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As exploratory research, this project aimed to develop and assess the effect of implementing a food waste reduction program at a restaurant on a university campus.

Data collection consisted of an audit of both pre and postconsumer food waste to determine the effectiveness of various reduction strategies and a survey to assess attitudes of employees toward food waste. As exploratory research, a personalized database was created to track current food waste amounts and reasons for waste in the restaurant operation to determine if the same method could be employed in future research.

Overall, the restaurant in this study implemented various effective food waste reduction practices that were inexpensive and simple, resulting in a weekly average reduction of 14.3 pounds of food waste. The top five food item products wasted by the kitchen were also identified for both pre and postintervention phases as well as the reasons for generating kitchen waste. Furthermore, data reported on postconsumer waste included weight quantities and product types.

The project resulted in evidence that a personalized food tracking system is useful for identifying and quantifying food waste in foodservice operations. Therefore, the research design and data collection methods used in this project can be used in future research on a larger scale.

The purpose of this paper is to present the challenges encountered when conducting qualitative research in foodservice operations and to discuss the strategies to overcome the identified challenges.

The researchers conducted food safety observations, interviews, and focus groups with more than 600 foodservice employees and managers. The researchers encountered multiple challenges including institutional review board approvals, managements' willingness to participate, and organizational and cultural barriers.

Obtaining in‐depth, credible information through observations, interviews, and focus groups adds depth and breadth to hospitality studies. However, given high industry turnover, recruitment and retention throughout a study is problematic. Moreover, researchers encounter many barriers as they obtain data, such as establishing authenticity and overcoming Hawthorne and halo effects.

Strategies to increase participation and thereby improve qualitative research have not been previously addressed in the hospitality literature

Foodservice managers are responsible for making sure employees follow safe food handling practices so customers do not become ill from unsafe food. Therefore, this study aims to ascertain managers' perspectives using two methods of data analysis to answer the question, “What would make managers more effective in their role of assuring safe food practices are followed in the workplace?”.

Focus groups with current and future foodservice managers were conducted. The software program, Atlas.ti™ was used to complement researchers' analyses of focus group transcripts and develop visual representations of qualitative data.

Major thematic categories identified by the managers in this study included role identification, food safety training, and manager effectiveness. Using Atlas.ti™, data were visually mapped and relationships between different themes and theoretical ideas were represented.

Based on the three major theme areas identified, foodservice operations should focus on improving manager effectiveness, role understanding and training to promote a safe food climate.

Understanding why safe food practices are not followed can help operators delegate resources accordingly. Visual mapping helps clarify areas to improve workplace food safety practices and illustrates linkages.

The use of qualitative analysis software in conjunction with researcher review in food safety research is novel. In addition, although other researchers have evaluated reasons for following or not following safe food‐handling practices, most have done so by assessing employees' perspectives rather than managers' perspectives.

This study explores aspects of entrepreneurial social identity that are made salient in communication, and that are related to positive group distinctiveness.

The study employs a thematic analysis methodology, and the analysis is sensitized by social identity theory and related concepts. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 43 entrepreneurs in several US cities. The women and men discussed the nature of their entrepreneurial identities, and the relationship of past intra- and intergroup conversations to their realizations of a positively-distinct entrepreneurial identity. Open and axial coding of the entrepreneurs' verbal conversational content was conducted.

The analyses revealed four themes (and nine accompanying sub-themes) that represented dimensions of entrepreneurial social identity that were related to positive group distinctiveness.

Findings may prove useful for mutual understanding among current and aspiring entrepreneurs, and for educators and managers with an interest in encouraging entrepreneurial mindsets through training program development.

This study is unique not only in its adoption of an intergroup comparison approach to entrepreneurship that integrates recalled past communication, but also in its focus on positive in-group distinctiveness. The desire for this psychological state may be one motivating force guiding the content of entrepreneurial identity, and it may, for some individuals, be one factor that drives the pursuit of entrepreneurship itself. This study offers themes that break new ground in illuminating dimensions derived from recalled conversational content that entrepreneurs considered key to positive identity salience.

The study analyzed how the service-learning (SL) methodology can become a university social responsibility (USR) strategy that generates shared value for the university and its stakeholders.

This qualitative and exploratory–descriptive research had a nonexperimental field and cross-sectional design that used field techniques such as focus groups and in-depth interviews with the participants of the USR program “MIPyME vs COVID-19” in two Latin American countries.

This study revealed the perceptions of students who participated in the USR program on how a virtual service-learning (vSL) strategy related to the use of technology generates a positive impact on the development of shared learning between students and micro-entrepreneurs from a global and Latin American perspective, as well as for the internationalization of their study plans.

The field study was conducted in only two Latin American countries; however, the USR program has been implemented in eight universities from eight Latin American countries with very similar social, political and health contexts.

It is one of the first studies on SL used in a strategic and articulated way in universities with a USR approach. It analyzed traditional evaluations of this methodology, incorporating others such as virtuality (produced by the effects of the COVID-19), which led the authors to generate methodological innovations based on new ways of connecting, linking and generating shared learning and value for all.

Despite its envisaged benefits, integrated reporting (IR) has yet to achieve its “breakthrough”, especially among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This study aims to discern SME leaders’ attitudes toward IR, and thereby to reveal managerial perceptions of both the potential benefits and the challenges that actually prevent them from embarking on IR.

This explorative study is grounded on semi-structured interviews with 16 managers of large German SMEs, which yet do not apply IR but are potential candidates to implement it in the future. The engagement with non-preparers is expected to paint a more representative picture of actual reasons for IR (dis-)engagement compared to prior studies that address the few firms that have adopted IR and overcome its challenges. Applying Brown and Fraser’s (2006) conceptual landscape, results are presented analogous to a business case-, stakeholder accountability- and critical theory dimension.

Contrary to prior studies, which identified stakeholder accountability endeavors as kindling SME managers’ interest in voluntary reporting initiatives, managers regard IR primarily as a business case, serving to achieve legitimacy, improve corporate image, reach out to professional investors and assist in employee recruitment. However, they refrained from actually adopting the novel reporting medium, which suggests that decision-makers might not believe the business case to be as unproblematic as claimed by the proponents of IR. This was traced back to three major impediments that currently inhibit SMEs from reporting in an integrated way, namely, a perceived lack of interest by the relevant publics, infeasibility of the IR concept to meet user needs and preparation costs. These drawbacks resemble those of earlier voluntary reporting experiments, calling into question the “revolutionary” character of IR. The study critically concludes that the future development of IR depends on addressing these barriers.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first explorative study to deliberately engage with IR non-preparers to draw conclusions on impediments to IR. The identification of relevant incentives and disincentives for IR among SME managers at first hand not only adds to the small extant IR research body and provides valuable insights for research, practice and standard setting but also contributes to the contemporary debate about dominant legitimacy-based explanations in the broader domain of social and environmental accounting and reporting.