casino firms. The results of this study show the trade-off between risk and firm performance associated with the degree of geographical diversification of sampled casino firms. While geographical diversification can reduce risk, at the same time it can diminish firm performance. The findings suggest that when implementing a geographical diversification strategy, managers of casino firms need more elaborate decision making, while they need to develop devices and management capabilities to mitigate problems that deter firm performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The study's first objective is to discuss the potential of mobile information services' enhancement of the restaurant industry's revenues, and second, to provide practical implications for restaurant managers who wish to capitalize on the opportunities mobile information services offer. According to the survey findings, managers can expect that about a half of their young customers may consider participating in offered services; potential users of restaurants' electronic information prefer receiving discounts, incentive information, and electronic coupons, and prefer not to receive gourmet menu information, pictures, or videos. Potential users of the mobile information services are somewhat reluctant to provide personal information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the health halo and horn effects in the context of two fast food brands commonly associated with healthy and unhealthy food (i.e., Subway and McDonald's). Health halo is consumers' tendency to overestimate the healthiness of certain food categories or items based on a single claim, whereas health horn is the tendency to underestimate it. Specifically, we investigated the moderating effects of nutritional information disclosure and dietary restraint on consumers' behavioral intentions. Two items from the McDonald's and Subway menus each served as stimuli. They represented health halo confirmation (Roast Chicken sandwich) or disconfirmation (Italian Spicy sandwich) and health horn confirmation (Big Mac burger) or disconfirmation (McSpicy Cajun Burger). This study employed a 2 (nutritional information: present vs. absent) × 4 (menu item type: a health halo or horn associated with Subway or McDonald's menu items with favorable and unfavorable nutritional profiles) and 2 (dietary restraint: restrained eaters vs. unrestrained eaters) × 4 (menu item type: a health halo or horn associated with Subway or McDonald's menu items with favorable and unfavorable nutritional profiles) mixed factorial design. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions (nutritional information: present vs. absent) and presented with all four menu items. There was a decrease in behavioral intentions toward all menu items except the one representing health horn disconfirmation. In particular, behavioral intentions were most substantially weakened for the item that entailed a health halo disconfirmation (Italian Spicy sandwich). The findings not only delineate the different practices companies adopt but also underscore the importance of nutritional information disclosure in helping consumers make healthier food choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study empirically investigates the influence of corporate governance structure on the firm's financial performance of the alcohol beverage industry in the United States. Secondary financial data were collected for the U.S.-based alcohol beverage firms. Bivariate correlation and fixed-effects model analyses were performed to examine the proposed impacts. A two-stage least-squares (2SLS) regression analysis was subsequently performed to examine the endogeneity. The analysis outcomes support the finding that certain corporate governance attributes significantly affect the financial performance of alcohol beverage firms. Theoretically, the findings reaffirmed the financial impact of industry-specific corporate governance structures (i.e., stewardship versus agency theory, and integrated traits of hospitality, retail, and distribution of the alcohol industry). Managerial implications are suggested in terms of the alcohol industry's specific corporate governance models, such as the balance among common stock ownership, executive tenure, board-size increase, and levels of control by outside board members. As a relevant sector (e.g., festival) of the hospitality and tourism industry, corporate governance of the alcohol beverage industry has never been empirically nor theoretically studied. The governance attributes in this study are compared between stewardship and agency theory and provide a better understanding of alcohol beverage industry firms' corporate governance structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the acknowledged importance of investigating the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP) within a single industry, very few studies have examined this relationship in the context of the sport industry. Using charitable giving data as a proxy of CSR, this study investigated if CSR would affect CFP of professional sport teams within the four major U.S. leagues. Although the positive CSR-CFP relationship was hypothesized based on instrumental stakeholder theory, CSR was found to have non-positive effects on CFR These results are still notable since they may highlight the importance of the connectedness between CSR and team operations and the awareness of CSR activity among stakeholders in leveraging CSR benefits. Overall, through the use of improved methodology, the current study furthers the understanding of the CSR-CFP relationship among the U.S. professional teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study develops three hypotheses regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the context of the hotel industry. First, the study examines a ranking of consumers’ perceived importance of the four CSR dimensions proposed by Carroll’s hierarchy of CSR in 1991, expecting the following orders: philanthropic, ethical, legal, and economic dimensions, from most to least important. Second, the study investigates the relationship between consumers’ perceived importance of and their overall support for CSR. Third, the study introduces the type of hotel (for example, economy, mid-scale, and upscale) as a moderator to provide a better explanation of the relationship between consumers’ perceived importance of the CSR dimensions and support for CSR. Contributions to the CSR literature in general, and also specifically relating to the hotel context, and managerial implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manipulation of earnings by publicly traded firms is a well-known phenomenon and the subject of considerable attention in both academic and trade circles. Despite widespread attention to this topic in financial literature, it has received scant attention in the restaurant industry. This research assesses whether earnings manipulation in the publicly traded restaurant firms are being rewarded by the capital markets. We have an a priori expectation that firms that do not manipulate earnings will have higher returns. However, our results indicate a significant and positive relationship between earnings manipulation indicators and stock price increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments often turn to subsidies to boost enterprises' innovation activities, which gives subsidized enterprises room for allocating the subsidies among different innovation activities. Taking insights from institutional logic theory, this paper proposes that enterprises exhibit different subsidy-allocation behaviors between nongreen and green innovations and that the positive effect of subsidies on nongreen innovation is greater than that on green innovation due to the double-spillover problem that is pertinent to green innovation. Further, this paper argues that innovation intensity varies from privately-owned enterprises to local and central state-owned enterprises and that the underlying reason for this phenomenon is that enterprises with different ownership structures behave with different institutional logics, face different environmental and innovation pressures, and hold different innovative resource and capability endowments. We test these hypotheses by using longitudinal data (2010–2015) on 175 publicly-traded firms in the pharmaceutical industry in China. Overall, the results support most of the hypotheses. • The effects of governmental subsidies on green and nongreen innovations were examined. • The moderating role of ownership types between innovation subsidies and green/nongreen innovation was examined. • Five-year panel data from 175 publicly traded Chinese pharmaceutical firms were used to test the hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]