Kansas State University

Hospitality management program has strong showing at international conference

Submitted by Junehee Kwon

Five graduate students and three faculty members from the hospitality management department participated in the 24th annual Graduate Education and Graduate Student Research Conference in Hospitality and Tourism from Jan. 3-5 in Houston, Texas.

Overall, there were approximately 241 presentations — 123 stand-up presentation and 118 posters — in this conference from universities in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and beyond that offer graduate programs in hospitality management and tourism. K-State graduate students gave six stand-up presentations, and K-State was, once again, well represented.

Of 123 stand-up presentations, 10 were nominated for four best paper awards by the Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, and Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing. 

Naiqing Lin, fall 2018 doctoral graduate, received a best paper award by the Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research for "Leading by example: A three-wave sequential mixed method food safety study," written in conjunction with Paola Paez, research associate professor for the Center for Food Safety in Child Nutrition Programs in the College of Human Ecology.

Junehee Kwon, professor and graduate program director in the hospitality management department, was recognized as one of 10 paper review track chairs who served for the conference. She has served for this capacity for the last six years.

Kwon and Jichul Jang, assistant professor of hospitality management, served as session moderators during the conference. 

The following is a complete list of poster and stand-up presentations from the conference:

• Misun Kim, master's student in hospitality administration, and Jichul Jang, "Is customer citizenship behavior the secret sauce for fostering employee citizenship behavior toward customers?"
• Naiqing Lin and Kevin Roberts, associate professor of hospitality management, "Using the theory of planned behavior to predict food safety behavioral intention: A meta-analysis."
• Naiqing Lin and Paola Paez, "Leading by example: A three-wave sequential mixed method food safety study."
• Eunhye Park, doctoral student in hospitality administration, Bongsug Chae, professor of marketing and Jon Wefald chair in business, and Junehee Kwon, "What is in the mind of the green restaurant customers? An application of category-based perspective in a green restaurant image."
• Inneke Sarwono, doctoral student in hospitality administration, Junehee Kwon, and Nadia Shapkina, assistant professor of sociology, "Human trafficking and the hotel industry: Measuring the problem awareness in U.S. hotels."
• Wenhao Zhang and Junehee Kwon, "Are your eyes bigger than your stomach? The impact of trayless university dining implementation on customers' food selection, consumption, waste behavior, and satisfaction."