Even though many stock markets in the world adopted involuntary cross-listing with minimal application procedures, the cross-listing literature has widely ignored this activity. The gap in the literature is critical to U.S. restaurant companies since the number of involuntary cross-listings has significantly increased during the last ten years, despite the corporations' decisions not to cross-list or to change strategies to eliminate cross-listings. Direct communication with those foreign-listed U.S. restaurants reveals that they are unaware of involuntary cross-listing. This research uncovers the phenomenon of U.S. restaurants' involuntary cross-listing with a focus on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, in which a majority of U.S. restaurant shares have cross-listings. Specifically, the current dissertation provides trajectories of U.S. restaurant companies' cross-listing, discovers determinants of involuntary cross-listing that are specific to U.S. restaurant companies, and investigates the consequences of informational asymmetry in the U.S. and Germany, specifically the dynamics of stock prices in the two stock markets. The current dissertation finds that U.S. restaurant companies have widely chosen not to list their shares on foreign exchanges, while many of their shares are subject to involuntary cross-listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange by German financial institutions. This study also finds that German financial institutions consider U.S. restaurant companies' sizes, industry growth opportunities, and overall U.S. economic conditions. In addition, the current research finds that U.S. stock prices of U.S. restaurant companies lead the German stock prices of cross-listed U.S. restaurant firms. Empirical findings of this study have valuable theoretical, managerial, and regulatory implications. Theoretically, the research advances understanding of the economic consequences of involuntary cross-listing, to which the cross-listing literature has paid little attention. Specifically, this dissertation provides sharp insights into German financial institutions and German investors involved in the involuntary cross-listing. The current research also confirms the role of information asymmetry and trading volume on the dynamics of stock prices in multiple stock markets. Practically, this study's contribution to U.S. restaurant industry occurs through acknowledgement and evidence of the involuntary cross-listing phenomenon in which more and more U.S. restaurant companies unknowingly engage. The findings also prompt the Frankfurt Stock Exchange to reconsider their policies regarding involuntary cross-listing, and assist U.S. and German investors to understand better the dynamics of stock prices in both countries. / Business Administration/Strategic Management

Based on ethnographic fieldwork among the individuals, groups, and institutions that comprise Moscow's contemporary restaurant industry, this dissertation explores the production and consumption of Moscow's postsocialist culinary culture and landscape. Approaching cuisine as both a social product and a cultural process, I examine the agents and avenues of the local globalization of culinary culture. In my analysis, these "agents" include restaurateurs, chefs, cooks, professional associations, and educators and educational institutions, among others. I attend to the various meanings, practices, and contexts of their work, as well as to the political, aesthetic, and performative dimensions of cooking, cuisine and restaurants. I also examine how Russian consumers engage with and make sense of Moscow's emerging culinary culture and restaurant scene. I see these producers of cuisine and restaurants as authors of the capital's postsocialist consumer landscape and intermediaries between the local and the global. Articulating global culinary culture into local contexts, these cultural producers redeploy contemporary and historical culinary practices, aesthetics, and forms as representations of culture on both local and global stages. I call these practices culinary strategies and argue that they are vehicles through which new social actors struggle over the meanings and values at stake in the marketization of Russian society. Cuisine and restaurants are thus contested sites for the construction of Moscow as a world-class city and the production, dissemination, and negotiation of community, nation, identity, and class. I suggest that cuisine and restaurants play important roles in processes of globalization, serving as sites for reproduction and contestation of global hegemonies of form. Drawing on and expanding work in the anthropologies of food, visual communication, postsocialism, and globalization, my project suggests how ethnography and micro-analysis of the visual, sensual, performative, and structural dimensions of cultural production can open critical understandings of the complex and shifting interactions between local, national, and global contexts. / Anthropology

No description available.

The aim of this research is to explore a need for improving marketing in the small business sector among restaurants. Furthermore, if a potential need was found, starting to dissect how to increase the demand for the need of marketing expertise services through crafting an attractive customer value proposition (CVP). By understanding this, it would allow marketing expertise to have a clearer idea regarding how to attract smaller businesses and increase demand for the needed services. In this way, a new type of market opens up for various types of marketing expertise. The study focuses on finding the smaller restaurants' pains and gains which are needed components of an attractive CVP. The study will also build upon the current knowledge and theory regarding the creation of a VP for smaller businesses, although focused on the restaurant industry. This is done by conducting four separate cases with the help of semi-structured interviews and documentary research. Briefly presented, the results show that the pains and gains which need to be considered for marketing expertise to craft a CVP geared towards attracting small restaurants are; allowing for better positioning which decreases the amount of unsatisfied customers, increasing the restaurants profitability and making them stand out in comparison to their competitors.

Scheduling workers in a restaurant is a difficult and time consuming task that involves matching the needs of the restaurant with respect to filling various shifts for different positions, the varying availabilities of the workers, along with their seniority levels and qualifications, among other factors. The restaurant manager/scheduler must adhere to these individual workers' restrictions, while at the same time satisfy the restaurant's needs. Another issue that a manager tries to accommodate is to equitably assign shifts to workers, attempting to balance their expressed wishes with their relative merits and qualifications; although in practice, this goal is rarely achieved. In this thesis, a mathematical model is developed to solve the scheduling problem, with attention focused on maximizing worker satisfaction levels, considering their seniority levels and their qualifications, while meeting with the restaurant's needs of filling various required shifts for various positions with capable workers. We show that this model possesses a hidden network structure that can be revealed via some simple variable substitutions. Consequently, an efficient network-flow approach can be used to solve the model and derive an optimal (integer) solution. We illustrate the model and the proposed algorithmic approach by generating a schedule using real data obtained via specially designed surveys from the Cheddar's restaurant in Newport News, Virginia. Further results on a variety of test problems are used to evaluate the performance of the algorithm, and suitable pre- and post-processor considerations are addressed to permit the use of this technology in a productive environment. / Master of Science

This research project investigated a method to promote one low-fat, high-fiber choice in a national chain fast-food restaurant. It is an extension of efforts toward large-scale dietary change. A procedural extension of a prompting strategy was used in an attempt to influence customers to choose a salad. A simple visual and print message based on themes derived from formative and pilot research at the restaurant was presented during two intervention phases of a reversal design. The message, "Be Fit and Healthy; Eat a Low-fat SALAD as Your Meal or Add a Side Salad," was displayed in colorful posters and tent cards which were placed on all the tables. Data from a comparison base in a neighboring town were obtained. A one-month follow-up phase was included in the design. Prices and in-store advertisements were identical in both locations. The existing computerized cash register system was used to obtain accurate, objective data. Daily and weekly sales percentages of several entrees were obtained. Results of analysis using a correction procedure indicate that when graphically represented, salad sales across phases increased with the introduction of the prompts, and decreased with their removal. In addition, three entrees not represented by associated prompts remained stable across phases. For Salads-combined, results indicate that sales increased about 15% and 9%, respectively, for the first and second intervention phases. Daily temperature during this project was variable. Although a comparison site was used to control for the effects of weather, results indicate that salad prompting may have increased sales more during warmer temperature. Population demographics were recorded. Analyses of the customer population during this project indicate customers were about equal by gender, and consisted primarily of white, 18-39 years old individuals. The cost for each added salad bought during the intervention was about $.22, and the cost to raise the percent of salad sales, each percent, across the four weeks was about $16.00. Future research should attempt to foster longer term behavior change and integrate multifaceted promotions. / Master of Science

Reduction of noise levels in an elementary school lunchroom was examined as a function of feedback and feedback plus reinforcement using group contingency procedures. Feedback consisted of signals from a traffic light with green indicating acceptable levels, yellow indicating slightly higher levels and red indicating unacceptable levels. Other behaviors, running, hitting, pushing and kicking, were measured incidentally. Results indicate that feedback plus reinforcement was effective in reducing noise levels. Feedback alone was also effective, but to a lesser degree. No response - response relationship was found to exist between noise level and the other behaviors.

Eating away from home has been identified as one possible contributor to childhood obesity, with links to poor diet quality and higher weight status due to dietary quality of meals at restaurants and consumers' attitudes. Parenting style has been associated with children's weight status and overall attitudes toward food, with authoritative parenting being shown to help protect against childhood obesity. The current study aimed to compare and contrast parenting and feeding practices at home and in the restaurant. Twenty-five mothers with children, ages five to eight, who ate at restaurants at least two times per week participated in facilitated, individual interviews. Interviews topics included: parenting, child input in choosing restaurants and restaurant meal selection, and food rules and practices at restaurants versus at home. Socio-demographic information, parenting style, and the mothers' heights and weights were gathered, with descriptive statistics computed. Interview data were transcribed, then thematically coded using NVivo software. All mothers scored highest on authoritative parenting styles. Participating mothers were Caucasian, well-educated, with above-average family incomes. Mothers had an average of 2.2 children and a BMI of 27.9 kg/m². Mothers described more stringent behavioral expectations and more permissive food rules at restaurants. Parents had greater influence in determining whether to eat away from home and where, whereas children had greater responsibility for meal selections at restaurants. The results suggest that practices may differ at restaurants than at home, highlighting the importance of further research, along with educational and behavioral strategies directed toward mothers when eating away from home. / Master of Science

Yes / Building on the linguistic landscape theory and literature on customers’ experience with restaurants’ authenticity and status, this study investigates whether restaurants’ outdoor signs influence customers’ perceptions and behavioral intentions. Using an experimental design comprising two studies, supported by data collected from Chinese consumers, we test how display characters and text flow may jointly impact on customers’ perceptions of the status and authenticity of ethnic (Japanese and Taiwanese) restaurants, thus influencing their visiting intentions and willingness to pay. We find that display characters influence Chinese customers’ perceptions of authenticity and status in both Japanese and Taiwanese restaurants in Mainland China. There is an interaction effect between display characters and text flow on customers’ perception of authenticity and status in Japanese restaurants in Mainland China. This study applies the linguistic landscape theory to a restaurant context and examines how such features may influence customers’ perceptions and decisions. The findings have important practical implications on managing customer experiences and perceptions via effective restaurant sign designs.

No description available.