Micro-celebrity restaurant manifesto: The roles of innovation competency, foodstagramming, identity-signaling, and food personality traits

Abstract

Dining in Internet-celebrity (or micro-celebrity) restaurants is an increasingly popular indulgence. Rooted in the micro-celebrity economy research, the present study draws on self-signaling and self-determination theories to propose an integrated research framework that examines how extrinsic and intrinsic factors impact customers’ intention to revisit micro-celebrity restaurants. External social needs (i.e., restaurant competence, signaling identity, and foodstagramming benefits) and internal personality traits (i.e., neophilic and neophobic tendencies) are synthesized to better understand their impacts on conative propensities. The findings indicate that foodstagramming benefits mediates the relationship between restaurant competence and intention to revisit, whereas neophilic renders a boundary condition suppressing this relationship. However, neophilic and neophobic tendencies positively moderate the effect of identity-signaling. • This study advances the theory of self-signaling and self-determination in micro-celebrity restaurant settings. • It reconciles divergent views of online postings on approach or avoidance behavior. • It explores how extrinsic socio-personal needs and intrinsic personality traits impact customers’ revisit intention. • Customers’ neophilic and neophobic tendencies positively moderate identity signaling effects. • Customers’ neophilic tendencies negatively moderate food stagramming benefits.