Dr. Teng has received and has been in charge of research projects funded by Ministry of Science and Technology each year. Her research projects mainly focus on the following topics.

1. Food Waste Behavior and Prevention Strategy

      According to the United Nations report “food wastage footprint”, one-third of food production is wasted every year around the world. The total amount of 1.3 billion tons of food wastage, occupied almost 1.4 billion hectares of lands, damages to the environment and causes economic losses of US$750 billion each year. In Taiwan, it was estimated that 110 thousand of retail and food service firms are estimated to generate 36 thousand tons of expired food by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Specifically, households and the food service industry are considered as the main contributors of food wastage. Among the food service providers, buffet service restaurants and school catering produce more food wastage than other type of food services. Accordingly, this research project intends to investigate and identify factors driving food wastage in household, buffet restaurant, and school catering, and to provide strategies and suggestions that help to reduce food wastage.

      This research project is planned for three years. The first year attempts to identify antecedents of household food wastage and examine the theoretical model of food waste behavior. The second year intends to identify drivers that lead to food waste in a buffet restaurant and school catering, using weight measurement and in-depth interviews. The third year, at the beginning, intends to develop food literacy scale as an instrument used to assess the effect of the educational intervention in the experimental course. Next, the contents, teaching materials, and instructional strategies of the experimental course are developed and intervened in the experimental class, which will be assessed the effect of educational intervention at the end of semester. The results of this study not only help improve food wastage produced by households, school catering, and buffet restaurants, but also help to increase the levels of food literacy and the understanding of zero food waste for undergraduate hospitality students.

2. Hotel/Restaurant Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction Management and Education

      People around the world are facing the serious problem of global warming and greenhouse effects, which will eventually hinder the growth and sustainability of the hotel industry. It is noted that a clean tourism environment depends on effective energy management, carbon reduction and environmental strategies, along with public communication and participation in energy conservation and carbon reduction (ECCR). This research project lasts three year. The first year attempts to investigate ECCR strategies and installation process, including the key success factors and challenges, of environmental friendly hotels; and explores the perspectives of various stakeholders towards hotel ECCR policies. The second year intends to use experimental design to investigate how message quality and customer attribution tendency influence the relationship between customer conformity and their ECCR behavior. Furthermore, an experimental curriculum of hotel ECCR for hospitality college students would be developed, in addition to instruction and course evaluation strategies. The third year intends to implement the developed ECCR curriculum, evaluate the effects of experimental curriculum, and analyze student learning processes and difficulties. The results of this study can provide both practical and academic implications to hospitality undergraduate ECCR education as well as hotel ECCR talent development.