Understanding over-ordering behaviour in social dining: integrating mass media exposure and sense of ‘Mianzi’ into the Norm Activation Model

Food waste in the hospitality sector has become a global issue. Although over-ordering behaviour has been recognised as a primary source of food waste at restaurants, limited research has focused on its underlying mechanisms. Given the void, this study aims to investigate over-ordering behaviour in social dining by integrating the construct of mass media exposure and sense of ‘Mianzi’ into the Norm Activation Model (NAM) in the context of China’s ‘Clean Plate’ campaign. Data were collected from 651 respondents through an online survey and analysed using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). This study provides empirical evidence that China’s ‘Clean Plate’ campaign effectively alters people’s personal norms but fails to change the prevailing over-ordering custom significantly. Additionally, this study shows that subjective descriptive norm and sense of ‘Mianzi’ significantly affect over-ordering behaviour, while the effects of the personal norm and subjective injunctive norm are insignificant. Particularly, the findings indicate that the ‘Mianzi’ culture is still the main influencing factor of over-ordering behaviour. By incorporating mass media exposure and sense of ‘Mianzi’ into NAM, this study is of great theoretical significance to the food waste literature and of valuable practical significance to the hospitality industry.