Choongbeom Choi

Powerful or powerless customers: the influence of gratitude on engagement with CSR

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine how gratitude appeals and consumers’ sense of power jointly influence customer engagement in a service firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Based on previous literature, the authors propose that power moderates the effect of gratitude expression on consumers’ attitudes and behavioral intention to engage in matching donations. Design/methodology/approach A 2 (power: powerful vs powerless) × 2 (gratitude expression: included in the request vs none) between-subjects experiment was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses. Participants were asked to imagine that they recently saw a donation request while dining at a local restaurant and they then complete scales that measured their attitude and donation intention to engage in a restaurant’s CSR practice. Findings The findings of this study indicate that an expression of gratitude enhanced powerless but not powerful customers’ intention to engage in CSR practices. In addition, moderated mediation tests revealed social worth concerns as the underlying mechanism between gratitude expression and customer engagement for powerless consumers. However, such mediation effects were not observed for powerful consumers. Originality/value The current study identifies sense of power as a new psychological state that can influence donation behaviors in the context of CSR. In addition, the current study shows that the serial mediating role of social worth between gratitude expression and prosocial behaviors only holds true for individuals with a low sense of power.

The Effects of Other Customers’ Dress Style on Customers’ Approach Behaviors The Moderating Role of Sense of Power

Most hospitality services are delivered in the same location in which they are produced, and, thus, their delivery involves the presence of other customers. Yet, the role of other customers’ physical appearances in influencing service encounter evaluations has received scant attention. Moreover, previous research shows that consumers with a low sense of power are motivated to seek status by engaging in conspicuous consumption. The current study examines the joint impact of other customers’ dress styles and the observer’s sense of power in influencing customers’ approach behaviors (e.g., willingness to stay longer in a restaurant, interact with other customers). The results from our experiment show that customers’ approach behaviors among observers with a low sense of power were significantly higher when other customers’ dress styles were formal rather than informal. Conversely, the effect of other customers’ dress styles was minimal among observers with a high sense of power. Results from this study indicate that approach behaviors mediate the impact of other customers’ dress styles on word-of-mouth intentions among customers with a low sense of power. The findings of this study help hospitality operators use dress codes to their advantage.

An Analysis of Consumers’ Reactions to Travel Websites’ Discrimination by Computer Platform

A study of 124 consumers found distinct differences in the consumers’ responses to a policy once used by Orbitz, in which prices were determined according to the computer platform used to search for bookings. The policy arose when Orbitz noticed that Macintosh users were generally willing to accept higher prices than PC users. This observation was converted into a price discrimination mechanism. The study found that Mac users took a dim ethical view of this rate fence and, moreover, indicated that they were less willing to use Orbitz as a result. Men and women in the study reacted differently from each other, however. Men expressed more outrage when they were Mac users, while women were more likely to consistently view this form of price discrimination as unreasonable and of questionable ethics. Since the hospitality industry uses many price discrimination rules, two implications of this study are choose rate fences carefully and consider explaining the rationale for any price discrimination policies.

Reference Price and Its Asymmetric Effects on Price Evaluations: The Moderating Role of Gender

Empirical research shows that customers form price evaluations by comparing the actual price with a reference price. The relative use of an internal reference price (IRP) versus an external reference price (ERP) is an important issue in the lodging industry due to the popularity of price-comparison–based advertising. Although prior literature shows that demographic factors influence the relative use of IRP and ERP, the impact of gender on the relationship between reference prices and price evaluations has received scant attention in both hospitality and marketing contexts. Drawing on the agency-communal theory, the current research examines the effect of gender on the use of IRP and ERP in price evaluations. The findings indicate that males are more susceptible to IRP than to ERP, whereas females are only influenced by ERP. Relevant managerial implications are drawn in terms of pricing and promotional strategies.

The Influence of Pricing Strategies on Willingness to Pay for Accommodations: Anchoring, Framing, and Metric Compatibility:

Travel providers advertise low prices to attract customers, which can decrease willingness to pay through anchoring effects. Customers often approach purchases with a budget goal, which can influence price interpretation due to framing effects. Accommodation prices are typically displayed per night, whereas consumers may have a total trip budget in mind, leading to metric incompatibility. This research uses experimental methods to test the effects of price anchors, framing, and metric compatibility on willingness to pay for a Spring Break vacation. A high anchor increases willingness to pay compared to a low anchor, and consumers will pay more when exposed to an average price versus a range. Anchoring effects are reduced when the budget goal is incompatible with a high anchor but not a low anchor. The findings can be attributed to dual processing systems and asymmetry effects. The results yield practical guidelines for effective pricing strategies.

The Effects of Internal and External Reference Prices on Travelers’ Price Evaluations

The relative use of an internal reference price (IRP) versus an external reference price (ERP) becomes an important issue in the travel and lodging contexts as the increased promotional activity by destinations and hotels is likely to be based on price-comparison advertisements. However, there is little guidance on how tourism and hospitality organizations can use pricing structure to influence reference price, which is cardinal to travelers’ evaluation of price acceptability. Thus, the current research examines how pricing characteristics of the lodging services shift travelers’ sensitivity to two different types of reference prices, and therefore, influence their price evaluations. Compared with IRP, our findings indicate that individuals are more sensitive to and affected by ERP. The results also demonstrate that information accessibility and perceived diagnosticity are key mechanisms that lead to the differential effect of IRP versus ERP on travelers’ price evaluations. Relevant managerial implications are drawn regarding price and promotion strategies.

Dress for Success: The Effect of Exhibitors’ Dress Conformity and Self-construal on Attendees’ Approach Behavior

ABSTRACT The purpose of the current study is to investigate how attendees’ approach behavior is influenced by exhibitors’ dress conformity. A 2 × 2 between-subjects quasi-experimental design was utilized for this study. Our results showed that conforming dress for exhibitors can lead to a higher level of approach behavior of trade show attendees as compared with nonconforming dress, and the effect of exhibitors’ dress styles on approach behavior is moderated by attendees’ self-construal. Findings of this study provide significant insights for trade show exhibitors and attendees.

The influence of scarcity cues and price bundling on menu item selection

ABSTRACT Judgmental heuristics are applied in an experiment investigating the influence of availability cues on restaurant purchase decisions. Participants evaluated menu items in a restaurant scenario that manipulated scarcity cues, bundling, and price. The findings indicate that server scarcity influences food choice more than menu scarcity. Bundled pricing reduces selection of a limited quantity item compared to a la carte pricing. Participants will pay more for a scarce item with a scarcity message delivered by the server. The findings suggest that restaurants can promote menu items effectively through server delivery, but those items should not be part of a price bundle.

The Upper Echelon Effect on Restaurant Franchising: The Moderating Role of Internationalization

Purpose This study aims to investigate how upper echelon theory accounts for franchising by selecting the top management team to proxy for the upper echelon and using age, tenure, education, equity ownership and stock options as its main attributes. Design/methodology/approach The sample was drawn from the Execucomp and Compustat databases and from other publicly accessible resources (e.g. LinkedIn and Business Week, in addition to Annual 10-K reports). A total of 29 restaurant companies were used for data collection, which covered the period of 2000-2013. A panel feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) regression was used to analyze the data. Findings The study found a significant moderating effect of the degree of internationalization on the relation between the attributes of the upper echelon (e.g. tenure, education and share ownership) and franchising decisions. Research limitations/implications The results verified that top managers in the restaurant industry with more tenure and share ownership become more risk averse when they operate under riskier conditions, whereas highly educated restaurant top management teams tend to take more risks in strategic decision-making. Originality/value This study expanded internationalization research to upper echelon theory and into the arena of franchising.

The Effect of Assortment Pricing on Choice and Satisfaction: The Moderating Role of Consumer Characteristics:

Although consumer research has extensively examined the effect of product assortment on consumption choices, relatively little has been done on assortment pricing. To bridge that gap, we demonstrate that consumers react differently to assortments using parity versus differentiation pricing. Study 1, a field experiment, shows that the impact of assortment pricing on choice satisfaction is contingent on the level of uncertainty preference. For individuals with a low level of preference uncertainty, their choice satisfaction was significantly higher when all the menu items were priced at parity. Conversely, choice satisfaction was higher with varied pricing among people with high levels of preference uncertainty. In Study 2, we examine the moderating role of health consciousness on consumer reactions to parity versus differentiation pricing. The findings of Study 2 indicate that health consciousness influences consumer satisfaction with assortment pricing in a context of restaurant menus. Furthermore, findings from a moderated mediation analysis show that choice confidence is the psychological mechanism that underlies these effects. Taken together, these findings add to the relatively scant literature on assortment pricing.