| The immense popularity of marketing promotions and loyalty programs has resulted in the introduction of several new exchange media other than money. Therefore, consumers are increasingly able to pay for goods and services in a combination of currencies, not just in dollars. The current study examined the effects of personality traits---need for cognition and self-monitoring---on consumers' preferences of currency usage in restaurant industry, and explored whether differences in restaurant segments were related to consumers' currency preferences. It also presented and tested the conceptual model developed for this study.; An experimental design was applied to test seven hypotheses that reflected the research question, whether individual differences and restaurant segments would influence consumers' preference of the currency usage. Total of 471 participants were included in the study. Descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression was performed with SPSS and STATA to analyze the data.; Results of the study indicated that the effects of self-monitoring and dining companions are significantly related to consumers' currency preferences while restaurant segment and need for cognition have no significant impact on consumers' currency preferences. It showed that high self-monitors are less likely to prefer the currency of points compared to dollars than low self-monitors. Moreover, consumers who dine alone are more likely to prefer to pay with points-only as opposed to dollars-only than consumers who dine with the boss. Additionally, high self-monitors dining alone were more likely to prefer to pay with combined-currency (dollars and points) or points-only than low self-monitors. On the other hand, high-self monitors dining with a boss were more likely to prefer to pay with dollars-only than to pay with dollars and points or points-only.; The study identified the characteristics of consumers using the different currency options in foodservice industry. By understanding the individual personality differences of customers when using different currencies, restaurants could decide whether or not to implement different currency prices based on their target markets. |
