The coffee shop experience and its associations with social capital and quality of life

Rohit Menon, Pat Crawford, Eunsil Lee and Zeenat Kotval-K

International Journal of Happiness and Development, 2018, vol. 4, issue 2, 159-180

Abstract: A 'first place' is the home, while a 'second place' is the work setting. A 'third place' refers to places where people choose to linger. All three are keys to building social capital and improving quality of life. This study explored coffee shops in Greater Lansing, Michigan as a third place and its associations with social capital and quality of life. Survey participants (n = 196) rated factors that defined their social capital, their quality of life, and the importance of different elements within the coffee shop. Dimension reduction and multiple linear regressions were used to find significant relationships among the coffee shops to quality of life and to social capital. The quality of the intangible coffee shop characteristics significantly correlate with higher levels of quality of life and social capital. It is vital for business owners to celebrate the spirit of the place to improve the patrons' happiness in the third place.

Keywords: quality of life; social capital; third place; coffee shops; the experience economy. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=92051 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijhdev:v:4:y:2018:i:2:p:159-180

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Happiness and Development from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().