Authentic Experience and Consumer Responses in Ethnic Restaurants: The Expectation-Confirmation Perspective

The current study aimed to identify how a food attribute (i.e., taste) influences customers’ overall satisfaction and affects their future behavioral intentions. Particularly, the current study extended the expectation-confirmation model by including the relationship between experiential value and satisfaction to examine how the confirmation and disconfirmation of an anticipated ethnic food experience influences individual’s behavioral intentions. A 2 x 2 between-participants design was used with expectations (a taste similar to their traditional food vs. a taste differing from their traditional food) and sauce (familiar sauce vs. unfamiliar sauce) as the independent variables. Crossing these factors resulted in four conditions with 77 to 104 people each. The results indicated that confirmation of participants’ expectations regarding taste (i.e., familiar and unfamiliar) induced positive affective responses and consumption intentions. However, the disconfirmation of a positive trait (i.e., a familiar taste) had no significant effect on the participants’ positive emotions or behavioral intentions. The findings of the current study provide important implications to ethnic restaurateurs as this study identifies a business strategy that ethnic restaurants can use to expand their market.