Means and ends sustainability nudges, information effects, and consumer restaurant patronage

Alan Xu, Wuyang Hu and Qi Jiang

Agricultural Economics, 2025, vol. 56, issue 2, 268-282

Abstract: Restaurants can nudge their customers toward more sustainable actions. However, implementing nudges may affect consumer patronage. Using a discrete choice experiment, we propose a means‐ends framework to shed light on the conditional (on patronage) impact of sustainability nudges on consumer preference for restaurants. The findings reveal that while preserving the subtleness of a specific sustainability nudge, disclosing the means or the mechanism of the nudges leads to a negative impact on consumer restaurant patronage, while revealing the ends or the goodwill behind the sustainability nudges may suggest positive effects on patronage which may in turn lead to an unconditional gain in sustainability. Furthermore, some nudges may only improve patronage if both the means and the ends of nudges are revealed. By examining two types of restaurants, we show that the type of restaurant also significantly influences the effects of sustainability nudges on patronage. This research quantifies the nuanced dynamics of how revealing the means and the ends of nudges may affect the restaurant business and provides insights for designing effective sustainability strategies in the restaurant industry.

Date: 2025
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