Impact of customer incivility on restaurant employee stress spread and turnover: COVID-19 vaccination mandate.

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.

The effect of vaccination during the COVID-19 for the restaurant industry.

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.

How does Chinese central environmental inspection affect corporate green innovation? The moderating effect of bargaining intentions.

Central environmental inspection (CEI) is an environmental governance tool launched by the Chinese central government in recent years. The aim of CEI is to enhance the implementation of environmental regulations by going beyond supervising enterprises to supervise local governments. Previous studies have shown that CEI is beneficial for improving corporate environmental performance, but the relationship between CEI and the environmental behavior of companies achieving a high level of environmental performance is not clear. Drawing on principal-agent theory, this study explains how CEI influences corporate green innovation by changing the incentive structures of local governments and firms for adopting different environmental strategies. Moreover, two boundary conditions between CEI and corporate green innovation are identified: political connections and industry competition. The boundary conditions affect the individual and collective bargaining intentions of companies to comply with environmental regulations. We test our hypotheses by using a sample of 1152 publicly traded industrial firms in China from 2014 to 2018. Our findings show that CEI is conducive to corporate green innovation. This positive effect is strengthened in politically connected firms or firms in highly monopolized industries with lower bargaining intentions. Our study contributes to a better understanding of the effect of CEI on micro (firm-level) environmental behaviors and the antecedents of corporate green innovation.

Food service industry in the era of COVID-19: trends and research implications.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a new type of respiratory disease that has been announced as a pandemic. The COVID-19 outbreak has changed the way we live. It has also changed the food service industry. This study aimed to identify trends in the food and food service industry after the COVID-19 outbreak and suggest research themes induced by industry trends. This study investigated the industry and academic information on the food and food service industry and societal trends resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak. The most noticeable changes in the food industry include the explosive increase in home meal replacement, meal-kit consumption, online orders, take-out, and drive-through. The adoption of technologies, including robots and artificial intelligence, has also been noted. Such industry trends are discussed in this paper from a research perspective, including consumer, employee, and organizational strategy perspectives. This study reviews the changes in the food service industry after COVID-19 and the implications that these changes have rendered to academia. The paper concludes with future expectations that would come in the era of COVID-19.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from the U.S. restaurant industry.

The current study examines how the effect of COVID-19 on U.S. restaurant firms' stock returns varies according to the firms' pre-pandemic characteristics by employing three firm-level dimensions (financial conditions, corporate strategies, and ownership structure). Employing 795 firm-year observations obtained from annual reports and other databases, this study found that restaurant firms with past characteristics of larger size, more leverage, more cash flows, less ROA, and more internationalization are more resilient to stock declines reacting to COVID-19 than otherwise similar firms. Whereas, dividend, franchising, institutional ownership, and managerial ownership did not show any significant moderating effect on the relationship between COVID-19 and stock returns. This study sheds light on the research topic by providing insights into drivers of restaurant firm's stock returns during the COVID-19 shock. Future studies can employ the variables and method used in the current study to extend the understanding of the issue.

Which brand should be more nervous about nutritional information disclosure: McDonald's or Subway?

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.

The impact of insider managerial ownership on corporate performance of Taiwanese tourist hotels.

This study examines the impact of insider managerial ownership on financial performance of publicly traded tourist hotels in Taiwan. Insider managerial shareholding (IMS) includes two different classes of owners: managers and directors (i.e., managers' shareholding [MAS] plus directors' shareholding [DIRS]). The indicators of financial performance under consideration are return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), stock return (SR), and Tobin's Q. In addition to analyzing total insider managerial ownership (IMS), the study splits IMS into two components (MAS and DIRS) and examines each of them, separately. Subsequently, panel regression tests examine the effects of IMS, MAS, and DIRS on financial performance of Taiwanese tourist hotels. Test results suggest that IMS explains ROA, ROE and Tobin's Q, but not SR. Further, compared to MAS, DIRS has a more significant impact on hotel performance. Specifically, an inverted U-shape represents the effects of IMS and DIRS on hotel performance (ROA, ROE and Tobin's Q), indicating that both IMS and DIRS have a significantly positive impact on hotel performance up to an optimal point (supporting the convergence-of-interests hypothesis). Further, when IMS and DIRS are greater than their corresponding optimal points, these two factors can significantly deteriorate hotel performance (supporting the entrenchment hypothesis).