Restaurant Service Consumers’ Value Perceptions: A Study with Structural Equation Modeling

Abstract

This research aims to create a model that could explain consumers‘ value perception of restaurants attended on Sundays in the city of São Paulo. The research was carried out in two phases: first was an exploratory research project—a focus group–type with two groups of eight individuals each, which had the objective of discovering the main variables that impact the value perception of consumers. Thus, a balanced Likert-type scale was generated, with seven levels of concurrence. The scale was submitted to five experts for theoretical validation and was applied to a non probabilistic sample pursuant to the judgment of 360 consumers. Then, in a second phase, validation of the scale by the Confirmatory Factor Analysis method was provided as well as the building and analysis of five causal models by the method of Structural Equation Modeling. The final model with a better adjustment was composed of PRICE as an endogenous variable and ENVIRONMENT, SERVICE, FOOD, and HYGIENE as exogenous variables. Such conclusions allow the prediction of the decision process in relation to restaurant selection in two phases: (1) when a group of restaurants is chosen, and (2) the moment when the PRICE variable takes over the role of defining the value offered by each restaurant, which will motivate the selection.