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Solitary dining is a growing worldwide trend, but still evokes a strong emotional response. Some solo diners choose to be alone; others feel lonely due to circumstances. This study aims to explore solitary dining in Japan and Taiwan, moderated by negative emotions.

Based on a survey of 372 participants, this study uses structural equation modeling to examine anticipated loneliness and anticipated negative evaluation from others (the “spotlight effect”) associated with solitary dining intention among university students in Japan and Taiwan.

Taiwanese university students report solo dining behaviors and intentions with as much frequency as their Japanese counterparts. While Japanese university students associate solitary dining with neutral or positive emotions, Taiwanese university students associate solitary dining with negative emotions, anticipating loneliness and negative evaluation from others.

This study concludes with future research directions for both cross-cultural and post-colonial studies of solitary dining behavioral intention.

From a managerial perspective, the findings provide useful insights to restaurant practitioners and managers in East Asia, recommending settings designed to enhance warmth, quiet and a sense of belonging.

This study examines colonial and post-colonial influences, and concludes with recommendations for future research on both cross-cultural and post-colonial approaches solitary dining behavioral intention.

This study contributes to existing cross-cultural studies in Europe and East Asia, but is the first to compare solitary dining in a Chinese linguistic context and the first to compare solitary dining in Taiwan and Japan.

This study aims to examine the effect of self-construal on solo dining intentions and its underlying mechanism through consumer emotions. Furthermore, the study also investigates the moderating effect of the composition of other diners on the relationship between self-construal and solo dining intentions.

A 2 (self-construal: independent vs interdependent) × 2 (other diners: solo diners vs social diners) between-subjects experimental design was adopted to test the hypotheses. The data were collected from 317 Chinese consumers, followed by an analysis using IBM SPSS 23.0 and AMOS 23.0.

The findings indicate that consumers with an independent self-construal are more likely to have the intention to dine alone at a restaurant. Nevertheless, this effect is contingent upon the composition of other diners. The effect is significant only when nearby diners are social diners, and perceived enjoyment partly mediates the relationship. Conversely, when nearby diners are also solo diners, consumers' self-construals do not significantly affect their solo dining intentions. Moreover, the results indicate that consumers generally experience low levels of perceived stress when dining alone.

This study incorporates individual personality traits into research on solo diners and highlights the crucial role of positive emotions in solo dining, which provides insights for relevant enterprises to develop effective marketing strategies.

The purpose of this research is to understand the effects of self‐monitoring, dining companions and industry segments on the usage of alternate currencies while dining out.

An experimental design using frequent consumers of restaurant services is being used with a scenario approach with a sample size of 471.

Results indicate that self‐monitoring has significant impact on consumers' choice for alternate currencies. In addition, the type of dining companion (boss vs friend vs alone) has significant affect on usage of alternate currencies. Industry segments were not found be a significant factor in making usage of alternate currencies. For high self‐monitoring individuals, the preferences for currency usages are more likely influenced by the image delivered by the currency than for low self‐monitors. Consumers who dine with a friend or alone are more likely to prefer to pay with frequent usage points‐only (as opposed to dollars‐only) than consumers who dine with the boss. This result indicates that the dining companion is an important determinant in preferring the alternative currency, frequent usage points. Since frequent usage points are a signal of price discount, consumers do not want to make an impression of “being cheap” on the higher‐status dining companion (e.g. boss) by using frequent usage points for their dining experiences. On the other hand, if consumers dine with a friend or alone, they are more likely to reap the financial rewards of paying with frequent usage points without regard to the impression it creates.

These findings have significant implications for the restaurants marketers and managers. Implementation of frequent diners program may be affected significantly by self‐monitoring characteristics and nature of dining companions.

This study extends the understanding of individual differences associated with currency preference by examining the effects of self‐monitoring and impression management on consumer preferences for currency usage. Identifying the characteristics of consumers using the different currency options is critical for the foodservice industry.

This study aims to explore the role of restaurant experienscape in affecting diners' emotions and satisfaction with solo dining, considering the moderating role of solo dining willingness and public self-consciousness (PSC).

In total, 403 Korean customers who had dined alone at restaurants in the past three months participated in this study. Structural equation modeling, including multiple group analysis, was conducted to examine the hypotheses.

The dining atmosphere influenced solo diners' positive emotions but not their negative emotions. Responses from other guests and the interactional fairness of employees affected solo diners' negative emotions but not their positive emotions. Food sensory influences both positive and negative emotions. This study found that PSC significantly moderated the effect of the dining atmosphere on positive emotions, and solo dining willingness significantly moderated the impact of food sensory on positive emotions.

This study suggests that restaurant managers should pay close attention to providing fair service to all customers by training and educating employees because the unfair treatment that solo diners receive from employees affects focal customers' negative emotions.

The experienscape model was applied to the solo dining context based on Mehrabian and Russell's (1974) stimulus–organism–response paradigm and Pizam and Tasci's (2019) experienscape concept, which reflects the growing trend in solo dining.

The solitary consumption market has grown in the hospitality industry. However, research on the behavior of solitary consumers and differences between solitary consumers of different nationalities is rare. The relationships between solo dining motivations and customer satisfaction were investigated for consumers in Taiwan and the United States.

A survey was conducted among Taiwanese and American consumers; 628 valid questionnaires were retrieved. Structural equation modeling was performed to test the hypotheses.

Significant differences were observed between Taiwanese and American consumer motivations. Higher solo dining motivation was positively associated with customer satisfaction; in particular, “escape and relaxation” and “enjoyment” were both positively associated with customer satisfaction. American consumers had a stronger relationship between motivation for social interaction and customer satisfaction.

Only solo diners in Taiwan and the United States were investigated. The results might not be generalizable to solo diners in other regions.

The study's findings on the associations between solo dining motivations and consumption experience contribute to food consumption research. Furthermore, the results enable an understanding of differences in the motivations and behaviors of solitary consumers in different countries.

In light of the threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese authorities have called for the adoption of the individual dining style (IDS) as a preventive measure for the pandemic and a new norm for civilized code of conduct. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the factors influencing the Chinese people’s intention to adopt the IDS.

The authors applied the capability, opportunity and motivation model of behavior (COM-B) and identified potential predictors influencing the intention to adopt the IDS through a review of the literature. Data were collected through an online survey, and structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypotheses.

The results indicated that the most influential predictors were subjective norm, social norm, perceived benefit and past behavior, while the other predictors (including breaking habits, communal dining culture, perceived behavioral control, perceived health risk and social risk) had insignificant effects on the intention to adopt IDS.

First, educational public health messages should communicate the benefits of IDS. Second, persuasive public communication should focus on how people are implementing the target behavior rather than drawing attention to a minority who are disregarding it. Moreover, given the highly significant effects of subjective norm, public health campaigns should emphasize that adoption of the desired behavior expresses care for significant others.

The findings advance understanding of an underexplored topic, namely, how deeply ingrained ways of dining may be transformed in the current context. Applying the COM-B, the authors tested multiple variables to explain the intention to adopt IDS. The results suggest that some social influences (subjective norm and social norm) and reflective cognitive processes (perceived benefit) had the greatest impacts on behavior intentions. Moreover, the results indicate that threat of COVID-19 may not prompt people to change their dining styles. However, the benefits of IDS to prevent the spread of infectious diseases could lead to its wider adoption.

This paper aims to examine the joint effect of the focal customer’s gender and fellow customer’s gender in influencing voice complaint intentions and intention to convey negative word of mouth (NWOM).

Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two dining conditions (same-gender fellow customer vs opposite-gender fellow customer). Their intention to voice a complaint and to spread NWOM were measured after reading a scenario describing a service failure. A 2 (focal customer gender: male vs female) × 2 (fellow customer: same gender vs opposite gender) between-subjects quasi-experimental design was conducted to test the hypotheses.

The results demonstrate that female customers’ voice complaint intentions were significantly higher when a fellow customer’s gender was female rather than male. In contrast, regardless of the fellow customer’s gender, no significant differences in voice complaint intentions were found among male customers. The results further indicate that voice complaint intentions mediate the impact of a fellow customer’s gender on intention to spread NWOM among female customers. However, both female and male participants show equally high levels of voice complaint intentions in the context of fine-dining restaurant.

This study broadens the understanding of customer complaining behavior and also provides insights to practitioners on how to manage customers who are in same- and mixed-gender situations.

This research extends the literature on agency–communal theory and complaining behaviors by examining the role of a fellow customer’s gender influencing the focal customer’s intentions to voice complaints and to spread NWOM.

The advent of digitalization and the trend of social distancing coincide with the individualized lifestyle that is emerging among contemporary shoppers. This study explores the unique market of “smart solo shoppers”. Two empirical studies are conducted, which aim to identify the major dimensions of multi-channel shopping activities that are engaged by the shoppers (Study 1, n = 64) and to differentiate the shoppers' valuation of time invested in the distinct dimensions under different cultural influences (Study 2, n = 519).

A survey questionnaire is used for data collection, and data are analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results reveal that the shopping activities converge into four principal dimensions: offline shopping, online shopping, post-shopping delivery and product return activities. Shoppers who perceive offline shopping activities as a time burden and online shopping and delivery activities as venues of value creation are more strongly self-identified as smart solo shoppers. Furthermore, smart solo shoppers who are under a strong influence of individualistic culture are found to spend time on multi-channel shopping to make the right purchase the first time, whereas shoppers perceiving being in a weak individualistic culture prefer to engage online channels while being prepared to return the unwanted purchases.

This study highlights an emerging research field in the nexus of solo consumption and smart shopping. Emphasizing the utility-driven and ego-expressive nature of smart solo shoppers, the authors provide an initial profile of these shoppers based on their time-valuation patterns and the contextual impacts of individualistic culture.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that explain the acceptance of self-service ordering systems (SOSs) for restaurants and to explore the effects of “self-service system service quality” (SSQ) and “interpersonal service quality” (ISQ) on the acceptance factors extended from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model.

This study targets customers who have recently used SOSs to order foods in middle-class restaurants. In total, 402 valid survey samples were obtained. Partial least squares (PLS) analysis was used to examine the factors of user acceptance of using SOSs.

The results of the PLS-SEM analysis indicate that SSQ has a significant effect on accuracy expectancy, speed expectancy and effort expectancy; ISQ has a significant effect on accuracy expectancy, speed expectancy, effort expectancy and facilitating conditions; and accuracy expectancy, speed expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions and budget expectancy significantly influence user acceptance of SOSs. Furthermore, user experiences moderate the effect of speed expectancy and effort expectancy on user acceptance.

This study introduces three technology acceptance factors (accuracy, speed and budget) for researchers to consider in the future. It also extends the knowledge about the human service factor when middle-class restaurants adopt self-service technologies (SSTs). Recommendations are provided for system developers to improve the system quality of SSTs and service staff to rethink their roles in adopting SSTs in the service industry.

本文研究目的有:（1）确认解释客人接受餐厅自助订餐系统（SOSs）的决定因素（2）探索自助系统服务质量（SSQ）和人机服务质量（ISQ）对于UTAUT模型科技接受因素的作用。

本论文的目标受众为近期使用过SOSs在中等餐厅点餐过的客人。样本为402份有效问卷数据。本论文使用PLS分析检测用户接受SOSs的各项因素。

PLS-SEM分析结果表明, SSQ对准确预期、速度预期、努力预期, 有显著作用; ISQ对于准确预期、速度预期、努力预期、以及辅助条件, 有显著作用; 准确预期、速度预期、努力预期、社会影响、辅助条件、以及预算预期对于SOSs用户接受有显著作用。此外, 用户体验调节速度预期和努力预期对于用户接受的作用。

本论文新增了三种科技接受因子（准确度、速度、和预算）, 为未来的科研创造土壤。本论文还扩展了我们对于人员服务因子在中等餐厅采用SSTs的认知。本论文建议系统开发者应该提高SST系统质量, 以及建议服务人员重新审视在服务产业采用SST中自己的位置。

Solo travel for leisure and business is increasing. It is therefore timely to conduct research into the experiences of solo tourists. This paper aims to explore one aspect of the solo tourist experience that can be challenging, that of dining alone. This topic has received little attention in the tourism or hospitality literature.

A qualitative approach was adopted and narrative inquiry was selected as the optimum route to obtain detailed and rich accounts of the experiences of solo diners. In-depth interviews of 27 solo tourists were conducted with varying socio-demographic characteristics.

This study shows that though travelling alone is prized by participants, dining alone, especially in the evening, is often discomfiting. Discomfort is caused by the perceived negative judgement of others and is mitigated by the use of various props such as books and mobile phones.

A research agenda is put forward on the aspects of the solo tourist/diner experience.

The paper concludes by asking what can be done to ameliorate the solo dining experience and provides some recommendations to hospitality operators to support this market and improve competitiveness and profitability. The paper shows that inclusive environments can attract multiple market segments and agile restaurants can develop both solo and plural dining experiences.

This paper addresses a topic that has received limited scholarly attention as well as industry engagement despite the growth in solo travel.