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Many studies on coping have been conducted in diverse industries but within the hospitality industry, studies on how employees cope with customer complaints have only just begun, despite the task being one of the most significant stressors amongst service employees. The aim of this paper was to explore the cognitive appraisals, emotional elicitations, emotional coping behavior and complaint handling behavior of service employees. In-depth interviews were conducted with a total of 26 frontline restaurant employees. The results show that service employees engaged in different cognitive appraisals and emotional reactions in response to different customer complaints. Subsequently, they engaged in different emotional coping behaviors including both positive and negative of avoidance and approach. Theoretically, a model was developed to depict a holistic picture of Cognitive-Emotive-Behavioral in a complaint-handling context. The findings might assist industry practitioners to devise better complaint handling and coping strategies to enhance both customer and employee satisfaction.

The foodservice industry in Malaysia is booming. While its contribution to the national economy is promising on one hand, the rivalry between the players amplifies on the other hand. This double-edged sword is promising yet challenging for industry p ractitioners. It certainly demands a fair standard of both the tangible products and intangible service to warrant a competitive edge. Previous studies have extensively looked into the facet of service in the restaurant setting, leaving the product aspect largely unaddressed. Particularly, identifying and categorizing the product failures in restaurants are lacking. Therefore, t his study was conducted to bridge the gap. Online complaint data from January 2010 to August 2011 were sourced from two local chained-restaurant companies. A total of 450 usable complaint cases were gathered. Content analysis yielded three major c ategories, namely sensory quality, safety quality, and others. Among these, sensory quality was the main cause of dissatisfaction. The categorization entails noteworthy implications to researchers and industry practitioners. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of Asia Euro Conference 2014.

This paper aims to examine how gender interacts with various recovery actions on perceived employee effort, complaint handling satisfaction, and behavioral intention in the case of deviant customer behavior in an East-Asian context. Study 1, a qualitative study, reveals that consumers expect companies to take appropriate remedial actions when a service consumption experience is affected by deviant customer behaviors (e.g., smoking in non designated area). Study 2 employed a 2 (gender) × 6(recovery actions) between subject design in a restaurant setting. Results show that confronting the deviant customer received the highest customer ratings in terms of perceived employee effort, complaint handling satisfaction, and behavioral intention. However, gender moderated the relative effectiveness of recovery actions. Relocating the focal customer was equally good as compensation for women while men were less appreciative of relocation than compensation. In sum, service providers are advised to initiate some form of recovery action in response to deviant customer behaviors.

Multipurpose margarine (MPM) or water-in-oil (w/o) emulsion systems were prepared using palm oil (PO)/palm stearin (PS) blends as continuous phases and stabilized by monoacylglycerol (90% monoester) as emulsifier. Experimental analyses of three out of six models of MPM showed that MPM1, MPM2 and MPM3 had low workability force and weaker network structure. As results the solid fat content (SFC) at 28 °C, consistency, storage modulus ( G ′) and softness were 25%, 15.5 × 10 2 kPa, 2.62 × 10 2 kPa and 30 mm ease of cone penetration, respectively. Furthermore, examination microscopy of the images concerning MPM1, MPM2 and MPM3 revealed the presence of symmetrical crystals after 60 days of storage, whereas the MPM4, MPM5 and MPM6 models exhibited asymmetrical crystals during same incubation time. These results indicated that the diminution of PS versus PO contents induced the retardation of phase transition from less stable beta-prime (β′) crystals to the more stable beta (β) crystals during storage.

Food safety is important to today's food industry operators as consumers have become increasingly concerned about risks related to food. Unlike foodservice operators or health inspectors, consumers can only rely on the visible cues, particularly those associated with food hygiene to judge the level of food safety in eating establishments. While previous research highlighted the influence of foodservice hygiene perception on consumer dining out decision, study examining the constructs of food safety cues that consumers employed is scant. This research aims to bridge the gap by exploring the topic from the consumer perspective. Results indicate that foodservice hygiene is one of the top three considerations when consumers select a dining place. Results of confirmatory factor analysis reveal a four-factor model encompasses staff and handling, food and location, premise and practices, and scent aspects. Further substantiation in different settings is needed for generalization purpose.

The effect of main beverage emulsion components namely Arabic gum (7–13% w/w), xanthan gum (0.1–0.3% w/w) and orange oil (6–10% w/w) on physicochemical properties of orange beverage emulsion was determined by using a three-factor central composite design (CCD). The reduced models with high R2 (⩾0.80) values and non significant (p > .05) lack of fit were significantly (p < .05) fitted to the experimental data, thus ensuring a satisfactory fitness of the regression models relating the response to independent variables. The quadratic effect of xanthan gum had a significant (p < .05) term in all reduced models. The independent variables had the most significant (p < .05) effect on turbidity loss rate and viscosity ratio. The overall optimum region resulted in the desirable orange beverage emulsion was predicted at a combined level of 13% (w/w) Arabic gum, 0.3% (w/w) xanthan gum and 10% (w/w) orange oil.