Search

Identifying the conditions that will lead gastronomes to challenge their assumptions and knowledge are paramount for interest research in tourism settings and for marketers who aim to develop appropriate marketing strategies. An interpretivist paradigm adopted here consisted of the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique, which allowed the investigation on behavior development and interest among gastronomes and depict their typology. Findings revealed three stages of the development process which are labelled as (a) novice, (b) learner, and (b) expert to symbolize the different stages of development in food exploring of gastronomes over time. The typology with characteristics of gastronomes in different stages offers researchers and marketers an appealing way to think about the change in leisure participation. Results revealed that the value of participating in this activity is not merely not only to gain novel sensory experiences but also to actively seek for positive feelings and ideas that gastronomes associate with food exploring. The results reported here offer new insights for food tourism strategies in management and marketing.

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.

This study compares the profile of service failure in single-failure and double-deviation situations differentiates the complaint motives in both. It content-analyzed online customer complaints in two popular Malaysian foodservice chains. The first part discusses the four main service failure categories: (a) product related, (b) people related, (c) process related, and (d) physical-evidence related. The second section compares the six different types of complaint motives in single-failure and double-deviation situations. The results revealed that one case of double deviation occurred in every six cases of service failure. In addition, service failure profile and the complaint motive profile in single failures and double deviations were found to be similar. Given the findings, several important recommendations for academicians and industry practitioners were made.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how three organizational factors – affiliation, sufficient capital and company age – related to 323 Malaysian foodservice companies' diffusion of six information technology (IT) applications. The IT applications, basic or advanced, respectively, represent two innovation diffusion levels, adoption and implementation.Design/methodology/approach – This study drew on a survey of chief executive officers, owners, information system/technology managers, operations managers, and account/financial managers in 323 Kuala Lumpur and Selangor foodservice companies. The study conducted logistic regression to examine factors related to the adoption and implementation of IT applications.Findings – IT adoption and implementation related significantly to sufficient capital. Company age and affiliation showed an insignificant relation with adopting and implementing IT applications.Originality/value – To the authors' knowledge, this is the first hospitality study to exam...

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.

Brand alliance involves the combination of two well-known brands. It has evolved as an alternative to brand extensions or stand-alone branding strategies. In the hotel restaurant context, the benefits of brand alliance to both partners include financial, managerial, and marketing aspects. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model of brand alliance applicable to the hospitality industry. The conceptual framework is composed of (a) two broad categories (partner characteristics and consumer characteristics) as antecedents of brand alliance, (b) perceived fit between partners, (c) psychological and behavioral consequences, and (d) a moderator (consumer's motivation). Partner characteristics consist of the perceived quality of partnering brands (brand strength), the status each partner has within its competitive set (direction), and the partners' portfolio of brands (brand breadth). Consumer characteristics include prior attitude and familiarity. These antecedents may interact with ea...

The online version of the original article can be found under doi:10.1007/s11746-015-2596-5.S. L. Chia · R. Sulaiman · G. H. Chong (*) Department of Food Technology, Faculty of Food Science and Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysiae-mail: gunhean@upm.edu.myH. C. Boo Department of Food Service and Management, Faculty of Food Science and Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, MalaysiaK. Muhammad Department of Food Science, Faculty of Food Science and Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, MalaysiaF. Umanan Supercritical Fluid Center, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia