The food and beverage (F&B) purchasing function is operating in a rapidly changing environment, whereby professionalisation and efficiency become key. This paper aims to identify generic skills that are most important for small F&B operators when it comes down to purchasing and supply management. Factors facilitating as well as hindering purchasing maturity are discussed. The focus lies on six single-site independent restaurants in the UK, supported by the presentation of the findings from in-depth interviews with the owners or managers. In this methodological context, the skills of buyers in small F&B operations are described through a 7-dimensional conceptual framework including: procurement planning, the structural organisation of the purchasing function, the process organisation, human resource systems, controlling structures, relations with supplier and finally sustainability. The study of these activities provides clear insights into the purchasing function developed by F&B operators, paving the way to the development of maturity grids outlining families of skills required in this specific sector of activity. Such tools can help operators developing a structured purchasing function in order to improve efficiency of processes as well as the evaluation of-and relationship with suppliers.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect on hospitality management education from a “practice epistemology” and discuss how a connecting of savoir (theoretical knowledge or “knowing”), savoir-faire (knowing how to do tasks, i.e. task-related skills) and savoir-être (knowing how to be, i.e. behavior) can develop into practical knowledge. Design/methodology/approach – The purpose of the paper is achieved through novel reading of the literature on practical knowledge and formativeness applied to a higher education context. Findings – The paper suggests that it is only through the creation of context that a sensation of practicing for students can be provided, which ultimately may lead to practical knowledge. Context must be actively created through situations that invite participation to explore the logic of practice. Therefore, savoir should be treated as “organizing knowing” and savoir-faire and savoir-être as “practicing knowing” to do and to be, respectively. The terms savoir, savoir-faire and savoir-être were chosen for this paper, as they were the common reference terms used in hospitality (master-) apprenticeship systems in Europe. Originality/value – The value of the paper is a personal reflection on a practice epistemology for hospitality management education from the perspective of two academic faculty members who have been practitioners in the hospitality industry and who regularly teach hospitality executives.
This article examines the performance, selectivity, and market-timing abilities of wine fund managers over the 2000–2013 period. The authors hypothesize that wine fund managers should be able to profit from market inefficiencies on the wine market and generate abnormal returns for investors. Their results show that fund managers’ overall selectivity and market-timing abilities appear to be limited. Only one fund offers positive risk-adjusted returns and two funds show a tendency for market timing. Considering non-quantifiable risks, wine funds thus do not appear to be interesting investments.
Although it has been argued that leader–member exchange (LMX) is a phenomenon that develops over time, the existing LMX literature is largely cross-sectional in nature. Yet, there is a great need for unraveling how LMX develops over time. To address this issue in the LMX literature, we examine the relationships of LMX with 2 variables known for changing over time: job performance and justice perceptions. On the basis of current empirical findings, a simulation deductively shows that LMX develops over time, but differently in early stages versus more mature stages. Our findings also indicate that performance and justice trends affect LMX. Implications for LMX theory and for longitudinal research on LMX, performance, and justice are discussed.
Hotel managers need to understand the marginal utility customers associate with a specific attribute ofa hotel in order to effectively set up rate fences and to price their rooms accordingly. This study adopteda stated choice experiment and discrete choice modeling method to obtain hotel guests’ willingness topay (WTP) for a specific set of room attributes within a single hotel property. The attributes include roomviews, hotel floor, club access, free mini-bar items, smartphone service, and cancellation policy. The studydiscovered that leisure travelers versus business travelers, and first-time visitors versus repeat visitors,perceive different WTP values for various attributes. These findings provide valuable information for hotelmanagers to segment their market and conduct revenue management practices in order to maximizerevenue and profit. The results also demonstrate the value of discrete choice modeling in obtaining WTPfor hotel room attributes.
Adopting alternative business models is one way for mature businesses to generate new growth. Several studies have addressed some of the organizational barriers that incumbents face when developing such new business models, but our understanding of the organizational (re)design aspects inherent to business model innovation is still very incomplete. In this study, we investigate the organizational design challenges for incumbent organizations in mature industries when they need to reinvent their business model in reaction to disruptive changes in their environment. Our empirical setting focuses on national postal operators in the European postal industry. Using an inductive study of three such operators, we distinguish between two stages within business model innovation: namely, business model exploration and business model exploitation. Focusing on the former, our findings shed new light on the existence of four key organizational issues: (1) organizational conflicts for scarce resources, (2) cognitive limitations in the face of a persistent dominant logic, (3) organizational (re)design issues focused on structure, and (4) the sourcing and development of new capabilities. These four areas of organizational study have not received much attention yet in the growing literature on business model innovation and represent opportunities for further developing the literature
This paper contributes to explain why individuals provide monetary support to entrepreneurs in globally remote areas , via crowdfunding . There is an established literature on prosocial behavior, which explains the individual’s need for helping and other voluntary positive actions towards other s, namely disadvantaged individuals (e.g. Eisenberg 1982). Yet, there is little empirical research on the motivations to contribute to crowdfunding (e.g. Gerber and Hui 2014). We present the results of the statistical analysis of a survey on motivation a nswered by 1,220 crowdfunders on the crowdfunding platform Kiva.org. The results of this study show that: individual motivations to help are centered in the self to an important degree, as opposed to solely the positive pro -‐ social motivations discussed in the extant literature. O ur study finds that individuals contribute more money when they face a greater need to protect their own self. On the other hand, individuals contribute less money when they feel stronger social pressure or moral obligation to hel p others. These results are robust across seven regression models controlling for demographics and countrie
