The Impact of Restaurant Review Website Attributes on Consumers' Internal States and Behavioral Responses
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University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2017 The impact of restaurant review website attributes on consumers' internal states and behavioral responses Prawannarat Brewer University of Tennessee, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Recommended Citation Brewer, Prawannarat, "The impact of restaurant review website attributes on consumers' internal states and behavioral responses. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2017. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4860 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Prawannarat Brewer entitled "The impact of restaurant review website attributes on consumers' internal states and behavioral responses." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management. Ann E. Fairhurst, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Carol Costello, Youn-Kyung Kim, Robert T. Ladd, Jeremy Whaley Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) The impact of restaurant review website attributes on consumers’ internal states and behavioral responses A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Prawannarat Brewer December 2017 Copyright © by Prawannarat Brewer All rights reserved ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Worapon and Alissar Suntithammasoot. For their endless love, support, and encouragement. And to my husband, James L. Brewer, for always believing in me, being proud of me, and loving me unconditionally. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my major advisor, Dr. Ann Fairhurst for her continuous support, direction, and encouragement. Without her, this dissertation would not be possible. I am truly grateful to my dissertation committee, Dr. Youn-Kyung Kim, Dr. Carol Costello, Dr. Jeremy Whaley, and Dr. Robert Ladd, for their constant guidance, unwavering support, and suggestions towards the successful completion of this dissertation. I am also grateful to all the instructors and staff of the Department of Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management for their support throughout my education years at the University of Tennessee, especially Dr. Sejin Ha for the inspiration and persistent help. Without the financial support of the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, the University of Tennessee, and the generous donors who offered me scholarships for my graduate studies, this work would not have been possible. I would like to give special thanks to my boss, Dr. Sarah Hillyer, the Director of UT Center for Sports, Peace, and Society who offered me a summer internship job in running the U.S. Department of State Global Sports Mentoring Program which later has become one of the life-changing parts of my life. I am truly grateful to my colleagues and international exchange visitors who inspired and made me believe that everything is possible. I would like to thank you my friends, Ran Huang, Angela Sebby, Sunny Kim, and Kenny Jordan, who were always there for me, listened to my complaints, supported me in every way they possibly could, and made my studies at UT more enjoyable. Last but not least, I would like to thank the Brewer family for their warm welcome into their family, especially to my mother-in-law, Mrs. Mavis Brewer, who always supported, cared, iv and prayed for me. And to my priceless family back in Thailand for helping me survive all the stress and not letting me give up. Extra special mention has to go to my husband, Larry, for being such an important part of my Ph.D. journey. v ABSTRACT The restaurant review website is one of the most effective restaurant marketing tools that has emerged from the incredible growth of the internet over the past several decades. This study aims to assess consumers’ initial psychological states and consumer behavior toward the attributes of restaurant review websites. By employing the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework, this study introduces seven attributes of a restaurant review website—usefulness, simplicity, visual appeal, social presence, informativeness, credibility, and scalability—and explores how these attributes impact consumers’ cognitive and affective attitudes and behavioral responses. A mock restaurant review website was created according to the results of in-depth interviews and a focus group, and an online survey was linked to the mock restaurant review website. Data were collected on U.S. residents, aged 21 years old and over, yielding 529 completed responses. The data analysis employed multivariate statistical methods and structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses. All constructs had acceptable levels of composite reliability and were deemed valid for both convergent and discriminant validity. Several hypotheses were found to be significant, as expected, except for a few that may require further investigation. The results of the hypotheses testing revealed that the relationships between usefulness, visual appeal, social presence, and behavioral responses were fully mediated by cognitive and affective attitudes. The relationship between informativeness and behavioral response was only mediated by cognitive attitude, whereas simplicity and credibility were only mediated by affective attitude. The hypothesis for the relationship between scalability and behavioral responses were insignificant, and a recommendation for future research is provided. Research implications, limitations, and suggestions are also discussed. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL INFORMATION.....................................1 Background of the Study.............................................................................................................1 Statement of the Problem............................................................................................................2 Purpose of the Study....................................................................................................................4 Dissertation Organization............................................................................................................5 Definition of Terms.....................................................................................................................6 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW....................................................................................9 Recommender Systems...............................................................................................................9 U.S. Based Restaurant Review Websites...................................................................................11 Theoretical Background............................................................................................................19 Stimulus-Organism-Response Theory...............................................................................19 Stimuli: Restaurant Review Website Attributes.................................................................22 (1) Performance Attributes: Usefulness and Simplicity......................................... 24 (2) Appearance Attributes: Visual Appeal and Social Presence ............................25 (3) Content Attributes: Informativeness, Credibility, and Scalability.....................27 Organism: Cognitive and Affective Attitudes ....................................................................33 Response: Recommendation Adoption and Intention to Revisit Restaurant Review Website ..............................................................................................................................36 Hypothesis Development..........................................................................................................38 Sub-Model (A): The Roles of Restaurant Review Website Performance...........................38 Performance of Restaurant Review Website Cognitive & Affective Attitudes........38 Sub-Model (B): The Roles of Restaurant Review Website Appearance.............................39 Appearance of Restaurant Review Website Cognitive & Affective Attitudes.........39 Sub-Model (C): The Roles of Restaurant Review Website Content...................................42 Content of Restaurant Review Website Cognitive & Affective Attitudes................42 Main Model: Internal States and Behavioral Outcomes.....................................................44 Cognitive & Affective Attitudes Recommendation Adoption.................................44 Recommendation Adoption Intention to Revisit Restaurant Review Website.........45 vii CHAPTER III: METHODS........................................................................................................48 Research Design........................................................................................................................48