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This paper aims to examine the formal and informal workplace learning of professional chefs. In particular, it considers chefs’ learning strategies and outcomes as well as the barriers to and facilitators of their workplace learning.

The methodology is based on in-depth, face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with 12 executive chefs from a variety of restaurant types. Chefs were asked questions that focused on how they learned, the learning outcomes that they experienced and factors that inhibited or facilitated their learning.

Findings suggest that the strategies, outcomes, barriers and facilitators experienced by professional chefs are similar in many respects to those of other occupational/professional groups. However, there were some important differences that highlight the context of chefs’ workplace learning.

The sample, which is relatively small and local, focuses on one city in Canada, and it is limited in its generalizability. Future research should include a national survey of professional chefs.

Using a qualitative approach, this in-depth study adds to the literature on workplace learning, strategies, outcomes, barriers, facilitators and context factors by addressing a relatively understudied profession.

Sociologists have documented how women in male-dominated occupations experience subtle and overt forms of discrimination based on gender stereotypes. This study examines women professional chefs to understand how they perceive and respond to stereotypes claiming women are not good leaders, are too emotional, and are not “cut out” for male-dominated work. Many of our participants resist these stereotypes and believe that their gender has benefited them in their jobs. Using in-depth interviews with women chefs, we show that they utilize essentialist gendered rhetoric to describe how women chefs are better than their male counterparts. While such rhetoric appears to support stereotypes emphasizing “natural” differences between men and women in the workplace, we suggest that women are reframing these discourses into a rhetoric of “feminine strength” wherein women draw from gender differences in ways that benefit them in their workplaces and their careers. Our conclusion discusses the implications of our findings for gender inequality at work.

Gender, race, and class-based meanings inform longstanding divisions and status hierarchies within the culinary profession, such as those between public and private and amateur and professional cooking. Private and personal chefs’ work in homes disrupts these divisions and hierarchies. Given their precarious position, how do these chefs negotiate their standing within the profession?

This chapter draws on interviews with 41 private/personal chefs. Eight were primarily private household employees, while all others were primarily self-employed.

The chefs negotiated their status by making distinctions between themselves and commercial chefs, along with other private/personal chefs. The chefs both challenge and reinforce the dichotomies and criteria shaping status evaluations within the culinary profession. Similarly, they both contest and reinforce gender, race, and class hierarchies.

The chefs’ conceptual distinctions can potentially (re)produce or challenge material inequalities. Moreover, while the fields of private/personal cheffing create opportunities for more adults to cook for a living, the traditional status hierarchies remain largely the same. It is likely that as long as those hierarchies persist, the chefs’ conceptual distinctions will continue to challenge and reinforce them.

Research on private/personal chefs has been minimal, so this chapter fills this gap. It also adds to scholarship connecting workers’ status struggles and gender, race, and class inequalities. The case of private and personal chefs sheds new light on how gender, race, and class intersect to inform status evaluations within the culinary profession.

Human capital is the most important determinant of the Hospitality industry’s success. Executive chefs should be skilled in both management and culinary arts, in addition to ensuring the success of the entire hospitality division. The study aims to understand the competencies of executive chefs in international tourist hotels in Taiwan.

Literature review and behavioral event interviews were conducted with ten executive chefs and executive sous chefs. The modified Delphi method verified the results using 15 experts.

A competency framework was created, with four quadrants – managerial, operational, behaviors and skills – to classify executive chefs’ competencies. Each competency was further divided into sub-competencies – culinary research, emotional control, negotiation skills, job guidance and proactive thinking ability – for 25 items. Quadrants I and II are hard competencies that can be improved through education and training, whereas the third and fourth are soft competencies that require more time for development in workers.

The two-step study developed a competency framework with a practical reference value. The study results could be utilized by human resources managers during their companies’ training, recruitment, selection and promotion.

Besides the Delphi method, a deep behavioral event interview that enabled determining critical competencies was also used to collect data. The results obtained could be used to structure schools’ curricula. Collaborations between the hospitality industry and schools could help develop better curricula and training plans to maximize the availability of educational resources.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the development of competences for use by professional teppanyaki chefs in food and beverage education in Taiwan.

The research methodology includes the Delphi technique and incorporates interviews with three types of experts: instructors from culinary departments at a university, seasoned teppanyaki professionals and owners of teppanyaki establishments. An analysis of the responses provided by these industry experts led to identification of four dimensions of competences needed by teppanyaki chefs: knowledge, technique, affect and attitude. The K-S test involves using a z-test on ordinal variables for single samples to determine whether the sample distribution diverges from the frequency distribution. The z-score is greater than 1.96 which implies significance and consistency.

This study analyzed the responses provided by the interviewed experts to identify and extract competences for teppanyaki chefs. The extracted competences comprise four dimensions (knowledge, technique, affect and attitude), 16 work-related tasks and 74 skills items.

This study includes 16 work-related tasks, and 74 competences. The study recommends the establishment of an organization for competence certification to act as the authority for teppanyaki skill certification. Such an organization could utilize the results from this study as a reference, as could culinary departments at vocational institutes as well as other teppanyaki training courses offered in Taiwan.

The purpose of this study is to shed new light on empirical and conceptual aspects related to chefs’ careers and the hospitality sector. The study examines how the future of the chef’s profession is perceived, how future generations of chefs could be developed and the main emerging trends within the chef’s scene.

Semi-structured, face-to-face, online and telephone interviews were conducted with 34 chefs operating in Australia and 35 in Vietnam.

The findings reveal ten dimensions that strongly adhere to knowledge management (KM) and the notions of the knowledge-based view of the firm. In addition, numerous differences in how the two groups perceived aspects of their careers transpire. Based on these findings, a conceptual framework was developed, with important theoretical and practical implications.

The importance of KM through talent development, mentoring, creating a learning environment and enhancing problem-solving skills is highlighted.

While scholarly works emphasise chefs’ value, importance and contributions, little is known about the links between their careers and KM. Furthermore, almost no study has compared chefs across geographic/cultural domains. The study addresses these research gaps and contributes to the conceptual understanding of KM within the chefs’ domain.

As Europe approaches 1992, there is little evidence that para‐professionals are preparing to harmonise certification programmes in readiness for changing trans‐border work patterns. Using the example of the Canada‐US Free Trade Agreement and its effect on the “service sector”, it is suggested how certification and training for the para‐professions might be effected in Europe, in that different nationalities have been shown to have varying traditions of certification and training.

How closely does internal audit match the attributes of a profession? In terms of its relatively short history — and in comparison with the longer‐established professions — it would seem that in the United States it already meets many of the necessary criteria: public service obligations, training and accreditation, standards of practice, publication and dissemination activities; there is also evidence of employer requirements and practices becoming more exacting. However there is some way to go before full recognition and acceptance as a distinct professional discipline are achieved. One crucial dilemma is over independence, as between loyalty to employers or profession, in situations of conflict. A concept of a management‐oriented service is advocated as one of the most constructive resolutions for future development.

This research aims to model the existing system of destination competitiveness, identifies leverage points and develop revised model to achieve sustainable competitiveness.

System dynamics is used as method of modeling destination competitiveness. Structure of model utilizes 9-factor model as reference. Leverage points are identified using system archetypes. Revised model is built with resource-based view (RBV). Case study was conducted in Samosir, Toba Lake. Data used are secondary data and results of in-depth interviews.

There are 3 sub-systemic characteristics (archetypes) that hinder competitiveness. They are limit to growth quality gap, fix that fails infrastructure and promotion, tragedy of common lake pollution. Destination was unable to meet tourist expectations. Tourists spending decreased, demand size was small. Industries are unable to increase capabilities. Professionals, entrepreneurs, local workers, supporting industries are less interested in entering industry. Government policies do not match with destination's needs. Lake as main attraction is getting polluted. To achieve sustainable competitiveness, destination must utilize their valuable, rare and inimitable (VRI) resources and capabilities to design unique experiences for tourists, hence sustainable.

Government policy should be shifted to prioritizing development of valuable, rare, inimitable and well-organized resources and capabilities of destination, to produce unique tourist experience and achieve sustainable competitiveness.

Methods and findings, combining system dynamics, system archetype, 9-factor model and RBV to achieve sustainable competitiveness is novel and can enrich tourism sustainable competitiveness theory/concept.

In view to the skills gap challenge in the chefs' occupation, the purpose of this study was to identify the required chefs' skills and competencies for successful careers in culinary arts management in the UK context.

A quantitative approach was employed with a survey questionnaire on competencies. Data were collected from different stakeholders with 407 valid responses presenting views on necessary competencies and skills to pursue a career in culinary arts.

This study suggests that professionals in commercial kitchens should demonstrate strong managerial and leadership skills, as well as operational and administrative. Professionalism and democratic management should be exhibited by chefs, who should further develop their emotional intelligence (EI) competency.

Organizations and academic institutions should provide such training to develop managerial and leadership skills that chefs need. Organizations should recruit based on these competencies model. Attention to diversity, equality and different cultures are important. Academic institutions should redesign their curriculum to address the industry's need on chefs' skills and competencies.

This is the first study to investigate chefs' competencies with empirical evidence from professionals, academics and students in the UK context. This study proposes a model with four sets of competencies, namely management, technical, strategic and operational.