Going Green in Quick-Service Restaurants: Customer Perceptions and Intentions

As many industries are realizing the ecological, financial, and social benefits to implementing green practices in business, the literature shows that restaurants are slowly following suit (Deveau, 2009 Deveau, D. 2009. Fight the power. Foodservice and Hospitality, 41(11): 47–52.  [Google Scholar]; Dutta, Umashankar, Choi, & Parsa, 2008 Dutta, K., Umashankar, V., Choi, G. and Parsa, H. G. 2008. A comparative study of consumers' green practice orientation in India and the United States: A study from the restaurant industry. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 11(3): 269–285. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). Increased competition in the marketplace coupled with changing guest demand as well the need to ensure guest satisfaction are some of the driving factors for service organizations to go green. The current study analyzes perceptions of a random sample of quick service restaurant guests in the Midwest regarding the green practices of restaurants in order to determine the impact that these practices may have on satisfaction, the intent to patronize the restaurant, and therefore the bottom line of the businesses. The findings show that although respondents believed that restaurants should utilize green practices, most people were not willing to pay higher prices for those green practices. Another finding is that people who implement green practices at home tend to have the intention to visit green restaurants more often. Increasing knowledge through marketing the green practices should be implemented by restaurants in order to increase awareness of such practices to the general public.     

Experience,brand prestige,perceived value (functional,hedonic, social,and financial), and loyalty among GROCERANT customers

The food service industry has already observed that a merely good quality of products/services cannot make a business successful and has emphasized the importance of delivering unique and memorable experiences. Grocerants meet customer demand by filling the roles of grocery stores and restaurants, while offering novel and special experiences to customers. This study explores the unique experiences staged in grocerants by applying the experience economy and associates such experiences to brand prestige, customer perceived value, and loyalty. Data was collected at grocerants in Korea, using a mall-intercept survey. Our results identify the positive effects of entertainment and escapist experiences on brand prestige which significantly triggers functional, hedonic, social, and financial values. The three values (functional, hedonic, and financial) also affect loyalty. Overall, the proposed theoretical framework sufficiently accounts for customer loyalty. This study was the first attempt to investigate grocerant patrons’ behaviors and thus includes a high degree of originality.     

Determinants of Hotels and Restaurants entrepreneurship: A study using GEM data

The objective of this work is to assess the influence of certain factors on the likelihood of being a Hotels and Restaurants (H&R) entrepreneur. The factors evaluated are demographic and economic variables, variables related to perceptions of the environment and personal traits, and variables measuring the individual's intellectual and social capital. The work uses logistic regression techniques to analyze a sample of 33,711 individuals in the countries participating in the GEM project in 2008. The findings show that age, gender, income, perception of opportunities, fear of failure, entrepreneurial ability, knowing other entrepreneurs and being a business angel are explanatory factors of the probability of being an H&R entrepreneur.     

Bike-traveling as a growing phenomenon: Role of attributes,value, satisfaction,desire, and gender in developing loyalty

This research was designed to investigate the role of bike-tourism attributes, perceived value, satisfaction, desire, and gender in bicyclers' loyalty generation process. We employed a survey methodology. Using the data collected from members of bicycle clubs in China, we conducted a structural analysis and test for metric invariance. Results showed that our theoretical model explained a sufficient amount of the variance in loyalty; the hypothesized relationships in our research framework were generally supported; and cognitive, evaluative, and motivational processes were significant mediators. Moreover, the proposed moderating impact of gender was partially supported. Overall, our empirical findings make a significant contribution to advancing our knowledge of how product attributes, value, satisfaction, and desire are related and how these relationships are affected by gender in the formation of bicycle travelers' loyalty.     

Tourists' attitudes towards textiles and apparel-related cultural products: A cross-cultural marketing study

This study examined American, Korean, and Chinese female consumers' evaluations of and purchase intentions towards Korean textiles and apparel-related cultural products. This study also investigated how a consumer's evaluations of Korean textiles and apparel-related cultural products are related to novelty-seeking tendency, world-mindedness, and familiarity with Northeast Asian culture on the part of female tourists. Novelty-seeking appeared to be useful only when predicting how one will respond to cultural products from other countries and cultures, but not from one's own. Regardless of the sample, respondents' evaluations of the color and design of the product stood out as the most important indicator, across all four products, of how much they would like a given product, and further, would also like to purchase the product. Northeast Asian design contributed to favorable purchase intention even for those who are from Northeast Asia, indicating that fashion cultural products are not targeted only at those from other cultures.     

A holistic view of the service experience at coffee franchises: A cross-cultural study

Service quality alone is no longer a sustainable advantage in today's competitive hospitality industry, and marketers are paying more attention to strategically managing the customer's experience. The purpose of this study is to examine the customer service experience from a holistic standpoint, and further consider how different components of the customer service experience influence perceived value, attitudes, and loyalty at coffee franchises. Further, this study conducts a comparative analysis to find the similarities and differences that exist cross-culturally between Americans and Koreans. This study develops a self-administered questionnaire for data collection: we adopt a convenience sampling method and collected data at two Starbucks franchises and two Coffee Bean franchises in both Seoul, South Korea, and Miami, US. Further, the study implements structural equational modeling to analyze the data. Overall, the results support the study hypotheses, and indicate that nationality has a moderating effect on the relation between the latent variables.     

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and customer loyalty in the hotel industry: A cross-country study

The study examines the role of customer perceptions of CSR in improving customer loyalty by exploring its direct and mediated effects through service quality, customer satisfaction, corporate image and corporate reputation in a cross-country setting. Data from Pakistan, China, and Italy was collected through surveys to explore customers’ hotel experiences. The hypotheses were tested with SmartPLS-3. Findings for the overall sample revealed that CSR affected customer loyalty positively and significantly. Nonetheless, this relationship was insignificant in the samples from Pakistan and Italy, while it was found to be only partially significant in China. The findings also revealed a direct, positive and significant impact of CSR on service quality, customer satisfaction, corporate image and corporate reputation. The direct relationships among all these variables were also significant across samples. Customer satisfaction and corporate image were identified as significant mediators of the CSR-loyalty link, but service quality and corporate reputation were found insignificant.     

A cross-cultural study of perceptions of medical tourism among Chinese, Japanese and Korean tourists in Korea

The purpose of this study is to observe factors related to perceptions of and possible participation in medical tourism by Chinese, Japanese, and Korean visitors to Jeju Island in Korea. It aims to identify cultural differences among them, and how those differences affect their pursuit of medical tourism in the future. The research results illustrate that significant differences exist in how Chinese, Japanese and Korean visitors view factors of choice, discomfort and preferred product items. The study establishes four factor groups regarding medical tourism with exploratory factor analysis. Based on these findings, differences of participation intention and behaviors among the three groups are explained. From this, the study describes distinct characteristics of medical tourism among the three cultural groups. The differences among Chinese, Japanese, and Korean tourists with regard to the selection of destination, inconveniences, and preferred products were found to be all significant. Korean tourists placed most significance on selection factors, followed by Chinese tourists, and, lastly, the Japanese. On the other hand, inconveniences related to medical and care services, stay and cost, and information and insurance elements were most strongly associated with Japanese tourists. This may be a reflection of a possible tendency of Japanese tourists to value safety and cost effectiveness. For Chinese tourists, the importance of stay and cost was equally high as those of their Japanese counterparts, which is indicative of Chinese tourists’ cost sensitivity. Light treatments (minor surgery) were preferred by Chinese tourists, while more significant treatments (major surgery) were preferred by Japanese tourists. In terms of aesthetic and healthcare services, Chinese tourists showed the most interest, while Japanese tourists placed emphasis on rehabilitation (lifestyle-related), which may reflect the Korean Wave’s influence in certain Chinese market segments, leading to an increased demand for cosmetic or plastic surgery.     

Make a customer,not a sale: Tourist satisfaction in Hong Kong

Although tourism literature is replete with visitor satisfaction studies, little attention has been paid to comparing satisfaction between tourism sectors. Tourism is a complex system and the tourist satisfaction and performance of one sector have significant implications on another. This situation makes a comparative study indispensable for holistic tourism planning. Moreover, a destination is an amalgam of tourism products. It would therefore be parochial to examine one tourism product without comparing it to other products in the tourism system. Knowledge and understanding of such comparisons ensure comprehensive planning by tourism decision makers and marketers. In meeting the objectives declared in the introductory section, the study builds on previous research to adopt the Tourism Satisfaction Index Model and the Expectancy-Disconfirmation framework. Questionnaires are the main data collection instrument and data are analyzed through a series of statistical procedures. The findings reveal considerable differences in satisfaction between attractions and hotels. A strong correlation is identified between satisfaction and loyalty, and four antecedents of satisfaction are confirmed. The implications of the study are subsequently discussed.     

Hospitality employee and customer role in value co-creation: Personal,organizational and collaborative outcomes

With the growing frequency and importance of peer-to-peer service exchanges, the role of front-line employees for traditional hospitality service providers is changing. This study is the first to examine differences in value co-creation appraisal between front-line employees and customers. Respondents (N = 720) were equally assigned to either an employee or customer role and performed that role for four different online co-creation scenarios based on destination resort context: co-innovation, co-creation of marketing, co-production, and co-recovery. The results of between-within online experimental design were analysed using repeated measures ANOVA and PLS-SEM. Co-created value was appraised significantly higher by employees and positively affected well-being, satisfaction, and competitive advantage for both employees and customers. Co-created value served as a mediator between the four types of co-creation and outcomes only for customers. The study contributes to understanding roles as knowledge-based resources in value co-creation and provides practical implications for successful value co-creation in hospitality.     

The hospitality of the host: A cross-cultural examination of managerially facilitated consumer-to-consumer interactions

In the design and programming of hedonic service settings such as events, managers can facilitate positive social interactions between guests. The objective of this research is to examine the effect of managerially facilitated consumer-to-consumer interactions on Asian and Western consumer evaluations and behavioral outcomes. A field experimental methodology is employed within the cultural group tour context. Asians are found to benefit from management facilitation of social interaction at higher levels than Westerners. Implications for event managers and directions for future research are shared.     

A preliminary study of chefs’ attitudes and knowledge of healthy eating in Edinburgh's restaurants

This article details the findings of a preliminary study carried out in Edinburgh restaurants producing representations of chefs’ attitudes to healthy eating. Despite a lack of awareness of government targets and promotions aimed at the Hospitality industry, chefs were positive towards healthy eating and believe that they were already practising it. They perceive their role as being multi-faceted from deferential service provider to educator and artist relying mainly upon their own inspiration when creating menus. Tension between commercial goals and moral principles was evident by the fact that customers were perceived as the main barrier and equally the main reason to offer healthy options on the menu.     

The effect of perceived trust on electronic commerce: Shopping online for tourism products and services in South Korea

According to the OECD's 2008 statistics (Seoul Finance Internet News, 2009), Korea was ranked number one in terms of the percentage of homes with Internet access, at 80.6% of the total population. The survey also reported that two-thirds of Koreans with access to the Internet at home are online shoppers. Many tourism companies now actively use Internet sites as a key marketing and sales vehicle for their products and services. To be successful, tourism e-commerce services must be trustworthy.     

The roles of brand equity and branding strategy: A study of restaurant food crises

Food crises, such as food borne illnesses, are a major threat to the restaurant industry. However, consumer responses to a food crisis are expected to differ depending on the brand equity and branding strategy of the restaurant involved. In order to test the roles of brand equity and branding strategy in a food crisis situation, this study used a scenario-based experimental survey with a 2 (brand equity: Low/High) × 2 (branding strategy: Corporate branding/House-of-brands) × 2 (presence of crisis: No/Yes) design. The results of the study supported the “amplifying” perspective by providing evidence of the negative role of brand equity during a crisis. Moreover, the three-way interaction between brand equity, branding strategy, and presence of crisis revealed the effectiveness of the corporate branding strategy, which varies depending on the level of brand equity, under crises. The findings of this study will enable marketers to develop appropriate post-crisis strategies based on predicted consumer responses depending on the level of brand equity and branding strategy. Further discussion and implications are provided in the text.     

The influence of collectivism in restaurant selection: A sentence completion experiment

In a between-subjects experimental design, Korean-Americans and U.S. born non-Koreans were asked to watch a virtual tour of a restaurant and then complete the following sentence: “This restaurant is a good place to go when….” Findings indicate that the Korean-Americans were much more likely to finish the sentence with a collective phrase than the non-Koreans. Moreover, those Korean-Americans utilizing an integration pattern of acculturation were more prone to demonstrate a collective mindset in the sentence completion task than those employing an assimilation pattern of acculturation.     

Co-creating value in hotels using mobile devices: A conceptual model with empirical validation

The service-dominant (S-D) logic paradigm is increasingly gaining ground within the scholarly literature and current hotel industry practice. The S-D logic purports that consumers are no longer passive receivers of firms’ value propositions, but rather interact with firms in service settings, thus co-creating value. Using data from a general population sample of hotel consumers from the U.S., this study developed and validated empirically a conceptual model that recognizes the central role of consumers’ degree of value co-creation in creating valuable service experiences using mobile devices in hotels. It was found that the mobile (m-)commerce habit influences the degree of consumer co-creation, which in turn influences the perceived value of co-creation behavior. In addition, the perceived value of co-creation was found to influence consumers’ perceived value of the hotel stay and intentions to stay in a hotel that facilitates co-creation via the mobile environment.     

Effects of service quality and food quality: The moderating role of atmospherics in an ethnic restaurant segment

This study empirically examined not only the relationship between perceived quality and satisfaction/loyalty, but also the role of customer perceptions of atmospherics in an ethnic restaurant segment. Specifically, this study, using hierarchical regression analyses, investigated the direct effects of service quality and food quality on customer satisfaction and loyalty as well as the moderating effect of the perception of atmospherics, in Korean restaurants. As expected, this study showed that service and food quality have positive and significant effects on customer satisfaction and loyalty. This suggested that, similar to other restaurant segments, employee service and food are of great importance for ethnic restaurants as well. Verifying the moderating role of atmospherics, however, this study found that good employee service can be more effective for increasing the satisfaction and loyalty of customers with a low perception of the atmospherics compared to those with a higher perception. Further, providing quality food is particularly critical for creating customer satisfaction in ethnic restaurants where atmospherics are not satisfactory. More detailed findings and implications are also discussed.     

Recontextualising the determinants of external CSR in the services industry: A cross-cultural study

Although the relationship between institutional pressures and corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been well studied, its underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions are not well understood. To remedy these gaps, we draw on institutional theory and the literature on organisational sensemaking, stakeholder salience and the resource-based view of the firm. We test our conceptual model using survey data from 442 managers of hospitality and tourism enterprises based in Egypt and the United Kingdom. SEM-based results show that both stakeholder issue salience and discretionary slack mediate the link between institutional pressures and external CSR. National culture moderates the effects of institutional pressures on both stakeholder issue salience and external CSR. Multi-group analyses reveal noticeable differences between Egyptian and British managers regarding their interpretations of CSR issues and the institutional environment. This study contributes to the emerging micro-institutional stream and cross-cultural CSR research, providing important insights for managers, policymakers and researchers.     

Disclosing personal information via hotel apps: A privacy calculus perspective

In an era dominated by mobile apps as the final element of the value chain, hotel: firms strive to offer their guests new levels of personalization. To obtain such personalization benefits, consumers need to disclose personal information to hotels, thus threatening their privacy. Engaging in a calculus of benefits and risks associated with information disclosure, consumers may overcome their risk perceptions and opt to disclose personal information. Using data from a sample of hotel: guests from the U.S., this study developed and empirically validated a conceptual model based on an extended version of the privacy calculus model that explained consumers’ willingness to disclose personal information via hotel: apps. It was found that trust in the app and the overall value of information disclosure has significant impacts on personal information disclosure via apps. Several important implications for theory and practice of these findings are discussed.     

Creating sustainable value in the hospitality industry: a (critical) multi-stakeholder study in the Dominican Republic

This paper identifies sustainable initiatives reported by “sustainability-champion” hotels in the Dominican Republic, while contrasting them against the views of key stakeholders. We adapt and apply Hart and Milstein's Sustainable Value Framework, and complement it with a Critical Management Studies approach. Our analysis relies on a mixed-methods approach (non-hierarchical k-means cluster analysis, as well as thematic and content analysis). Findings indicate that most hotels are engaging more actively in present-oriented strategies such as pollution prevention (especially, the international hotels) and in product/service stewardship. However, in the future-oriented strategies, hotels owned by local investors show higher commitment to both clean technology and innovation, and to the sustainability vision (as the firm's growth path). In addition, although the views of multiple stakeholders show a clear acknowledgment of the hospitality industry's sustainability efforts (particularly regarding education and environmental protection), they also offer differing views about the ultimate impact and value of those efforts for them and for the broader society. Our study offers a new theoretical lens to explore multi-stakeholder approaches and offers practical implications for the Dominican Republic's National Strategy for Development 2010–2030, as well as implications that may be of use for other tourism-dependent countries.