Dr Bora Kim

In the airline industry, where information asymmetry prevails, airlines employ various strategies to maximise profitability. Signalling theory offers a valuable framework for understanding how airlines communicate the quality of their offerings to consumers through pricing signals. This theory suggests that signallers (airlines) use pricing to indicate the quality of their products or services to receivers (consumers), who then use these signals to inform their purchasing decisions (Connelly et al., 2011). Airlines often differentiate themselves by signalling through market share, pricing, and brand perception, with pricing being a particularly potent indicator of quality (Jeng, 2016; Jiang et al., 2014). Elevated prices for premium products can effectively signal superior quality, providing consumers with confidence in their more expensive purchasing choices (Bagwell, 1992). Traditional economic theories suggest that a higher market share often acts as a quality signal, indicating to consumers that many others have favoured a company's products or services, thereby implying superior quality (Caminal & Vives, 1996). Bhattacharya et al. (2022) further empirically demonstrates that firms with higher market share can deliver more credible signals, enabling them to set higher prices and consequently enhance profitability. This study enriches signalling theory by incorporating relative price, which reflects the price differences between products of varying quality. This pricing framework segments consumers and signals quality differences between service tiers. Hernandez (2011) contributes to this expanded understanding by demonstrating that competition influences pricing strategies. Their findings indicate that the optimal price ratio between products of varying quality levels widens with increased competition intensity. This suggests that in competitive markets, a larger price differential is used effectively to signal superior quality, offering a competitive advantage. However, the effectiveness of price signals is contingent on market structure. While price differentiation can reinforce consumer perceptions of quality, Basdeo et al. (2006) argue that when multiple firms engage in similar signalling strategies, the clarity of any single price signal may be diminished. In such cases, firms must establish sufficiently pronounced price differentiation to ensure their signals remain distinct and effective in influencing consumer perceptions. This study bridges an empirical gap by employing the relative price to analyse how pricing strategies between business and economy classes serve as signals of quality and impact airline profitability. Relative price quantifies the deviation of business and economy class pricing of an airline from the average fare on specific routes, providing a nuanced measure of how airlines use price differentiation as a mechanism to convey service quality. At each airline level, relative price is a strategy characterised by setting higher business class fares to maximise revenue, while offering lower economy class fares to boost sales. As most routes offer two or three distinct quality tiers, such as business and economy class, this market structure is particularly well-suited for such an investigation. Furthermore, competitive routes represent high-demand market where multiple airlines with varying characteristics operate, while non-competitive routes tend to have lower demand. Consequently, the extent to which market share signals quality may vary across markets. It is more likely to reflect quality in competitive routes, while in less competitive markets, where consumer choice is limited, it may instead reflect a lack of alternatives rather than superior service. By analysing the impact of relative price signals on airline revenues across different market contexts using real-world airline data, this study contributes to signalling theory by exploring these dynamics in a practical, real-world setting.

Online travel communities, with their diverse resource-based activities, serve as platforms for distinct user groups to interact and co-create unique forms of value. This research investigates the mechanisms of value co-creation in an online travel community context. By using netnography and semi-structured interviews with 32 online community users and employees, it identifies eight types of value co-creators and examines their engaged activities and interactions. The findings reveal that diverse engagement behaviors, coupled with the interconnection between online and offline interactions, facilitate the value co-creation process in an online travel community. This study advances the current tourism literature by developing a typology of value co-creators in online travel communities and sheds light on how value is co-created by multi-actors through both online and offline activities and interactions. Tourism organizations can utilize these findings to foster engagement and co-create value with and for stakeholders in online travel communities. Also available in Chinese. See Supplemental Material for details.

While most businesses actively adopt a data-driven approach for revenue management decisions, understanding how air travellers perceive and behave differently to pricing strategies is essential for yielding optimal financial outcomes. This study analyses the loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity mechanisms of prospect theory in economy and business cabin classes. With rich longitudinal airfares, regression models and revenue data (15,868 observations from the top-10 aviation routes in the world) from 2014 to 2019, this study finds that lower-(higher-)than-expected airfares have a positive (negative) impact on revenue. When the effect of loss-coded and gain-coded tickets were compared, the extent to which passengers avoided losses (vs. welcomed gains) had a greater impact on revenue, supporting that loss aversion applies to the airline revenue, especially for business passengers. This study contributes to the further refinement of prospect theory by showing that the loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity mechanisms manifest differently in each cabin class.

Domestic 'Food waste' is influenced by a complex interplay of contextual and cultural factors and is often preventable. Despite being the largest source of food waste, it remains under-researched and food disposal decisions , even less so. The study employed a realistic scenario-based approach within a questionnaire administered to a nationally representative sample of United Kingdom consumers (n = 2046). It investigated possible influences on food disposal decisions for a variety of foods, including optimistic bias, place attachment, trust in government and food involvement. Results showed that a large proportion of food may be thrown away, including food that, in principle, would be safe to eat. The multifaceted nature of food waste decisions was unveiled, including the significant role of less-studied predictors, including optimistic bias, which 60 % of respondents exhibited. These people were significantly (up to three times) more likely to throw some foods away. Ongoing confusion over the meaning of durability indicators was also shown, suggesting that food waste might result from ill-informed food disposal decisions in the home, vindicating the removal of best-before dates. The need for behaviour-change communications to appropriately benchmark levels of personal food waste was identified, so that people recognise their role in waste production and, thus, can contribute to the United Nations Sustainability Development Goal 12.3 of Responsible Consumption and Production.

This study examines how institutional ownership concentration, quantified by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), influences the financial consequences of CSR initiatives within the U.S. restaurant industry. This study distinguishes between CSR activities that are integral to core operations (operation-related CSR) and those that are not (non-operation-related CSR), analyzing their impacts on both market-based (ROA) and accounting-based performance (Tobin's q) measures. Employing panel regression analysis, findings reveal that higher institutional ownership concentration enhances the alignment of operation-related CSR with improved financial performance. Conversely, the institutional ownership concentration does not significantly moderate the impact of non-operation-related CSR on both performance measures. Given the restaurant industry's high consumer visibility and operational reliance on social and environmental factors, this study fills gaps in CSR literature by offering insights for aligning CSR strategies with institutional owners' expectations. The results provide actionable guidance for policymakers and industry practitioners to optimize organizational outcomes from CSR activities.

Sustainable healthy diets are crucial for achieving multiple United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. However, tourism research has often examined patterns of (un)sustainable and (un)healthy food consumption separately, lacking a comprehensive, holistic analysis. This highlights the need to identify and explore behavioral interventions that reinforce sustainable healthy food consumption among tourists. This study conducted a systematic review of 87 studies on sustainable healthy food consumption in tourism, following the PRISMA guidelines. The analysis was informed by the Behavior Change Wheel with its COM-B model (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, and Behavior). The findings indicate that interventions related to sustainable healthy food in tourism are underdeveloped, focusing on behavioral diagnosis without linking it to informed intervention development. Most studies emphasize motivational factors, often overlooking the capability and opportunity components. Future research should more effectively incorporate non-cognitive and sociological theories in designing behavioral interventions. At a destination and national level, key policy interventions include developing indicators of sustainable healthy food for destinations, creating inventories of vegan-friendly cuisines, and implementing regulatory schemes to advance best practices. Locally, efforts should concentrate on designing menus that highlight sustainable healthy options, providing tailored information on their benefits, and enhancing service quality to support sustainable healthy food consumption.

This study investigates the influence of employing persons with disabilities (PWD) in hotels on consumer behavior, with an emphasis on word of mouth and repurchase intention. The research delves into the underlying mechanisms behind these effects and examines potential boundary conditions using hotel characteristics. Utilizing two between-subject design experiments, 1443 responses were analyzed using the propensity score weighting scheme and multigroup analysis. Results reveal that PWD employment in the hotel industry has a positive impact on word of mouth and repurchase intention through the moral decision-making process, specifically progressing from moral judgement to moral obligation, and perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR). These effects remain consistent across different hotel star ratings and whether chain or independent. The findings enhance the literature on equality, diversity and inclusion by identifying the underlying mechanism of how hotel guests respond to PWD employment in the hotel industry, drawing insights from moral psychology and perceived CSR. •Persons with disabilities (PWD) employment in hotels boosts word of mouth and repurchase intent.•Moral decision-making mediates PWD employment's impact on behavior.•Perceived CSR is pivotal in shaping guest responses to PWD employment.•Effects of PWD employment are consistent across all hotel types.•Study bridges gaps using insights from moral psychology and perceived CSR.

In 2021/2022, approximately 16 million people in the UK, or 24% of the population, experienced a disability. This significant figure highlights the societal impact, with roughly one in four individuals facing varying degrees of impairment. As of February 2023, 6.3 million people in Great Britain were claiming extra cost disability benefits, representing 9 to 10% of the population, according to Commons Library Research Briefings. Notably, nearly 25% of individuals with disabilities are of working age (See Fig. 1). This demographic change emphasisesthe importance of recognising the potential of this substantial market segment. It underscores the urgent need for discussions on social inclusion, particularly focusing on strategies to integrate people with disabilities into the workforce. In light of this, it is critical for sectors such as hospitality and tourism to actively participate in dialogues aboutsocial inclusion and to strive to create environmentsthat are inclusive and cater to the diverse needs of individuals with disabilities.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) are receiving considerable attention in the travel and tourism workplace and the overall sector. At a global level, a wide range of agreements and pledges exist to ensure the advancement towards EDI in the sector (Ferguson, 2018) (i.e., 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development). Despite global commitments, there is a substantive disconnection between global policy and practices of equality, and its absence across the tourism sector (Ferguson, 2018). Consequently, progress is primarily gradual and inconsistent across the travel and tourism industry. There are several societal, cultural and industry barriers that contribute to the continued inequality and inequity across the industry. An overarching barrier or challenge is the variation across the travel and tourism sector about how to define the terms and address EDI issues. While there are examples of good industry practices, there has been a general lack of successful and sustainable implementation of EDI initiatives, agendas and programmes. The aim of the ESRC IAA Project was to identify key challenges and barriers inhibiting our understanding of EDI in travel and tourism to foster inclusive organisational cultures, achieve representation and progression of diverse groups (i.e., ethnicity, gender, age, sexuality etc.) across all areas of management in the industry. The EDI impact workshops (co-moderated by the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Surrey, & the Travel Foundation) in London held on October 14th and 21st 2022 explored the issues through three tasks (See Fig. 1). Collectively, the tasks contributed to building a greater understanding of different dimensions of EDI and create a flexible and usable toolkit that meets the different contexts and needs of stakeholders. The findings of the workshops contributed to the design of the EDI toolkit of strategies and interventions may be used to support and guide organisations and policy makers toward achieving the EDI agenda across the sector.

With the ever-increasing growth in the number of US multinational restaurant firms, the need for a better understanding of CSR initiatives enacted in those countries is actively gaining in importance. A firm's CSR is influenced by the cultural context of a given society and, according to the upper echelons theory, the characteristics of its corporate executives. However, there was no empirical evidence on the moderating role of CEO narcissism, a common CEO characteristic in many cases, on the national culture-CSR relationship. This study finds that a firm with more properties in high-UA societies has less involvement in CSR and that CEO narcissism positively moderates the relationship. The results provide a meaningful empirical addition to the upper echelons literature by demonstrating how CEO traits can serve as a boundary condition in examining the impact of uncertainty avoidance, as a contextual factor, on CSR, as an organizational outcome, in the restaurant industry. •We examine the effect of uncertainty avoidance on corporate social responsibility in the restaurant industry.•We find a negative relationship between uncertainty avoidance and corporate social responsibility.•We find a positive moderating effect of CEO narcissism on the relationship between uncertainty avoidance and CSR.•Findings provide an insight into the multinational restaurant firm's development of localized CSR portfolios.

The purpose of this study is to examine a moderating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the relationship between internationalization and systematic risk in the US restaurant industry context. While much of the strategic and financial management literature have devoted substantial attention to systematic risk associated with internationalization and CSR, separately, this study will add value to the literature by investigating the interaction effect of the two strategies. In addition, this study further expands the hypothesis development and the analysis by dividing aggregate CSR activities into positive CSR activities (PCSR) and negative CSR activities (NCSR) to investigate different moderating effects of the two CSR dimensions with theoretical and literature backgrounds of the real option theory, the cue-diagnosticity, and the degree of intimacy in terms of the positivity effect.

Purpose Considering the increasing significance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the corporate world and the mixed findings of the financial implication of CSR investment in the financial economics literature, the purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between (im)material CSR investment and firm performance and the moderating role of airline type and economic conditions based on the stakeholder theory and institutional pressure argument. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a two-way random-effects model by firm and year along with using clustering coefficient estimation by firm to control for the possibility of inflated standard errors because of autocorrelation across years within a given firm. Findings This study finds that both material and immaterial CSR initiatives do not directly influence firm performance, but airline type and economic conditions do moderate the relationship. In specific, the study found that airlines' investments in material CSR initiatives show an indifferent effect on firm performance between low-cost and full-service carriers and also between non-recessionary and recessionary periods. On the other hand, investments in immaterial CSR initiatives present different impacts on firm performance between low-cost and full-service carriers and between non-recessionary and recessionary periods. In details, the effect is more negative for low-cost carriers and recessionary periods than full-service carriers and non-recessionary periods. Originality/value This is the first empirical investigation of materiality for the airline industry in relation to firm performance using the industry-specific Materiality Map developed by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board. Further, this study incorporates two additional moderators (airline type and economic conditions) to enhance the understanding of the proposed relationships between (im)material CSR and firm performance.

The purpose of the study is to determine whether vaccination rates and the use of franchising have an impact on the volatility of stock returns in the restaurant industry. Based on the agency and resource scarcity theories, this study first examines the effect of vaccinations against COVID-19 on a restaurant firm’s stock return volatilities caused by uncertainty during a crisis. The study further investigates whether firm-specific vaccination rates more greatly reduce stock return volatilities as the degree of franchising increases. With a two-way fixed-effects model, the study finds that the firm-specific vaccination rate reduces volatilities of the firm’s stock returns. However, the study also finds an opposite direction to the moderating effect of franchising in that the more a restaurant firm franchises, the further the risk-reduction effect of its vaccination rate diminishes. Theoretical and practical implications along with limitations are discussed.

CSR and sustainability engagement is growing rapidly with ever-increasing attention. Accordingly, restaurant stakeholders now demand restaurant companies to disclose relevant ESG information (i.e., materiality) to analyze risks and opportunities that ESG factors bring to firms over the long term. As established in stakeholder theory, restaurant materiality is shaped by a firm's key stakeholders and also by the industry's distinguishing factor, franchising. However, despite their importance and timeliness, materiality and franchising remain largely absent from scholarly discussion in the field of tourism and hospitality. Using a novel industry-specific materiality classification of sustainability initiatives, here we show that franchising positively moderates the impact of investing in immaterial sustainability on firm performance. The results provide early empirical validation of stakeholder theory in relation to restaurant materiality and franchising, and show the impact of allocating a firm's resources to material and immaterial sustainability issues on firm performance in the restaurant context. •This study categorizes CSR into material and immaterial sustainability activity.•This study examines the effect of material and immaterial CSR on restaurant firm performance.•This study investigates the moderating role of franchising.•Franchising moderates the relationship between immaterial sustainability investment and firm performance.

Cultural tightness-looseness represents the degree to which a particular culture possesses strong behavioral norms, and the degree to which members of that culture are likely to sanction individuals who deviate from those norms. While tightness-looseness has been quantified for a large and growing number of countries around the world, there are many countries where a tightness-looseness score has yet to be determined, thus impeding the inclusion of those countries in cross-cultural research with a tightness-looseness focus. There is a dearth of research on cultural tightness-looseness in South America in particular. We report results from a national survey of 1,265 Ecuadorian residents which provided quantification of the relatively tight culture of Ecuador.

In response to the increasing interest in and importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the role of leadership in the restaurant industry, there is a strong need to better understand how restaurant firms engage in CSR initiatives. Based upon the upper echelons perspective, this study examines how generalist and specialist CEO characteristics are manifested in firms CSR profiles and how franchising and internationalization strategies moderate this CEO-CSR relationship. Results from the panel analysis show that generalist CEOs of restaurant firms are more likely to engage in CSR activities that accommodate a wide range of stakeholders. In addition, franchising and internationalization strategies positively moderate the relationship between generalist CEOs and CSR actions, encompassing various stakeholder groups.

Political conflicts between countries can disrupt normal functioning of the airline industry, leading to uncertainty and affecting airline demand (Dwyer et al., 2013). Empirical evidence shows that political conflicts have a dampening effect on airline demand (Zhang & Zhang, 2017; Laufer, 2018), and can results in a significant decrease in passenger traffic (Fernandes & Pacheco, 2017). Airlines respond to political conflicts by implementing various coping strategies, such as route diversification, code-sharing agreements, and fleet renewal (Zuidberg & de Wit, 2020). For example, airlines may shift their focus to alternative destinations or establish partnerships with other carriers to expand their route options when facing reduced demand due to political instability (Button et al., 2016; Corbet et al., 2019). Understanding the impact of growing political conflicts on airline demand and management strategies is crucial as airlines serve as the primary transportation mode for domestic and international tourists. However, research has largely overlooked the differential impact on distinct airline business models, such as full-service carriers (FSCs) and low-cost carriers (LCCs). This research note aims to address this gap by examining the effects of the China-Korea political conflict, specifically the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), on FSCs and LCCs operating in South Korea in terms of flight numbers and seat capacity.

In response to the unprecedented pandemic in recent history, COVID-19 vaccination mandates in the U.S. caused significant changes and disruption in hospitality operations and customer experiences. The primary goal of this study is to examine whether and how customer incivility induced by the COVID-19 vaccine mandate in the U.S. affects employees’ behavioral outcomes (i.e., stress spread between employees and turnover intention) via psychological mechanisms (i.e., stress and negative emotion) and when the relationship is moderated by personal (employee prosocial motivation) and organizational (supervisor support) characteristics. Findings show that customer incivility increases employee turnover intention as well as interpersonal conflicts at work via increased stress and negative emotions. These relationships are weakened when prosocial motivation of employees and the level of supervisor support is high. Findings expand the occupational stress model by specifically incorporating the context of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate and further provide implications for restaurant managers and policy makers. •Customer incivility increases both employee stress and negative emotions•Customer incivility indirectly increases employee turnover intention and stress spread at work•Employee prosocial motivation attenuates the impact of customer incivility on employee emotions and behavior•Supervisor support mitigates the impact of customer incivility on employee emotions and behavior

This article uses the dataset of tourist satisfaction index of Hong Kong to investigate the impact of culture difference on the gap between tourists’ expectations and their perceptions of actual service performance. When the demographic profile and travel experience are controlled, it is found that small culture difference (Hong Kong and China) has positive impact on Expectation-Performance Gap (EPG); whereas negative relationship with EPG is identified for large culture difference (Hong Kong and western countries). The practical implication for tourism managers in Hong Kong is that service providers should manage EPG in accordance with the aspects of the culture difference between the destination and the source markets.

Some business leaders, just like some artists and politicians, acquire celebrity status and become more visible as star CEOs through increased media attention. However, to date, little has been known about how such celebrity status affects the individual and their organizations. Based on identity control theory and celebrity role constraints logic in the context of upper echelons perspective, this study provides initial empirical evidence on how restaurant CEOs’ celebrity affects managerial risk-taking actions and how CEO-specific and firm-specific factors moderate this relationship. The results indicate that the main effect of CEO celebrity on risk-taking is insignificant. Yet, the dynamic is swayed positively by a CEO’s background, especially when CEOs are outsiders; these celebrity CEOs demonstrate a propensity for bolder strategies. Moreover, as a restaurant firm’s franchising quotient escalates, a star CEO exhibits amplified risk tendencies. The results provide theoretical and practical implications for restaurant corporate governance and shareholders.

In today’s media-saturated world, intense media attention propels some CEOs to stardom. This social escalation of CEOs to celebrities inherently affects their actions and strategic choices, and thus the performance of their host organizations. Despite the importance of understanding upper echelons—especially celebrity CEOs in the tourism and hospitality industry—researchers have devoted little attention to the implications of CEO celebrity. As a result, whether CEO celebrity serves as a company asset or liability remained largely unknown. Based on the upper echelons theory and CEOs’ behavioral constraints, this study uncovers and provides initial empirical evidence on how a CEO’s celebrity affects firm performance, with a detailed examination of the restaurant industry. Further, we show that industry dynamism, an important external environmental factor, plays a positive moderating role such that the positive effect of CEO celebrity on firm performance becomes weaker as industry dynamism increases.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and irresponsibility (CSI) can influence employee voice behavior in online review platforms. This study utilizes online employee review (OER), builds upon ethical climate theory, and hypothesizes the independent and joint effects of CSR and CSI on two aspects of employee voice – OER volume and OER valence. Using novel OER data of US tourism and hospitality firms, we perform a panel data regression with industry and year fixed effects. The results indicate that firm CSR engagement increases both the volume and valence of OER, whereas CSI accelerates (attenuates) the positive CSR effect on OER volume (valence). These findings can help tourism and hospitality firms implement CSR strategies for enhancing employees’ word of mouth from both volume and valence perspectives.