Customer discrimination in the fast food market: a web-based experiment on a Swedish university campus Cover Image

Customer discrimination in the fast food market: a web-based experiment on a Swedish university campus
Customer discrimination in the fast food market: a web-based experiment on a Swedish university campus

Author(s): Ali Ahmed, Mats Hammarstedt
Subject(s): Sociology, Methodology and research technology, Marketing / Advertising, Socio-Economic Research
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Customer discrimination; Self-employment; Immigrants; web-based experiment; Sweden;

Summary/Abstract: This paper presents the results of a study that examined customer discrimination against fictitious male and female food truck owners with Arabic-sounding names on a Swedish university campus. In a web-based experiment, students (N = 1,406) were asked, in a market survey setting, whether they thought it was a good idea that a food truck was establishing on their campus and of their willingness to pay for a typical food truck meal. Four names—male and female Swedish-sounding names and male and female Arabic-sounding names—were randomly assigned to food trucks. We found no evidence of customer discrimination against food truck owners with Arabic-sounding names. Participants were slightly more positive to a food truck establishment run by a male with an Arabic-sounding name than a male with a Swedish-sounding name.

  • Issue Year: 17/2020
  • Issue No: 6
  • Page Range: 813-824
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: English