Yoon Koh

Comparing guests’ key attributes of peer-to-peer accommodations and hotels: mixed-methods approach

As peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodations have grown exponentially, it is critical to understand motivations for guests to choose a P2P accommodation instead of a hotel. The current study seeks to understand these motivations by using mixed-methods approach to compare online reviews for P2P accommodations and hotels. Through quantitative analysis, thematic analysis, and text mining, this study provides analysis of 800 reviews from New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Houston. The results consistently show that guests in P2P emphasize relationships with hosts, whilst hotel guests place more values on room attributes.

Does Franchising Alleviate Restaurants’ Vulnerability to Economic Conditions?

Although the implications of adopting a franchising strategy in the restaurant industry have been examined in previous literature, the role of franchising has mostly been viewed as a means of growth, without much attention paid to its role in reducing risk via alleviating earnings volatility. In this study, we examine whether, and to what extent, franchising in restaurant firms can reduce earnings volatility occurring due to fluctuating economic conditions. Our longitudinal analysis of publicly traded restaurant firms from 1994 to 2012 shows that, during changes in economic conditions, firms adopting a high degree of franchising face lower earnings volatility than firms that adopt a restricted degree of franchising. Our article contributes to the literature on restaurant franchising as a risk-management strategy while providing avenues for future research.

The income elasticity of demand and firm performance of US restaurant companies by restaurant type during recessions

During the economic downturns of 2008 and 2009, many US restaurant companies struggled to avoid heavy losses. However, some still managed to outperform the market and even made large profits in the midst of widespread economic difficulties. McDonalds was one such company and, in light of its example, many industry magazines and newspapers featured articles suggesting that a quick-service restaurant, with a lower income elasticity of demand, might be better able to survive during constrained economic conditions than upper-level restaurants. This paper empirically examines whether US restaurants income elasticity of demand and actual financial performances during economic downturns are affected by the restaurant type. The findings suggest that restaurant type showed no significant effects on the income elasticity of demand for US restaurant companies, while fast-food restaurants showed significantly greater accounting performances than those of non-fast-food restaurants during recession. The insignificant differences in the income elasticity of demand and significant differences in accounting performances during the recession may suggest that fast-food restaurants implemented cost control more effectively than non-fast-food restaurants, and the authors additional analysis confirms this.

Determinants of involuntary cross-listing: US restaurant companies' perspective

This paper uncovers the phenomenon of involuntary CL, which many stock exchanges have strategically adopted by simplifying listing requirements for companies already listed in other stock markets, focusing on US restaurant companies. The number of involuntarily cross-listed US restaurant companies greatly increased to 50 percent of domestically listed US restaurant companies while those companies are largely unaware of the phenomenon. The empirical investigation identified determinants of involuntary CL by examining ten factors, including size, firm growth opportunities, leverage, financial flexibility, international operation, profitability, overall German economic condition, industry growth opportunities, restaurant type, and local operation. The study found three determinants – large size, favorable economic condition in Germany and positive industry growth opportunities – utilizing the sample that covers the entire periods of involuntary CL of US restaurant companies on the FSE.

Internationalization and Financial Health in the US Hotel Industry

This study examines two main hypotheses regarding the internationalization and financial health of publicly traded US hotels from 1990 to 2010. First, the study hypothesizes that international US hotels are financially healthier than domestic US hotels. The findings support the hypothesis after controlling for other potential confounding factors: a firms growth opportunity, profitability, size, leverage, capital intensity and economic conditions. Next, the study tests the second hypothesis, that international US hotels face a great challenge in terms of their financial health as they enter foreign markets due to the many unknown factors in such international settings. However, it is expected that the internationalization strategy will gradually provide more benefits as the firm increases its degree of internationalization, and thus that benefits will eventually outweigh costs, leading to a U-shaped relationship. The studys findings support this curvilinear U-shaped relationship within the dataset of internationally operating US hotels.

Information Efficiency of U.S. Restaurant Stocks that are Cross-Listed in Germany

We study relationships between stock returns on U.S. and German exchanges for U.S. restaurant companies. Specifically, we examine whether information asymmetry affect how much stock returns in Germany lag stock returns of the same company on U.S. markets. German and U.S. investors differ in information access because of differing stock exchange listing requirements. Our main goals are to examine if (a) stock returns of U.S. underlying shares lead stock returns of cross-listed shares on the Open Market because of information asymmetry and (b) the lead–lag relationship is more evident among shares involuntarily cross-listed on the Open Market than securities voluntarily cross-listed on the EU Regulated Market because of differences in regulation in information disclosure. We estimated cross-autocorrelations using vector autoregressions and tested the hypotheses with the Wald test. The results, in general, support both hypotheses.

Stock market reactions to US hotel firms' strategic alliances.

Despite the extensive research on strategic alliances in the mainstream management literature and the hospitality industrys long history of strategic alliances, research on strategic alliances in the hospitality industry has been lacking, especially research focusing on the relationship between strategic alliances and firm performance. Given this limited coverage, the current study empirically examines Chathoth and Olsens (2003) conceptual framework of hospitality strategic alliances: moving from joint ventures, a traditional form of alliance, to collaborative alliances, such as the competitor-alliance, a newer form. The paper investigates strategic alliances in which US public hotel companies engaged during 2000–2008 and finds that collaborative alliances were more common in the hotel industry than joint ventures. The paper also investigates, through an event study methodology, how the stock market perceives the hotel alliances as they evolve from joint ventures to collaborative alliances. The authors find that the stock market perceives joint ventures positively. In the case of collaborative alliances, the market reacts positively after the initial announcement, though negatively prior to the announcement.