Understanding Risk Perception toward Food Safety in Street Food: The Relationships among Service Quality, Values, and Repurchase Intention

• Main Authors: Kyung Hwa Seo, Jee Hye Lee
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-06-01
• Series: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• Subjects: street food; service quality; utilitarian value; hedonic value; risk perception
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/6826
• ISSN: 1661-7827; 1660-4601

This paper aims to identify service quality dimensions of street food that have an impact on utilitarian and hedonic values and to determine the effect of utilitarian and hedonic values on repurchase intention. It also examines the moderating effect of risk perception toward street food safety on the relationship between service quality and perceived value. An Internet survey was performed in Korea with 285 respondents. The results confirmed that the five dimensions of street food’s service quality—food quality, employee service, physical environment, price, and rapidity of service—had positive impacts on utilitarian and hedonic values. All perceived value (utilitarian, hedonic) has an impact on repurchase intention. Finally, the food quality of street food showed a stronger influence on utilitarian value among the low-risk perception group than the high-risk perception group depending on the consumers’ level of awareness of food safety. This provides new insights for marketing strategies to attract domestic/foreign consumers to street food vendors and for creating a new food culture by emphasizing important domains of service quality, the relation of quality to consumer values, and risk perception toward food safety in street food.