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The proliferation of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has threatened the service industry, especially the restaurant sector, requiring innovative ways to help restaurants overcome this challenge. Thus, based on the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) model, the purpose of this study is to examine the role of customers' perception of a restaurant's innovativeness (CPRI) in brand evangelism by mediating customer engagement (CE). Additionally, this study examines the moderating role of customer openness to experience.

A Web-based survey collected the primary data from 483 Egyptian customers. The data were analysed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling method based on WarpPLS.7 software.

According to the findings, CPRI, which acts as a stimulus in the SOR model, positively affects CE (organism) and brand evangelism (response). CE positively affects restaurant evangelism. Additionally, CE mediates the relationship between CPRI and evangelism. Openness to experience moderates the relationship between CPRI, engagement and brand evangelism.

This study addresses the gaps in understanding CE and brand evangelism within the context of restaurant innovation. This study assesses restaurant innovativeness scales of developing economies in multiple dimensions. Egyptian restaurant marketing managers should innovate products, services, experiences, and promotions to increase consumer engagement and feedback through technology.

This study investigates how Egyptian restaurants engage with and evangelise customers through innovation. This is one of the few studies that examine brand evangelism in a restaurant setting from the perspective of the SOR theory. Additionally, this study analyses CE as a mediator and openness to experience as a moderator.

This study explores the determinants of police officer support for pre-arrest/booking deflection programs that divert people presenting with substance use and/or mental health disorder symptoms out of the criminal justice system and connect them to supportive services.

This study analyzes responses from 254 surveys fielded to police officers in Delaware. Questionnaires asked about views on leadership, approaches toward crime, training, occupational experience and officer’s personal characteristics. The study applies a new machine learning method called kernel-based regularized least squares (KRLS) for non-linearities and interactions among independent variables. Estimates from a KRLS model are compared with those from an ordinary least square regression (OLS) model.

Support for diversion is positively associated with leadership endorsing diversion and thinking of new ways to solve problems. Tough-on-crime attitudes diminish programmatic support. Tenure becomes less predictive of police attitudes in the KRLS model, suggesting interactions with other factors. The KRLS model explains a larger proportion of the variance in officer attitudes than the traditional OLS model.

The study demonstrates the usefulness of the KRLS method for practitioners and scholars seeking to illuminate patterns in police attitudes. It further underscores the importance of agency leadership in legitimizing deflection as a pathway to addressing behavioral health challenges in communities.