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Relationship marketing has emerged as pivotal, aiming to bolster collaboration and reduce uncertainty for both franchisors and franchisees. However, understanding the nuanced impact of relational bonding strategies – financial, social, and structural – on franchisee outcomes, particularly in South Korea’s food service industry, remains lacking. This study is an in-depth exploration of the nuanced impact of franchisors’ relational bonding strategies – structural, social, and economic – on critical franchisee outcomes in the food service industry.

By leveraging data from 496 franchisees in South Korea, our investigation meticulously delineates the unique contributions of these bonding strategies in enhancing franchisee’s social and economic satisfaction, building trust in franchisors and fostering long-term orientation among franchisees. This study unravels the complex mediating roles that satisfaction and trust play in the dynamic interplay between franchisors’ bonding efforts and the cultivation of enduring franchisee relationships.

The study reveals that structural, social, and economic bonding impact social satisfaction, while all relational bonding factors directly influence economic satisfaction. Structural and economic bonding influence trust in the franchisor, but social bonding does not. Economic and social satisfaction directly affect trust, and only economic satisfaction directly influences long-term orientation. Finally, trust in the franchisor positively affects long-term orientation.

We offer fresh insights into the strategic management of franchisor–franchisee relationships, aiming to enrich the literature on relationship marketing by highlighting the differential impacts and significance of distinct bonding strategies in promoting sustainable franchise partnerships.

Service fairness has been conceptualized as a major part of the foodservice industry due to the intangibility of foodservice, which is difficult to be evaluated by customers. Considering this challenge, this study investigates the impacts of perceived service fairness dimensions in encouraging brand citizenship behaviors (i.e. brand enthusiasm and brand endorsement) along with the mediating roles of brand trust and brand experience in the foodservice industry.

Based on an established framework of perceived service fairness, brand trust, brand experience and brand citizenship behavior, an exploratory conceptual model was formulated and empirically assessed. Survey data were collected from customers of casual dining franchise restaurants in Korea. Data analysis consisted of frequency analysis, reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis and structural equation modeling.

The empirical results indicated that brand trust was significantly influenced by price, procedural, outcome and interactional fairness, while brand experience was significantly affected by price, outcome and interactional fairness. Additionally, brand trust and brand experience had positive influences on brand enthusiasm and brand endorsement, respectively.

A foodservice enterprise’s violation of customers’ fundamental need for fairness leads to negative outcomes, such as customers voicing the undesirable situation and/or leaving the restaurant. Thus, this study provides a strategy for maintaining service fairness to better develop brand relationships with customers in the restaurant industry.

There is a paucity of research on the effect of perceived service fairness on brand development in the restaurant industry. The findings provide greater insights into the impacts of perceived service fairness, brand trust and brand experience on customers’ brand citizenship behaviors.

The concept of leader–member exchange (LMX) is well accepted in the service industry. This study examines how the quality of LMX helps hotels to achieve desirable outcomes, such as innovative behavior and job performance. The model was developed based on the LMX theory, and considers the relationship among the quality of LMX, employee engagement, innovative behavior and job performance.

The model was tested on employees of hotels in South Korea using a survey method. Data were analyzed using frequency, reliability, confirmatory factor, correlation and structural equation modeling analyses.

LMX significantly influenced job engagement and innovative behavior but did not significantly affect organization engagement. Job engagement significantly affected organization engagement and innovative behavior but did not significantly influence job performance. Organization engagement significantly influenced job performance but did not significantly affect innovative behavior. Job performance was significantly influenced by innovative behavior.

The findings of this study suggest that an immediate leader plays a critical role in fostering engagement, behavior and performance.

The current study is the first to use the LMX theory to develop and test a research model that accounts for the antecedents and desired outcomes (i.e. innovative behavior and job performance) of two types of employee engagement in the hotel context.

This study investigates the structural relationships among humor leadership, psychological empowerment, innovative behavior, and job performance in the Korean hotel industry. This study reveals following key major findings. First, a leader’s use of humor in leadership significantly and positively influences an employee’s psychological empowerment. Second, an employee’s psychological empowerment significantly and positively influences innovative behavior and job performance. However, innovative behavior does not significantly influence job performance. In the final section, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.