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The Influence of Customer

Perception in Selection of Korean
Restaurant in Malaysia
Assc. Prof. Dr. Rashad Yazdanifard

International Journal of Management, Accounting and Economics

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 International Journal of Management, Accounting and Economics
Vol. 8, No. 2, Februray, 2021
ISSN 2383-2126 (Online)
© Author(s), All Rights Reserved www.ijmae.com

Conceptual Paper

The Influence of Customer Perception in

Selection of Korean Restaurant in Malaysia

JunWan Chee1 and Rashad Yazdanifard

University of the West of Scotland, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

Customer perception is considered to have an integral influence upon

restaurant selection as it is highly important to analyze the preferences of the
customers. On the other hand, the Korean food is being accepted in different
nations across the world because the younger generations tend to follow the pop
culture of Korea which is a powerhouse of Korean media. The Korean
restaurants are found to be gaining highly competitive advantage in Malaysia
over the other ethnic restaurants. This is due to the customer positive perception
regarding the Korean food and its culture. In this research, the focus is upon the
identification of the influence of customer perception of selecting a Korean
Restaurant in Malaysia. The research is conducted under the view of other
scholars and their research as well as published studies. The theory of planned
behavior is analyzed in this research along with assessing the customer
perception and its influence.

Keywords: Korean restaurant, Theory of Planned Behavior, Customer

Perception, Attitude, Behavior, Subjective Norm

1
Correspondig Author’s Email: jonike_jik@hotmail.com

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Vol. 8, No. 2, Februray, 2021
ISSN 2383-2126 (Online)
© Author(s), All Rights Reserved www.ijmae.com

Introduction
About fifteen years ago, Malaysia was introduced to a wide range of Korean drama
series in which one of them called “Winter Sonata” became a global sensation whereby
the Korean drama became famous worldwide (Rashid et al., 2018). Malaysians soon
became diverted towards the Korean food, beauty, music, and fashion in which the food
businesses took advantage and spread its root in Malaysia to gain further success (Mohd
Nazlin and Ishak, 2018). Several studies affirmed that Malaysian loves Korean food and
prefers Korean food over other ethnic food choices in Malaysia. It has been taken into
consideration that due to the increased of the South Korean population in Malaysia, the
non-Korean customer base are influenced and attracted towards the Korean cuisine and
heritage. For the Korean expatriates and food businesses, Malaysia is considered as the
second home. This growing interest is rooted in customer perception and preferences
(Rahayu, Koeswandi and Wibowo, 2018). The Korean restaurants' business philosophy
is observed to be based upon the belief that they make a profit by providing friendly
services and high-quality goods to the people (Lee, 2019a).

In this research, customer perception and how it influences Malaysia's Korean

restaurant selection are being studied. The researcher has applied this aspect for assessing
the factors perceived by the consumers for the selection of Korean restaurants in
Malaysia. Malaysians have different perceptions and their factors of selecting Korean
restaurants and it changes by age, ethnicity, gender, and income. With this regard, this
paper discusses the factors based on previous scholars’ literature on Malaysians’
perceptions of Korean foods.

Korean Restaurant Market in Malaysia

The Korean culture in Malaysia has grown steadily. Korean culture mainly covers
everything from “K-pop” to “K-drama,” “Korean online games,” and “Korean cuisine”
globally. Moreover, with Bong Joon Ho's "Parasite" winning Oscars, this trend is
predicted to escalate, making it more significant for individuals in Malaysia to get enticed
by Korean culture and food. With this, the Korean restaurant market in Malaysia is
considered as growing rapidly in recent years. It has been observed that this growth has
started in the year 2005 (Lee, 2019b). The insight obtained regarding its growth confirms
that Malaysians tend to love Korean food among all the other ethnic food businesses
running operations in Malaysia. Kimchi, a popular Korean food appears on sandwiches,
hamburgers, and even ice cream. Customers in Malaysia are becoming more familiar with
Korean cabbage-flavored Kimchi, soy sauce, and salsa. The greatest perceived food
includes food items such as samgyupsal, ramyun, chimek, kimchi, and chigae (Nahar et
al., 2018). Malaysians prefer spicy food, which is considered a common ground between
Korean and Malaysian food. Considering this, the Korean food industry is now focused
upon fulfilling the customer’s perception regarding the food and offers the spicy range of
food in their platform so that the customers can find what they prefer (Mon and Pil, 2017).

In Malaysia, the Korean restaurant market is mostly famous in Kuala Lumpur

(Akbarruddin, 2020). By acknowledging the customer perception and preferences, the
businesses are motivated to provide added value services to address the customers'
demands, respectively. Daorae is one of the largest Korean restaurant chains in Malaysia

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Vol. 8, No. 2, Februray, 2021
ISSN 2383-2126 (Online)
© Author(s), All Rights Reserved www.ijmae.com

with 11 outlets nationwide (Jang, 2017). Local Malaysians are interested in the wide range
of Korean cuisines, and the culture it represented. Impressed by the ambience, the
customer preferences grew during that period as they started exploring other Korean food
restaurants (Lee, 2019c). Korean movies in Malaysia attracted people to explore Korean
food and Malaysians are now interested in these restaurant's actual value, which elevated
due to the greater demand for Korean dramas, K-Pop, and Korean films as well.

The Theory of Planned Behavior

In the theory of planned behavior, the main idea behind is to predict the individuals'
intention to be engaged in a specific behavior in a specific place and time. This theory
mainly explained all the behaviors based on which people tend to have the ability to
express self-control (Abd Hamid, 2020). This theoretical model's main component is
behavioral intent as these are influenced by the individual’s attitude and the outcomes of
their behavior. This theory can be effectively utilized to explain and predict various health
behaviors, including health services, drinking, diet, smoking, and substance abuse. In this
theory, behavior’s achievement is mainly dependent upon motivation and ability (Clemes
et al., 2018). The following types of constructs represent control over the behavior:

· Attitude

It mainly refers to the extent to which the person has evaluation based on favorable, or
unfavorable interests. It improves in considering the outcome of behavior. It also helps in
analyzing the perception of the customer regarding food preferences.

· Behavioral Intentions

In terms of this aspect, it includes the motivational factors which influence the given
behavior which is observed to be stronger than the intention involved in performing the
behavior (Buang et al., 2018).

· Subjective Norms

It mainly refers to such a belief where the behavior is based upon approval or
disapproval.

· Social Norms

In the case of the social norms, it involves the codes of conduct among a community
or cultural context (Ishak, Abd Ghani and Ngali, 2020).

· The Perceived Power

It refers to the perceived presence of such factors that can facilitate or even impede
behavior performance (Ismail et al., 2018).

· The Perceived Behavioral Control

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ISSN 2383-2126 (Online)
© Author(s), All Rights Reserved www.ijmae.com

The perceived behavioral control involves the difficulty or level of ease to which the
individual finds to perform the behavior of interest.

Customer Perception in Selection of Korean Restaurant

A thorough understanding of the attributes or factors that influence customers

perception while choosing their preferred Korean restaurant helps in providing a structure
of research to the researcher. In short, this is term as research framework. A research
framework improves understanding of the Malaysian customer perception in choosing or
selecting a Korean restaurant. The attributes include the gender, age, ethnicity, and
income of the customers. The following are the features which customers consider while
selecting a Korean restaurant in Malaysia:

· Taste Related Attributes

· Interior

· Menu of the restaurant

· Status

· Quality of food and services

· Customer service

Customer perception is considered the customers' opinion regarding the business or

brand and its product (Gan, 2019). This concept summarizes the customers' feeling about
the products being shared by the brand in every direct and indirect experience that the
customer carries out with the company (Akbarruddin et al., 2018). When monitoring the
customer perception, the business can effectively recognize the main points and enhance
its journey. The customer perception theory tends to look closely into the audience's
motivational factors through which the company can engage and take the required action
(Amin, Zakaria and Rahim, 2020). Korean restaurants in Malaysia consider customer
perception a substantial element to bring improvement in the restaurant service to attract
more customers.

Furthermore, the government of Korea has also strived to increase awareness regarding
Korean cuisine since the year 2008. It was carried out by employing initiative campaigns
to make it a fixture in the European and American culture effectively (Kemala, Fajri and
Maulani, 2020). This also suggests that the services concerning food are considered as
the most critical factors in the restaurant business which tends to attract the customers to
the Korean restaurants in the first place (Ansari and Jalees, 2018). The main concern is to
improve the food and services provided to the customer so that the satisfaction level can
be increased effectively. It can successfully result in a positive feedback and influence
customer future behavioral intention (Benrit and Trakulmaykee, 2016).

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Vol. 8, No. 2, Februray, 2021
ISSN 2383-2126 (Online)
© Author(s), All Rights Reserved www.ijmae.com

Discussion
This paper reveals that understanding the customer as the whole essential to gain
insights of customers’ buying behavior. Furthermore, it is also important that Korean
restaurants should observe customers’ feedback, rankings, and purchase knowledge.
Through these observations, a Korean restaurant can further improve, add value to their
services and curate better marketing strategies that meets the needs of its customers.

In addition, it has been found that apart from the taste fulfilment; there is an expanding
accentuation on well-being and sustenance added to the development of the Korean food
market. Customers are happy to taste specific highlights of ethnic food and new food
which meets their well-being, desire and crave. Particularly in Malaysia, the number of
consumers who have food-related concerns increased, for instance, concerns regarding
areas of diet, well-being, and sanitation. This is upheld by a study which discovered that
consumers are willing to allow or embrace non-local or new eating regimens that manage
their interests.

On the other hand, different examinations have discovered that new food or medical
advantage of ethnic nourishments might not positively affect admitting ethnic food.
Another explanation for choosing ethnic food is to experience a new culture. Ethnic
nourishments can be a choice that offers occasions to experience a new culture by
assuming a significant part to defeat social obstructions as a scaffold among nations. The
Korean government started the globalization in 2008 to advance Korean food and offer
occasions to introduce Korean culture through food. These activities depend on the
possibility that food carries culture by drawing in individuals to attempt a nation's way of
life through it. However, the degree of social inclusion may rely upon the contribution of
ethnic food. For instance, food influencers tend to focus on food experience and cultural
nourishments through various ambience settings compared with regular food lovers.
Ethnic cooking by feasting at ethnic restaurants and watching food culture-related media
or partaking in ethnic food celebrations.

It is further explored about the push and pull factors related to the ethnic food
utilization, and it is imperative to investigate different components regarding restaurants
decision, where the most majority of ethnic food utilization occurs. At this point, when
clients chose to feast out at ethnic restaurants, cost and comfort were one of the primary
components regards to eatery choice. Then again, the significant components were quick
and agreeable to help, the ambience of the place, cleanliness of workers, and the eatery's
tidiness. Besides, some different investigations have discovered that speed of
administration, working hours, the restaurant's spotlight and food or eye offer effect on
the customers with genuine flavor is the main factor among different elements in the
choice of where to feast out.

Thus, the norm for picking a restaurant may rely upon the recurrence of ethnic food
utilization or the degree of contribution to ethnic food. It is discovered that Malaysian
customers feasting at Korean restaurants have more complex and yearning for higher
standard eating experience with more lavish eating ambience. Prior to customer needs, it
was low cost and great preference for customers to eat out at Korean restaurants.
Nonetheless, customers also seek good taste. In choosing Korean food, the significance

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© Author(s), All Rights Reserved www.ijmae.com

of flavor is reasonably impacted by taste-related credits, for example, a wide assortment

of rich flavors, a salty, tangy, fiery taste, and the colorful and intriguing taste plays a great
role.

Conclusion
In conclusion, according to the research findings on Korean restaurants in Malaysia, it
has been observed that the main challenge is to make the cooking easy and
straightforward for the non-Koreans in Malaysia. The immensely famous items include a
wide range of side dishes, sauces, and drinks specialty and bases for most Korean food.
It may be social interests about a nation that draws in people to taste Korean food.
Mainstream society, for example, music, dramatizations, films can pull people to attempt
ethnic food. As of now, people inspired by other nations' well-known media are eager to
attempt food from those nations as mainstream society assists people with learning well-
being about food, which is considered a substance picture of a nation's way of life.

Likewise, mainstream media can impact the acknowledgement of new cooking styles
by expanding the nation's degree of knowledge. For instance, Korean mainstream society,
including its way of life, films, and music, urged Malaysian consumers to attempt Korean
food. It suggests that experience with the way of life can bring down hesitance for
attempting ethnic food and change novel ethnic food into recognizable food. On the other
hand, there is a strong relationship between the intention and Korean food experience to
travel to Korea, meaning that people are often motivated to carry out food-induced
tourism. This is considered an additional motivational factor that can help further
understand and strengthen Malaysia's Korean restaurant chain.

The Korean food market and restaurant chain are focused upon providing value in
exchange for money for the customers. The focus is upon the non-Koreans as they are the
ones who are boosting the business. The business aim is also based upon helping people
concerning cooking and explaining nutrients to the customers. By carrying out customer
perception examination regarding motivation, the small business owners can determine
how to approach customer’s feedback, policies regarding advertisement, social media
marketing, and public relations for its betterment.

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©2021 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
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HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE

Chee, J., Yazdanifard, R. (2021). The Influence of Customer Perception in Selection of Korean
Restaurant in Malaysia. International Journal of Management, Accounting and Economics, 8(2),
114-121.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4641400
URL: http://www.ijmae.com/article_128544.html

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