•Engaging in CSR activities can increase stock returns of hospitality firms during the COVID-19 pandemic.•The positive effect of CSR on stock returns takes place in five days.•Community-related CSR ...has a stronger and quicker effect on stock returns than CSR toward customers and employees.•Publicly traded hospitality firms can invest in CSR during a pandemic to protect their firm value.•Hospitality firms’ historical CSR performance influences the effectiveness of CSR investment during the pandemic.
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a significant decline in the stock market worldwide, and hospitality companies are experiencing serious financial problems. Protecting and preserving firm value is a critical way of helping hospitality companies survive the crisis. The influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on firm value has been widely investigated. However, little is known about the stock price movement following CSR activity adoption during an industrial crisis. Using event study and difference-in-difference method, this study reveals that engaging in CSR activities can increase the stock returns and stakeholder attention of hospitality firms during the pandemic. Community-related CSR has a stronger and more immediate effect on stock returns than customer- and employee-related CSR. Results also indicate that hospitality firms that pursue improved stock market performance during a pandemic can invest in CSR to protect communities, customers, and employees for attracting further stakeholder attention.
Tourists' environmentally responsible behavior (TERB) is crucial to the destination's natural environment. Drawing on self-congruity theory, this study extends the existing literature on the ...underlying mechanism of TERB from the perspective of self-image congruity. Specifically, this study investigates the effects of actual and ideal self-image congruity on TERB by addressing the mediating role of destination psychological ownership (DPO) and the moderating role of endorsement of the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP). With 424 valid questionnaires collected from domestic tourists visiting Xiamen in China, this study finds that DPO fully mediates the positive effect of actual self-image congruity on TERB, whereas partially mediates the positive effect of ideal self-image congruity on TERB. Furthermore, the findings of this study suggest that endorsement of the NEP moderates the effects of actual and ideal self-image congruity and DPO on TERB, such that the relationships are stronger when endorsement of the NEP is high rather than low. Theoretically, this study makes a valuable addition to the TERB literature by empirically examining the roles of self-image congruity, DPO, and endorsement of the NEP. Practically, some helpful implications are proposed to stimulate TERB.
In this study, a quasi-experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of two significant cultural values, face and guanxi, on Chinese customers' behavioral responses to hospitality service ...failures. Hotel check-in process failure was used as the service encounter scenario. Based on the results of a multi-group structural equation modeling analysis, the study identified that concern for face can increase the intention to spread negative word-of-mouth information about service process failure experiences. In contrast, the existence of guanxi between hotels and customers can reduce the intention to terminate transactions or post negative online reviews. In addition, guanxi can moderate the influence that concern for face has on direct complaint intention. When guanxi exists, concern for face motivates customers to complain directly. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed based on the findings.
The traditional marketing may not bring advantage to small cities with low awareness and limited budget in competition with renowned destinations. To provide a new tool for small cities in this ...situation, this study introduces the concept of tourist behavioral investment and elaborated how it influences tourist decisions. By synthesizing the literature on behavioral investment and tourist decision-making, a conceptual framework is proposed that depicts the tourist behavioral investment at three levels of decisions (i.e. trip level, destination level, and service level). Implications of the proposed framework on small city marketing are discussed that should be informative to stimulating empirical investigations.
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the moderating effect of in-group social presence on the relationship between face concern and hotel customers’ behavioral responses to service failures.
...Design/methodology/approach
Participants were randomly assigned to two conditions: in-group presence vs control group. They read a scenario describing a hotel check-in service failure and answered questions regarding their behavioral intention after the failure and level of face concern.
Findings
The results indicate that face concern is positively associated with the intention to voice a complaint, to spread negative word-of-mouth and to post negative online reviews. While the impact of face concern on complaint intention became insignificant in the presence of an in-group, its effect on posting negative online reviews was enhanced when surrounded by an in-group.
Research limitations/implications
It addresses the long-lasting debate about the association between face concern and various types of behavioral responses to service failure. Practically, extra attention should be paid to the process quality when serving face concerned customers, particularly when they are accompanied by important others.
Originality/value
This study enriches the literature on cultural effects by identifying the situational effect of face concern on customers’ service failure responses. A model that describes the situational effect of face concern on different types of behavioral intention has been built.
The current study investigates promotional techniques to improve the sales of prepaid service. Drawing on mental accounting theory, this research examines the impacts of two promotional factors, ...namely incentive type and promotion timing, on consumers' intentions to purchase prepaid services. The results of studies reveal that a discount (vs. a bonus) is more effective in enhancing consumers' purchase intentions, given higher associated levels of perceived incentive value. Moreover, offering the promotion after (vs. before) payment leads to stronger purchase intention due to lower perceived cost. However, the advantage of a discount over a bonus is attenuated when the promotion is offered after (but not before) payment.
•Prepaid service promotional techniques are investigated.•Discount is more effective than bonus to drive up prepaid service sales.•Offering the deal after (vs. before) check payment is more effective in promotion.•Advantage of discount is mitigated when the deal is offered after (vs. before) check payment.
Although consumers’ evaluation and adoption of robotic services have been widely investigated, the effectiveness of robotic sales promotion in the hospitality industry remains unclear. Utilizing the ...benefit congruency framework, this study proposes that robotic (human) promotion is more suitable for utilitarian (hedonic) benefits. Based on an experiment with and field data provided by a Chinese restaurant chain, this study demonstrates that robots perform better than humans in monetary promotion (e.g., price discounts) that offers utilitarian benefits but not in nonmonetary promotion (e.g., extra dish) associated with hedonic benefits. Moreover, an anthropomorphic language style can reduce the performance difference between robots and humans in nonmonetary promotion. Accordingly, this study’s findings inform hospitality marketers that humans and robots should be in a cooperative rather than substitutive relationship in sales promotion.
•Robots perform better than humans in monetary promotion that offers utilitarian benefits.•Humans perform better than robots in nonmonetary promotion that offers hedonic benefits.•Anthropomorphic language style reduces the performance difference between robots and humans in nonmonetary promotion.•Collaboration between human and nonhuman agents is encouraged in terms of hospitality sales promotion.
•Destination environment may function as the back stage for tourists to relieve their daily self-presentational concerns.•Rural destinations perform better than urban destinations in reducing urban ...residents’ self-presentational concerns.•The advantage of rural destinations becomes weaker as tourists stay longer at the destinations.•The function of back stage reflects tourists’ psychological reactions to novel socio-physical environments.
Tourists are known to behave differently from their home environment, a phenomenon that has been well interpreted by sociologists in early conceptual works. By investigating tourists’ self-presentational concerns, this study attempts to provide a psychological explanation of this phenomenon, as well as empirical evidence to test it in the context of rural tourism. Through a mixed-design questionnaire survey, the study shows that destination environment may function as the back stage for tourists to do away with the social constraints at home and relieve their daily self-presentational concerns. Specifically, rural destinations perform better than urban destinations in reducing urban residents’ self-presentational concerns but this advantage becomes weaker as tourists stay longer at the destinations.
The study examines tourist self-presentational concern between home and destination environments with a sociopsychological lens by delineating the role of genders in cross-cultural settings. It is ...found that tourists of different genders and from different cultures exhibit varying degree of self-presentational concern at destination vs. home, conforming to the social role theory. Specifically, female tourists experience more significant relief of self-presentational concern than their male counterparts while away from home in a Western cultural context such as the United States. However, such difference between female and male tourists is not as significant in an Eastern society such as China. The findings result in the proposition of a model of cross-cultural gender role in tourist self-presentation. The study concludes with discussions of its theoretical and practical contributions as well as implications for future research.
This study attempts to investigate the destination image of Japan perceived by Social Reform Generation of China and explore the role of Japanese consumer products in image formation. Through the ...analysis of textual data from in-depth interviews, present study identified three categories of cognitive image of Japan. They are Diversity of Offerings, Cultural Uniqueness and Advanced Infrastructure. The study proposed a framework that conceptualizes the role of consumer products in destination image formation. Japanese tangible and cultural consumer products have direct and induced impact on three components of destination image. Theoretical and practical contribution of the study is discussed based on the framework.
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