Co-creation of background music: A key to innovating coffee shop management

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2016.07.006Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We investigate the application of background music (BGM) to coffee shop management.

  • We examine the mechanism underlying congruity effect: perceived mood.

  • We explore the effect of BGM co-creation in boosting patrons’ approach behavior.

Abstract

Music is known to affect patrons in a service environment, and its types and applications have been widely studied. However, little research has yet addressed the possibility for patrons to create their background music (BGM) in collaboration with service providers. Also, the coffee shop has often been neglected as a research area for BGM application. We, thus, explore the potential for co-creation of background music (BGM) in coffee shop management. Based on the notion of congruity effect, which holds that congruent BGM leads to approach behavior, our research unveils that patrons experience a positive mood from BGM in harmony with a coffee shop environment and in turn show approach behavior represented by spending more money and time. More importantly, our research further explores the effect of BGM co-creation in boosting approach behavior (via enhanced perceived mood). The findings of this research suggest that coffee shop owners would benefit from adopting this co-creation strategy in managing their coffee shops.

Section snippets

Congruence of background music (BGM) and approach behavior

Ever since Kotler (1973) emphasized the importance of the environmental atmosphere where exchanges and services take place, atmospherics, the planned control and structuring of environmental cues, have been widely explored. As consumers are largely affected by physical stimuli at the point of purchase, managers consider the manipulation of atmospherics an important marketing strategy for most exchange environments. Given that such atmospheric planning often determines the difference between

Study 1

Based on the congruity effect which holds that congruent (vs. incongruent) BGM leads to patrons’ approach (vs. avoidance) behavior, Study 1 examines the mediating role of perceived mood and the moderating role of co-creation.

Study 2

The primary aim of study 2 is to rule out the alternative explanation that the increase in approach behavior in study 1 is due to the presence of diverse options rather than the co-creation behavior. Study 2 comprises a field study at Arigatto, a coffee shop newly opened in Seoul, South Korea (see Appendix B) that mainly sells coffee along with a few non-alcoholic drinks.

Discussion

Our work yields important theoretical contributions. The first contribution lies in incorporating the coffee shop environment into the scope of research. Until recently, little attention has been paid to the coffee shop environment (Mandila and Gerogiannis, 2012) compared to other service environments such as supermarkets (Duncan Herrington, 1996), restaurants/cafeterias/bars (Milliman, 1986), shopping malls/department stores (Dubé and Morin, 2001), banks (North et al., 2000), and wine shops (

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to Moonkyung Cha, Cheonglim Lee, and Yeojin Ha for allowing data collection in their classes. We would also like to express sincere gratitude to Steve Ha and Soyeon Jeong for their support in designing and refining the online experiment. Our special thanks go to Injoo Kim, the owner of Arigatto, for his permission to conduct a field study in his coffee shop.

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