1. Introduction
Nowadays, the online food-delivery market generates substantial revenues worldwide and has become an economic sector with increased importance. Statista’s official forecast [
1] shows that the volume of this market will reach over 86,000 million USD in 5 years, and the number of employees involved in this industry will increase considerably. Many researchers [
2,
3] have been focused on the issue of sustainability in the food-delivery industry in recent times by addressing the idea of how customers’ perception about the companies’ sustainability and corporate social responsibility are affecting their reputation. Some authors [
4] consider that managers face many challenges, including how to make the business sustainable; as a result, References [
5,
6] consider that a sustainable reputation is very important for companies.
Trying to find previous research on the reputation of food-delivery companies in Europe, we found that there are studies [
7,
8] that address this issue, but the area of Eastern Europe is not covered at all. More than this, we did not identify any previous research about the situation of Romanian food-delivery companies’ reputations and the influencing factors. Given this finding, the purpose of this study was to generate the first research on the reputation of food-delivery companies in Romania by analyzing the influencing factors.
Based on the literature review, we noticed that at the international level most research focuses on attempts to prioritize reputational factors [
9], while this paper addresses the reputation of the Romanian food-delivery companies in a holistic way, analyzing the factors that influence reputation: duration of order processing, the quality of the food delivered, the price associated with the food-delivery service, attitude of delivery and support staff, the variety of the menu, the taste of the food, perception of companions, delivery method, and the quality of the electronic application.
Considering the fact that for Romania there is no previous study on the reputation of food-delivery companies and that other studies in various regions of the world have taken into account only individual factors, it is obvious that there is a need to cover this unexplored area. More specifically, the following research questions need to be addressed:
What are the factors that influence the reputation image of food-delivery companies in Romania?
To what extent is the reputation of food-delivery companies in Romania influenced by the independent variables?
Starting from these research questions, the study had the following sub-objectives:
to review existing literature on the importance of reputation of food-delivery companies,
to examine factors influencing the reputation of food delivery in Romania, and
to determine the importance of each factor that influences the reputation of food delivery in Romania.
Thus, we analyzed the influence that some factors—such as the quality of the food, the word-of-mouth effect, costs associated with the service provided, the quality of the electronic application, the attitude of the staff, and the waiting times—can have on the reputation of food-delivery companies in Romania. In this way, we contribute to the clear highlighting of the relationships determined by the influencing factors, offering managers a scientific tool for evaluating the potential reputational risk factors.
To achieve this purpose, the paper was structured in the following sections: introduction, review of the scientific literature (determining the factors of influence and highlighting the state of the food-delivery market in Romania, defining research hypotheses), the research methodology (variables, sampling, procedures), results and discussions, and conclusions.
4. Results and Discussions
Our research aimed to obtain multiple linear regression coefficients in order to model the factors influencing the reputation of food-delivery companies. The calculations were performed using SPSS and we present below the results regarding the descriptive statistics for the independent and dependent variables, the contribution of independent variables in describing the reputation of food-delivery companies, and the contribution of demographic factors in predicting dependent variables.
In
Table 4, there are presented the values of descriptive statistics for the nine independent factors and for the dependent variable (the reputation level perceived by the customers of the food-delivery companies).
The perceived reputation level was largely affected by the attitude of the staff (M = 4.65), the perception of companions (M = 4.60), the quality of the electronic application (M = 4.40), and the delivery method (M = 4.24). Based on the average of the answers in the questionnaire, the level of reputation was affected to a lesser extent by the quality of the food delivered (M = 3.84), the price of the food-delivery service (M = 3.54), and the taste of the food (M = 2.39). These values confirmed some of the previous research conducted in the specialized literature regarding the attitude of the staff [
25,
26], the quality of the electronic application [
33,
34], and delivery method [
38,
41,
42,
43].
In order to test hypotheses H1–H9, we used multiple linear regression analysis in which the dependent variable was the perception of reputation, and the independent variables were duration of order processing, quality of food delivered, price of food-delivery service, staff attitude, menu variety, taste of food, perception of companions, method of delivery, and the quality of electronic application. We chose the multiple linear regression model because this model significantly reflects the influences of the individual factors on reputation. The linear association model was performed and the Enter method was used, which included all variables in the multiple linear regression model. Following the calculations, the data from
Table 5 were obtained, the values in the Beta column represent the standardized values of the coefficients. Although in some scientific papers [
49] a level of significance threshold of 10% is accepted, in our research the values of the coefficients for which the significance threshold is less than 5% were considered relevant in the elaboration of the econometric model.
We noted that after calculations based on statistical data, the value of adjusted R-squared is 0.658, and F = 33.228,
p < 0.01. These values led us to conclude that reputation was statistically significantly determined by some of the indicators analyzed. This conclusion was also confirmed by the data in
Table 6 where are the results of the multicollinearity test of the explanatory variables (variance inflation factor (VIF)).
The fact that all the VIF values were lower than 2.00 certifies the lack of collinearity of the variables and constitutes an additional argument for justifying the validity of the model.
Regarding the contributions of the indicators in determining the reputational image of food-delivery companies, based on the data in
Table 5, we noticed that this was positively influenced by the quality of the food delivered (Beta = 0.130), the variety of the menu (Beta = 0.354), the taste of the food (Beta = 0.121), the perception of companions (Beta = 0.578), and the quality of the electronic application (Beta = 0.131).
Based on the obtained results, we concluded that the research hypotheses H2, H3, H5, H6, H7, and H9 were supported. This means that the relationships regarding the indicators like the quality of food, the price associated with the food-delivery service, the variety of the menu, the taste of the food, the perception of companions, and the quality of the electronic application were confirmed. The hypotheses were not supported for the indicators regarding the duration of the order processing, the attitude of the staff, and the method of delivery.
To test the set of additional hypotheses Ha1-Ha3, a multivariate analysis of the variance was implemented in order to see if the level of the reputation in terms of the duration of order processing, the quality of the delivered food, the price associated with the food-delivery service, the attitude of the staff, the variety of the menu, the taste of the food, the perception of companions, the delivery method, and the quality of the electronic application depended on some specific socio-demographic factors, specifically gender, age, level of education.
The data and the significance thresholds in
Table 7 show that Ha1 and Ha2 were only partially supported; the same data shows that Ha3 was not confirmed. Age generated statistically significant differences for order processing variables (F = 5.784,
p < 0.05), quality of food delivered (F = 7.444,
p < 0.01), and quality of electronic application (F = 2.733,
p < 0.10). Gender generated statistically significant differences for the order processing variables (F = 6.721,
p < 0.05), menu variety (F = 9.850,
p < 0.01), delivery method (F = 7.529,
p < 0.01), and quality of electronic application (F = 3.944,
p < 0.05). The level of education did not generate any statistically significant difference for the variables analyzed in the model proposed in this article.
Based on the analyzes carried out in the present study, it was demonstrated that the reputation of the food-delivery companies was significantly influenced by the following indicators: the quality of the food delivered, the price of the food-delivery service, the variety of the menu, the taste of the food, the perception of companions, and the quality of the electronic application. The linear regression equation containing only the statistically relevant indicators can be expressed as follows:
where:
X1 = the quality of the food delivered;
X2 = the price of the food-delivery service;
X3 = the variety of the menu;
X4 = the taste of the food;
X5 = the perception of companions; and
X6 = the quality of the electronic application.
Also, the results showed that of the analyzed demographic factors, only gender and age generated statistically significant differences regarding the perception of the reputational image of food-delivery companies. The aggregated results of the research can be a scientific basis for addressing reputational risk factors for these companies.
Our study considered nine potential factors for the reputation of food-delivery companies in Romania. Previous studies in the literature have shown that in various countries and regions, some of these factors have different influences on the overall reputation of companies. The results obtained by us showed that in Romania, the reputation of food-delivery companies was significantly influenced by the following variables: the quality of the food delivered, the price, the variety of the menu, the taste of the food, the perception of companions, and the quality of the electronic application. These results confirm the partial results obtained by References [
26,
30,
31,
32,
33,
34,
37,
38,
40], which means that food-delivery companies from Romania must pay particular attention to these six aspects when considering the construction and improvement of their reputational image. On the other hand, our research highlighted the fact that three of the factors—duration of order processing, staff attitude and delivery method—had no significant impact on the reputation of food-delivery companies in Romania. These results obtained by us were different from the results of research conducted by References [
25,
26,
38,
40,
41,
42,
43], which means that the food-delivery market in Romania has its own specificities and Romanian managers do not have to allocate important resources for these aspects related to reputation.
5. Conclusions
Our article aimed to highlight the factors that really influence the reputational image of food-delivery companies in Romania. Based on the literature, we extracted nine factors that could be relevant and analyzed them using the multiple linear regression model. Our research found that in Romania the following six factors were important for the reputation of food-delivery: the quality of the food delivered, the price, the variety of the menu, the taste of the food, the perception of companions, and the quality of the electronic application. These findings confirmed the partial results obtained by References [
26,
30,
31,
32,
33,
34,
37,
38,
40]. At the same time, in Romania, there were three factors that did not have any statistically significant influence on the reputation. These findings were in contradiction with the results obtained by References [
25,
26,
38,
40,
41,
42,
43]. From a demographic point of view, reputation in Romania depended only on age and gender, while the level of education did not have a significant influence on the perception of reputation.
These results that we obtained through our research are useful for managers who deal with the management of the image of food-delivery companies in Romania because our findings offer accurate information about the factors that are really relevant.
As we mentioned in the article, the food-delivery market in Romania is effervescent, competitive, and constantly growing. The results obtained through our study provided realistic information for the managers of food-delivery companies in Romania. The list of factors influencing reputation can be considered for the improvement of brand reputation. Based on the six influencing factors that were highlighted in the research, companies can build brands that differentiate themselves from competitors and position themselves on the market.
Market segmentation by age and gender is essential for adapting, positioning, and differentiating products and services, but also for their specific communication. Thus, food-delivery companies from Romania will be able to concentrate their efforts to define their brands centered on factors such as the quality of the food delivered, the price, the variety of the menu, the taste of the food, the perception of companions, and the quality of the electronic application.
According to the results obtained by our study, it was observed that at the level of Romanian society, one of the factors influencing reputation was the quality of the electronic application. This means that consumers tended to migrate to new information technologies when using food-delivery services. As a result, food-delivery companies in Romania must focus on this new societal trend and adapt their communication about services and products to the new behavior of consumers. In this way, companies can fulfill the desideratum of the concept of engagement marketing by including a part of society with the help of electronic applications and the influence of companions. Thus, a specific affinity of the company towards the brand is generated, making it more reliable in a competitive society.
Given the importance of the food-delivery industry, the entire society will sustainably benefit from the results of our research because customer–supplier relationships can be improved based on knowledge of the issues highlighted in this article. The marketing efforts of food-delivery companies in Romania will be able to be carried out in the right directions, focusing mainly on the factors that really have an influence on the reputation perceived by customers.
In order to present the limitations of the article, we consider relevant to highlight that the research we have done is territorially limited to the level of food-delivery companies in Romania. Also, another limitation is given by the fact that in our analysis we studied only nine indicators regarding the reputational image and only three socio-demographic factors.
Based on the results obtained in the present study, the following future directions can be identified: the analysis of the food-delivery companies comparatively, on several countries and possibly geographical regions; the analysis of the perception of reputation according to many relevant indicators; and the inclusion of other socio-demographic factors in comparative analysis.