Sense of Community Among Malay Customers: Evidence from Western Food Outlets in Malaysia Using Structural Equation Modelling Approach (SEM)

Abstract

Malay customers are becoming western food lovers nowadays. Malay consumers contribute to the nation’s economy; thus, the survival of the food industry and its longevity prompted the current investigation. The central issue of this research is to unravel empirically the effects of antecedents on customer’s experience and subsequently examined its effect on their sense of community. Creating customer experience that is synonymous with a particular brand is becoming increasingly recognized as a vital driver of sense of community. This paper aims to address the gaps by empirically investigating the impact of customer’s experience on sense of community. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed through store intercept at selected western food restaurants such as Starbucks, Kenny Rogers and Nando’s. Two hundred fifty useable data from Malay consumers were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) procedure. Several interesting findings are confirmed: (1) service quality is not a significant predictor of customer’s experience; (2) customer’s experience has a positive effect on sense of community. These findings have important implications for consumer behaviour literature and retail industry.