Search results

The purpose of this study is to unearth antecedents of regrettable dining experiences related to the information source, action and inaction perspectives, dining companion influence and interactions among information source, the focal customer’s valence and the dining companion’s valence on regret, leading to sequential behavioral outcomes.

Using a scenario-based experimental study, 344 qualified questionnaires were collected. Univariate ANOVA and multiple linear regression analyses were implemented.

The results of this study reveal that action regret is more intense than inaction regret during the choice-making phase; dining companion negative feedback intensifies focal customer’s regret. The significance of the information source on regret disappeared when only one party reported negative feedback; conversely, when two parties in the co-consumption experience revealed negative feedback, the relationship between information source of choice and regret was sustained.

The nature of scenario-based design may lack realism. Thus, more field experiments are encouraged to test the propositions further. This research enhances our understanding of gastronomic experiences in a negative disconfirmation context, drawing upon action/inaction regret theory, attribution theory and the expectancy disconfirmation model.

From a triad relationship perspective, this study provides valuable input on who or what will be attributed to the issues when encountering a food and wine sensory failure. Additionally, insightful recommendations are supplied on avoiding the possibility of inducing the experience of regret and how practitioners can increase the potential for a memorable dining experience.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that enriched the existing knowledge of regrettable dining experiences relating to information sources and social influence.

This paper aims to investigate consumer responses to brand rumors and corporate rumor response strategies in the restaurant industry.

A scenario-based experimental design was used to examine changes in consumers’ brand evaluation depending on level of brand equity and corporate choice of response strategy.

It was found that the impact of brand rumors on consumer responses is more negative when the restaurant’s brand equity is low compared to when it is high. It was also found that a company's use of active response strategies is more effective in combating brand rumor than a strategy of simple denial.

The findings have significant implications for both academics and practitioners in terms of developing effective response strategies for counteracting brand rumors.

Given the frequency of brand rumors in the restaurant industry and their serious negative impacts, this study extends the existing brand crisis communication literature by demonstrating how consumers respond to a rumor and the effectiveness of different corporate rumor response strategies.

This study aims to understand social media users’ responses to the influencer-endorsed wine short videos on the most popular platform – Douyin, relying on message interpretation process (MIP) framework and identify segmentation differences from gender and the generational cohorts (Gen Z and Gen Y).

Topic modeling, content analysis and quantitative analysis were used to decipher the user-generated content (UGC) data retrieved from 81 wine videos posted by the top 30 social media influencers (SMI) who focused on wine products and consumption experience messages.

The results demonstrate social media users are most inclined to respond to product-related topics, followed by the influencer, emotional, alcohol drinking intent, behavioral and skepticism. Meanwhile, the findings also revealed that the female group was more likely to engage in influencer topics, whereas the male group contributed more to product subjects. Gen Z cohort involved more themes about alcohol drinking intent, whereas Gen Y contributed more to skepticism.

The findings provide hospitality and wine practitioners, SMI and brand sponsors valuable information to use this advanced tactic among various social networking services.

This study is the first to grasp the Douyin users’ perceptions of this newly emerged influencer marketing strategy via UGC data. Originality is established by investigating gender and generational cohorts’ differences underlined by MIP.

顾客在 TikTok（抖音）对网红葡萄酒营销短视频有何见解？探索性别和代际差异

本研究旨在了解社交媒体用户对最受欢迎的平台 - 抖音- 的网红认可的葡萄酒短视频的反应, 依靠消息解释过程 (MIP) 框架, 并识别性别和世代群组的细分差异（Z世代和 Y 世代）。

利用主题建模、内容分析和定量分析来破译从30 名社交媒体网红发布的 81 个葡萄酒视频中关注葡萄酒产品和消费体验信息检索到的 UGC 数据。

结果表明, 社交媒体用户最倾向于回应产品相关话题, 其次是影响者、情绪、饮酒意图、行为和怀疑态度。同时, 调查结果还显示, 女性群体更可能参与有社交媒体网红主题的话题, 而男性群体对产品主题的贡献更大。 Z 世代队列涉及更多关于饮酒意图的主题, 而 Y 世代则表现更多怀疑。

研究结果为酒店和葡萄酒从业者、社交媒体影响者和品牌赞助商提供了宝贵的信息, 以在各种社交网络服务中使用这种先进的策略。

这项研究首次通过 UGC 数据掌握了抖音用户对这种新兴的网红营销策略的看法。通过 MIP 体现性别和代际群体的差异从而体现本研究的原创价值。

This study aims to investigate consumer responses to cause-related marketing (CRM) implemented by socially stigmatized industries, especially in fast food restaurants.

This experimental study uses a 2 (degree of perceived fit) × 2 (complementary fit) × 2 (brand equity) between-subjects design.

Results show significant interaction effects between the degree of fit and brand equity and complementary fit and brand equity on consumers’ brand evaluation. When a company with high brand equity chooses a high fit (vs low fit) or complementary fit (vs non-complimentary fit) for CRM promotion, this leads to consumers’ more positive attitude and higher intent to participate in CRM promotion.

This study provides practical implications for designing effective CRM promotion in the stigmatized industry such as fast food restaurants and casino.

Given the increased demand on CRM in the hospitality industry, the paper contributes to extend the realm of CRM literatures by investigating antecedents affecting consumers’ responses toward the CRM in the stigmatized companies or brands.

This services marketing research provides a theoretical framework for experiential and relationship marketing and extends the theory of transcendent customer experience (TCE). Specifically, this paper aims to identify how the drivers (emotional intelligence [EI]), outcomes (customer loyalty, willingness to pay and word of mouth [WOM] intentions) and influences (openness to experience) of TCE are integrated. The research contributes to the theoretical debate regarding ability-based and self-reported EI measures by examining their influence on TCE.

Students and general consumers provided data through structured online surveys in three survey-based experiments. Linear and multiple regressions, mediation analyses and simple effects tests were used for data analysis.

Findings suggest that self-reported and ability-based measures of EI influence TCE differently. Participants who had high self-reported EI evaluated positive service encounters as more transcendent than they evaluated negative service encounters. Participants who had high ability-based EI evaluated positive service encounters as less transcendent than they evaluated negative service encounters. TCE experiences evoked higher loyalty, willingness to pay (WTP) and WOM recommendations. Furthermore, dispositional factors were significant in forming TCE: participants who were highly open to experience and had high ability-based EI interpreted their service encounter as less transcendent than did participants who were more closed to experience and had low ability-based EI.

TCE, a relatively new concept, offers theoretical advancement in context and constructs. The student-provided data gave high internal validity; the general consumer-provided data gave external validity. Ideally, a future field study in an actual consumption setting should replicate the findings. A self-reported questionnaire used to measure constructs may have introduced common method variance that biased the results.

By understanding that EI affects perceptions of transcendence in positive/negative service encounters, marketers can better implement consumer-oriented marketing strategies that will enhance TCE, customer loyalty, WTP and WOM.

Despite considerable research in experiential and relationship marketing, room remains for theoretical and practical enhancement in the under-researched concept of TCE. This research is the first attempt to extend TCE theory to marketing by identifying the drivers, outcomes and moderators of TCE in service encounters. The research also provides theoretical advancement in EI research. The results contradict previous research claiming that ability-based and self-reported measures are equally valid. Instead, using the two EI scales interchangeably leads to potentially different outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine food safety behaviors of consumers and employees at university food courts.

Using a smartphone-based observation technique, a total of 149 consumers and 34 employees were observed at three food courts at a mid-western university in the USA. The observational tool recorded 30 sequential transactions of each individual, allowing researchers to identify the compliance rate to the rubric. Both descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis of variance were used for data analysis.

This study found a low compliance rate of food safety practices among consumers and employees at university food courts. Consumers’ food safety practices varied depending on gender, observed ethnicity and party size, while none of those factors was significant for employees. Specifically, females, Caucasians, and lone diners showed higher non-compliance rates than those of males, non-Caucasians and group diners.

The results of the study raise the pressing needs of developing effective risk communication strategies at university food courts for both consumers and employees in order to reduce the potential risk of foodborne illness outbreaks.

University food courts are not only major foodservice operations for on-campus populations as well as off-campus visitors and the local public, but also the presence of shared dining area pertains the potential risk of foodborne illnesses. However, lack of attention has been paid to the food safety issues at university food courts, and especially food safety behaviors of consumers. This study extended the knowledge of previous food safety literature by adopting a smartphone-based observation technique and developing a rubric customized for consumers and employees at university food courts.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of research on customer experience management (CEM). The objectives are as follows. The paper first introduces the concepts involved in CEM by identifying definitions and dimensions of the customer experience. Second, the paper describes the evolution of CEM research from a theoretical perspective in generic businesses and then in the hospitality and tourism (H&T) sector. Third, the paper investigates the methodological approaches used in CEM research and addresses the challenges in measuring the customer experience. Fourth, this study addresses cultural issues in CEM research. The identification of gaps in CEM research in the general business and H&T sectors leads the authors to consider directions for future research. Managerial implications are also provided.

The paper takes the form of a review of the extant literature in the general businesses and the H&T industry.

Despite the emergence of CEM as a vital research area, a large portion of its studies remain conceptual, which indicates that further empirical investigations are necessary. Importantly, the uniquely experiential nature of H&T products/services calls for systematic, theory-driven research. The paper identifies future research topics, which include total customer experience, transcendent experience, transformational experience, authentic experience and the co-creation of experience. This study delineates potential methods and measurement scales that can be used in CEM research and some challenges in the development of future measurement scales of customer experience. Recognizing a lack of CEM research from a cultural perspective, this paper calls for future studies that consider cultural factors in the identification of the underlying reasons for various perceptions of experiences.

Companies need to take a holistically integrated approach to creating a memorable experience in which multidimensional value can be delivered through multiple, sequential stages of experience. The co-creation of experience can lead to a sustainable experience that can be life transforming or perspective transforming.

Acknowledging the importance of excellent CEM in the contemporary H&T industry, this paper provides a compilation of literature on CEM and offers a foundation for advancing future CEM research in the H&T industry.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are a key player in the food services and restaurants sector; thus, the aim of this work consists in studying the previous research on ICTs in food services and restaurants in the context of tourism and hospitality through a systematic literature review.

The systematic literature review is performed on full papers published in journals included in the Journal Citation Report of the WoS in the category of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism. A total of 165 articles from 28 journals are analyzed, following different criteria, such as the research methods, perspectives, statistical techniques, geographical focus, topics, technologies, authors and universities.

The restaurant sector is more and more based on the creation of experiences and ICTs, through their multiple possibilities, can undoubtedly contribute to adding value to the simple meal and create and recreate experiences to attract and retain customers who are increasingly sophisticated and hooked on ICTs. ICTs are basic for managers taking decision at the highest level in food services and restaurants, so ICTs should not be seen as a technical tool but as an essential element for top management.

This paper examined articles from very well-known tourism and hospitality journals, leaving aside others as well as different publication formats such as books or papers presented at conferences.

A significant contribution made with this paper is the availability of a list of topics in the context of ICTs in food services and restaurants. These topics are classified into three areas (Consumers, Suppliers and Environment and Tendencies) that can serve as a future research framework. The paper also provides useful information to restaurant managers about ICTs, to researchers for their future projects and to academics for their courses.

This study aims to address how the social structure of the hospitality management field has evolved from 1960 to 2016.

The informal social structure of the hospitality management literature was analyzed by collecting authorship data from seven hospitality management journals. Co-authorship analyses via network analysis were conducted.

According to the findings, throughout the history of hospitality management, international collaboration levels are relatively low. Based on social network analysis, the research community is only loosely connected, and the network of the community does not fit with the small-world network theory. Additional findings indicate that researchers in the hospitality management literature are ranked via degree centrality, closeness centrality and betweenness centrality. Cliques, which contain at least five researchers, and core researchers are identified.

This study helps both scholars and practitioners improve the informal structure of the field. Scholars must generate strong ties to strengthen cross-fertilization in the field; hence, they collaborate with authors who have strong positions in the field. Specifically, this provides a useful performance analysis. To the extent that institutions and individuals are rewarded for publications, this study demonstrates the performance and connectivity of several key researchers in the field. This finding could be interesting to (post)graduate students. Hospitality managers looking for advisors and consultants could benefit from the findings. Additionally, these are beneficial for journal editors, junior researchers and agencies/institutions.

As one of the first study in the field, this research examines the informal social structure of hospitality management literature in seven journals.