Browsing by Author "Singal, Manisha"
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- Airbnb’s effect on hotel sales growth [Summary]Blal, Inès; Singal, Manisha; Templin, Jonathan (Virginia Tech, 2018-07)Disruption of existing industries by peer-to-peer sharing economy platforms, like Airbnb, has received extensive media attention primarily regarding the regulatory and the social aspects of the sharing economy. In this paper, we examine the substitution and complementary effects of Airbnb supply on hotel sales performance patterns in San Francisco, the birthplace of Airbnb. Our results, based on a mixed-model analysis using a saturated, unstructured covariance matrix, show that overall hotel RevPAR is unrelated to total Airbnb supply. Interestingly however, in certain segments, RevPAR is affected by the average price of Airbnb listings. More importantly, hotel sales performance is impacted by Airbnb customer reviews, which points to nuanced and contextual complementary and substitution effects. We outline suggestions for future research as well as practical implications for hotel firms operating in similar markets where Airbnb has high penetration rates.
- The Booking Window Evolution and its Impact on Hotel Revenue Management ForecastingWebb, Timothy Dayton (Virginia Tech, 2018-01-05)Travel booking behavior has changed substantially over the past two decades. The emergence of new technology and online intermediaries has provided travelers with the flexibility to book up until the date of stay. This has created a fast-paced, dynamic booking environment that disrupts traditional revenue management strategies focused on pricing and allocating rooms based on the time of purchase. The study explores the joint effects of technology and the economy on booking window lead times. It also evaluates a range of forecasting techniques and the importance of utilizing the booking curve for forecasting in dynamic booking environments.
- The Business Case for CSR in the Hospitality ContextRhou, Yinyoung (Virginia Tech, 2019-01-18)In this dissertation, including three papers, I examine the business case for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the hospitality industry. The first paper provides a systematic review of the business case for CSR based on 170 articles published in leading hospitality journals. The review paper serves as a literature review of this dissertation, leading to the second and third papers. In the second paper, I examine CSR as a strategic tool to offset corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR) in the hospitality industry. Findings indicate sector differences within the hospitality industry. The third paper examines corporate philanthropy, focusing on the notion of strategic philanthropy. Results indicate the predominance of strategic philanthropy especially in hospitality companies, compared to companies in other industries. Findings of the dissertation as a whole suggest the need for hospitality-specific business case for CSR. In practical terms, this dissertation provides better informed decisions for hospitality mangers in terms of using CSR as a corporate strategy to achieve competitive advantages in the highly competitive industry.
- Corporate Governance and Strategic Behavior: A Study of Acquisitions and CEO Compensation Practices of Publicly-Owned and Family-Controlled Firms in S&P 500Singal, Manisha (Virginia Tech, 2008-04-08)Recent research has suggested that interest alignment, i.e., the degree to which members of an organization are motivated to behave in line with organizational goals, is a source of competitive advantage that can generate rents for the firm (Gottschlag and Zollo, 2007). Drawing on agency theory, this dissertation tests whether the interest alignment premise manifests itself differently in the strategic behavior of family-controlled firms when compared to their nonfamily peers. In particular, for firms in the S&P 500, I evaluate the results of two important strategic policies; mergers and acquisitions, as well as CEO compensation practices. In studying acquisitions made by family and nonfamily firms in the S&P 500 index from 1992-2006, I find that family firms are more careful when embarking on actions leading to mergers than non-family firms, as evidenced by their selection of smaller targets and targets who are in related businesses. I also find that there is a preponderance of cash purchases by family firms that does not vary with market movements and that completion times for merger transactions are shorter than for non family firms. The care and concern with which family-controlled firms choose their "mates" translates into higher stock returns when compared with non-family firms. Overall, I believe that family-controlled firms derive value from their merger and acquisition strategy. With regard to CEO compensation practices, I find that family firms provide strong incentives to the CEO for superior performance but pay significantly lower than nonfamily firms in terms of both salary and stock-based pay. The pay-for-performance sensitivity between annual stock returns and total compensation is significantly greater for family firms in general, and for family CEOs when compared with compensation of CEOs in nonfamily firms. The pay-for-performance sensitivity is in turn positively related to firm performance, suggesting that firms with greater pay-for-performance sensitivity (family controlled firms) also perform better. The analyses in my thesis thus illustrate that family-controlled firms and non-family firms in the S&P 500 differ in their strategic decision-making. It would be fair to say that family firms have longer investment horizons and give deliberate thought to expending resources whether for acquisitions or for CEO pay, and may suffer lower agency costs than nonfamily firms due to family governance (and public monitoring) which may lead to their relative superior performance. This dissertation finds that each acquisition made by a family controlled firm generates an extra return of 0.50% when compared with a nonfamily firm, and family controlled firms earn 0.50% every year directly attributable to pay-for-performance sensitivity. The study thus underlines and reiterates the importance of instilling the long-term view in the management of all firms, lowering agency costs, and aligning the interests of managers with those of stockholders for superior financial performance
- Customer Perceptions of Restaurant Cleanliness: A Cross Cultural StudyYoo, Seung Ah (Virginia Tech, 2012-07-09)What is a clean restaurant in customers' viewpoints? Restaurant cleanliness is considered one of the most significant conditions when customers evaluate overall restaurant quality or decide their levels of satisfaction. However, there have been few studies of perceptions of restaurant cleanliness in customers' eyes. Previous studies were found to use inconsistent concepts of restaurant cleanliness when evaluating restaurant cleanliness. For example, some measurement scale of restaurant quality or customer satisfaction includes only items related to a restaurant's interior appearance to measure the restaurant cleanliness. Some researchers have also included items related to server's appearance. In other studies, overall images of a restaurant were used to evaluate its cleanliness. This study attempts to investigate the customers' perceptions of restaurant cleanliness. Understanding what customers consider when they evaluate a restaurant's cleanliness can be beneficial for hospitality managers who can use the information to increase their restaurant's quality and to satisfy their customers. In addition, this study was conducted with two different cultural groups of customers: Westerners and Asians. Understanding how different cultures perceive restaurant cleanliness can help hospitality managers who plan to expand their business in the global market. The results of this study indicated that the items of restroom personal hygiene, restroom appearance and server behavior all have a positive relationship with customers' restaurant quality evaluations. The level of importance of restaurant cleanliness dimensions was found to be similar between the Western and Asian samples. The server's behavior, restroom appearance and signage were found to be the most important dimensions for both groups. However, restroom personal hygiene was found to be the only dimension ranked differently by the two groups in the study. Westerners weighed the restroom personal hygiene as more important than did Asian respondents. Asian groups were found to have higher expectations for overall restaurant cleanliness dimensions than Western groups.
- Disruptor Recognition and Market Value of Incumbent Firms: Airbnb and the Lodging IndustryBianco, Simone; Zach, Florian J.; Singal, Manisha (Sage, 2022-04-03)Although Airbnb debuted in 2008, incumbent lodging firms did not fully recognize it as a legitimate competitor for several years. However, as Airbnb made inroads into the accommodation business, hotel firms and their investors started to take notice and to legitimize its disruptive role. In this paper, we investigate investors’ awareness of the disruptor Airbnb as a competitor of incumbent lodging firms. Specifically, we assess the effect of awareness on incumbent hotel management and hotel property owner firms. Employing an event study methodology, our analysis finds that Airbnb performance milestones negatively affect incumbents’ market value. This research contributes to our understanding of the role played by investors and financial analysts in shaping competitive markets by legitimizing an industry disruptor and by spurring competitive action among incumbent firms.
- Dual-Branded Hotels: Resource-based entry strategies in agglomerated marketsBianco, Simone; Singal, Manisha; Zach, Florian J.; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2023-04)Despite the growing importance of dual-branded hotels, research on this trend is lacking. This study investigates the effect of resource-based entry strategies for dual-branded hotels vis-à-vis incumbent market competition on performance. Using a hierarchical linear model, we found that best performance is achieved by dual-branded hotels that pursue a diversification strategy by entering the market with one brand above and one brand below the mode class of the market. Dual-branded hotels can thus achieve competitive advantage by exploiting superior financial resources and tourism destinations are able to gain monetary advantage from resources employed by dual-branded hotels. This study extends current research on dual-branded hotels by investigating entry strategies and contributes to the resource-based view literature by investigating dual-brands’ resource exploitation and resource spillovers in agglomerated markets.
- An Examination of the Link between RM Implementation Strategies and PerformanceAltin, Mehmet (Virginia Tech, 2015-03-19)Since its foundation, revenue management techniques on aggregate have added billions of dollars to many firms' bottom lines, while using existing products or services and existing sets of consumers (Cross, Higbie, and Cross, 2010). The recent rapid changes in the business environment have forced firms to adopt strategies that will fit their overall strategies to aid in their survival and success (Pechlaner and Sauerwein, 2002). As a result of the modern reality of business, academic literature has not yet been able to address many important considerations. An example is RM implementation strategies and the performance outcomes as a result of these decisions. This study investigated the advantages and disadvantages of implementation of RM strategies; in-house, centralized, and outsourced. This was followed by the make or buy decision, specifically focusing on Transaction Cost Economics and the Resource Based View to investigate antecedents of outsourcing intention, and if and how these different strategies affect hotel properties' performance. Data were collected using an online survey of lodging properties located in the U.S. in October 2014. A total of 374 usable responses for outsourcing intention study and 591 usable responses for the performance study were collected. Factor analysis, hierarchical multiple regression, repeated measures ANOVA, regression analysis, and pairwise comparison analysis were the statistical analyses used in the study. The results found that specificity is significant and negatively associated with outsourcing intention. In addition, uncertainty is significant and positively associated with outsourcing intention as proposed. The moderating effect of organizational capability is significant and changes from base model to final model with the moderator being statistically significant. The findings of regression and a pairwise comparison test confirmed the difference in strategy choice on performance for US hotels, giving us insights into the importance of selecting the strategy that is optimal for a given property.
- From extra to Extraordinary: An academic and practical exploration of Extraordinary (E) Pro Environmental Behavior (PEB) in the hotel industryZizka, Laura; Dias, Alvaro; Ho, Jo Ann; Bernard, Shaniel; Singal, Manisha (Elsevier, 2024-05)Over the past decades, organizations have become increasingly involved with environmental concerns to mitigate the negative consequences of their actions on the community. The hospitality industry, and especially hotels, aware of its effects, has taken steps to increase positive environmental behavior, attitudes, and initiatives, to lessen the harm to the greater community in which they are located. Encouraging employees in their pro-environmental behavior (PEB) within the organization is a long-standing initiative and well-cited in the literature. In this paper, we posit the need to extend the literature to an “extraordinary” (E) version of PEB i.e. extraordinary pro-environmental behavior via employee engagement. Our study examines traditional PEB through a systematic literature review deriving from eleven top-ranked journals for 79 articles, identifying key concepts through Leximancer. In addition, two workshops with international hospitality professionals were held to complement findings from the literature. Our contribution lies in developing a model that academics and hotel stakeholders can use to move beyond PEB to our proposition of E-PEB as well as address the practitioner-academia gap by comparing what the literature posits with the reality of the hotel industry.
- Intangible Assets Valuation in the Hospitality IndustryDu, Ruixue (Virginia Tech, 2013-04-25)Market value of firms and book value of firms are rarely the same. The difference, which is attributed to unrecorded or unrecognized intangible assets, has increased significantly since the 1970s. The issue of appropriately valuing these intangible assets, however, still remains unresolved. The purpose of this study is to address this lack of understanding of valuing intangible assets in the hospitality industry. Five intangible asset investments: Research and Development, Training, Advertising, Labor, Pension, and one business model, Franchising, are chosen as the valuation constructs in this study based on previous research in the hospitality industry. The valuation models for the casual dining restaurant industry and the quick service restaurant industry are compared. The sample of this study includes 13 casual dining restaurant firms and 12 quick service restaurant firms. Compustat North America is the primary data source for this study. The annual data for casual dining restaurant firms from 1980 to 2011 is collected from this database. There are 238 firm-years in total. Two firm-years are excluded due to systematic missing values, and 15 firm-years are excluded due to missing share price information. Thus, the final count of data points for casual dining restaurant firms usable for analysis purposes is 221. The annual data for quick service restaurant firms from 1980 to 2011 is also collected from the Compustat North America database. There are 251 firm-years in total. Eight firm-years are excluded due to systematic missing values, and 47 firm-years are excluded due to missing share price information. Thus, the final count of data points for quick service restaurant firms usable for analysis purposes is 196. Pearson correlation and multivariate analyses are performed to answer the four research questions in this study. Two hypotheses are supported while one hypothesis is not supported and one hypothesis remains unanswered due to Multicollinearity issues identified in multiple regression models. The results of this study show that 1) R&D, training, advertising, labor and pension are all important valuation constructs in the hospitality industry, and 2) there are some differences, however, between casual dining restaurant firms and quick service restaurant firms. This study fills the gap in the current literature by providing a quantitative method to value intangible assets in the hospitality industry that uses the valuation constructs identified in previous hospitality research. The practical implications of this study will provide managers in the hospitality industry with helpful insights for strategic decision making, specifically in regards to research and development, advertising and employee compensation.
- The investigation of the effect of corporate governance on firm's credit ratings in the hospitality industryGuo, Keni (Virginia Tech, 2015-06-19)Investment in hospitality firms is perceived to be riskier than investments in other types of industries. Based on literature linking good corporate governance to lower default risks and higher credit ratings, this quantitative study is designed to identify the effects of corporate governance on credit ratings in the hospitality industry. After exploring the various factors influencing the characteristics of corporate governance, as well as the specific risks for capital financing in hospitality firms, this research provides empirical evidence to show that hospitality firms with stronger shareholder influence tend to have higher credit ratings. In a related finding, this investigation confirms that hospitality stakeholders are able to evaluate their potential risks by determining a firm's credit ratings and can protect their long-term interest by increasing their power versus management in the corporate governance of the firm.
- The Journey from Supplier to End Customer: Exploring the Dynamics of Supply Chain and Distribution Channels in the Hospitality IndustryRaad, James Elias (Virginia Tech, 2023-05-31)The hospitality industry is characterized by a close interdependence between retailers and suppliers. Retailers depend on suppliers to provide the necessary goods and services to operate effectively, while suppliers rely on retailers to buy and market their products. With intense competition in the industry, effective supplier selection has become a critical asset for companies. Traditional supply chain management approaches that focus solely on increasing economic value are insufficient in the face of growing pressure for socially and environmentally responsible business practices. As a result, new criteria, including environmental, social, political, and customer satisfaction considerations, have been added to the pre-existing factors in supplier selection. While restaurants strive to select suppliers who meet their quality, social, and environmental standards, these suppliers may still face internal issues such as food safety, ethical malpractice, environmental concerns, and human rights issues. When such issues arise, it is unclear whether customers hold restaurants accountable for the mistakes of their suppliers, even when the restaurant has not been directly involved in these issues. The first part of this dissertation aims to explore how consumers associate negative news about supplier food quality and practices with the restaurants they patronize. By doing so, this study contributes to a better understanding of the indirect link between supplier issues and restaurant market value. On another note, Online Travel Agents (OTAs) play an important intermediary role in the two-sided travel distribution market. A critical factor that enhances a firm's competitive advantage is innovation. Yet, the analysis of innovation in the OTA context is scarce. The main objective of the second part of this dissertation is to fill this gap and examine the effect of OTA innovations on firm performance. We analyze the effect of two-sided market specific innovations (same-side and cross-side) on performance and contribute to the literature by expanding the theoretical understanding of innovations. We find that producer-to-consumer innovations have a greater effect on OTA performance than producer-to-producer and consumer-to-consumer innovations. A fundamental managerial implication is that exchange management is an area to be enhanced when innovating in travel market distribution. Lastly, with the unprecedented increase in food delivery demand due to the new consumption habits of individuals, delivery pricing is an issue to consider keeping consumers happy and continuously demanding this service. Research in economics and in service marketing have described how consumers do recognize the "free" under a product's price differently. This pricing approach is based upon that widespread notion that providing free goods or services to customers adds value to them and so increases their desire to buy. In the last part of the dissertation, we study the Zero price model on a multicomponent product with Food being the first component (where its price is always positive) and the delivery service as the second (where its price will eventually hit the zero-price tag). Elaborating more on previous studies and filling their gaps, we will be dividing the zero-price model into three scenarios: The true free scenario, the true free scenario with different discounts, and the fake-free scenario as each one is expected to yield different consumer behaviors in the process, but all should act similarly when the price hits the "free" tag.
- Leveraging knowledge via location proximity among hotels and short-term leasesBianco, Simone; Singal, Manisha; Zach, Florian J. (Elsevier, 2024-02-28)
- Mindful Choices: Unveiling the Driving Factors behind Consumers' Intention to Reduce Single-Use Plastic UtensilsShin, Ju Yeon; Kim, Eojina; Jang, Yoon Jung; Singal, Manisha (MDPI, 2024-01-13)As consumers increasingly access takeaway food from restaurants, the importance of reducing the use of single-use plastic has emerged. To investigate this complex process, the current study applies the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the Norm Activation Model (NAM) to discover how this theory and model leads to discovering customers’ behavioral intentions. Data were collected from 436 respondents and reflect people aged 18 years or older who accessed an online food ordering platform within the three months prior to the study data collection. Results present that customers’ attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, awareness of consequences, and personal norms regarding reducing single-use plastic utensils influence consumers’ behavioral intentions. These findings are meaningful to academia in providing insights into the link between consumers’ behavior and reducing the use of single-use plastic utensils in the restaurant context. In addition, this study provides marketing strategies and implications for improving consumers’ awareness of the use of single-use plastic utensils in retail food services.
- The relationship between perceived organizational climate and hotel expatriate adjustmentMin, Hyounae (Virginia Tech, 2011-05-03)As more companies enter the international market, the need for skilled expatriate managers will continue to grow. This demand for skilled expatriate managers is particularly evident when high international standards of service are desired for serving guests from disparate locations. Although expatriates perform an important role with the success of the home company heavily dependent on them, limited research has been conducted to examine organizational-level factors regarding expatriate adjustment. This research provides a contribution to the existing literature by investigating the relationship between perceived organizational climate and adjustment. Four dimensions of perceived organizational climate of the open system model were derived from the literature: commitment to learning, shared vision, open-mindedness, and innovativeness. To measure expatriate adjustment, three facets of adjustment [(i) general, (ii) interactional, and (iii) work adjustment,] are utilized to test the influence of the perceived organizational climate. A self-administrated online survey was distributed to expatriate hotel managers via email and 71 usable responses were received. Results were analyzed using multiple regression analysis and Baron and Kenny's (1986) procedure. The results found in this study indicate that the overall perceived organizational climate of the open system model significantly influences the adjustment of expatriate hotel managers. The perceived organizational climate dimension of open-mindedness, however, is the only significant predictor of the general, interactional, and work adjustment of expatriate hotel managers. This study also reveals that the perceived organizational climate mediates the relationship between expatriate training and the adjustment of expatriate hotel managers.
- A Study of Resource-Based Market Entry Strategies in the Hotel IndustryBianco, Simone (Virginia Tech, 2023-05-17)The hospitality industry has experienced significant changes in its competitive environment over the past 30 years, driven by the growth of alternative accommodations, the widespread use of the internet for searching and booking accommodations, and the adoption of asset-light business models. In this new competitive landscape, hospitality firms struggle to gain a competitive advantage, particularly as they lack rare and inimitable resources, which are considered crucial for achieving competitive advantage according to resource-based view literature. This dissertation explores three sets of strategies that enable hotel firms to attain a competitive edge despite their resources being non-rare and easily imitated by competitors. The first essay examines the potential for hotel firms to benefit from competitors' resources by co-locating with them. Although this strategy has been widely studied in organizational research, recent developments in the competitive market, such as internet adoption and the growth of short-term leases, have not been considered. Evidence suggests that internet adoption decreases the likelihood of low-level hotels entering markets with high-level hotels and negatively moderates the positive effect of branded hotels on independent hotels' performance, as well as nullifying the effect of low-level hotels on high-level hotels' performance. Additionally, short-term leases impact hotels' decisions and performance, as hotels tend to avoid co-locating with short-term leases with similar price points, and short-term leases can appropriate positive agglomeration externalities created by high-level hotels. The second essay investigates whether hotels can outperform competitors by gaining an advantage in resource appropriation through entering the market with a dual-branded hotel. Results indicate that a competitive advantage is achieved when at least one brand in the composition possesses better resources than competitors. Lastly, the third essay concentrates on the potential for hotels to leverage tacit knowledge transmission to increase the difficulty for competitors to imitate them. Findings reveal that the closer a hotel or short-term lease is to the nearest accommodation managed by the same hotel management company or host, the higher the chances of achieving a competitive advantage. Moreover, short-term leases can base their competitive advantage on idiosyncratic knowledge transferred from the platform, and they can compete in size with incumbent hotels if they have a high concentration of ownership in the market.
- Three essays on corporate governance in the hospitality industryLi, Yuan (Virginia Tech, 2019-11-14)The hospitality industry, with its dynamic business environment, has experienced unprecedented disruption and reconfiguration due to the emergence and success of sharing economy firms and online travel agencies. This turbulence calls for effective governance structures that can motivate managers to act in their shareholders' best interests. Despite the importance of effective corporate governance for firm performance and the topic receiving extensive scholarly attention in the management and finance literatures, there seem to be several gaps and mixed findings in the hospitality academic field. To facilitate scholarly advancement, identify gaps in the current knowledge base, and provide direction for future research, in the first essay I undertake a systematic review of research on corporate governance in the hospitality literature. Based on 115 peer-reviewed articles published since 1961, I identify 21 themes explored by scholars, and find that topics related to institutional ownership, executive compensation determinants, board size, and merger and acquisition (MandA) outcomes are commonly examined, whereas topics related to family ownership, debt, and regulation/law are seldom explored. This review contributes to the literature by taking stock of what we know and offering a one-stop-shop for scholars to understand and extend corporate governance literature published in the hospitality field. While evidence in the general business literature suggests that targets, instead of acquirers, are better off after the acquisition, limited studies in the hospitality industry have shown that both bidders and targets are better off after the merger, suggesting that MandAs are more successful in the hospitality industry than in other industries. In the second essay, I empirically examine whether this is indeed the case and what may explain the potential discrepancy in merger performance. Using a comparative study design and a comprehensive sample over 41 years, I find that overall acquirers gain from MandAs, and hospitality MandAs outperform non-hospitality MandAs. Bidders in the hospitality industry are more likely than non-hospitality bidders to acquire large, related targets, using an all-cash mode of payment. Except for industry relatedness, relative size, cash payment, and unlisted target are all positively related to merger performance. This study contributes to the literature by identifying several factors that can explain the differences in MandA performance between hospitality and non-hospitality firms. Despite the fact that MandAs are frequently pursued as a growth strategy in the hospitality industry, their effect on chief executive officer (CEO) compensation has not been systematically examined. Considering that CEO compensation is an important topic related to firm performance, management, and social responsibility, in the third essay I examine the relationship between MandAs and CEO compensation in a sample of hospitality firms consisting of 1,514 firm-year observations over a period of 27 years. The regression analyses find that CEO compensation is significantly higher in the year after large acquisitions; well-governed firms identified via tenure, the Entrenchment-index, and board independence pay their CEOs higher post-acquisition than poorly-governed firms; the fraction of equity-based compensation is unrelated to MandA propensity; and the fraction of cash-based compensation is negatively related to MandA propensity. The additional analyses indicate that CEOs are rewarded for positive stock returns but not penalized for negative stock returns, and even more so in well-governed firms after acquisition. This study finds that MandAs and corporate governance are determinants of CEO compensation and the form of CEO compensation matters to acquisition decisions in hospitality firms. The findings are of importance for shareholders and the board of directors to design compensation plans that align the interests of managers and shareholders.
- Using Event Attendees' Perceived Importance of Event Design to Evaluate Overall SatisfactionBeardsley, Meghan Teresa (Virginia Tech, 2015-06-29)The purpose of this study is to develop a model that tests the impact of attendees' perceived importance of event design on their overall satisfaction of the event. By understanding what attendees' perceive as important and valuable to their overall experience, and thus enhancing their overall experience, researchers, planners, and managers alike will potentially have a tool for assessment and forecasting. Responses were collected from 373 participants who have attended a particular large music and gaming festival. The study found that the perceived value and importance of event design has a significant and positive effect on an event attendee's overall experience. This study has established a scale for planners and designers to implement in other event evaluation circumstances to allow for them to identify their weak links according to their customer base, and then enhance them in order to improve future event growth.