Certification paradox: Reverse response on the non-hygiene restaurant certification

Abstract

Prior research investigated the effect of restaurant hygiene certification and discovered that restaurateurs make greater efforts to maintain hygiene quality, effectively resolving the information asymmetry. With the proliferation of non-hygiene certificates, little effort has been made to research the impacts of non-hygiene certifications. In addition, the influence of brand has not been adequately examined in earlier certificate studies. For the purpose of this study, a scenario-based questionnaire was randomly distributed in a big retail complex in Seoul, Korea. Consistent with prior studies, we found in general positive influence of non-hygiene certificate and high brand equity in customer trust and behavior intention. Based on 737 useable responses, however, this study revealed that the once-beneficial impact of non-hygiene certification on high-end restaurants has unexpectedly reversed, resulting in the certification paradox. This paradox has also been discovered in customer trust by a strong negative three-way interaction effect of cognition at a high-end restaurant with a non-hygiene certificate. This is the inverse of what was expected. Customers may be dubious of a high-end restaurant that displays a non-hygiene certification, resulting in a reduced level of trust when combined with consumer cognition. It implies that the government's simple accumulation of multiple certificates may have unintended repercussions. To put it another way, supplying a lot more information through certificates damages consumer trust and behavior intention. Finally, this study confirmed that customer trust appears to be a pure mediator between certification, brand equity, and behavior intention.