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This paper aims to illustrate the application and effectiveness of a marketing programme co-designed by supply- and demand-side stakeholders to reduce consumer food waste in restaurants.

This stakeholder-based marketing pilot study adopted the co-create, build and engage framework for programme design and implementation. Major stakeholders, interacting at the point-of-sale, participated in a series of focus groups, interviews and co-design. The research process informed the marketing mix, which aimed to provide value for all parties. The four-week pilot programme was delivered in a non-buffet-style commercial restaurant chain for 10 months. The amount of consumer food leftovers was measured and compared with pre-programme baseline data to evaluate programme effectiveness.

The results show that the marketing mix co-designed by restaurant stakeholders and consumers effectively reduced food waste by almost half in the pilot period. The profitability of the pilot restaurant increased as food costs decreased.

This research demonstrates how working with stakeholders from both the supply and demand sides can identify motivations and barriers. Insights gained in the research phase can inform the delivery of a marketing mix that reduces consumer food waste. This study demonstrates the marketing research, design, implementation and evaluation process for a marketing programme that reduced consumer food waste.

To effectively reduce consumer food waste, practitioners should not only focus on changing consumers’ behaviour. Co-designing solutions with food service stakeholders to address business and operation challenges is crucial to the attainment of a positive impact at the point-of-sale.

This research shows how marketing changes behaviour in individuals and business entities, contributing to positive environmental impact through waste reduction in the commercial food service sector.

This research aims to explore the interactions of stakeholders in online food delivery (OFD) platforms, including restaurants, the delivery system and the platform, and the effect on total sales. In order to comprehensively analyze the service of stakeholders, the authors adopted the time duration which provides a unified metric for assessing service performance.

The authors used panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model analysis to verify the interactions among restaurants, the delivery system, and the platform itself, and to assess their effects on the sales. Data were collected from one of the biggest OFD service platforms in China – Eleme.com.

First, the findings confirmed that the service performance of restaurants, the delivery system and the platform itself influence one another. There is a bidirectional causality between food preparation time (FPT) and actual delivery time (ACDT), as well as between FPT and advance arrival time (ADAT), ACDT and ADAT. Second, the service performance of restaurants, the delivery system, and the platform itself all positively affect sales, thus demonstrating unidirectional causality.

The current research is a pioneering empirical study, as it confirms the dynamic interactions between participants in OFD platforms and the dynamic influence of their respective service performances on sales. The findings of this research have a number of implications for the management and operation of online food ordering and delivery platforms.

This research investigates the effects of consumers' online information searching on their dining satisfaction in upscale restaurants during the pandemic. Customers frequently rely on online sources to gather information about upscale restaurants prior to their visits.

Data from 307 diners across the top ten popular upscale restaurants in Hong Kong were analysed by using SEM to explore the links between customers' needs, information search, restaurant attributes and customer satisfaction.

This study uncovers customers' online search behaviours and identifies restaurant attributes that are associated with customer satisfaction, which were not typically emphasised before the COVID-19 pandemic. Driven by their social and psychological needs, customers devoted more time to reading written comments by other consumers compared to visual images or self-descriptions from restaurants. Only service attribute significantly influenced customer satisfaction, while food and price attributes were not significant.

The findings of this study provide valuable insights for researchers and practitioners, shedding light on the altered needs and preferences of consumers following the unprecedented health crisis.

This study contributes to the development of expectancy disconfirmation theory and needs theory through the investigation of consumers' online information searching behaviours and dining satisfaction in upscale restaurants during the pandemic. By identifying the most important attributes influencing customer satisfaction, this research can aid upscale restaurants in developing effective marketing strategies and enhancing customer experiences.

A growing body of research finds that gig economy platforms use gamification to enhance managerial control. Focusing on technologically mediated forms of gamification, this literature reveals how platforms mobilize gig workers’ work effort by making the labour process resemble a game. This chapter contends that this tech-centric scholarship fails to fully capture the historical continuities between contemporary and much older occurrences of game-playing at work. Informed by interviews and participatory observations at two food delivery platforms in Amsterdam, I document how these platforms’ piece wage system gives rise to a workplace dynamic in which severely underpaid delivery couriers continuously employ game strategies to maximize their gig income. Reminiscent of observations from the early shop floor ethnographies of the manufacturing industry, I show that the game of gig income maximization operates as an indirect modality of control by (re)aligning the interests of couriers with the interests of capital and by individualizing and depoliticizing couriers’ overall low wage level. I argue that the new, algorithmic technologies expand and intensify the much older forms of gamified control by infusing the organizational activities of shift and task allocation with the logic of the piece wage game and by increasing the possibilities for interaction, direct feedback and immersion. My study contributes to the literature on gamification in the gig economy by interweaving it with the classic observations derived from the manufacturing industry and by developing a conceptualization of gamification in which both capital and labour exercise agency.

The purpose of this study is to ascertain the effects of place attachment on brand loyalty. This study further ascertains whether the effects of emotion-based attachment on brand loyalty are stronger for customers who have a positive experience with a restaurant brand. Additionally, the authors investigate whether emotion-based attachment mediates the relationships between identity-based attachments, place dependence and brand loyalty in the restaurant setting.

The authors administered the questionnaire to customers (diners) of restaurants in Ghana, and they were completed via a paper and pencil/pen approach. The authors tested their hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

The findings show that identity-based and emotion-based attachment enhances brand loyalty within a restaurant setting. The results also show that place dependence attachment promotes emotional bonding with restaurant brands. The study's findings also show that place dependence attachment does not have a direct and positive significant effect on brand loyalty except when an emotional response is produced.

Place attachment studies in a restaurant setting are rare. This study thus contributes to the place attachment literature in restaurants setting.

This case teaches students the importance of maintaining a strong FICO score by illustrating the consequences of paying bills late or not at all. The protagonist is David Molina, a waiter at a struggling Italian restaurant located down the block from where he lives. Money is tight for Molina right now—his limited income means he lives paycheck to paycheck. However, Molina knows things will be looking up for him soon because he recently accepted a job as a bank teller across town—his first desk job.

Molina has been putting off paying two of his bills: a cable bill and his Bank of America credit card bill, both of which are late and have been issued, this time, in the form of threats to impact Molina's credit score if he doesn't pay them. He has just enough money to afford the minimum payments on each overdue bill. But then he receives a phone call from his friend, Jim Lindsey, reminding him about an invitation to go to Myrtle Beach for the upcoming weekend. Molina knows he cannot afford it, but a woman he's attracted to, Jessica, will be there too. Should Molina put off the bills yet again, and if so, how exactly will being late on them hurt his credit score?

The purpose of the study is to examine opportunities for gastronomic tourism development and smart solutions in the regions of Latvia.

The methodology is based on a qualitative approach applied to examine the theoretical and legal frameworks for gastronomic tourism, as well as on a case study based on mapping and a typology of gastronomic tourism.

An analysis of priorities for the Kurzeme planning region (including Talsi municipality) in tourism development revealed that digitalization, the introduction of smart solutions important for travellers and the integration of the digital environment and innovative solutions into tourism services are specified in policy documents. An examination of a mapping of tourist services supplied in the Talsi municipality and the role of gastronomic tourism therein showed that such a mapping can serve as a basis for developing targeted smart and digital tourism products for Talsi municipality, which involves both the target audience and the typology of food tourist behaviour.

The examination of smart solutions for the regions of Latvia represented an in-depth case study of one municipality – Talsi. Talsi municipality was selected as a typical gastronomic destination, which offers a wide range of gastronomic tourism opportunities, and this kind of tourism is also referred to in the tourism development strategy of the municipality (region).

This study's contribution is determined by the constantly changing dynamic environment that fosters the differentiation of supply of tourism products, as well as the integration of smart solutions into tourism products. Gastronomic tourism in Latvia and the Baltic states plays a steady role in contributing to the recognition of the cultural environment and regional traditions; therefore, the supply of smart solutions is essential and significant from the regional perspective. The originality of the research is also determined by an examination of smart solutions for gastronomic tourism in the tourism products supplied in the region.

This study (1) assessed restaurant consumers' perceived importance of better food quality versus larger portion sizes, (2) classified restaurant consumers into different segments based on their perceived importance of seven food quality attributes (taste, texture, aroma, appearance and the use of natural, local and organic ingredients) relative to portion size and (3) compared the identified market segments.

An online survey assessed 613 USA adult participants' perceived importance of seven food quality attributes relative to portion size. A K-means cluster analysis classified participants into different segments based on their perceptions.

Five restaurant consumer segments were identified: sensory-oriented consumers, taste-oriented organic food consumers, local and natural food consumers, quantity-oriented consumers and quality-oriented consumers. In general, quality-oriented consumers were the least likely to visit fast-food restaurants, had the highest average per-meal spending and were the least likely to eat out alone. Local and natural food consumers and taste-oriented organic food consumers had higher total restaurant spending than other groups. Quantity-oriented and sensory-oriented consumers visited fast-food restaurants more often and had lower total restaurant spending and per-meal spending than other groups. Age, sex and income were significantly associated with the segmentation outcomes.

Findings suggest promising opportunities for restaurants to enhance consumer perceptions of value by prioritizing the factors that hold the greatest significance to their target customers.

This study is the first attempt to segment restaurant consumers based on their perceived importance of food quality attributes relative to portion size, effectively identifying five distinct consumer segments.

The study aims to promote the use of qualitative methods in service research by investigating how these methods are reported in service journals, how the level of reporting has evolved and whether methodological reporting influences the downloads or citations received by qualitative articles.

Methodological reporting practices were identified through content analysis of 318 qualitative articles published in three major service research journals and comparison with prior methodological literature. Regression analysis was used to test how the level of methodological reporting influences article downloads and citations.

The study identifies 29 reporting practices related to 9 key methodological reporting areas. The overall level of methodological reporting in published qualitative articles has increased over time. While differences in the level of reporting between service journals persist, they are narrowing. The level of methodological reporting did not influence downloads or citations of qualitative articles.

Service scholars using qualitative methods should pay attention to methodological reporting as it can improve the chances of being published. Factors such as theoretical contributions are likely to have a greater influence on article impact than methodological reporting.

No prior study has explored methodological reporting practices across different qualitative methodologies or how reporting influences article impact. For authors, reviewers and editors, the study provides an inventory of reporting practices relevant for evaluating qualitative articles, which should lower barriers for qualitative methods in service research by providing practical guidelines on what to focus on when reporting and assessing qualitative research.

This study aims to examine the relation between error management culture and restaurant employee promotive and prohibitive voices. Drawing on socially desirable responding theory, the authors also propose a dual-mediation mechanism underlying the impact of error management culture on employee voice: psychological empowerment, as the agentic motive, and psychological safety, as the communal motive.

The authors recruited 223 participants working in 37 restaurants in China for the two-wave surveys with a one-week interval. The authors use a multilevel modeling paradigm to test the study hypotheses.

This research examines a multilevel model suggesting that error management culture can boost employee promotive voice and prohibitive voice via the mechanisms of psychological safety and empowerment. In addition, the results suggest that psychological empowerment (vs psychological safety) has a strong mediation effect between error management culture and promotive voice, but the authors find no difference in mediating effects between error management culture and prohibitive voice.

Restaurants can encourage employee voice by developing and maintaining an error management culture. Organizations can also consider motivating employees from both agentic and communal perspectives. Moreover, managers should focus more on empowering employees in areas characterized by Confucianism or collectivism.

The current research adds to the voice literature by identifying an organizational cultural antecedent of employee voice–error management culture. Agentic and communal motives are two motivational paths of employee voice. It also extends the social desirability theory by highlighting the role of the agentic motive in the Chinese restaurant context.