KJC Korea
Journal Central

This study has implications for expanding the subject of festival research from local food to street food. Most of the food served at festivals is street food. Street food at festivals is perceived as unsanitary and inauthentic, and although this is seen as dissatisfactory, festival participants continue to eat street food because it is cheap and convenient. In order to enhance the competitiveness of festivals, rather than rejecting street food, we identified the selection attributes that festival participants consider important when choosing restaurants through social network analysis. The result of the analysis identified that, firstly, the festival needed street food. Approximately 30% of respondents answered “very necessary.” Second, we confirmed the main selection attributes of street food retailers. Participants in festivals considered “reasonably priced” and “taste and quantity of food” as important when choosing street food retailers. Third, it was confirmed that social network analysis is useful as a methodology in the study of selection attributes of street food retailers. The social network analysis analyzed the selection attributes in detail by analyzing the metrics. Fourth, there were differences in main selection attributes according to demographic characteristics. The main selection attributes of festival participants with their families were distinctly different. Fifth, there were differences in main selection attributes according to festival type. Local specialty festivals showed that sanitation was the main selection attribute.

This study aimed to analyze the influence relationship among brand value, loyalty, and customer satisfaction of dessert cafes and to verify the mediating effect of customer satisfaction in the relationship between brand value and loyalty. This study targeted eight dessert cafes located in Seoul, and after asking the persons concerned with the dessert cafes to check understanding, a survey with customers aged 20 or over was conducted over 11 days from April 10 to April 21, 2017. A total of 230 self-administered questionnaires were distributed, and 203 (88.3%) questionnaires were used for study analysis after the exclusion of 27 (11.7%) with incomplete and/or unreliable responses. Frequency analysis, reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, simple regression analysis, multiple regression analysis, mediator effect analysis, and Sobel test were done using the SPSS 18.0 analysis program. The study results revealed that brand value had a significant positive (+) relationship to loyalty and customer satisfaction. Also, customer satisfaction had a significant positive (+) relationship to loyalty, and customer satisfaction mediated the relationship between brand value and loyalty.

This study was conducted to investigate whether grit positively influences the negative effects of job insecurity on hotel employees' customer orientation. A total of 243 questionnaires were used for analysis, collected from 5- and 4-star hotel employees in Seoul. Multiple regression analysis was performed in three stages, with demographic variables that could affect job insecurity, grit, and customer orientation as control variables. The results of the analysis are as follows. First, job insecurity had a negative effect on customer orientation. Second, when considering job insecurity and grit at the same time, job insecurity did not have a significant effect on customer orientation, but grit had a positive effect. Third, grit played a moderating role in reducing the negative impact of job insecurity on customer orientation. Fourth, employees with a lot of work experience and employees who had joined the labor union had high job security and customer orientation. Fifth, grit was correlated only with employment type among demographic variables. In other words, the grit of non-regular workers was higher than that of full-time employees. Based on the contents of this study, academic implications and practical implications are suggested.

The purpose of this study is to examine the brand personality that is important when choosing a restaurant according to personality type and to examine the effect of brand personality on brand attitude and revisit intention. A total of 198 questionnaires were collected from 225 customers who had visited a Korean buffet restaurant. The results show that, first, there was a difference in brand personality, which is important according to personality type. A person with an outgoing personality emphasized sophistication and interest in the brand, while a person with a high affinity did not consider the traditional aspects of the brand. The most sincere persons focused on the competence, reliability, tradition, and interest of the brand, and considered various aspects of the brand in comparison to other personality traits. Second, constructing a positive attitude toward the brand were two factors of interest and reliability of the brand personality. This suggests that it is important to provide information that can induce consumers' interest in the brand and that providing reliable information rather than false or exaggerated content may increase restaurant revisitation. In this study, it is significant that the empirical validation of the role and function of the psychological factors influencing the brand selection were verified by examining the direct influence relationship between the two variables.

This study was to assess the effects of franchise food service employees' emotional labor on role stress, job burnout, and turnover intention. A total of 310 samples were collected from franchise food service employees in Seoul and Gyeonggi province from October to November, 2016. The results were as follows. First, among the sub-dimensions of emotional labor, surface acting and deep acting had a significant effect on role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload among the sub-dimensions of role stress. Second, role stress had a significant effect on job burnout. Role conflict had a significant effect on emotional exhaustion. Role ambiguity had a significant effect on emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. Also, role overload had a significant effect on depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment. Third, emotional exhaustion from job burnout had a significant effect on turnover intention. The suggestion of this study is that it is important to reduce the role conflict and role ambiguity of franchise food service employees because role conflict and role ambiguity affect emotional exhaustion, and emotional exhaustion affects turnover intention.

This study investigates key conflict prototypes that inhibit the win-win relationship between franchise headquarters and franchisees according to the franchise development cycle. We analyze the differences among conflict types that can occur depending on the duration of the operation and propose a strategy for sustainable franchising businesses. We identified five potential conflict types in restaurant franchising through Q methodology: Type 1, expectation mismatch; Type 2, economic dissatisfaction; Type 3, headquarters coercion; Type 4, dissatisfaction of revenue sharing; and Type 5, low trust. In the first five years of business, Type 2 and Type 5 were found to be the main sources of conflicts. On the other hand, Type 1, Type 3, and Type 4 emerged as problems after five years of operation.

The present research aims to investigate the chained relationships between empowerment, cognitive flexibility, and job commitment by focusing on hotel customer-contact service employees. More importantly, this study attempts to examine the mediated-moderation effect of emotional intelligence in a sense that empowered service employees with a high capability of understanding and utilizing their own and others’ emotions are more likely to carry out cognitive flexibility in problem-solving and thus enhance their commitment to their jobs. To this end, this study surveyed customer-contact service employees working at five-star hotels located in Seoul and its metropolitan area. A total of 288 questionnaires were used for the analysis. A mediated-moderation analysis with bootstrapping was carried out to test the proposed hypotheses. The results show that there is a virtuous circle relationship between empowerment, cognitive flexibility, and job commitment, and this relationship is positively moderated by the employees’ emotional intelligence. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed with research limitations and future research directions. This study contributes to the human resources management literature domain as well as offers practical implications for the hospitality industry.

There has not been much previous research related to solo diners. For that reason, the purpose of this study was to develop variables related to solo diners' motives. To help understand solo dining, domestic and overseas research was reviewed. Then, solo diners were divided into a voluntary group and a passive group, and active consumers' psychology was focused upon. An on-line survey was conducted from September 20 to October 20, 2017, on people who were over 20 years old and who had dined alone, with 255 usable questionnaires. From 118 solo diners’ motivations, 26 variables were deleted that were thought to be passive. Finally, 19 variables for voluntary solo diners' motives emerged from secondary and third Delphi analysis. This study suggests the first attempt to develop a measurement scale for solo diners’ motivations. Also, it is practical in helping understand the motives of solo diners so that appropriate marketing can be undertaken.

The objectives of this study are to classify how family restaurant customers perceive quality attributes of servicescape and aesthetic labor, and to identify what attributes are comprised of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. A survey was conducted to customers who had visited family restaurants within the previous month in Seoul and Gyeonggi province. A total of 517 questionnaires were collected from an on-site survey and online survey. The data were analyzed by applying the Kano model, and the results are as follows. Among the 15 measured items of servicescape, six items were measured as one-dimensional quality, five items as indifference quality, two items as attractive quality, and two items as must-be quality. Among the 12 measured aesthetic labor items, eight items were measured as indifference quality and four items as one-dimensional quality. By producing a better index and worse index of servicescape and aesthetic labor, the results suggested which attributes family restaurant operators should focus on and improve. Also, this study can guide how operators should interpret each quality attribute and enhance the attributes to obtain competitiveness and differentiation.