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Research(Go to Outreach)

Research projects are underway in the following areas:

Links between farming businesses and restaurateurs: myth or reality?
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Value added products and small rural businesses.
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An investigation of restaurant industry professionals attitudes toward second hand tobacco smoke and smoke free legislation.
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Service recovery and buyer behavioral intention: an exploratory study from the Alabama hotel sector.
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Evaluating guest satisfaction with Alabama State Parks Accommodation Service Provision and its relationship to Future Behavioral Intention.
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Critical Incident Analysis of Service Procedure in the Restaurant Industry.
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Internationalization Arrangements and Practices of Hospitality and Tourism Education.
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Investigating the Influence of Spirituality on Business Ethics.
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Today, the importance of supporting local food producers or foods that are iconic to a country or region has awaken the interest among different groups of consumers and rural/regional bodies interested in developing or growing their tourism industry. This development is currently taking place in states such as Tennessee, where local leaders have identified opportunities and made efforts to develop tourism (http://www.visittnfarms.com/). While the potential for a partnership between food producers and tourists clearly exists, do farm operators and those of hospitality businesses (restaurants) interact with one another? This research question is being currently investigated within the HRMT unit.

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In the face of rural decline, droughts, increasing competition from cheaper products as well as rising costs, do farm and other rural based operators consider the development of value added products as a strategy to minimize current problems? Do they see any potential commercial opportunities in developing value added products? What, if anything is preventing them from doing so? In view of the potential implications for the food and hospitality industries, the HRMT unit is making efforts to answer these questions.

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The issues of second hand tobacco smoke and smoke free legislation have been a constant theme in the hospitality press over recent years. While much effort has gone into researching the economic impact of such legislation, little, if any research has been undertaken on industry professional’s attitudes towards such legislation and whether it is perceived in a positive or negative light in terms of its impact upon consumers, employees and/or bottom line performance.

This project intends to address the gap in the literature and in so doing will attempt to shed light on how the restaurant industry actually feels about such legislation and its full range of impacts both economic and socio-cultural. Alabama restaurant professionals shall be invited to complete an online survey addressing these very issues. A convenience sample of restaurateurs (Alabama Restaurant and Hospitality Association members) will be used for the purposes of survey administration.

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This research project seeks to add to the underdeveloped body of knowledge on consumer perceptions of the effectiveness of recovery (complaint) management systems and the relationship between an effective recovery effort and longer-term brand loyalty and behavioral intention. More specifically, and in direct recognition of the importance given to the issue by the services sector generally, the research seeks to evaluate consumer perceptions of the effectiveness of service recovery systems in the ultra luxury hotel sector. From this, a framework will be developed within which areas for recovery investment or divestment can be identified.

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Recent years have witnessed increased demand for alternative nature-based forms of tourism activity. Alongside this interest in the outdoors has come a demand for quality servicing infrastructure to meet the very wide variety of needs, wants and expectations expressed and sought by today’s travelling public. This has presented a range of challenges to those in the nature-based tourism supply sector, not least those at the front line, whose role is now shifting from environmental stewardship and education to one of customer service agent.

Against this background this paper seeks to address the issue of quality product/service provision in satisfying nature based tourists in the state of Alabama. This project sought to evaluate visitor satisfaction with state park camping service provision and its role in driving visitors future behavior with respect to potential re-visitation and recommendation intention.

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This study collects service encounter experiences from customers and analyzes the data using the critical incident method. Critical incident analysis is based on the notion that a firm can achieve a long-term goal of the customer satisfaction by collecting the customer’s moment of truth. The data will reveal the service procedures for the restaurant industry and each procedure will be broken down into specific episodes. This specific episode shows which procedure the industry should focus on creating customer’s satisfaction. This could help restaurant managers develop a new service delivery method.

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The gradual reductions in trade barriers, deregulation, rapid economic growth, privatization and other changes around the world have encouraged hospitality firms to extend their operations outside their national boundaries that there is now a record number of international affiliations and business networks in the hospitality industry.

This remarkable international business growth has created a need for internationally competent and qualified hospitality graduates who are able to understand and work effectively in a multi-cultural and global society. The possibility that many students now will enter into careers that necessitate interactions beyond the geographic borders of their countries is unprecedented. An international dimension to their education, therefore, will better prepare them for a broader and promising suite of opportunities.

A team of HRMT faculty and graduate students is conducting a research project that diagnoses and contrasts the arrangements and practices of education internationalization in the field of hospitality and tourism management in academic institutions located in different regions of the world. By examining and comparing the extent and nature of the internationalization of hospitality education provided by institutions in these regions, the research will help decision-makers, faculty, and administrators in hospitality programs to identify own strengths and weaknesses, and learn from practices of successful institutions in other countries.

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Spirituality in the context of organizations has recently enjoyed an increasing attention in the management literature. Within the same time frame, writings on business ethics began to evolve on a parallel track. To date, however, the value of spirituality as potential predictor of business ethics has not been examined. The links between spirituality and business ethics remain poorly examined. If they have been studied, the focus is on investigating the effects of religious orientations on ethicality, without drawing direct links to ethical factors or providing practical implications.

This is ironic, as spirituality has long been recognized as an important force in influencing human behavior. A research project by HRMT faculty will empirically explore the potential effect of spirituality on business ethics, particularly in the context of the hospitality industry. This industry is strongly concerned with acting in a morally responsible manner, although its unique nature renders it to be vulnerable to ethical misconducts. The results of this project should be of interest to business ethics researchers and practicing managers.

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Outreach

Current outreach initiatives include the following:

Evaluating user satisfaction with Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) Services at Anniston Army Depot, Alabama.
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Improving Quality Service Standards throughout the Alabama State Parks system.
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Reaching out to Alabama High Schools.
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The conceptualization of the consumer satisfaction construct, its relationship to customer loyalty, future behavioral intention, spending patterns and methods of evaluating it, have been a central theme of the hospitality literature over the past 25 years. Evidence suggests that a company’s ability to consistently satisfy customers will go a long way towards achieving this core objective.

Not surprisingly, a large proportion of organizational effort is now being directed at developing an operational means for achieving just that. Inherent in any such approach is the need to continually monitor operational performance so that energies can be better directed at consistently satisfying customer needs. This project seeks to develop and operationalize an ongoing consumer satisfaction measure for the Directorate of Community and Family Activities MWR service provision at Anniston Army Depot.

The proposal is of significance in that the approach taken will provide an ongoing measure of consumer satisfaction with the Directorate’s broad range of depot services encompassing, social, welfare, financial, relocation, recreational and leisure. The approach taken will also seek to evaluate future behavioral intentions (reuse recommendation to others and value for money perception) and correlate this with actual satisfaction. The results will be of clear benefit to the Directorate in helping focus future development, marketing and management efforts on specific actions which can be taken to continuously improve the quality of the services provided as well as increase actual usage patterns.

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Improving Quality Service Standards throughout the Alabama State Parks system.

Faculty and graduate students have just concluded their second year of delivery on a state wide quality service training program for the employees of the Alabama State Park system. This program was instigated by State Parks with a view to continually improving service standards and delivery throughout the State Parks system.  A clear understanding of and commitment to a strong service initiative will aid in developing an increased visitor satisfaction level, as well as, an increased employee satisfaction level. 

The project is intended to create an understanding of a quality service culture and launch an on-going and consistent service program throughout the Alabama State Park system. Quality service is the key component in the philosophy of the Hotel and Restaurant Management (HRMT) Program at Auburn University, therefore, it will be a key component throughout the proposed training program.  It is difficult to produce and deliver quality service, however, in the competitive field of lodging operations and hospitality, quality issues must be addressed and quality service delivered in order to be competitive as well as retain and attract customers. 

The training will not only teach service skills but will also incorporate the standards of quality service in each training subject topic. The training will be developed by Auburn University Hotel and Restaurant Management faculty with expertise in quality service systems and customer satisfaction

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Reaching out to Alabama High Schools

An initiative has been developed in the last years to reach out to high school students across the State of Alabama with the objective of raising awareness about present and future challenges and opportunities in the hospitality and tourism industries. This project was developed to introduce students to the multitude of career options available to them in the hospitality and tourism industries as well as offer advice on career development. While initially targeted at those schools offering hospitality and tourism curriculum it is intended to broaden the scope of the project to the entire state wide high school and two year college systems. Schools visited thus far include those in the Auburn, Opelika, Dothan and Florence, Alabama.

Florence High School
http://www.florencehs.com/Academic_Awards/index.html

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