Small businesses play a vital role in the modern economy. They represent the main catalyst for economic development. However, small businesses fail at a high rate, especially small independent restaurants. Around 25% of small independent restaurants fail within the first year of operation, and around 60% do not survive for more than 3 years. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore what strategies small independent full-service restaurant owners in the Al Rehab District, Cairo, Egypt implemented to sustain operations for more than 5 years. The restaurant viability model provided the conceptual framework for this study. The population of this study comprised of 14 owners of small independent full-service restaurant with less than 50 employees in the Al Rehab District, Cairo, Egypt, who sustained their businesses operations for more than 5 years. The data sources included semistructured interviews, restaurant review websites, and social media platforms. Based on methodological triangulation of the data sources, open coding, analyzing the data using qualitative data analysis software, and member checking, 5 themes emerged: restaurant infrastructure strategies, marketing strategies, operations strategies, management strategies, and emotive strategies. The potential implications for positive social change include increasing the success rate of small independent restaurant owners, which in return will create wealth for the owners, generate employment opportunities, increase the government tax revenues, and contribute to the growth of the Egyptian economy.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Hospitality Management and Dietetics / Chihyung Ok, Deborah D. Canter / This study sought to apply the concepts of ‘perceived value’ and ‘customer share’ (of visits) to full-service restaurant settings for the first time. Given the strong ‘experiential nature’ of foodservice, the perceived value concept adopted in this study involved an ‘experiential view’ of the dining experience. Further, the customer share concept was expected to have implications for the foodservice context, given the multi-loyalty nature of restaurant customers. With the first conceptual model, this study sought to verify the effect of perceived value on customer share of visits in a full-service restaurant context, using a dimension-level value approach and positing customer satisfaction and brand preference as mediators between them. The conceptual model was tested based on responses from 299 general U.S. full-service restaurant customers, using a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The test results revealed that among four value dimensions, excellence (in food and service) and customer return on investment had dominant effects on customer satisfaction and brand preference whereas playfulness had a significant moderate effect only on brand preference; aesthetic appeals did not have significant effects on either. Affected by perceived value, customer satisfaction significantly enhanced brand preference and in turn brand preference contributed to customer share of visits and fully mediated the effect of customer satisfaction on customer share of visits. In essence, the findings highlight the significant antecedent role of perceived value in customers’ satisfaction and brand preference formation, and the pivotal role of customer brand preference in customers’ purchase decision process. With the second conceptual model, this study sought to reveal the direct effect and/or moderating effects of contingency variables in relation to customer share of visits in a fullservice restaurant context. The hypotheses included in the conceptual model were tested based on responses from 291 general U.S. full-service restaurant customers, using a confirmatory factor analysis and a series of (moderated hierarchical) regression analyses. The test results indicated that the direct effects of social switching costs, lost benefits costs, procedural costs, and intrinsic inertia were positive whereas that of intrinsic variety-seeking was negative on customer share of visits. In addition, consumer involvement and perceived brand heterogeneity were found to enhance the effect of brand preference on customer share of visits. The effects of the contingency variables appear to work by influencing the number of brands in customers’ consideration sets and/or leading customers to allocate a greater share of visits to a particular brand in a given number of brands in consideration sets.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Hotel, Restaurant, Institution Management and Dietetics / Ki-Joon Back / Elizabeth B. Barrett / This study attempted to develop a multi-item scale that measures restaurant customers' emotional experiences and has desirable reliability and validity, and to examine the relationships among consumption emotions, customer satisfaction, switching barriers, and revisit intention in the full-service restaurant industry. In the process of developing a consumption emotion measurement scale, this study followed Churchill's (1979) paradigm during the early stage and confirmatory factor analytic approach suggested by Gerbing and Anderson (1988) and Anderson and Gerbing's (1988) in the later stage. The scale development process began with a specification of domain of construct, generation of 40 items, and data collection. The collected data were subjected to item refinement (i.e., outlier detection, descriptive and reliability analysis, and exploratory factor analysis). Four underlying dimensions of consumption emotions with 32 refined items were identified from the data. A new sample of data was collected for additional testing (i.e., reliability and validity). A confirmatory factor analysis using the new data indicated that the finalized measure using categorical dimension approach was unidimensional, reliable, and valid. The results of structural equation modeling supported the criterion validity indicating that the finalized measure behaves as expected in relation to additional construct. In study two, a theoretical framework for understanding the relationships among consumption emotions, customer satisfaction, switching barriers, and revisit intention was proposed and tested. A series of modeling comparisons provided a best fit model. A measurement model estimated on the basis of Anderson and Gerbing's (1988) approach tested validity of measures. The results of structural equation modeling using the data from a web-based survey addressed the effect of consumption emotions on satisfaction and revisit intention. The partial/full mediating impact of satisfaction was verified following Baron and Kenny’s (1986) suggested process. The switching barriers, two positive (i.e., preference and relational investment) and two negative (i.e., switching costs and lack of alternatives), that restaurant customers are likely to perceive were identified through the qualitative approach, using the guidelines suggested by Maxwell (2005). The quantitative approach validated the scale applicability. The moderating role of switching barriers in forming revisit intention was verified by testing for metric invariances. Grouping was done by using K-means cluster analysis. Measurement invariance tests supported full metric/partial metric invariances. Structural invariance tests and invariance tests for a hypothesized path provided the evidence of moderating effect of switching barriers. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications of the findings were discussed.