Modeling the Service Management Process for Engaging Restaurant Experience Creation
(A2024-118904)

AUTHORS

Peter Björk, HANKEN School of Economics; Harri Luomala, University of Vaasa, School of Marketing and Communication; Tuija Pitkäkoski, Seinäjoki University of Applies Science

ABSTRACT

Alleviation of the Covid-19 restrictions, eating out has regained its position as an important part of consumers’ lives. How to operate the structures, resources and interaction of a value co-creating system from restaurant manager’s perspective to create engaging dining experiences is not well documented in the service marketing literature. With our theory-building research, we contribute to the hospitality customer service marketing literature by developing a novel restaurant experience management model, which in addition to highlighting the key factors for creating engaging restaurant experiences also portrays the executive processes involved. We achieve this by synthetizing the current theoretical understanding and empirical findings from our action research approach to three cases. We identify three service management functions and organizational support practices, if skillfully executed, that increase the odds of successful creation of engaging restaurant experiences.