Linchi Kwok, Ph.D.

Forget about the old days of “people serving people.” More restaurants and hotels are now using robotic cooks, delivery robots, self-serving kiosks, Chatbots, and other AI-empowered machines in service operations.   Some businesses must rely on machines to address the labor shortage issue. Others count on machines to deliver faster and more consistent service. Moreover, many consumers have become used to automatic self-services during the pandemic. It is not surprising to see robots taking over more service jobs.      What is the latest robotic “thing” that deems to take over even more human jobs?     That is ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer), the popular chatbot from OpenAI. Launched in November 2022, ChatGPT is designed to answer user requests with AI-generated articles, essays, jokes, and even poetry. By January 2023, ChatGPT was already set to reach 100 million monthly active users ( Hu, 2023 ). On average, about 13 million unique visito...

The U.S. Department of The Treasury spent trillions of dollars during COVID to help people and businesses in need. Without those emergency funds from the government, many hospitality businesses would not have survived the pandemic. Now, our world is finally getting away from the pandemic. However, many crises facing the hospitality industry are not over yet. We still need help to address the supply chain issues, labor shortage, record-high inflation, and looming concerns of the economy. Should the government continue its support?      Natural gas may be one of the urgent issues needing the government’s help right now.     There is a spike in natural gas prices in Southern California. For example, a family-owned BBQ and seafood restaurant in L.A.’s Chinatown found its natural gas bill went from a typical $5,000 - $6,000 to nearly $14,000 in February 2023 ( Quednow & Cheng, 2023 ).     The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has urged the Federal R...

The positive effects of employees’ trust in their supervisors have been widely documented, such as job engagement, performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Given supervisors’ authority in the workplace, we suspect supervisors would bear a critical role in initiating trusting supervisor-employee relationships. As suggested in the social exchange theory, employees may perceive supervisor trust in them as a kind act by the supervisor and feel obligated to return such a kind act with their trust in supervisor.     The Research     To examine the relationships among (supervisor) trust in employee, (employee) felt trust, and (employee) trust in supervisor with empirical data, I worked with Drs.   Yung-Kuei Huang   at National Ilan University in Taiwan and   Ning-Kuang Chuang   at Kent State University on a project. Our purpose is two-fold.      1.       To examine the mediating relationships among trust i...

As many of us have left the pandemic behind in 2022 and begun traveling again, airlines started   It may seem that everything is finally moving into a brighter future in 2023, but the truth is: the   permanent impacts of the pandemic   and the uncertainty of the market have pushed many industry leaders to further streamline their operations. Considering the existing challenges facing the hospitality and tourism industries, I expect 2023 will be the year for significant changes. Food prices are unlikely to fall General month-to-month inflation is easing, but   not for most essential food items , especially when year-to-year inflation is concerned. On average, consumers were paying $4.25 for a carton of Grade A large eggs in December 2022, a jump from $1.79 a year ago. An outbreak of bird flu, high inflation, and cage-free-egg laws imposed by some states might be the reasons. Average butter prices went from $3.47 a pound a year ago to $4.81. Margarine, usually used as ...

While inflation is finally cooling a little bit, nothing seems to stop the soaring food prices. Prices of margarine and butter in December 2022 increased 44% and 31%, respectively, from a year ago. Egg prices had even gone up by 60% ( Brooks, 2023 )   Inflation is just one factor driving up the food prices   Inflation and the recent bird flu outbreak might have just created a perfect storm to jack up egg prices. Plus, it also happened that more states began transitioning to cage-free eggs around the same time. Effective in 2023, all eggs sold in California must be laid by hens living in cage-free or better conditions. Likewise, a similar bill is now under review by the Senate Agriculture Committee in New York. Leave the war in Ukraine aside; prices for eggs and other essential food items (e.g., baked goods) are unlikely to drop soon.    Food banks are struggling       As a result of soaring food prices, food banks only afford to buy fewer items wi...

  Are you feeling hopeful for the new year?   As many of us have left the pandemic behind in 2022 and begun traveling again, airlines have begun seeing profits. Some tourist destinations also recorded the highest-ever RevPAR (revenue per available room, a key hotel performance indicator).   The foodservice industry is recovering too. According to   National Restaurant Association ’s forecast in January 2022, the foodservice industry would make $898 billion in sales for the year, exceeding $864 billion in 2019. Entering 2023, will restaurant sales continue to grow? Or, will high inflation and uncertainty of the economic outlook negatively affect sales in the foodservice industry?      Regardless of where we stand, the foodservice industry must overcome many big operational challenges to thrive in 2023. To start off, let’s visit food and labor costs, the two costliest items on the balance sheet.      Food prices are unlikely to fall  ...