Descriptive menu labels are omnipresent elements in restaurant menus. Food service operations often use sensory, nostalgic, and brand descriptions to signal a customer's food-specific perceptions. Extant research has shown links between descriptive menu labels and food taste/enjoyment perceptions. To extend and expand the extant literature, this dissertation proposes that descriptive menu labels can be viewed as an anthropomorphizing factor, leading to different magnitudes of consumption-related attitudes and behavioral intentions in a restaurant. Drawing from metaphoric transfer theory and social impression models, the present research study suggests that descriptive labels in a restaurant transmit metaphors that influence consumers' impending warmth and competence perceptions of a restaurant. This dissertation also investigates the potential inversed magnitudes of anticipated satisfaction and willingness-to-pay-more driven by warmth/competence. In this empirical study, descriptive menu labels were experimentally manipulated. Consumers' warmth-related and competence-related service impressions, anticipated satisfaction, and willingness-to-pay-more more were measured. The empirical investigation comprised two pretests and one main study. The hypotheses were tested in two menu contexts (an entrée menu vs. a dessert menu). Overall, the results suggest that customers view a restaurant with sensory- and nostalgia-triggering descriptions as offering warmer impending services (i.e., with kindness, generosity, and understanding) compared to a restaurant with general descriptions. On the other hand, customers view a restaurant that utilizes brand-related descriptions as providing more competent and skilled impending services than a restaurant that utilizes general descriptions. In addition, the findings suggest that consumers' warmth impressions serve a more important role in their anticipated satisfaction than do their competence impressions; however, regarding willingness-to-pay-more, competence impressions factor more significantly than do warmth impressions. The replications of the results across the two menu contexts showed the robustness of the findings; however, there was a different pattern observed for the effects of sensory labels on consumers' warmth-related impressions in the dessert menu selection context. This dissertation contributes to emerging streams of menu labeling and service management literature. The findings presented in this dissertation have both theoretical and managerial implications for the food service industry. / Ph. D.

To help combat the growing obesity problem in the United States, the Menu Labeling Act was passed in 2010 as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. However, little research has been conducted to determine the optimal format and content of the imminent label. A between-subjects experiment was conducted with a non-probability sample that was provided with three nutrition label treatments and surveyed to determine the labels’ effect on accuracy in dietary judgments and nutrition evaluations, level of certainty and confusion while completing those tasks, and perceived label comprehension and utility. The presence of a label had a positive relationship with all the dependent measures, while the addition of percent daily values to the label had a nonsignificant increase in accuracy but a negative effect on confusion and comprehension.

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A musical score. I. Crisp Canape. II. Creole Gumbo. III. Salade. IV. Filet Mignon. V. Crepes Suzette. VI. Demitasse.

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The increasing popularity of the World Wide Web (WWW) has created a new market: Web access through television to accommodate those who either cannot afford existing hardware or are intimidated by computers. Current efforts to combine the WWW and television have targeted potential novice users. One of the approaches for creating a WWW browsing system that is both simple to use and inexpensive is the utilization of the existing cable system to provide Web access through television. Some unique characteristics of this browsing system are fast access to the Web, the use of nine buttons on a universal remote control, and an index structure for reaching Web sites. Since browsing the Web through television is relatively new, many interface issues need to be examined. The purpose of this research was to investigate potential user interface designs for this WWW browser and to evaluate the usability of the nine-button interface. Sixteen volunteers participated in the experiment and were asked to navigate to specific Web sites with two interface formats, five different system lag times (0.2, 0.7, 1.3, 2.0, and 3.0 seconds), and three feedback styles (active feedback, passive feedback and no feedback). Participants were prescreened for their experience with computers and browsing the Web. The experiment was conducted in a living room setting to simulate real life situations and participants were given a total of 42 tasks to complete throughout the experiment. Each task consisted of navigating through the tree structure with either one of the two interface formats until reaching a designated Web site. The number of errors committed and task completion times were recorded. In addition, participants were asked to rate the WWW browser system after each task as well as after the entire experiment. Participants preferred the 0.2 second system lag and the active feedback style. Overall, they committed fewer errors and took less time to complete tasks with the tabbing interface than with the one-to-one mapping interface. Experienced participants committed more errors than did the inexperienced ones. Increase of system lag time was determined to have a greater adverse effect on the tabbing interface than on the one-to-one mapping interface. / Master of Science

Denna uppsats ämnar att undersöka den språkliga och visuella utformningen av White Guide- restaurangers menyer med avsikt att få en djupare förståelse för vissa återkommande drag som kan kopplas till restauranger med denna höga kvalitetsklassificering. Forskningsfrågorna för studien lyder: Vilka visuella skillnader och likheter, när det kommer till typografi, färgsättning, användning av ikoner samt placering av text, finns det mellan de utvalda restaurangernas menyer? Finns det några språkliga skillnader och likheter ifråga om beskrivningar av tillagningsmetod, sensoriska uttryck samt uttryck för ursprung, mellan menyerna? Materialet som analyseras har avgränsats till sex olika menyer tillhörande restauranger inom kategorin mycket god klass i White Guide 2020. Menyerna analyseras dels genom en visuell analys med hjälp av sociosemiotisk teori samt genom en språklig analys som bygger på traditionell lexikal taxonomisk semantik. I den visuella analysen undersöks typografi, färgsättning, ikoner samt textens placering i menyerna och i den språkliga analysen undersöks olika uttryck för tillagningsmetoder, sensoriska uttryck samt uttryck för ursprung i menyernas maträttsbeskrivningar. Resultatet visar att menyer inom denna kategori i White Guide skiljer sig mycket åt både språkligt och visuellt även om vissa likheter har påfunnits. Alla analyserade menyer innehåller ord som betecknar tillagningsmetoder och trots att antalet skiljer sig mycket åt mellan menyerna är tillagningsmetoderna ändå flest till antalet bland samtliga språkliga analyskategorier. Många typsnittsvarianter förekommer i de olika menyerna även om typsnittsantalet inom en meny vanligen är mellan ett till tre. Marginaljusterad eller centrerad text är det absolut vanligaste i menyerna och en stor majoritet av alla menyer har en ljus bakgrund med en mörk text, där få färger och dova färger är vanligast. Att använda ikoner som fotografier eller andra symboler förekommer även om det sker sparsamt.

The master´s thesis focuses on a business plan for a small restaurant Kovárna in Bukvi-ce near Jičín. The restaurant is newly established and its capacity has not been yet fully utilized. That is one of the main problems of this restaurant, for which the strategy of a further development is designed with in this thesis.

Background: Consumers have become more eco-friendly conscious than before, and therefore the demand for organic and environmentally-friendly products has increased during the past decade. Companies are committing to various green practices to improve company's image. Meanwhile, consumers usually have a positive attitude towards the companies who are practicing green concepts into their business operation. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify which factors are influential towards customers’ attitude towards the certified food service and the moderating role of green skepticism influences the relationship between green attributes and consumers’ attitude. In this study, it is also considered to research if LOHAS and non-LOHAS consumers’ attitudes towards certified food service differently influence their willingness to dine and willingness to pay the premium. Method: The data was collected with a structured and web-based survey. The valid study sample was 275. In order to answer the research questions and reach research purpose. The research model with 11 hypotheses was tested through hierarchy regression, linear regression, moderation regression and ANOVA analysis. The confirmatory analysis has been applied for testing construct validity. Besides, the descriptive statistics and construct variables correlation were demonstrated. Findings: In total, four hypotheses were rejected, and seven were supported. The result of data from the study showed that consumers’ attitudes towards certified food service were influenced by organic menu attribute, CSR attribute but not manifested on eco-friendly attributes. The study proved the positive relationship between consumers’ attitude and their willingness to dine and willingness to pay premium at certified food service. The study revealed that the LOHAS customer segment differs from the non-LOHAS consumer segment in the following ways: the attitude of LOHAS towards certified food service is more positive than the non-LOHAS and their willingness to dine and willingness to pay the premium is also much greater than the non-LOHAS. Whereas, there existed no significant relationship shifts between customer attitude and the green attributes regarding the certified food service when green skepticism was the moderator.   Implications: This paper assists researchers and practitioners by shedding light on the positive relationship between attitude and behavior intentions, the differences between LOHAS and non-LOHAS in regard to their more positive attitude and higher willingness to dine and willingness to pay premium in certified food service setting. Keywords: certified food service, LOHAS, consumers’ attitude, green skepticism, administrative CSR, green practices, organic menu