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Effects of
Effects of third-party certification third-party
on patrons’ service quality certification

evaluation in the luxury-

restaurant industry 771

Jinhyun Jun Received 23 July 2016

Revised 30 December 2016
School of Travel Industry Management, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Accepted 5 January 2017
Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Juhee Kang
Rosen College of Hospitality Management, University of Central Florida,
Orlando, Florida, USA, and
Sunghyup Sean Hyun
School of Tourism, Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to incorporate third-party certification to test a theoretical model that
demonstrates the effects of third-party certification on perceived food quality, perceived service quality,
and trust and the effects of these factors on word of mouth (WOM) intentions in the context of luxury
restaurants. It also investigates the moderating roles of attention to social comparison information (ATSCI)
and the education level.
Design/methodology/approach – An online survey sent to customers who are patronizing luxury
restaurants in the US 317 empirical data analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling.
Findings – Third-party certification facilitated patrons’ positive evaluation of food and service quality.
In addition, this positive evaluation fostered trust in the restaurant. Finally, ATSCI and the education level
had significant moderating effects on the relationship between third-party certification and patrons’ trust in
the restaurant.
Originality/value – This study proposes risk-reducing effect of third-party certification on the luxury-
restaurant business. Third-party certification is employed as a mechanism for communicating restaurant
quality in food and service to patrons. Both stakeholders and patrons in the restaurant industry can obtain
benefits from the third-party certification because it minimizes uncertainties and information asymmetries in
luxury restaurants’ quality and service, and thus generating likelihood of WOM intentions.
Keywords Service quality, Food quality, Attention to social comparison information (ATSCI),
Education level, Luxury restaurant, Third-party certification
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Restaurant customers are exposed to a certain degree of uncertainty or risk because they cannot
ascertain the quality of food and services provided by restaurants before or even after
consumption (Dimara and Skuras, 2005). This perceived uncertainty or risk comes from the fact
that customers have less information with which they judge food and service quality of the
restaurant (Anderson, 1994; Orth and Krška, 2002; Singh and Sirdeshmukh, 2000). Restaurant
owners have information on the entire food preparation process, but customers cannot easily
access such information. This phenomenon is called “information asymmetry” (Martin, 2004).
Information asymmetry makes it hard for customers to accurately determine the food and
service quality of various restaurants, exposing them to adverse selection risk. British Food Journal
Taking advantage of customers’ informational deficiency, low-quality providers may attempt Vol. 119 No. 4, 2017
pp. 771-789
to deceive customers into believing that they provide high-quality products or services. © Emerald Publishing Limited
0007-070X
In particular, consequences of adverse selection may be more serious in luxury restaurants DOI 10.1108/BFJ-06-2016-0272
BFJ because of higher transaction costs for luxury restaurants than other restaurant segments
119,4 (e.g. quick/casual service restaurants).
To avoid adverse selection, customers try to gather information on products or services
in various ways (e.g. advertising, personal communication, and repeated consumption).
One option for evaluating quality is third-party certification, which ensures providers’
compliance with industry standards for their products (Hatanaka et al., 2005).
772 In the restaurant industry, third-party certification is a way to show that the food
served by a restaurant is properly handled and prepared and present its performance to
meet the high level of food and service quality promised by the restaurant to its
customers. Therefore, restaurants may use third-party certification to demonstrate their
quality performance and reduce customers’ perceived uncertainty or risk associated with
the intangibility of restaurant products and services.
Numerous restaurant studies have reported that food quality and service quality are
major attributes that are taken into account when restaurant patrons make dining-out
choices ( Johns and Pine, 2002; Soriano, 2002). Excellent food and service quality help
assure restaurant patrons that various aspects of their dining experiences, such as food
taste and attentive service, will live up to their expectations (Namkung and Jang, 2008).
Trust toward restaurants has also been considered a key selection criterion for a
restaurant choice. Patrons who feel trust toward a restaurant tend to expect that the
restaurant will provide standard or higher service and thus that their need for a quality
dining experience will be fulfilled (Fernqvist and Ekelund, 2014). Although these
three components are important antecedents of the restaurant selection process
(Raajpoot, 2002), uncertainty or risk still remains because of the intangibility of service
characteristics. Thus, this study proposes third-party certification as the primary
antecedent of food quality, service quality, and restaurant trust because it diminishes the
level of uncertainty in the restaurant selection process by providing important
information to patrons about restaurants.
A considerable number of studies in the restaurant context have reported the
correlations between third-party certification, food quality, service quality, restaurant
trust, and word of mouth (WOM). Alonso et al. (2005) found that the presentation of
third-party certification generates positive perceptions of food and service quality,
while Miyazaki and Krishnamurthy (2002) showed that third-party certification enhances
customer trust. Perceived food and service quality plays an important role in
predicting trust (Haghighi et al., 2012; Kim et al., 2006) and WOM intentions
(Alexandris et al., 2002; Ha and Jang, 2010). Not surprisingly, previous studies have
emphasized the need to increase customer trust in restaurants because trust is an effective
method for generating positive WOM intentions (Lo and Lam, 2004; Chen, 2006).
However, in spite of the importance of third-party certification in enhancing customers’
evaluation of food and service quality and generating trust, no study has incorporated
third-party certification into restaurant patrons’ evaluation process focusing on
WOM intention.
This study aims to conduct an empirical test investigating the effects of third-party
certification on perceived food quality, perceived service quality, and trust and the effects of
these factors on WOM intentions in the context of luxury restaurants. In addition, the study
examines the moderating roles of attention to social comparison information (ATSCI)
and customer education level on the relationship between third-party certification and trust
in the restaurant. To the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the role
of third-party certification in the luxury-restaurant industry. In this regard, the results
are expected to have significant implications for restaurant marketers interested
in differentiating their venues from others and generating positive outcomes through
third-party certification.
Literature review Effects of
Theoretical background: information asymmetry and third-party certification third-party
Information asymmetry refers to “the imbalance of information that always exists between certification
principals [customers in this study] and agents [restaurants]” (Martin, 2004). Depending on
how customers evaluate an item, products can be classified into three categories: search
goods, experience goods, and credence goods (Anderson, 1994). As one moves from
search goods to credence goods, information asymmetry is likely to increase, with the latter 773
showing the most severe information asymmetry (Anderson, 1994). With an increase in
information asymmetry, it becomes harder for customers to notice hidden quality problems
(Anderson, 1994), and therefore they may have difficulty making an optimal choice.
Third-party certification plays an important role in reducing the effect of information
asymmetry because it provides relatively objective information on food and service
quality (Graffin and Ward, 2010; Rindova et al., 2005). The certification is evidence of
approval that an accredited party fulfills an accredited standard (Meuwissen et al., 2003,
p. 172). In other words, third-party certification verifies that a restaurant meets specific
benchmark standards for certain things (e.g. food safety and quality) and thus serves as a
quality signal to reduce information asymmetry between consumers and restaurants as
well as consumers’ risk in selecting a restaurant. Restaurant patrons evaluate the quality
of a consumption experience based on various evaluation elements such as prices
evaluated by searches, services evaluated by experiences, and food safety evaluated by
credence. For this reason, third-party certification can be a good marketing promotion tool
for tourists and convention organizers when selecting dining services at a destination
(Ryu and Lee, 2013). However, the overall evaluation of the consumption experience
appears to be related mainly to experiences and credence (Fernqvist and Ekelund, 2014)
because of the intangible nature of the restaurant experience. A high likelihood exists that
restaurant customers are more likely to be exposed to adverse selection problems than are
consumers of manufactured products when they do not have sufficient resources to
determine the quality of restaurants.
In particular, previous research has emphasized the importance of providing accurate
and useful information for customers at the higher end of the restaurant market and has
suggested that such efforts on the part of companies make it possible to charge a premium
(Dimara and Skuras, 2005). Therefore, third-party certification may be a useful marketing
strategy for luxury restaurants in that it enables them to differentiate themselves from
uncertified restaurants, thereby justifying their higher prices. Due to the importance of
third-party certification on the evaluation of quality, it has been widely studied in various
areas (Akdeniz et al., 2013; Etilé and Teyssier, 2016; Özpolat and Jank, 2015), but rarely
investigated in the restaurant context. Therefore, this study employs third-party
certification as antecedents of quality evaluation and trust toward restaurants.

Food quality and third-party certification

In general, food quality is conceived as a multidimensional concept, but there is no consensus
on individual dimensions constituting it. For example, Grunert et al. (1996) classified food
quality into four dimensions: hedonic (e.g. taste and smell), health (e.g. nutritional value),
convenience (e.g. time and effort), and processes (e.g. production processes), and Namkung
and Jang (2008) suggested five dimensions: presentation, variety, healthy options, taste,
freshness, and temperature. Many studies have revealed food quality as a core competency of
restaurants (e.g. Ha and Jang, 2010; Namkung and Jang, 2008).
Grunert’s (2005) total food quality model posits that customers evaluate food quality
based not only on actual food consumption but also on their expectations of food generated
by information gathered prior to consumption. After a thorough review of previous research
on food quality, Cardello (1995) emphasized the role of information in consumers’ food
BFJ quality evaluations, referring to it as “ideational” information because it creates an
119,4 expectation of a certain food offering without actual consumption. Deliza and MacFIE (1996)
suggested that information on a product produces expectations, which in turn influence
perceptions, and that positive expectations influence product selection behavior. Olson and
Dover (as cited in Deliza and MacFIE, 1996) investigated the effect of information about the
bitterness of coffee on customers’ evaluation of bitterness and found that the group that was
774 told that the coffee did not taste bitter tended to perceive the coffee as less bitter. Several
studies empirically verified that information on food generates particular customer
expectations, which in turn influence their actual food quality evaluations as directed by
those expectations, verifying assimilation effects (Di Monaco et al., 2004; Grankvist et al.,
2007; Maiorano, Kowaliszyn et al., 2010; Napolitano et al., 2007; Varela et al., 2010).
These findings imply that customers’ evaluation of food quality may change if their
perceptions are modified by information that a restaurant’s quality is certified by a third
party. In this regard, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H1. Third-party certification has a positive effect on the perception of food quality.

Service quality and third-party certification

Along with food quality, service quality is considered a core determinant of restaurant quality
(Clemes et al., 2013; Jang and Namkung, 2009; Mansouri and Ebrahimi, 2013; Namkung and
Jang, 2008; Qin and Prybutok, 2009). In the restaurant industry, the interaction between
customers and service employees is a key component in customers’ evaluation of their dining
experience ( Jang and Namkung, 2009). Researchers have reported positive effects of service
quality on customer satisfaction and loyalty in different restaurant segments (e.g. ethnic,
fast-food, and casual dining restaurants) (Ha and Jang, 2010; Kim, 2011; Liu and Jang, 2009;
Qin and Prybutok, 2009). For example, Ryu and Han (2010) found that service quality has
considerable influence on customer satisfaction, which in turn affects customers’
loyalty-related behavioral intentions (e.g. recommendation and revisit intentions) for quick/
casual dining restaurants. Researchers even revealed that service quality is a more important
factor than food quality in determining restaurant customers’ behaviors (Andaleeb and
Conway, 2006).
Because most service characteristics are intangible, customers have difficulty
ascertaining how good a service is prior to their actual experience and thus tend to resort
to relying on certain quality signals such as third-party certification (Reimer and Kuehn,
2005) because it is a reliable means of assessing the supplier’s compliance with established
standards. For example, third-party certification for good management practices can
enhance customers’ perception of service quality (Busch and Bain, 2004). Third-party
certification can help customers reduce the perceived risks associated with the purchase of
certain services and assure themselves of a desired level of service quality. To the best
of our knowledge, the specific effects of third-party certification on customers’ perceptions
of service quality have not been widely investigated in restaurant settings; however, some
researchers have confirmed the positive roles of certain extrinsic cues (e.g. branding)
in customers’ perceived service quality (Berry, 2000; Krishnan and Hartline, 2001).
Given that third-party certification is a part of extrinsic cues, such findings can support
the view that the presence of third-party certification may favorably affect customers’
perception of service quality. Restaurants presenting a third-party certification tend to
focus on providing high-quality service to their customers to maintain the level of quality
necessary to meet those standards, and therefore customers who are aware of this
third-party certification are more likely to positively perceive service quality.
In this regard, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H2. Third-party certification has a positive effect on the perception of service quality.
Trust and third-party certification Effects of
Trust is defined as “the expectations held by the consumer that the service provider is third-party
dependable and can be relied on to deliver on its promises” (Sirdeshmukh et al., 2002, certification
p. 17). Trust has an inverse relationship with perceived risk or uncertainty (Bowen and
Shoemaker, 2003; Konrad et al., 1999; Povey, 1999). That is, an increase in trust reduces
perceived risk. Because third-party certification is considered as an independent and
objective information source for providers’ compliance with a given set of standards, 775
it may reduce customer uncertainty and increase customer trust in a business to keep its
promises (Ganesan, 1994; Jiang et al., 2008). For example, Brunsø et al. (2002) argued that
food safety is a key factor influencing food selection. Quality related to food safety is
based partly on experiences but mainly on credence, and therefore customers may want to
obtain objective and reliable information from various sources. The public posting of
inspection scores can be one such information source. Choi et al. (2011) investigated the
effects of inspection scores on customers’ perception of food safety at restaurants by using
four different scenarios ranging from 0 to 10 violations and exposing each respondent to
one of these scenarios. It was found that those respondents whose restaurants received
the highest inspection scores were least likely to worry that they would be exposed to a
food-borne illness from the restaurants. These findings show that a certain type of
objective information, such as third-party certification, may reduce customers’ perceived
risk or uncertainty, thereby increasing their trust in restaurants. In this regard,
the following hypothesis is proposed:
H3. Third-party certification has a positive effect on trust in the restaurant.

Moderating role of ATSCI

Many studies of consumer behavior have pointed out the effect that others have on an
individual’s decisions (Bearden and Rose, 1990). When customers make a purchase decision,
they may do so based in part on their perceptions of what others think or how others react
concerning their decisions, a phenomenon referred to as “attention to social comparison
information” or ATSCI (Miniard and Cohen, 1983). Since customers are sensitive to social
comparison information (i.e. a fear of a negative social evaluation), customers’ purchase
intentions may be predicted by examining their predisposition to act based on social
pressure at the time of their purchase or consumption (Bearden and Rose, 1990).
High-ATSCI customers are likely to be concerned about others’ reactions to their purchase
behaviors and to look for clues upon which to base their own decisions (Bearden and
Rose, 1990). Graffin and Ward (2010) argued that certification provides information not only
on “how the actor performed” but also on “how others have interpreted the actor’s earlier
performance.” Conforming to others’ positive assessment of a restaurant, high-ATSCI
customers are likely to visit a restaurant that certifies the quality of its ingredients
(e.g. certified organic), food preparation procedures (e.g. food safety), and service management.
Because customers who are more susceptible to others’ reactions are less likely to trust their
own judgment, they are more likely to rely on others’ evaluations and choose restaurants
recommended or approved by other customers (Boush et al., 1993). For example, customers
may be concerned about their health, particularly when dining out, which creates a demand
for information on restaurants’ quality management of food safety. High-ATSCI customers
are likely to value third-party certification because it assures them of proper food safety
procedures in food preparation at certified restaurants. Therefore, the effect of third-party
certification on trust is stronger for customers who are more concerned about others’ opinions.
In this regard, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H3a. High-ATSCI customers are more likely to be influenced by third-party certification
in trusting a restaurant.
BFJ The moderating role of education level
119,4 Consumer education level has been widely investigated in a variety of behavior domains
(Ertuna and Curel, 2011; Haukkala and Uutela, 1999; Wickrama et al., 2012), and its
significant roles as a moderator has been confirmed. However, only a few studies have
investigated the moderating roles of education in our research area. Nevertheless, those
findings clearly have found that more educated individuals are more likely to be engaged in
776 information gathering and processing (Capon and Burke, 1980; Dimara and Skuras, 2005).
For example, Dimara and Skuras (2005) indicated that individuals with a high education
level were more likely to acquire information about a wine, and that a high demand for
information was positively related to wine expenditures. When choosing a place to dine out,
such individuals are expected to be more likely to check for the third-party certification of a
restaurant. In addition, they may be well aware of the role of third-party certification in
maintaining high standards for food preparation processes and service management. When
highly educated customers are informed of third-party certification, they are likely to have a
high level of trust in the restaurant. In this regard, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H3b. The higher the level of customers’ education, the more likely they are to be
influenced by third-party certification in trusting a restaurant.

Trust and food and service quality

Consumers are likely to trust a service provider if the provider offers a service or product whose
quality exceeds the consumers’ perceived cost (Alhabeeb, 2007). Some empirical evidence
provides support for the view that quality is positively related to perceived value (Brady and
Robertson, 1999; Kim et al., 2013; Teas and Agarwal, 2000). Perceived value is defined as
“a result of customers’ evaluation of the service received (benefits) against their perceptions of
the costs of obtaining the service” (Tam, 2004, p. 900). The most important benefit consumers
obtain from their restaurant experience comes from the food and service. Therefore, when
consumers perceive reasonable food and service quality for their money, they are likely to trust
the restaurant. On the other hand, if consumers perceive that they are being overcharged, they
are not likely to trust the restaurant (Haghighi et al., 2012; Kim et al., 2006). High food and service
quality may reduce consumers’ sense of being overcharged and thus increase their trust.
Previous studies have empirically demonstrated significant positive effects of food and
service quality on consumer trust (Haghighi et al., 2012; Kim et al., 2006). For example, Kim et al.
(2006) found that food and service quality has a significant positive effect on relationship
quality consisting of trust and satisfaction in the context of luxury restaurants. Chiou and
Droge (2006) investigated the effects of service quality on consumers’ perceived trust in the
context of a premium cosmetic brand and found the interactive service quality of employees to
be a significant predictor of trust. In this regard, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H4. Food quality has a positive effect on consumer trust.
H5. Service quality has a positive effect on consumer trust.

Antecedents of WOM intentions: food quality, service quality, and trust

WOM is defined as “an act of telling at least one friend, acquaintance, or family member about
the personal experience with a satisfactory or unsatisfactory product or retail establishment”
(Halstead, 2000, p. 3). Bone (1995) defined WOM behavior as face-to-face or person-to-person
interactive communication between two or more customers. WOM communication is
considered one of the best promotional methods (Brown et al., 2005; Reichheld, 2003). According
to the National Restaurant Association’s (2012) National Household Survey, 94 percent of the
respondents reported that they were likely to choose restaurants based on recommendations
from people they know (e.g. family members and friends), and those respondents who dined out Effects of
frequently were more likely to rely on WOM recommendations. third-party
Because of the experiential and credential nature of the restaurant experience, customers certification
tend to rely heavily on information obtained from others who have some personal
experience with the restaurant under consideration (Kinard and Capella, 2006). Customers
are likely to consider WOM feedback from such sources more reliable than information
provided by the restaurant itself (Gregory and Kim, 2004; Murray, 1991; Zeithaml and 777
Bitner, 1996). For example, Day (1971) found that WOM communication is nine times more
effective than advertising in creating positive attitudes of consumers. Through WOM
communication, consumers obtain vital information on companies and determine whether to
transact with them (Zeithaml et al., 1993) or try somewhere else (Gremler, 1994).
Mangold et al. (1999) identified three categories of WOM communication, namely,
quality-only, price-only, and quality-only (value) WOM communication, by asking respondents
to provide two WOM communication incidents and found that quality-only WOM
communication was the most frequent category (62 percent), indicating that customers are
strongly interested in the quality of what they purchase. Because perceived quality is
considered similar to attitudes, positive quality perceptions are likely to lead to favorable
behavioral intentions (Bitner, 1990; Bolton and Drew, 1991; Cronin and Taylor, 1992), and one
such favorable behavioral intention may be positive WOM intentions. In the restaurant
industry, service quality and food quality are two main determinants of the overall quality of a
customer’s restaurant experience (Qin and Prybutok, 2009), and researchers have postulated
that these are crucial factors influencing loyalty-related consumer behaviors such as WOM
intentions (Alexandris et al., 2002; Ha and Jang, 2010; Harrison-Walker, 2001; Ryu and Han,
2010; Zeithaml et al., 1996). For example, Ryu and Han (2010) found that both these quality
factors have positive effects on customers’ behavioral intentions, including positive WOM
intentions, in a quick/casual dining restaurant setting. Ha and Jang (2010) verified the
significant roles of these factors in generating positive WOM intentions in the context of casual
dining restaurants. In this regard, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H6. Food quality has a positive effect on WOM intentions.
H7. Service quality has a positive effect on WOM intentions.
The relationship between trust and WOM intentions can be understood in the context of
relationship marketing (Bowen and Shoemaker, 2003; Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Bowen and
Shoemaker (2003) developed a model of relationships between consumers and service
providers that proposed trust as playing a crucial role in developing long-term relationships
and observed positive effects of trust on loyalty-related behavioral outcomes, including
positive WOM intentions. The significant role played by trust in generating positive WOM
intentions has been empirically verified (Kim et al., 2006, 2009; Sichtmann, 2007). For example,
Kim et al. (2006) found that relationship quality (consisting of trust and satisfaction) has a
significant effect on WOM intentions based on 21 independent restaurants. Kim et al. (2009)
found that trust has a positive effect on WOM intentions in the context of service recovery
procedures in upscale hotels. In this regard, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H8. Trust has a positive effect on WOM intentions.
Figure 1 shows a conceptual model integrating these ten hypotheses.

Methods
Data collection
To statistically test the proposed theoretical model in Figure 1, empirical data were collected
from luxury-restaurant patrons in the USA. With a consumer panel database including
BFJ
ATSCI
119,4
Perceived
food quality
H3a

H6
H4

778 H1

Third-party Trust in the WOM

H3 H8
certification restaurant intentions
H2

H5 H7

Perceived
H3b service
quality

Figure 1.
The hypothesized
Education
conceptual model level

e-mail addresses of 27,000 luxury-restaurant patrons, e-mail invitations were sent to those
patronizing luxury restaurants sometime in 2011. Based on these invitations, a total of
317 usable responses were obtained.

Results
Demographic characteristics
The collected sample’s demographic characteristics are shown in Table I (n ¼ 317). Among
the 317 respondents, 53 percent were male. The ages of respondents ranged from 18 to 90.
More specifically, the largest age category was 31-40 (27.1 percent), followed by 41-50
(20.5 percent), indicating that about half of the respondents were between 31 and 50.
In terms of income, the respondents showed relatively high levels of income, which is
consistent with patrons of luxury restaurants. More than 70 percent (n ¼ 223) reported an
annual income of $100,000 or more. The respondents reported high levels of education. More
than 70 percent (n ¼ 232) had a bachelor’s degree or more. In short, the sample consisted of
well-educated and well-off individuals whose ages ranged from 19 to 90.

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)

The results of the CFA indicate an acceptable model fit. The χ2 estimate was 108.997
(df ¼ 79, p-value ¼ 0.014, χ2/df ratio ¼ 1.380). The results for other fit indices also indicate an
adequate model fit (CFI ¼ 0.994, IFI ¼ 0.994, TLI ¼ 0.992, NFI ¼ 0.977, RFI ¼ 0.970,
GFI ¼ 0.957, AGFI ¼ 0.935, RMSEA ¼ 0.035).
Based on Anderson and Gerbing (1988), the convergent validity of the proposed concepts
was checked through a CFA. As shown in Table II, all factor loadings were greater than or
equal to 0.708 and significant at p o0.001 (t-values ranged from 14.786 to 46.593). Table III
shows that the average variance extracted (AVE) exceeded the 0.50 threshold for all
proposed constructs (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988). Based on acceptable factor loadings and AVE
estimates, there was sufficient convergent validity for the measurement scale (Fornell and
Larcker, 1981).
Variable n %
Effects of
third-party
Gender certification
Female 168 53.0
Male 149 47.0
Age (years)
18-30 48 15.1
31-40 86 27.1
779
41-50 65 20.5
51-60 53 16.7
51 and over 65 20.6
Annual income ($)
150,000 and over 78 24.6
100,000-149,999 145 45.7
85,000-99,999 26 8.2
70,000-84,999 20 6.3
55,000-69,999 14 4.4
40,000-54,999 10 3.2
25,000-39,999 12 3.8
Under 25,000 12 3.8
Education level
High school degree 12 3.8
Some college but no degree 56 17.7
Associate’s degree 17 5.4
Bachelor’s degree 119 37.5 Table I.
Graduate degree 113 35.6 The demographic
Note: n ¼ 317 profile of the sample

For the discriminant validity of the scale, the squared correlation (R2) between a pair of
constructs must be lower than the AVE for each construct (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).
As shown in Table III, the squared correlation (R2) between each pair of constructs was
lower than the AVE for each intended construct, indicating sufficient discriminant validity.
Finally, the internal consistency of the scale was observed through the composite reliability
of each intended construct. Hair et al. (1998) suggested a minimum cutoff estimate of 0.70.
All composite reliability values exceeded the minimum threshold of 0.70, indicating
sufficient internal consistency.

Hypothesis testing
Following the CFA, a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was conducted. The
SEM results indicate a good model fit: the χ2 estimate was 142.554 (df ¼ 81, p-value ¼ 0.000,
χ2/df ratio ¼ 1.760; CFI ¼ 0.987, IFI ¼ 0.987, TLI ¼ 0.983, NFI ¼ 0.970, RFI ¼ 0.962,
GFI ¼ 0.944, AGFI ¼ 0.917, RMSEA ¼ 0.049). Figure 2 shows the standardized path
coefficients and their statistical significance. The results of SEM analysis show that nine out
of the ten hypotheses were supported (Table IV).

Moderating effects of ATSCI and education level

Based on the literature review, the moderating roles of two factors, namely, ATSCI (H3a) and
the education level (H3b), were analyzed. To statistically test the moderating effect,
a multi-group analysis was conducted (e.g. Byrne, 2001). The original sample was split into
two groups based on the moderator score. Then a multi-group analysis was conducted based
on a hierarchical approach to statistically compare the two groups (Chandrashekaran and
Grewal, 2003). To verify the differential effects of each moderator, the χ2 difference between
BFJ Standardized Level of Cronbach’s
119,4 Constructs and scale items loading significance α

Third-party certification 0.928

I am aware that this luxury restaurant is certified by a third party
(e.g. the FDA and the food department of the state government) 0.896
I am aware that this luxury restaurant’s chef is certified by a third
780 party (e.g. a certified executive chef) 0.896 ***
I am aware that this luxury restaurant has received awards from
public/private organizations (e.g. city’s 50 best restaurants and an
environmentally friendly award) 0.948 ***
Perceived food quality 0.929
This luxury restaurant serves tasty food 0.925
This luxury restaurant’s food presentation is attractive 0.929 ***
Food is served at an appropriate temperature 0.853 ***
Perceived service quality 0.863
Employees of this restaurant are always willing to help me 0.907
Employees have sufficient knowledge to answer my questions 0.891 ***
This luxury restaurant has my best interests in mind 0.708 ***
Trust in the restaurant 0.974
This restaurant always meets my expectations 0.977
This restaurant can be counted on to be good 0.960 ***
This restaurant is reliable 0.949 ***
WOM intentions 0.934
I recommend this luxury restaurant to my friends/relatives 0.928
I post positive messages about this luxury restaurant on websites
(e.g. blogs) 0.968 ***
Table II. If someone says negative things about this luxury restaurant,
CFA results: items I defend it 0.828 ***
and loadings Note: All factors loadings were significant at po 0.001

No. of Mean (1) Third-party (2) Food (3) Service (4) (5)
items (SD) AVE certification quality quality Trust WOM

(1) Third-party
certification 3 4.01 (0.95) 0.83 0.936a 0.325b,* 0.571* 0.343* 0.207*
(2) Food quality 3 4.46 (0.75) 0.82 0.106c 0.954 0.464* 0.277* 0.166*
(3) Service quality 3 4.40 (0.65) 0.71 0.326 0.215 0.924 0.374* 0.183*
(4) Trust 3 3.51 (0.96) 0.93 0.118 0.077 0.140 0.965 0.730*
(5) WOM intentions 3 3.39 (1.06) 0.83 0.043 0.028 0.033 0.533 0.810
Goodness-of-fit statistics: χ2 ¼ 108.997, χ2/df ¼ 1.380, CFI ¼ 0.994, IFI ¼ 0.994, TLI ¼ 0.992, NFI ¼ 0.977,
Table III. RFI ¼ 0.970, GFI ¼ 0.957, AGFI ¼ 0.935, RMSEA ¼ 0.035
Descriptive statistics Notes: AVE, Average variance extracted; CFI, comparative fit index; IFI, incremental fit index; TLI,
and associated Tucker-Lewis index; RMSEA, root mean square error of approximation. aComposite reliability is indicated along
measures the diagonal; bcorrelations are above the diagonal; csquared correlations are below the diagonal. *po0.05

constrained and unconstrained models was calculated to determine the difference in the
degree of freedom (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988).
First, the moderating role of ATSCI was evaluated (H3a). The path coefficient
between third-party certification and trust in the restaurant was compared between
the high- and low-ATSCI groups. The χ2 difference between the constrained and
unconstrained models was significant at the 0.05 level ( χ2 difference ¼ 6.376, exceeding
 Effects of
ATSCI
third-party
Perceived
food quality certification
significant
not
significant
0.335 0.125

781
Third-party 0.186 Trust in the 0.765 WOM
certification restaurant intentions

0.576
0.213
0.103

Perceived
service
significant quality

Figure 2.
Results for the
Education
level proposed model

Paths Standardized estimate t-value Hypothesis

H1: third-party certification → perceived food quality 0.335 5.724 Supported

H2: third-party certification → perceived service quality 0.576 9.914 Supported
H3: third-party certification → trust in the restaurant 0.186 2.599 Supported
H4: perceived food quality → trust in the restaurant 0.125 2.168 Supported
H5: perceived service quality → trust in the restaurant 0.213 3.054 Supported
H6: perceived food quality → WOM intentions 0.003 0.070 Not supported
H7: perceived service quality → WOM intentions 0.103 2.230 Supported
H8: trust in the restaurant → WOM intentions 0.765 15.845 Supported
H3a: moderating effect of ATSCI on the relationship
between third-party certification and trust Supported
H3b: moderating effect of the education level on the
relationship between third-party certification and trust Supported
Goodness-of-fit statistics: χ2 ¼ 0.987, IFI ¼ 0.987, TLI ¼ 0.983, NFI ¼ 0.970, RFI ¼ 0.962, GFI ¼ 0.944, Table IV.
AGFI ¼ 0.917, RMSEA ¼ 0.049 Results of
Note: *po 0.05 hypothesis testing

the 3.84 cutoff value under one degree of freedom). This indicates a significant difference
in the effect of third-party certification on trust between the two ATSCI levels, providing
support for H3a.
Second, the moderating role of the education level was checked. The path coefficient
between third-party certification and trust was compared between the high-education
(a graduate degree or more) and low-education (a bachelor’s degree or less) groups. The χ2
difference between the constrained and unconstrained models was significant at the
0.05 level ( χ2 difference ¼ 13.231, exceeding the 3.84 cutoff value under one degree
of freedom). This indicates a significant difference in the effect of third-party certification on
trust between the two education levels, providing support for H3b.
BFJ Discussion and implications
119,4 The results indicate that customers’ awareness of third-party certification had a significant
effect on their perception of food and service quality and on their trust, which in turn
influenced their WOM intentions. In addition, perceived service quality had a significant
effect on trust. Both ATSCI and the education level had moderating effects on the
relationship between customers’ awareness of third-party certification and their trust.
782 However, there was no significant effect of perceived food quality on WOM intentions.
Although many studies have investigated the roles of food and service quality in
generating customers’ trust and loyalty-related behavioral outcomes (e.g. WOM intentions),
no study has included the role of third-party certification within this framework. Some
researchers have examined the effects of other types of information sources (e.g. brands and
labeling) on consumer behavior (Dimara and Skuras, 2005; Di Monaco et al., 2004),
but third-party certification remains to be fully examined in the food service field, despite its
potentially important role as a powerful extrinsic cue.
This study examines the role of third-party certification on information asymmetry.
In other fields (e.g. online shopping and meat purchases), some studies have considered this
foundation (Grabner-Kraeuter, 2002; Napolitano et al., 2010), but no study has employed this
theoretical foundation in the restaurant context, specifically luxury restaurants. Therefore,
by applying this framework to a new context, this study contributes the literature by
showing how third-party certification influences restaurant customers’ perceptions and
behavioral intentions. In addition, by approaching the role of third-party certification in a
theoretical manner, this study provides better insights into the process through which
third-party certification influences restaurant customers’ behaviors.
The results have several important implications for restaurant managers and marketers.
First, third-party certification had positive effects on all three determinants of WOM
intentions, namely, food quality (H1: 0.335, p o0.001), service quality (H2: 0.576, p o0.001),
and trust (H3: 0.186, p o0.001), suggesting that restaurant customers are more likely to
form positive perceptions of food and service quality and thus consider the restaurant to be
reliable if they are aware that the restaurant has third-party certification. Previous studies
(e.g. Ali et al., 2016) revealed that experiences influence memory. This study further revealed
that certification can stimulate memory formation. Researchers emphasized the important
benefit of third-party certification in terms of creating a new market and providing a price
premium by differentiation (Bulut et al., 2006; Hatanaka et al., 2005). In this regard,
restaurants (particularly luxury restaurants) should pursue third-party certification for a
high level of recognition and promote it as part of their advertising campaign. This should
enhance potential patrons’ positive perceptions of a restaurant’s food and service quality
and thus help differentiate the certified restaurant from other restaurants.
The results suggest that both food quality (H4: 0.125, p o0.001) and service quality
(H5: 0.213, p o0.001) play crucial roles in increasing customer trust and that customer trust
in a restaurant can increase when the restaurant delivers promised quality (Kim et al., 2006).
In the restaurant industry, these two attributes have long been identified as key factors
determining overall restaurant quality (Clemes et al., 2013; Jang and Namkung, 2009;
Namkung and Jang, 2008; Ryu and Han, 2010; Qin and Prybutok, 2009). Therefore,
restaurants should invest money and time in training chefs and service employees and
developing menu items.
According to the results, customer trust was the most significant determinant of WOM
intentions, providing support for H8 (0.765, p o0.001), whereas food quality had no
significant effect on WOM intentions (H6: p ¼ 0.945). Because trust plays an important role
in reducing customers’ perceived uncertainty or risk concerning a product or service
(Bowen and Shoemaker, 2003; Konrad et al., 1999; Povey, 1999) as well as in making them
more affectively attached to the service provider (Hess and Story, 2005), customers who
trust a restaurant are more likely to engage in positive WOM communication. Previous Effects of
studies have verified the important role played by customer trust in encouraging third-party
loyalty-related behaviors such as WOM intentions (Bowen and Shoemaker, 2003; Hyun, certification
2010; Kim et al., 2006, 2009; Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Sichtmann, 2007). Given that the
restaurant experience is highly intangible, experiential, and credential, restaurants should
recognize the significant effect of trust on restaurant customers’ behaviors and thus make
efforts to build customer’s trust. Bowden (2009) argued that customers develop trust by 783
comparing a service or product received to the cost of obtaining it. That is, customers are
more likely to trust a service provider that delivers reasonable or excellent quality. Therefore,
restaurants should make every effort to keep their promises by delivering advertised service
and product quality. In particular, service quality was a more significant determinant of
customer trust as well as WOM intentions than was food quality. Therefore, restaurants should
strive to offer top-quality services.
This study examines the effects of two moderators, namely, ATSCI and the level of
education. According to the results, both these factors moderated the relationship between
third-party certification and trust in the restaurant (H3a and H3b). High-ATSCI customers
as well as customers with a high level of education were more likely to be influenced by
third-party certification in terms of developing trust in the restaurant. This suggests that
the consumption behavior of high-ATSCI customers is driven by their need for social
approval from their friends or reference groups (Ruvio, 2008). When customers notice a
certification approved by their social group at a restaurant, they are likely to perceive an
increased level of trust in the restaurant. In addition, highly educated consumers tend to be
more rational in their decision making and thus show a higher level of trust in a restaurant
with third-party certification (Capon and Burke, 1980). These results are expected to help
restaurants identify customers, segment their target markets, and establish positioning
strategies to better appeal to their markets.

Conclusion
This study aimed to understand the role of third-party certification in promoting customers’
trust and loyalty-related behaviors. Specifically, third-party certification was found to have
positive effects on the customers’ perceived restaurant service quality and trust in the
restaurant, which in turn favorably affected WOM intentions. Although customers’
perceived food quality had significantly positive impacts on trust in a restaurant,
such perceptions did not have significant impacts on WOM intentions. The findings of this
study also confirmed the risk-reducing effect of third-party certification, which minimizes
customers’ uncertainties about restaurant products’ quality. Based on the findings, this
study suggests that both restaurateurs and customers can benefit from presence of
third-party certification.

Limitations and future research

This study has four major limitations: First, the study targets the luxury-restaurant
segment. Therefore, this study’s research model may yield different results for different
restaurant segments. In this regard, future research should apply the proposed framework
to other restaurant segments such as casual dining and fast-food restaurants to verify the
results. Second, the study investigates the effects of third-party certification on food and
service quality and customer trust. The perceived reliability of the organization issuing this
certification may influence these relationships, and therefore future research should
examine the moderating role of third-party organizations’ reliability perceived by
customers. Third, high levels of education and income were overrepresented in the sample
in comparison to the overall US demographic profile. In this regard, future research should
employ a more diverse sample reflecting the overall US demographic profile. Fourth, the
BFJ empirical data for this study was collected through an internet-based online survey. Many
119,4 luxury-restaurant customers may not be familiar with internet-based web surveys and thus
may not respond to an online survey. For this reason, future research may be required to
further verify the proposed research model using empirical data collected by different
methods (e.g. mailing survey method, face-to-face interview survey).

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Appendix Effects of
third-party
certification
Terminology Definitions

Product category (Anderson, 1994)

Search goods Goods which allow buyers to shop around and find the best-quality 789
specimen by simple inspection
Experience goods Goods whose quality information is obtained by the buyer as a by-
product of use after the purchase
Credence goods Goods for which the buyer’s decision making is dominated by concerns
about credence characteristics and thus about the seller’s credentials
Food quality (Waginger, 2011) The degree of food excellence; includes all key characteristics of
food to make it acceptable Table AI.
Service quality (Ha and The customer’s judgment of the overall excellence or superiority Definitions of
Jang, 2010) of the service terminologies

Corresponding author
Sunghyup Sean Hyun can be contacted at: sshyun@hanyang.ac.kr

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