This study attempts to identify the salient factors affected by food neophilia and its interaction with demand authenticity in the choice of an ethnic restaurant. By undertaking a series of multivariate and univariate analyses between these two predictors and five key dining attributes: food quality, service quality, FLEs attitude, atmosphere, and price, it is revealed that restaurant customers consider different factors in their buying decision process, depending on individuals’ food neophilia level, needs for authenticity, and demographic characteristics. The results show that authentic quality of food, authentic atmosphere, friendly and prompt service encounters are the most important factors. The findings further suggest that price sensitivity is higher in the market with a low to moderate need for authenticity. Cultural backgrounds, on the other hand, seem to influence how customers embrace roles and professional skills of the frontline staff rather than customer-employee relationship. Given the lack of research in examining food neophilia in the ethnic restaurant selection empirically, this study allows a better understanding of this market segment which contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of food consumption and preferences as well as offers useful insights for ethnic restaurant businesses.

The advent of Web 2.0 has encouraged restaurant customers to post online reviews, and oftentimes, not in favor of the company. When a service failure occurs, the customer may voice their complaints publicly online. The company, on the other hand, has the opportunity to respond to these complaints and use it as a part of their service recovery strategy. While some companies are responding to negative reviews, only a few have the knowledge on how to do it effectively. Built on perceived justice framework: distributive, procedural, interactional; and service failure severity type: outcome-process, major-minor, present study intends to understand different resolution styles adopted by the company to varying types of customer complaint. The findings outline: (1) the vast majority of the company exhibits only a low level of responsiveness to complaints; (2) there seems to be a correlation between physical and psychological loss with time loss, severe emotions and switching intentions; (3) however, different strategies depending upon service failure severity are yet to be implemented by the company; (4) while components in interactional justice are mostly performed, rude responses are also frequently applied. Further elaboration of the findings and insights for marketing practice are discussed in the text.