Foodservice businesses delight customers and engage them as collaborators in the value creation process by creating and maximizing value through the satisfactory delivery of products and services. While the role of the customer in value creation has become a key concept in service marketing, questions remain for supporting customer value creation, techniques of firm innovativeness to affect the customer's value creation behavior, and the mechanism for integrating customers into the co-creation processes.

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the role of customer value co-creation behavior at casual dining restaurants. To achieve this goal, the study applies conceptual Service-Dominant logic emphasizing the role of customer co-creation behavior. In addition to this important behavioral role, the study investigates the potential antecedents (i.e., customer perception of restaurant innovativeness) of customer co-creation behavior and its consequences (i.e., customer satisfaction and customer conative loyalty).

First, the present study aims to identify customer perceptions underlying restaurant innovativeness and to develop a set of innovativeness scales useful to the foodservice industry. Study 1 analyzes qualitative data from 47 written interviews, using NVivo, and the 26-item customer perception of restaurant innovativeness (CPRI) scale with four dimensions was purified. In Study 2, exploratory factor analysis using students' data (n = 1,465) purified and refined scales. Study 3 (n = 514), using confirmatory factor analysis, provides empirical support for construct validity of the CPRI scale of the one-factor second-order with four constructs model, embracing menu innovativeness, technology related service innovativeness- experience related service innovativeness, and promotion innovativeness. Therefore, CPRI scales successfully capture aggregate restaurant innovativeness from a customer perspective and deliver a contextually insightful conceptualization of customer perception of innovativeness within a foodservice context.

Second, the present study aims to validate customer value co-creation behavior (CVCB) and evaluate the applicability of the scale in a foodservice context. Study 2 (n = 1,465) provides empirical support for the eight dimensions of CVCB by exploring the possible underlying structure of a set of 29 scales. Study 3 (n = 514) demonstrates construct validity of the four dimensions of each customer participation behavior (CPB) and customer citizenship behavior (CCB) underlying the CVCB construct. This study assesses two dimensions, CPB and CCB with four factors, respectively, to capture customer value co-creation behavior. Customer participation behavior embraces information seeking, information sharing, responsible behavior, and personal interaction. Similarly, customer citizenship behavior comprises feedback, advocacy, helping, and tolerance. Thus, CVCB scales successfully capture customer value co-creation using two distinct constructs: CPB and CCB, and delivers contextually insightful conceptualizations of customer behavior in creating value in a foodservice context.

Last, Study 3 (n = 514) tests the conceptual research model that delineates the relationship between restaurant innovativeness, customer value co-creation behavior, customer satisfaction, and customer conative loyalty. In sum, restaurant innovativeness increases customer satisfaction through customer value creation behavior. This study empirically confirms the relationship among latent variables underlying conceptual framework: linking customer value co-creation behavior to its antecedent (i.e., CPRI) and consequences (i.e., customer satisfaction and customer conative loyalty).

Understanding customer behavior in the co-creation process is critical regardless of the type of industry, since service-dominant logic has emerged as a pervasive phenomenon in business domains. This study confirms a holistic concept of innovativeness as the key predictor of customer value co-creation behavior, which in turn leads to customer satisfaction and conative loyalty. This study is meaningful to academically evolving innovativeness and value co-creation research and benefits the foodservice industry by offering implications for establishing effective marketing strategies to improve customer perceptions of restaurant innovativeness and to create value with customers.