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The purpose of this study is to determine whether the economic environment affects the merger and acquisition (M&A) activities in the restaurant industry.

The M&A transactions in the restaurant industry between 1981 and 2013 (n = 1,415) were examined. Data were collected from the Securities Data Corporation (SDC) database. Using an autoregressive distributed lag approach, this study developed three error correction models to explore the short- and long-term relationships between restaurant M&A activities and four macro-economic factors.

This study found that there was a long-term equilibrium relationship between the M&A activities and the four economic factors and that economic outlook had a significantly positive impact in the long term, while the effect of cost of debt was significantly negative in both the short and long terms. The findings suggest that restaurant firms are more likely to adopt M&A strategy when they are optimistic about the future economy and can take on debt at a low cost.

The findings of this study are expected to help practitioners make informative M&A decisions in the restaurant industry taking into consideration the economic environment. They will also help investors effectively manage their portfolios by predicting and ascertaining the proper time to invest in the restaurant industry based on the changes of economic environment.

No known study has been identified that examined the relationship between macro-economic factors and M&A activities in the restaurant industry. The findings of the study are expected to fill the gap in the literature by demonstrating the economic environment and the M&A activities in the restaurant industry are in a long-term equilibrium achieved by self-correction of their short-term disequilibrium.

The overall purpose of this study is to utilize the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in combination with four dark tourism constructs (dark experience, engaging entertainment, unique learning experience, and casual interest) to gain a better understanding of behaviors and intentions of tourists who have visited or plan to visit a dark tourism location.

A total of 1,068 useable questionnaires was collected via Qualtrics Panels for analysis purposes. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to verify satisfactory reliability and validity regarding the measurement of model fit. With adequate model fit, structural equation modeling was employed to determine positive and negative relationships between TPB and dark tourism constructs. In all, 11 hypotheses statements were tested within this study.

Results of this study indicate that tourists are curious, interested, and intrigued by dark experiences with paranormal activity, resulting in travel choices made for themselves based on personal beliefs and preferences, with minimal outside influence from others. It was determined that dark experience was the most influential of the dark tourism constructs tested in relationship to attitudes and subjective norm.

The data collected for this study were collected using Qualtrics Panels with self-reporting participants. The actual destination visited by survey participants was also not factored into the results of this research study.

This study provides a new theoretical research model that merges TPB and dark tourism constructs and established that there is a relationship between TPB constructs and dark tourism.

This paper aims to empirically examine how five different brand equity dimensions of a festival brand (i.e. awareness, image, quality, value and loyalty) are inter-related. Specifically, this study aims to examine the impact of brand awareness on perceived brand image, perceived brand quality and perceived value; the impact of perceived brand image on perceived brand quality and brand loyalty; and the impact of perceived brand quality on perceived value and brand loyalty.

The conceptual model was tested with an onsite sample of a public festival referred to as the VEISHEA (Veterinary Medicine, Engineering, Industrial Science, Home Economics and Agriculture) festival, which is located in a Midwestern college-town. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to reach the goals of the study.

The findings revealed that improving attendees’ awareness is a keystone in promoting brand quality perceptions, increasing perceived value and creating favorable brand image. Perceptions of quality on brand loyalty were stronger than any other effect, pointing out the need for superior quality. These findings confirmed that a public festival which does not require visitor admission fees can increase visitors by utilizing branding strategies, as has been done with other types of festivals.

This research was conducted at a public festival. Further study should be conducted at other festivals/events. Analysis of antecedents such as advertising and promotions in the brand equity creation process will provide further important information.

This study provides guidance for practitioners to manage festival brands properly and develop strategies (e.g. communications and promotions) which reinforce the intangible asset of brand equity.

This is the first study that applies the brand equity concept to the setting of public festivals. This application to a new context contributes to the body of knowledge of brand equity theory.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that affect the usage of guest empowerment technologies (GET) with a specific focus on in‐room entertainment technologies.

This study used structural equation modeling to evaluate the application of task‐technology fit (TTF) and technology acceptance models (TAMs) in reference to entertainment GETs.

This paper confirmed that the most popular forms of entertainment GET were in‐room movies and on‐demand services. Most importantly, the analysis of the data revealed that a user's individual experiential characteristics have a significant negative relationship with fit of GET while the technology and task characteristics have a significant positive relationship with fit of GET.

This paper makes a contribution to the current body of literature as it is among the first to utilize a hybrid TTF/TAM in the hotel self‐service environment. As such, it can be utilized by future researchers as a foundation for conducting similar research.

This paper is of value as it is the first academic paper to investigate a variety of forms of entertainment‐based GET. These types of technologies which combine the functionality of self‐service devices while taking into account the user's experience during the design process are in constant and growing demand. As such, technology developers as well as hospitality practitioners will need to rely more and more on this type of research in the future in order to provide consistent levels of quality guest experiences.

During the months leading up to and immediately following President Donald Trump’s election, the unique intersection of classroom academic freedom and teacher and students’ first amendment rights would be duly tested, as headlines reminded citizens, parents, and pundits that the reach of raw emotions and political viewpoints did not stop at the schoolhouse door. School and classroom-based events would eventually test the norms of community, the interpretation of legal precedents, the resolve of district and school leadership, and the rights or limits thereof of the teachers themselves. This analysis is grounded on case studies of eight such incidents, all of which occurred at the high school level in public school districts. These eight cases are analyzed in terms of the incidents, the teacher’s actions or speech, the consequences, the relevant legal precedents surrounding academic freedom, the parental, student, and community reaction, and the short- and long-term impacts moving forward.

After decades of successful expansion, The Reader's Digest Association's products were mature. With an average readership age for the flagship Reader's Digest magazine of 50.3 in 2004, efforts to develop new products had so far failed to entice a significant number of younger customers. Following a financial downturn in 1996, positive financial results remained illusive. Several major changes instituted by Thomas O. Ryder, CEO since 1998, including acquisitions, re-capitalization, restructuring and systematic re-engineering of the corporate culture, had proven mildly successful, but RDA, as well as the entire publishing industry, faced a persistent decline in profitability. Could RDA fulfill its stated mission to create “products that inform, enrich, entertain and inspire people of all ages and cultures around the world”, and could it do this by continuing to rely on the 80-year old Reader's Digest magazine?

This study aims to examine the effect of task and technology characteristics on the compatibility of technology and tasks, as well as examine the reciprocal effect between the task-technology fit and the use of information systems.

The study took place in 36 star hotels from one-star to four-star hotels in some cities and districts in South Kalimantan Province. There were 24 hotels in Banjarmasin, 7 hotels in Banjarbaru and 1 hotel in each area of Banjar, Tanah Bumbu, Tabalong, Hulu Sungai Utara and Barito Kuala. The hotels chosen were those implemented the information and communication technology as supporting administrative activities to serve hotel customers. The population was the front office staff in the existing hotels as the users of the information technology. The sampling technique used in this research was the questionnaire distribution in accordance with the number of population. Data were collected from the filled questionnaires. From the 239distributed questionnaires, 164 (68.62 per cent) were returned and used as the research data.

Task characteristics and technology characteristics have a significant and positive effect on task-technology fit, in which the higher the task characteristics and technology characteristics, the higher the task-technology fit. The task-technology fit and the use of information systems are positive and reciprocal. This means that the higher the task-technology fit, the higher the use of information systems.

The originality of this study is reciprocal relationship between the variables of use with the task-technology fit. Some researchers have found the compatibility of technological tasks affecting the use of information systems, namely, Lin and Huang (2008), Norzaidi and Salwani (2009), Larsen et al. (2009), McGill and Klobas (2009), D’Ambra and Wilson (2013), Im (2014) and Chang et al. (2015). On the other hand, in task-technology fit theory, Goodhue and Thompson (1995) state that use affects the task-technology fit.

With the usage of social media and Web 2. 0, YouTube channels currently play a pivotal role in supporting a traveler’s destination visit. Travelers create their YouTube channels and share their past experiences in the form of videos, which helps other potential travelers to support their destination visit. The purpose of this paper is to understand how travelers adopt information through YouTube channels and how it influences the traveler’s intention to visit a destination.

A research model was constructed and empirically tested by using a sample of 486 respondents who watch YouTube channels before visiting a destination. Further, the hypotheses of this study were validated with the help of structural equation modeling using partial least squares. The respondents in this study were from Delhi.

This paper found comprehensiveness, relevance, timeliness, source expertise and attitude as the most significant predictors of a traveler’s destination visit intention through YouTube channel adoption. Further, source trustworthiness and accuracy were not found to be statistically significant.

The findings of this paper were based on data taken from the local respondents in Delhi. Further, it analyzed the influence of only seven dimensions on destination visit intention, which could have excluded some important factors that influence tourists’ destination visit intention.

This paper has provided implications for YouTube vloggers and tourists. The result proves that while making decisions regarding destination visit, tourists thinks critically and scrutinize the content of YouTube channels prior to deciding a destination. So, vloggers should provide relevant, comprehensive and accurate destination information through their videos to tourists.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first in the Indian context to examine the adoption of YouTube channels before visiting destinations through information adoption models with additional constructs.

Education and new technologies travel parallel pathways, with each often informing development of the other. In recent decades, educators have utilized technologies, such as television and the Internet, to develop and deliver course content. More recently, another technology has emerged that might possibly change education as it is currently practiced. Augmented reality merges manipulable digital imagery into real-world spaces and in real time. The technologies used to create augmented environments already exist in the mass market and have already begun to show up in a wide variety of fields, including education. This chapter will provide an overview of augmented reality and explore current and potential uses in higher education.