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1 – 10 of 39Susan W. Arendt, Kevin R. Roberts, Catherine Strohbehn, Jason Ellis, Paola Paez and Janell Meyer
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Originality/value
Strategies to increase participation and thereby improve qualitative research have not been previously addressed in the hospitality literature
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Sara B. Marcketti, Susan W. Arendt and Mack C. Shelley
The purpose of this paper is to examine the leadership practice scores and leadership behaviors of students before and after participation in an event management course.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the leadership practice scores and leadership behaviors of students before and after participation in an event management course.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed methods approach was utilized. The Student‐Leadership Practice Inventory (S‐LPI) was administered to a sample of 184 students in three semesters of an event management course. Students completed the S‐LPI at the beginning and at the end of the course. The students also wrote reflections of their leadership behaviors and understandings.
Findings
Results of the study showed that students' mean leadership scores increased significantly for all practice areas between pre and post. Also, all correlations between pre and post scores were statistically significant, indicating that responses at pre and post followed similar patterns, with students who scored higher on the pre‐test also tending to score higher on the post‐test. Reflections from students demonstrated significant understanding of effective leadership behaviors and learning.
Research limitations/implications
The sample was college students enrolled in an event management course at one university; therefore results may not be generalized to all students.
Practical implications
Results of this study suggest that involvement in an event management course in which students were engaged and responsible for the outcomes of their learning may have positively impacted these students' leadership behaviors.
Originality/value
This paper furthers the knowledge base and understanding of students' leadership growth through involvement in a university course as measured by the S‐LPI.
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Susan W. Arendt, Paola Paez and Catherine Strohbehn
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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?”.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Research limitations/implications
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.
Practical implications
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.
Originality/value
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.
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Norzuwana Sumarjan, Susan W. Arendt and Mack Shelley
Using the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) criteria, the purpose of this study is to compare perceptions of Malaysian hotel quality managers (HQMs) and employees on…
Abstract
Purpose
Using the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) criteria, the purpose of this study is to compare perceptions of Malaysian hotel quality managers (HQMs) and employees on leadership and workforce practices.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed methods approach was used. Questionnaires were distributed to 35 HQMs and 576 employees of three‐, four‐, and five‐star hotels. Interviews were conducted with HQMs. Descriptive statistics, t‐test, and analysis of variance were used to analyze the data. All interviews were transcribed, hand coded, and analyzed for themes.
Findings
Compared to hotel employees, HQMs had higher scores for all leadership and workforce items. Comparing managers’ perceptions revealed a statistically significant difference between three‐ and four‐star with five‐star hotels on developing explicit quality policies and measurable objectives. For employees, there were statistically significant differences for most of the questionnaire items between three‐ and four‐star with five‐star hotels. HQMs identified inefficient communication systems and failure to develop explicit quality policies and objectives as main reasons for perception incongruences between employees and managers.
Research limitations/implications
Two of the seven MBNQA criteria were used in this study; future research utilizing the other five criteria may be beneficial.
Practical implications
This study provides hoteliers with quality practice perception differences between HQMs and employees in different star‐rated hotels. Knowing these differences should compel hoteliers to review their leadership and workforce practices, identify reasons for discrepancies, and attempt to minimize the gap.
Originality/value
No known studies in Malaysia, investigating this issue, have been conducted using a mixed methods approach. Additionally, this study provides empirical findings on quality practices from manager and employee perspectives.
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Nur Hidayah Che Ahmat, Susan Wohlsdorf Arendt and Daniel Wayne Russell
This study aims to generate novel insights about minimum wage policy implementation through a joint assessment of the mediating roles of work motivation, work engagement and job…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to generate novel insights about minimum wage policy implementation through a joint assessment of the mediating roles of work motivation, work engagement and job satisfaction in predicting outcomes such as turnover intention and work engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from hotel employees in Malaysia using an electronic survey. A total of 239 responses were used in analyzing direct and indirect effects.
Findings
Results reveal that work motivation, work engagement and job satisfaction significantly mediated the relationship between employee compensation satisfaction and employee turnover intention. Work motivation was found to mediate the relationship between employee compensation satisfaction and employee work engagement. Additionally, work engagement and job satisfaction mediated the relationship between employee work motivation and employee turnover intention.
Research limitations/implications
Missing data are inevitable in survey research. Due to data missing for some of the demographic questions, the moderating effect of certain demographic characteristics (e.g. sex) could not be assessed.
Practical implications
Given recent minimum wage policy implementation in Malaysia, it is imperative that Malaysian hotel operators understand to what extent employee compensation satisfaction influences how employees perceived their jobs and to what extent work motivation, work engagement and job satisfaction mediate employee compensation satisfaction and employee turnover intention.
Originality/value
This study makes a significant contribution to the hospitality compensation research area, specifically regarding the impact of compensation on how employees perceived their jobs after minimum wage implementation.
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Yu-Shan Liu and Susan Wohlsdorf Arendt
The purpose of this study was to develop a measurement scale to assess work motives for hospitality employees utilizing McClelland’s theory of needs as the theoretical…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to develop a measurement scale to assess work motives for hospitality employees utilizing McClelland’s theory of needs as the theoretical underpinning.
Design/methodology/approach
Both qualitative and quantitative methods were applied to achieve the study purpose. First, individual interviews were conducted to explore employee work motives and develop work motive scale items. Second, data from a self-administered paper questionnaire, completed by 388 respondents, were used to validate the developed scale.
Findings
Four themes were identified which reflect employees’ perspectives of hospitality jobs and culture: the job itself, need for affiliation, need for achievement and need for power. The developed scale, consisting of 22 items, was found to be reliable and valid in assessing work motives.
Research limitations/implications
The majority of participants were entry-level employees; therefore, the developed scale may not be useful when assessing work motives of individuals not in front-line positions. Future research could extend the measurement model to investigate work motives of individuals in managerial positions. In addition, future research could assess work motives as antecedents of employee organizational behaviors and attitudes.
Practical implications
The developed scale could be used as a selection tool to assess applicants’ work motives, thereby assisting employers in making effective hiring decisions.
Originality/value
This study contributes a new reliable and valid measurement scale developed specifically to address the unique work motives desirable for individuals seeking employment in the hospitality industry.
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Michael Schwartz and Debra R. Comer
We argue that Oskar Schindler is a moral exemplar. Oskar Schindler and other moral exemplars should, according to Mayo, be emulated. Emulating Schindler when he acted as a moral…
Abstract
We argue that Oskar Schindler is a moral exemplar. Oskar Schindler and other moral exemplars should, according to Mayo, be emulated. Emulating Schindler when he acted as a moral exemplar could have led to others’ being helped during truly terrible times. Yet, had officialdom at that time known what Schindler was doing, he would have lost his life, and the lives of the many others he was able to save – as well as their progeny – would also have been lost. Thus, we underscore that it can be extraordinarily difficult for someone to be recognised as a moral exemplar when a moral exemplar is so desperately needed.
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Ayman Safi Abdelhakim, Eleri Jones, Elizabeth C. Redmond, Christopher J. Griffith and Mahmoud Hewedi
The purpose of this paper is to explore the evaluation of cabin crew food safety training using the Kirkpatrick model.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the evaluation of cabin crew food safety training using the Kirkpatrick model.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a snowballing technique, 26 cabin crew, managers, supervisors and trainers participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Summative content analysis was used to evaluate the data.
Findings
In total, 26 respondents from 20 international airlines participated in the study. All respondents agreed that evaluating cabin crew food safety/hygiene issues is important in relation to in-flight food handling; for example, “Training evaluation helps in the improvement of the future training”; “We have an end of course feedback form, either done electronically or on paper and that looks at how the delegates felt the training went, if they came away learning something new, if the environment for learning was right, all sorts of things; the questionnaire is quite comprehensive”; and “Every trainee is given a feedback form to complete”. However, significant failures in food safety training and its evaluation were identified.
Research limitations/implications
The evaluation of cabin crew food safety training shows that it is ineffective in some aspects, including learning achieved and behavioural change, and these can directly impact on the implementation of food safety practices. Evaluation failures may be due to the lack of available time in relation to other cabin crew roles. Further research may consider using a larger sample size, evaluating training effectiveness using social cognition models and assessments of airline and cabin crew food safety culture.
Originality/value
This is the first study that evaluates cabin crew food safety training using the Kirkpatrick model. The findings provide an understanding of the current evaluation of cabin crew food safety training and can be used by airlines for improving and developing effective future food safety training programmes. This, in turn, may reduce the risk of passenger and crew foodborne disease.
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I discuss the case of Hassan Almrei, one of the five Arab men detained as suspects who have the potential to engage in terrorism. Hassan Almrei's detention arises out of a section…
Abstract
I discuss the case of Hassan Almrei, one of the five Arab men detained as suspects who have the potential to engage in terrorism. Hassan Almrei's detention arises out of a section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of Canada that authorizes security certificates. A security certificate permits the detention and expulsion of non-citizens who are considered to be a threat to national security. Detainees have no opportunity to be heard before a certificate is issued and a designated judge of the Federal Court reviews most of the government's case against the detainee in a secret hearing at which neither the detainee nor his counsel is present. The detainee receives only a summary of the evidence against him. I discuss this legal situation as a state of exception that is part of a legal structure in which non-citizens have fewer rights than do citizens. Two conceptual tools shape my understanding of security certificates and their use in the “war on terror”: race thinking and the state of exception. The five detainees are more than simply victims of racial profiling. Their Arab origins, and the life history that mostly Arab Muslim men have had, operate to mark them as individuals likely to commit terrorist acts, people whose propensity for violence is indicated by their origins. When race thinking, the belief in the division of humanity into those prone to violence and those who are not according to racial descent, is accompanied by the idea that there must be two different, hierarchical legal regimes for each, and when we begin to grow accustomed to places without law and to people to whom the rule of law does not apply, we enter the terrifying world of the colonies and the concentration camp. This article examines how a space where law is suspended operates in the “war on terror” and it attends to the work that ideas about race do in the environment of the exception.
Chao‐Jung (Rita) Chen, Mary B. Gregoire, Susan Arendt and Mack C. Shelley
The purpose of this paper is to examine college and university dining services administrators' (CUDSAs) intention to adopt sustainable practices.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine college and university dining services administrators' (CUDSAs) intention to adopt sustainable practices.
Design/methodology/approach
The theory of planned behavior (TPB) including constructs of subjective norm (SN), attitude, perceived behavior control, and personal norm (PN), formed the theoretical framework. A web‐based questionnaire was developed, pretested, and distributed to 535 CUDSAs in the USA.
Findings
Results indicated that SN (pressure from others) had the most influence on CUDSAs' intention to adopt sustainable practices, followed by attitude and PN. Including the PN construct in the TPB model reduced unexplained variance by 33.48 percent.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations of this research are generalizability of results due to use of a sample of US members of a professional organization (National Association of College and University Food Services) and low response rate.
Practical implications
Results suggest that pressure from college administrators and students has the greatest impact on CUDSAs' decisions to adopt sustainable practices.
Originality/value
The question of why some university dining operations are models for sustainability and others have few sustainable practices has not been explored. The dining services' director plays a key role in determining sustainability efforts for that operation. This research explored factors influencing a director's intention to adopt sustainable practices.
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