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This article was downloaded by: [University of North Texas]On: 23 November 2014, At: 05:19Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK
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DINESCAPE: A Scale forCustomers' Perception ofDining EnvironmentsKisang Ryu & SooCheong (Shawn) JangPublished online: 08 Sep 2008.
To cite this article: Kisang Ryu & SooCheong (Shawn) Jang (2008) DINESCAPE: A Scalefor Customers' Perception of Dining Environments, Journal of Foodservice BusinessResearch, 11:1, 2-22, DOI: 10.1080/15378020801926551
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Journal of Foodservice Business Research, Vol. 11(1) 2008Available online at http://jfbr.haworthpress.com
© 2008 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.2 doi:10.1080/15378020801926551
WFBR1537-80201537-8039Journal of Foodservice Business Research, Vol. 11, No. 1, February 2007: pp. 1–21Journal of Foodservice Business Research
REFEREED
DINESCAPE: A Scale for Customers’ Perception of Dining Environments
RefereedJOURNAL OF FOODSERVICE BUSINESS RESEARCH Kisang RyuSooCheong (Shawn) Jang
ABSTRACT. This study explored the dimensions of the physicalenvironment of upscale restaurants to develop the DINESCAPE scale.Relevant literature in environmental psychology and marketing wasreviewed, highlighting empirical and theoretical contributions. The pro-cedures used in constructing and refining a multiple-item scale toassess DINESCAPE in the upscale restaurant setting are specified inthis paper. Based on quantitative analyses, a six-factor scale wasidentified, consisting of facility aesthetics, ambience, lighting, service
Kisang Ryu, PhD, Assistant Professor, Lester E. Kabacoff School of Hotel,Restaurant and Tourism Administration, University of New Orleans, 449Kirschman Hall, 2000 Lakeshore Drive, New Orleans, LA 70148 (E-mail: [email protected]).
SooCheong (Shawn) Jang, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Hospitalityand Tourism Management, Purdue University, Stone Hall B-1B, 700 West StateStreet, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2059 (E-mail: [email protected]).
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product, layout, and social factors. The reliability and validity of thescale and the factor structure are presented, along with potential appli-cations of the scale.
KEYWORDS. DINESCAPE, physical environment, scale development,upscale restaurants
INTRODUCTION
Kotler (1973) first introduced concepts related to “physical environ-ments” (also known as ‘Atmospherics’ or ‘Servicescape’) more than threedecades ago. Kotler (1973) argued that consumers might respond to morethan just the tangible product (e.g., meal) or service rendered (e.g.,promptness) when making a purchase decision. Indeed, the place, andmore specifically the atmosphere of the place (where the product or ser-vice is purchased or consumed) may be one of the most influential factorsin purchase decision making. Atmosphere often refers to the design of abuying environment, intended to generate specific emotional states in theconsumer that enhances his/her purchase intention. Since Kotler (1973)first introduced the significance of the store environment in stimulating acustomer's desire to purchase, retailers, marketers, and environmentalpsychologists have acknowledged the role of physical environment as acentral element in understanding consumer responses (Baker, 1987;Bitner, 1992; Turley & Milliman, 2000). Physical environment affects thedegree of customer emotions (Bitner, 1990; Mehrabian & Russell, 1974),satisfaction (Bitner, 1990; Chang, 2000), the perception of the servicequality (Wakefield & Blodgett, 1999), and subsequent behavior (Sayedet al., 2003).
The importance of physical environments in creating an image and ininfluencing customer behavior is particularly pertinent to the restaurantindustry (Hui et al., 1997; Robson, 1999). As the restaurant industry hasgrown and more consumers increasingly expect a more upscale and enter-taining environment to enhance the dining experience, restaurateurs aremaking efforts to meet that expectation with innovative and excitingphysical surroundings. However, the level of importance of the physicalenvironment can vary depending on a few consumption characteristics.First, the influence of the physical environment on customers' affectiveresponses may be especially pronounced if the service is consumedprimarily for hedonic rather than utilitarian purposes, as is the case in
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patronizing an upscale restaurant. Hedonic consumption seeks pleasure oremotional fulfillment, as opposed to functional usefulness, from theservice experience (Babin et al., 1994). Because of this hedonic nature,customers of upscale restaurants may be more sensitive to the aestheticqualities of their surroundings (Wakefield & Blodgett, 1994). Second, theamount of time spent in the facility changes the extent to which the phys-ical environment influences customer perceptions of the service. Thephysical environment may have limited impact on fast-service encoun-ters, as for fast food restaurants (Wakefield & Blodgett, 1996). Customersof fast-food restaurants are more likely to emphasize the time it takes tohave the meal served (e.g., responsiveness) than the aesthetics of the res-taurant. However, customers of upscale restaurants usually spend a fewhours in the physical surroundings. In such situations, where the customerspends a relatively long time in observing and experiencing a restaurant,the importance of the physical environment should be noted.
Although a concrete conceptual framework for the physical environ-ment has been proposed based on environmental psychology and marketing(Bitner, 1992; Turley & Miliman, 2000), the validity and reliability of themeasures have rarely been examined in previous studies. That is, theselections of measures were based mainly on the definition of constructswithout applying a scale development process. Furthermore, despite theimportance of the physical environment in the restaurant industry, partic-ularly in the upscale restaurant industry, little has been done to discoverhow customers perceive the physical environment in the upscale restau-rant context. Measurement instruments have not been developed tospecifically evaluate the physical environment of the upscale restaurants.Thus, there was an urgent need, from the academic and practical perspec-tives, to develop a reliable and valid scale to measure the physical envi-ronment in the restaurant setting.
This study aimed to fill the research gaps by developing a reliable andvalid scale of customer perceptions of physical environments in restaurants,especially in the upscale restaurant setting. As part of the scale develop-ment, authors first propose the term “DINESCAPE.” DINESCAPE is simi-lar to the popular “SERVICESCAPE” in describing characteristics ofthe physical environment. However, DINESCAPE is different fromSERVICESCAPE in that it focuses on the restaurant environment and it isrestricted to only inside dining areas. Conceptually, DINESCAPE isdefined as the man-made physical and human surroundings in the diningarea of restaurants. DINESCAPE does not deal with external environ-ments (e.g., parking and external building design) and non-dining internal
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environments (e.g., restroom and waiting area) in an attempt to providemore useful information exclusively for dining space. Thus, the purposeof this study was to develop a multiple-item scale, named DINESCAPE,to measure customer perceptions of dining environments of restaurants. Inthis article, the literature on physical environment related to DINESCAPEis reviewed, and the procedure of developing DINESCAPE is presented.Additionally, the academic and practical implications of the developedscale are also discussed.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Considerable progress has been made in determining what constitutesthe physical environment in recent decades (Baker, 1987; Bitner, 1992;Turley & Milliman, 2000). Table 1 presents a summary of the dimensionsrelated to the physical environment in previous research. Baker (1987) andBaker et al. (2002) contributed to identifying fundamental elements thataffect the tangible portion of service quality dimensions: design, social,and ambient factors. In the study, the design dimension represents thecomponents of the environment that tend to be visual and more tangible innature. This dimension includes color, furnishings, and spatial layout.Design elements contain both aesthetic aspects (e.g., beauty and décor)and functional aspects (e.g., ease of use) that facilitate high quality service.The social factor relates to an organization’s concern for the people in theenvironment, including both customers and employees. Ambienceincludes background variables such as lighting, aroma, and temperature.
Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1988) developed SERVQUAL tomeasure customer perceptions of service quality in service and retailingorganizations. SERVQUAL captures five dimensions: tangibles, reliability,responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. SERVQUAL includes tangibilityas one of the five dimensions that describe overall service quality. Thistangible dimension comprises four items in SERVQUAL and is related tophysical facilities, equipment, and personnel. Similar to SERVQUAL,Stevens, Knutson, and Patton (1995) proposed a scale, DINESERV, toevaluate the service quality of restaurants. The objectives of SERVQUALand DINESERV were to develop a scale for assessing the overallconstruct of service quality, of which tangibility is only part of the wholescale. If one wants to focus on the evaluation of the tangible aspects in arestaurant in detail, the existing scales have limitations in addressing therestaurateur’s need.
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Bitner (1992) explored the effect of tangible physical environment onoverall development of service quality image. The researcher coined theterm SERVICESCAPE to represent the combined effect of physical
TABLE 1. Literature review of dimensions related to the physical environment
Authors Terminology used Dimensions
Baker (1987) Atmospherics Ambient factorsDesign factors
(aesthetics & functional)Social factors
Bitner (1992) SERVICESCAPE Ambient conditionsSpatial layout and functionalitySign, symbol and Artifacts
Baker, Grewal, & Parasuraman (1994)
Store atmospherics Ambient factorsDesign factorsSocial factors
Berman & Evans (1995)
Atmospherics External variablesGeneral interior variablesLayout and design variablesPoint of purchase &
decoration variables
Stevens, Knutson, & Patton (1995)
DINESERV ReliabilityResponsivenessEmpathyAssuranceTangibles
Wakefield & Blodgett (1996)
SERVICESCAPE Layout accessibilityFacility aestheticsSeating comfortElectronic equipment/displaysFacility cleanliness
Wakefield & Blodgett (1999)
Tangible service factors
Building design & decorEquipmentAmbience
Turley & Milliman (2000)
Atmospherics External variablesGeneral interior variablesLayout and design variablesPoint of purchase and
decoration variablesHuman variables
Raajpoot (2002) TANGSERV Ambient factorsDesign factorsProduct/service factors
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factors that can be influenced by service providers to enhance customerperception of service. SERVICESCAPE is defined as the “built envi-ronment” or, more specifically, the “man-made, physical surroundingsas opposed to the natural environment” (Bitner, 1992, p. 58). Theseminal study identified three primary dimensions of the SERVICES-CAPE that influence cognitive, affective, and conative responses of thecustomer: (1) ambient conditions (elements related to aesthetic appeal);(2) spatial layout and functionality; and (3) signs, symbols, and artifacts.Ambient conditions include temperature, noise, music, odors, and lighting.Aesthetic appeal refers to physical elements such as the architectural design,facility upkeep and cleanliness, and other physical elements by whichcustomers evaluate the aesthetic quality of the SERVICESCAPE.Spatial layout and functionality imply the ways in which seats, aisles,hallways and walkways, foodservice lines, restrooms, and the entrancesand exits are designed and arranged in service settings. Signs, symbols,and artifacts include signage and décor used to communicate andenhance a certain image or to direct customers to desired places. How-ever, Bitner (1992) did not consider the social aspect of physicalenvironments.
In an effort to extend Bitner’s (1992) study into leisure settings,Wakefield and Blodgett (1996) examined the effects of layout accessibil-ity, facility aesthetics, electronic equipment, seating comfort, and clean-liness on the perceived quality of the SERVICESCAPE. This studyintroduced the facility aesthetic dimension that captured the broaderscope of SERVICESCAPE. Facility aesthetics was defined as a functionof architectural design, along with interior design and décor, all of whichcontribute to the SERVICESCAPE. This study did not scrutinize ambi-ent conditions, which are more difficult to control, particularly in leisurefield settings such as amusement parks and other outdoor settings.However, ambient conditions may be one essential component in therestaurant context because they can be controlled to a large extent bymanagement.
Turley and Miliman (2000) conducted a review of the literature tofurther the theoretical and empirical understanding of atmospheric influ-ences on multiple aspects of consumer behavior. These researchers sug-gested five categories in physical environment: external; general interior;layout and design; point-of-purchase and decoration; and human.However, their work has been criticized for a lack of theoretical founda-tion and empirical support (Gilboa & Rafaeli, 2003). More recently,Raajpoot (2002) proposed a scale, TANGSERV, for measuring the
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tangible qualities in the foodservice industry. TANGSERV consists ofambient factors (e.g., music and temperature), design factors (e.g., loca-tion and seating arrangement), and product/service factors (e.g., food pre-sentation). The study first dealt with the product/service dimension,arguing that product/service was an important aspect of tangible quality inthe foodservice industry. However, the study has not received much atten-tion from academia mainly because the reliability and validity of the find-ings are in question due to its methodological ambiguity.
Table settings are often accepted as one of essential tangible qualitiesof restaurant services. Especially, table setting dimension could be a criti-cal element in upscale restaurants. Upscale restaurants should be designedto deliver a prestigious image to attract upper-class customers. For exam-ple, high quality flatware, china, glassware, and linen can be used to influ-ence customers’ quality perceptions. The way in which the table isdecorated (for instance, with an attractive candle) can also make customersfeel that they are in a prestigious or elegant environment. Even thoughthis dimension has not been much examined in the academia, tablesettings should be included to capture the physical environments ofupscale restaurants.
In sum, much previous research has attempted to identify the dominantdimensions of the physical environment (Baker, 1987; Bitner, 1992;Turley & Milliman, 2000). Despite the important suggestions, part ofthese measures remains in doubt because their reliability and validityhave not been verified. For example, Raajpoot (2002) proposed a scale forthe restaurant setting, but the scale is not free from criticism. Therefore, itis obvious that a reliable and valid scale for measuring the physical envi-ronment of a restaurant is necessary to understand customer perceptionsof dining environments and provide better services.
METHODOLOGY
This study was based on the scale development procedures advocated byChurchill (1979) and methods described by other literature (Anderson &Gerbing, 1988; Arnold & Reynolds, 2003; Bentler & Bonnet, 1980; Gerbing& Anderson, 1988; Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994; Peter, 1981). Figure 1 sum-marizes the scale development procedure to be used, and the procedure isdiscussed in more detail in subsequent sections. It is developed by combin-ing a variety of procedures employed in the previous studies. This could beanother aspect of the valuable contribution to academics.
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Step 1: Domain of Constructs
The first step of the scale development involved specifying the domainof the relevant constructs. Researchers need to search the literature whenconceptualizing constructs and specifying domains (Churchill, 1979). Theobjective of this stage was to find commonalities that represented individualdomains. A thorough review of literature revealed five broad categoriesof the physical environment (facility aesthetics, layout, ambience, tablesettings, social factors).
Step 2: Initial Pool of Items
The emphasis in the second step of developing measures was on con-structing initial items that represent the five identified domains of the phys-ical environment in an upscale restaurant context. The items were based ona combination of exploratory qualitative in-depth interviews with customers
FIGURE 1. Scale Development Procedure.
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of upscale restaurants, the review of literature, a focus group session, andinterviews with managers of upscale restaurants. An extensive literaturereview was conducted at this item-generation stage, and many items fromprevious studies for different business settings were modified for restaurantenvironments.
In modifying the measurement items, it was considered that physicalenvironments have both cognitive and affective characteristics. As Bitner(1992) demonstrated, perceived physical environments elicit cognitiveresponses, influencing people’s beliefs about a place, people, and prod-ucts. For example, particular environmental cues such as the quality offurniture and the type of décor used in the dining area have an effect oncustomer beliefs about whether a restaurant is high-quality. In contrast,some environmental elements capture affective information. For instance,color could provide more than just cognitive information. Color actuallyinfluences how people feel (Boyatzis & Varghese, 1994). Research hasshown that different colors stimulate different personal moods andemotions (e.g., warm, comfortable, inviting). Thus, instead of just simplyusing the statement, “Colors used in this restaurant are appropriate,” thisstudy used, “Colors used in this restaurant make me feel warm,” elicitinga more affective response. The later statement could provide managementwith more practical information for understanding how color influencesthe customer affective states.
A focus group interview was then conducted to draw additional itemsfor the physical environments. The focus group consisted facultymembers and graduate students in hospitality management who had dinedat upscale restaurants within the past six months. In addition, severalmanagers at upscale restaurants were interviewed to check the measure-ment items and to generate additional items that were not captured in theliterature review and the focus group session. The initial item-generationprocedure yielded 52 measurement items.
Step 3: Content Adequacy Assessment
Preliminary scale items were formed based on the initial item-genera-tion process discussed above. Several faculty members in hospitality andfoodservice management who were familiar with the topic area and actualcustomers in upscale restaurants evaluated the measurement items forcontent and face validity. They were asked to evaluate each of the fivedimensions of the physical environments by focusing on each item’srepresentation of the physical environment domain. This process ensured
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that the items represented the scale’s domains (Arnold & Reynolds, 2003;Sweeney & Soutar, 2001). During the process, items that were redundant,ambiguous, not representative of the domain, or that were open to misin-terpretation were eliminated (Babin et al., 1994).
In addition, a pretest was conducted to refine the survey instrumentusing thirty persons including faculty members, graduate students, andactual customers. A slight modification in the wording of a few questionswas made after the pretest. Step 3 resulted in a pool of 34 items, with 12items for aesthetic design, 8 items for ambience, 4 items for layout, 6items for table settings, and 4 items for social factors.
Step 4: Questionnaire Administration
The questionnaire consisted of 34 items. Respondents were asked to rateeach item using a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = stronglyagree). To reduce the potential bias of forced response, an option marked“N/A” was included for each question. The data in this study were col-lected from diners at upscale restaurants. The diners were possiblydirectly observing and experiencing physical surroundings, so the col-lected data may be more valid than data from a survey outside the serviceencounter (Wakefield & Blodgett, 1996). For the purpose of this study,upscale restaurants were defined as those in which average per-person checkwas more than $20 and offered table services. A total of 319 responses werecollected via a self-report questionnaire at three different upscale restaurantsin Midwest and Northwest states in the US. At the end of their meal, custom-ers at the restaurants were asked if they would complete a questionnaire.
Step 5: Scale Purification
Quantitative analyses were conducted to purify the measurement items andto examine the scale’s psychometric properties (Chrchill, 1979; Sweeney &Soutar, 2001). First, corrected item-total correlations were examined for eachset of items representing a dimension within the physical environment. Itemsnot having a corrected item-total correlation more than .50 were removed(Arnold & Reynolds, 2003; Tian et al., 2001). The remaining measurementitems were subjected to exploratory factor analyses (EFA) with Varimaxrotation to reduce the items to a smaller, more parsimonious set of variables.After EFA, items exhibiting low factor loadings (< .40), high cross-loadings(> .40), or low communalities (< .50) were deleted (Hair et al., 1998).
Gerbing and Anderson (1988) suggested using confirmatory factor anal-ysis (CFA) for scale development because it affords stricter interpretation
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of unidimensionality than what is provided by more traditional approaches,such as coefficient alpha, item-total correlations, and exploratory factoranalysis. A confirmatory factor model using the maximum likelihood tech-nique was estimated via LISREL 8.54. After the unidimensionality check,reliabilities were examined using Cronbach’s alphas, item reliabilities,composite reliabilities, and average variance extracted (AVE) to assess theinternal consistency of multiple indicators for each construct (Gerbing &Anderson, 1988; Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). In addition, construct valid-ity was assessed through convergent validity and discriminant validity.Convergent validity was examined in two ways: 1) by checking whethereach indicator’s estimated loading on the underlying construct was signifi-cant (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988; Peter, 1981) and 2) by seeing whether theAVE value should exceed .50 for a construct (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).Discriminant validity was assessed by seeing if AVE for each construct wasgreater than the squared correlation between the two associated constructs(Fornell & Larcker, 1981).
RESULTS
Sample Characteristics
Table 2 shows the characteristics of sample used in this study. Theyvaried in age (≤ 25 years age = 28.8%; 26–35 years of age, 17.6%; 36–45years of age, 17.3%; 46–55 = 21.3%; ≥ 56 years of age, 15.0%), gender(female = 41.9%; male = 58.1%), household income level (less than$19,999 = 15.4%; $20,000 – $59,999 = 35.9%; $60,000 – $100,000 =24.1%; more than $100,000 = 24.6%), majority of Caucasian (87.8%),past experience (first time visitors = 45.5%; repeat visitors = 54.5%), andhome ownership (holders, 60.3%; non-holders, 39.1%).
Item Analysis and Exploratory Factor Analysis
As explained earlier, 34 measurement items were included in the ques-tionnaire to capture the dimensions of DINESCAPE. Based on the itemanalysis results, 9 items with low corrected item-total correlations weredeleted: (1) 4 items representing facility aesthetics, (2) 1 item for ambi-ence, (3) 3 items for service product, and (4) 1 item representing socialfactors. Thus, the item analysis resulted in a pool of 25 items for furtheranalysis. Following item analysis, exploratory factor analyses (EFA) withVarimax rotation and additional reliability assessments were undertaken
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on the remaining 25 items. Eigenvalue and variance explained were usedto identify the number of factors to extract (Hair et al., 1998). Based onthe result of the EFA, four items (two items for low communalities and twoitems for high cross-loadings) were eliminated. A total of 21 DINESCAPEitems were retained after these analyses. The 21 DINESCAPE items werethen subjected to another EFA. The second EFA resulted in six factorswith eigenvalues higher than 1.0, and these factors explained 74.55% ofthe overall variance. Table 3 presents the results of the factor structuredelineated by the second EFA. All communalities of 21 items, rangingfrom .52 to .86, were acceptable. Each factor was named based on thecharacteristics of its items.
The first DINESCAPE factor contained five items and was labeled“Facility Aesthetics.” Facility aesthetics represented a function of archi-tectural design, along with interior design and décor. The items in facility
TABLE 2. Sample characteristics of respondents
Characteristic Percentage
Age≤ 25 28.826–35 17.636–45 17.346–55 21.3≥ 56 15.0
GenderMale 41.9Female 58.1
Household income ($)< 20,000 15.420,000–59,999 35.960,000–99,999 24.1> 100,000 24.6
RaceCaucasian 87.8Other 12.2
Past experienceFirst time visitors 45.5Repeat visitors 54.5
Ownership of houseHolders 60.3Non-holders 39.7
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TABLE 3. Exploratory factor analysis for dinescape factors
DINESCAPE factors (Reliability alpha) Factor loadings
Eigen – values Variance explained
Item means
F1: Facility Aesthetics (.87) 3.37 16.06Paintings/pictures are attractive. .83 5.59Wall décor is visually appealing. .81 5.69Plants/flowers make me feel happy. .76 5.58Colors used create a warm atmosphere. .68 5.82Furniture (e.g., dining table, chair) is of high quality.
.66 5.66
Grand mean 5.67F2: Ambience (.83) 2.77 13.18Background music relaxes me. .87 5.73Background music is pleasing. .85 5.63Temperature is comfortable. .67 5.81Aroma is enticing. .62 5.50Grand mean 5.67F3: Lighting (.92) 2.56 12.19Lighting creates a warm atmosphere. .85 5.76Lighting makes me feel welcome. .83 5.91Lighting creates a comfortable atmosphere. .82 5.94Grand mean 5.87F4: Table Settings (.85) 2.43 11.55Tableware (e.g., glass, china, silverware) is of high quality.
.83 5.76
The linens (e.g., table cloths, napkin) are attractive.
.82 5.73
The table setting is visually attractive. .77 5.71Grand mean 5.73F5: Layout (.86) 2.35 11.20Seating arrangement gives me enough space.
.86 5.80
Seating arrangement makes me feel crowded.*
.83 5.59
Layout makes it easy for me to move around.
.76 5.69
Grand mean 5.69F6: Service Staff (.80) 2.18 10.36Attractive employees make me feel good. .87 5.87An adequate number of employees makes me feel cared for.
.80 5.98
Employees are neat and well dressed. .71 6.18Grand mean 6.01Total Variance 74.55%
Notes: *Reverse scored: Only loadings greater than .40 are shown. An asterisk indicates reverse scored items; A seven-point Likert scale response format was used.
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aesthetics also included paintings/pictures, wall décor, plants/flowers,color, and furniture, all of which were aesthetic elements that created anaesthetic image or atmosphere. It captured the largest variance ofDINES-CAPE among the six dimensions, accounting for 16.06% of thetotal variance.
The second factor, “Ambience,” represented intangible backgroundcharacteristics that tend to affect the non-visual senses (Baker, 1987). Itcontained four items: background music relaxes me, background music ispleasing, temperature is comfortable, and aroma is enticing. The third fac-tor, “Lighting,” relates to the perception of illumination and its influenceon feelings such as warmth and comfort. Contrary to our expectation thatlighting could be part of ambience, it was found to be a separate dimen-sion. One possible reason may be found in Carman’s (1990) claim thatwhen one dimension is particularly important to customers, it can bebroken into sub-dimensions. Lighting and other ambience elements, such asmusic, are important in the restaurant business (Hui et al., 1997; Mattila &Wirtz, 2001; Robson, 1999). In upscale restaurants, customers found light-ing and ambience to be key and distinct dimensions in their perceptualchart. However, from a practical standpoint, lighting can also influenceother dimensions, such as facility aesthetics and ambience. For instance,the lighting level can congruently interact with color to create a synergyin creating aesthetic atmosphere.
The fourth factor, “Table Settings,” represented products or materialsused to serve every customer. In this study, service product featured threeattributes: (1) tableware, such as high quality glass, china, silverware; (2)linens, including white table cloths and appealing napkin arrangement;and (3) overall table setting such as appealing candles. It was worth notic-ing that table settings were delineated separately from facility aestheticsin customer perceptions of DINESCAPE. This unique construct, asdistinct from general dimensions of physical environment, can probablybe attributed to a specific setting where a prestigious image is important.The fifth construct, “Layout,” featured the seating arrangement within theenvironment. The layout dimension contained three items: (1) seatingarrangement gives me enough space, (2) seating arrangement makes mefeel crowded, and (3) layout makes it easy for me to move around. Theseitems captured both the psychological (e.g., crowded) and the physical(e.g., easy to move around) properties of spatial layout inside the diningarea. Some previous studies included layout as part of facility aestheticsor even interior design. However, in this study, layout seemed to be adimension distinct from facility aesthetics.
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Social factors often represented the characteristics of employees andother customers in the service setting. Although the aspect of othercustomers was deleted in the purification processes due to low correcteditem-total correlations, that aspect might be an issue in upscale restau-rants. The last DINESCAPE factor, “Service Staff,” which were closelyassociated with social environment, referred to service people in theservice setting. In this study, Service Staff featured three items: attractiveemployees, adequate number of employees, and neat and well-dressedemployees. Toms and McColl-Kennedy (2003) argued that research todate has focused on the effects of the physical elements, but social aspects(customers and service providers) of the environment have been ignored.This study incorporated the social aspects into the physical environmentin addition to facility aspects.
Customers highly perceived the qualities of the physical environ-ments because they highly rated all the DINESCAPE items. Particularly,there were eight items that customers evaluated extremely high by rating5.80 or higher out of 7.00: colors as part of warm atmosphere (5.82),comfortable temperature (5.81), welcoming lighting (5.91), lighting aspart of comfortable atmosphere (5.94), spacious seating arrangement(5.80), attractive employees (5.87), an adequate number of employees(5.98), and neat and well dressed employees (6.18). Interestingly, allthree items for employees were included in the highly-rated item list.Particularly, the third item of the service staff (employees are neat andwell dressed) was rated the highest among all DINESCAPE items.These findings indicated that restaurateurs in the upscale restaurantsmust pay attention to the eight items and that the items were wellperceived by customers. Additionally, grand means indicated that all sixdimensions of the DINESCAPE were consistently highly rated (5.67 to6.1). The aspects of service staff were well taken care of by restaurateursin an upscale restaurant setting, as illustrated by the highest grand meanof service staff (6.1).
The overall patterns identified in the EFA were similar to the literatureon the physical environment, but the separation of lighting from ambienceand table settings and layout from facility aesthetics were distinct fromthe previous studies in different business settings. Items assigned to eachconstruct had high loadings on only one of the six dimensions extracted.Factor loadings of all 21 items ranged from 0.66 to 0.87, indicating areasonably high correlation between the delineated dimensions and theirindividual items. The Cronbach’s alphas, which were designed to checkthe internal consistency of items within each dimension, ranged from .80
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to .92, indicating good reliability (Hair et al., 1998). In summary, thereliabilities and factor structures indicated that the final 21-item scale andits six factors had sound, psychometric properties. Subsequently, 21 itemswith six DINESCAPE dimensions were subjected to confirmatory factoranalysis (CFA).
Confirmatory Factor Analysis
CFA with 21 items representing a six-dimension model was performedto verify the factor structure in the proposed scale (Anderson & Gerbing,1988). Several widely used goodness-of-fit statistics consistently indi-cated that the confirmatory factor model adequately reflected a good fit tothe data (RMSEA = 0.074; NFI = 0.95; TLI = 0.97; CFI = 0.97). In addi-tion, measurement equations showed all acceptable levels of item squaredmultiple correlations for all 21 items, ranging from .52 to .89.
Unidimensionality, Reliability, and Validity
The results of CFA also indicated that the measures were unidimen-sional because a set of indicators shared only a single underlying con-struct and the items were loaded as predicted with minimal cross-loadings(Bollen, 1989). As illustrated in Table 4, Cronbach’s alpha estimates,ranging from .80 to .92, were acceptable (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994).The standardized factor loadings of the observed items on the latent con-structs met the minimum criterion of .40 (Ford et al., 1986); they rangedfrom 0.72 to 0.94. The item reliabilities, which are the squared multiplecorrelations of an individual indicator, ranged from .52 to .88, indicatingacceptable levels of reliabilities (Hair et al., 1998). The composite reli-abilities of constructs ranged from .84 to .95. Adequate internal consis-tency of multiple items for each construct in the six-factor model allexceeded .60, the minimum criterion suggested by Bagozzi and Yi(1988).
Convergent validity in the factor structure was first noted because eachindicator’s estimated factor loading on its underlying construct was sig-nificant (Peter, 1981) and AVE of all six constructs exceeded the mini-mum criterion of 0.5 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981), ranging from 0.56 to0.86. AVE was also used to estimate discriminant validity. Since the low-est AVE (.56) among all the constructs exceeded the highest square of theestimated correlation between the associated constructs, discriminantvalidity was satisfied (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).
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Nomological Validity
This study also tested the nomological validity by estimating DINES-CAPE constructs to be significantly associated with factors that are sup-posed to be theoretically related to (Churchill, 1979). Mehrabian-Rusellmodel (1974) posited that emotional states (e.g., pleasure and arousal) medi-ated the relationship between the physical environment and an individual’sresponse (e.g., behavioral intention) to that environment. Table 5 presentsthe intercorrelations between the six constructs of DINESCAPE and threeother constructs within the Mehrabian-Rusell model (1974). The correlationsbetween constructs were in the expected direction, and all were significant
TABLE 4. Measurement properties
Factors (Cronbach’s alphas) Standardized factor loadings
Item reliabilities
Composite reliabilities
AVE
Facility aesthetics (.87) .89 .61DINESCAPE1 .79 .62DINESCAPE2 .78 .61DINESCAPE3 .73 .53DINESCAPE4 .78 .61DINESCAPE5 .82 .67
Ambience (.83) .84 .56DINESCAPE6 .72 .52DINESCAPE7 .77 .59DINESCAPE8 .78 .61DINESCAPE9 .72 .52
Lighting (.92) .95 .86DINESCAPE10 .93 .86DINESCAPE11 .91 .83DINESCAPE12 .94 .88
Table Settings (.85) .88 .71DINESCAPE13 .80 .64DINESCAPE14 .86 .74DINESCAPE15 .87 .76
Layout (.86) .90 .76DINESCAPE16 .87 .76DINESCAPE17 .94 .88DINESCAPE18 .80 .64
Service Staff (.80) .90 .74DINESCAPE19 .92 .85DINESCAPE20 .76 .58DINESCAPE21 .89 .79
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(a = 0.05). The correlations indicated that pleasure (0.64) played a moreimportant role than did arousal (0.44) in determining behavioral intentions.Pleasure was most highly correlated with ambience (0.66), followed byfacility aesthetic (0.52), layout (0.52), and service staff (0.52). Similarly,arousal was also most highly associated with ambience (0.56), followed byemployees (0.49), facility aesthetic (0.48), and layout (0.45). In summary,the nomological validity of the six proposed DINESCAPE measures wassupported since all of the coefficients were positive and significant.
CONCLUSION
This paper describes the development of a multiple-item scale to measurephysical and human surroundings in dining areas of upscale restaurants,named DINESCAPE. The results showed that DINESCAPE is a reliableand valid scale for physical and human surroundings in the upscale restau-rant context from the customer viewpoint. The results are considerablymeaningful because it is the first study to suggest a reliable and valid scalethat can be used to measure customer perceptions of physical environmentsin restaurant business settings, particularly for upscale restaurants.
This study has theoretical and practical importance. From the theoreticalperspective, the availability of this instrument will stimulate much-neededempirical research focusing on physical environments and the impact onimage, mood, emotions, satisfaction, perception of overall service quality,and approach/avoidance behaviors in the restaurant industry. For instance,the DINESCAPE scale can be applied to examine the interrelationships
TABLE 5. Correlations among the latent constructs
Construct 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 Facility aesthetics 12 Lighting .68 13 Ambience .57 .63 14 Layout .51 .48 .63 15 Table Settings .58 .52 .50 .56 16 Service Staff .45 .35 .58 .54 .62 17 Pleasure .52 .48 .66 .52 .41 .52 18 Arousal .48 .46 .56 .45 .39 .49 .44 19 Behavior intention .38 .35 .48 .38 .30 .39 .64 .44 1
Note: All correlations are significant at p = 0.05.
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among DINESCAPE, emotional responses, and approach/avoidance behav-iors not only in upscale restaurants but also in other restaurant segments.
From a practical standpoint, DINESCAPE is a concise multiple-item scalewith acceptable reliability and validity that restaurateurs can use to betterunderstand how customers perceive the quality of dining environments oftheir restaurants. Restaurateurs could also use the instrument to investigatethe strengths and weaknesses of DINESCAPE elements and ultimately toimprove the perceived quality of the physical dining environment. Anotherapplication of the scale is its use in categorizing a restaurant’s customers intoseveral segments based on demographics (e.g., gender, age) as well as relativeimportance of the six dimensions in influencing customer perceptions ofoverall quality. Using the scale developed in this study, restaurateurs can usedimension scores to benchmark previous scores or even the scores of majorcompetitors. In multi-unit operations, restaurateurs can also compare oneunit’s results with scores from other units. Then, they can analyze strengthsand weaknesses of each unit and have a sense of what priorities should be setto make improvements. DINESCAPE can be a valuable scale when restau-rants conduct a periodic survey to keep track of changes in customer percep-tions as well as trends in physical surroundings. Additionally, restaurateurswho plan to redesign their facilities can assess customer perceptions beforemaking any significant investment. In sum, DINESCAPE has a variety ofpotential applications in helping researchers and restaurateurs to better under-stand how customers perceive the physical environment.
As with any scale development research, researchers and practitionersshould use DINESCAPE with caution when applying the scale to other restau-rant segments. Even though this study was intended to include a broad rangeof the elements of the dining environment in the restaurant industry, the scaleprimarily targeted upscale restaurants. The DINESCAPE instrument may bemodified to better assess the physical environment for different restaurant seg-ments. In addition, since the scale was developed only to address the internaldining environment, not the external restaurant environment, the potentialusers need to apply it exclusively to the dining environment of restaurants.
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