How does a menu's information about local food affect restaurant selection? The roles of corporate social responsibility, transparency, and trust

This study's goal was to investigate the effect of customers' perceptions of a restaurant menu that contains local food information on their restaurant selections and its underlying mechanism. A total of 369 valid responses were collected using Amazon Mechanical Turk, and structural equation modeling was employed to test the study's hypotheses. The results indicated that perceptions of menu information affect customers' perceptions of the restaurant's transparency and corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions positively and also affect customers' trust in the restaurant positively, but indirectly, through perceived CSR actions. Further, perceptions of restaurants' transparency influence customers' perceptions of restaurants' CSR actions positively, as well as their trust indirectly through perceived CSR actions. As a result, customers' trust affects their willingness to select a restaurant that offers local food positively. This study contributes to the literature by highlighting the influence that adding information about local foods to restaurant menus has on customers' trust and consequently, their restaurant selection intentions.