Exploring heterogeneous differences between Chinese and Western customer preferences for restaurant attributes from online reviews

IF 3.7 4区管理学 Q2 BUSINESS

Electronic Commerce Research Pub Date : 2024-09-09 DOI:10.1007/s10660-024-09889-4

Dian Liu, Wenshuang Zhao, Vijayan Sugumaran, Jing Zhang

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Abstract

Consumer behavior varies across different countries due to their distinct cultural backgrounds. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of this influence can greatly assist restaurant managers in achieving higher business performance. However, academic inquiry into cross-cultural differences in customer preferences for specific restaurant attributes, such as décor, food variety, and reservation, remains scarce, warranting further scholarly investigation. This paper analyses customer preferences for specific restaurant attributes based on aspect-level sentiment analysis of online reviews from Chinese and Western customers. We adopt ordinary least squares regression to analyze the impact of country on customer attention to different restaurant attributes and carry out quantile regression on customer satisfaction to determine the satisfaction variance in different service performance level. The results show that Chinese and Western customers demonstrate divergent levels of attention and satisfaction towards specific attributes. Specifically, Chinese customers exhibit higher interest and satisfaction in non-functional attributes, such as View, while allocating less attention to value-oriented attributes like Portion size of dish. Moreover, the impact of country on customer satisfaction displays heterogeneity, exhibiting a U-shaped variation across performance levels. To elucidate these differences, we delve into unique cultural elements in China, such as Confucian values and face culture, within the framework of Hofstede's cultural dimensions. Our work delves into the specific attribute-level preferences of Western and Chinese consumers, highlighting the heterogeneity of these preference differences at different performance levels. It underscores for managers the importance of considering consumer preference differences in conjunction with their own service performamce levels.

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从在线评论探索中西方顾客对餐厅属性偏好的异质性差异

由于文化背景不同，不同国家的消费者行为也不尽相同。全面了解这种影响可以极大地帮助餐厅管理者实现更高的经营业绩。然而，学术界对跨文化顾客对特定餐厅属性（如装潢、食物种类和预订）偏好差异的探究仍然很少，值得进一步研究。本文基于对中西方顾客在线评论的方面情感分析，分析了顾客对特定餐厅属性的偏好。我们采用普通最小二乘法回归分析了国家对顾客对不同餐厅属性关注度的影响，并对顾客满意度进行了量化回归，以确定不同服务绩效水平下的满意度差异。结果显示，中西方顾客对特定属性的关注度和满意度存在差异。具体而言，中国顾客对非功能性属性（如景观）表现出更高的关注度和满意度，而对价值导向属性（如菜肴份量）的关注度较低。此外，国家对顾客满意度的影响具有异质性，在不同绩效水平下呈现出 U 型变化。为了阐明这些差异，我们在霍夫斯泰德的文化维度框架内深入研究了中国独特的文化元素，如儒家价值观和面子文化。我们的研究深入探讨了中西方消费者在具体属性层面上的偏好，强调了这些偏好差异在不同绩效水平上的异质性。这为管理者强调了结合自身服务绩效水平考虑消费者偏好差异的重要性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Electronic Commerce Research Multiple-

CiteScore

7.50

自引率

12.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Internet and the World Wide Web have brought a fundamental change in the way that individuals access data, information and services. Individuals have access to vast amounts of data, to experts and services that are not limited in time or space. This has forced business to change the way in which they conduct their commercial transactions with their end customers and with other businesses, resulting in the development of a global market through the Internet. The emergence of the Internet and electronic commerce raises many new research issues. The Electronic Commerce Research journal will serve as a forum for stimulating and disseminating research into all facets of electronic commerce - from research into core enabling technologies to work on assessing and understanding the implications of these technologies on societies, economies, businesses and individuals. The journal concentrates on theoretical as well as empirical research that leads to better understanding of electronic commerce and its implications. Topics covered by the journal include, but are not restricted to the following subjects as they relate to the Internet and electronic commerce: Dissemination of services through the Internet;Intelligent agents technologies and their impact;The global impact of electronic commerce;The economics of electronic commerce;Fraud reduction on the Internet;Mobile electronic commerce;Virtual electronic commerce systems;Application of computer and communication technologies to electronic commerce;Electronic market mechanisms and their impact;Auctioning over the Internet;Business models of Internet based companies;Service creation and provisioning;The job market created by the Internet and electronic commerce;Security, privacy, authorization and authentication of users and transactions on the Internet;Electronic data interc hange over the Internet;Electronic payment systems and electronic funds transfer;The impact of electronic commerce on organizational structures and processes;Supply chain management through the Internet;Marketing on the Internet;User adaptive advertisement;Standards in electronic commerce and their analysis;Metrics, measurement and prediction of user activity;On-line stock markets and financial trading;User devices for accessing the Internet and conducting electronic transactions;Efficient search techniques and engines on the WWW;Web based languages (e.g., HTML, XML, VRML, Java);Multimedia storage and distribution;Internet;Collaborative learning, gaming and work;Presentation page design techniques and tools;Virtual reality on the net and 3D visualization;Browsers and user interfaces;Web site management techniques and tools;Managing middleware to support electronic commerce;Web based education, and training;Electronic journals and publishing on the Internet;Legal issues, taxation and property rights;Modeling and design of networks to support Internet applications;Modeling, design and sizing of web site servers;Reliability of intensive on-line applications;Pervasive devices and pervasive computing in electronic commerce;Workflow for electronic commerce applications;Coordination technologies for electronic commerce;Personalization and mass customization technologies;Marketing and customer relationship management in electronic commerce;Service creation and provisioning. Audience: Academics and professionals involved in electronic commerce research and the application and use of the Internet. Managers, consultants, decision-makers and developers who value the use of electronic com merce research results. Special Issues: Electronic Commerce Research publishes from time to time a special issue of the devoted to a single subject area. If interested in serving as a guest editor for a special issue, please contact the Editor-in-Chief J. Christopher Westland at westland@uic.edu with a proposal for the special issue. Officially cited as: Electron Commer Res