Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between internal marketing practices, employee job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention in the foodservice industry. Design/methodology/approach – The target population was employees who were currently working at a restaurant in the USA. All respondents were recruited from different states for the generalization of the study results. A confirmatory factor analysis validated the measurement model, and subsequently, structural equation modeling tested the proposed model. Findings – Three internal marketing practices – vision, development and rewards – were good indicators for predicting employee job satisfaction, and two internal marketing practices – development and rewards – in addition to job satisfaction were significant predictors for employee organizational commitment. Finally, the findings indicated that job satisfaction and affective commitment had a significant impact on lowering employee turnover intention. Research limitations/implications – In further research, more internal marketing practices – such as employee motivation, customer orientation, sharing information, employee empowerment – can be added to the model to increase employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Practical implications – Foodservice operators should focus on internal marketing practices to have satisfied employees who, in turn, are more likely to deliver high service quality to customers. Originality/value – This study has not only extended the influential scope of the internal marketing theory to organizational commitment, but has also proposed the antecedents of organizational commitment (i.e. internal marketing practices and employee job satisfaction) and clarified the relationships among them.

This study was conducted to evaluate recipients' perception of service quality, satisfaction, and behavioral intention in home delivered meals program in the US. Out of 398 questionnaires, 265 (66.6%) were collected, and 209 questionnaires (52.5%) were used for the statistical analysis. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) with a maximum likelihood was first conducted to estimate the measurement model by verifying the underlying structure of constructs. The level of internal consistency in each construct was acceptable, with Cronbach's alpha estimates ranging from 0.7 to 0.94. All of the composite reliabilities of the constructs were over the cutoff value of 0.50, ensuring adequate internal consistency of multiple items for each construct. As a second step, a Meals-On-Wheels (MOW) recipient perception model was estimated. The model's fit as indicated by these indexes was satisfactory and path coefficients were analyzed. Two paths between (1) volunteer issues and behavioral intention and (2) responsiveness and behavioral intention were not significant. The path for predicting a positive relationship between food quality and satisfaction was supported. The results show that having high food quality may create recipient satisfaction. The findings suggest that food quality and responsiveness are significant predictors of positive satisfaction. Moreover, satisfied recipients have positive behavioral intention toward MOW programs.

Festivals are experiential products heavily depending on the recommendations of previous visitors. With the power of social media growing, understanding the antecedents of positive electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) intentions of festival attendees is immensely beneficial for festival organizers to better promote their festivals and control negative publicity. However, there is still limited research regarding eWOM intentions in the festival context. Thus, this study aims to fill such a gap by investigating the relationships among festival attendees’ enjoyment seeking motivation, perceived value, visitor satisfaction, and eWOM intention in a local festival setting. Additionally, the moderating role of gender was tested as it is one of the most important demographic variables to show individual differences in behavioral intentions. The results of structural equation modeling showed a positive effect of enjoyment seeking motivation on perceived value, visitor satisfaction, and eWOM intention. Moreover, gender differences in eWOM intention and a full mediating effect of visitor satisfaction between perceived value and eWOM intention for female respondents were revealed. The findings of this study extend the existing festival literature and provide insights for strategically organizing and promoting festivals to generate more positive eWOM which can be utilized as an effective marketing tool and a feedback channel.