A Study on the Effect on Customer Perception, Attitudes and Purchase Intention of Food Establishments with Persons with Disabilities as Their Employees

Abstract

Persons with Disability (PWD), as defined by the Philippine Magna Carta for Disabled Persons, are individuals affected by restriction due to sensory, physical, or mental impairment. According to recent data, it revealed that in 2000, the total employed PWDs are only 57.12% of the total PWD population. Furthermore, despite the assistance of the Philippine government in promoting inclusivity practices in employment, it seems that employment of PWD in the Philippines still needs improvement. This study aimed to shed light on employers on what PWDs bring to their organization through examining the perception, attitude and purchase intention of customers on food establishments which hire PWDs as frontline personnel. The researchers used service quality factors as the independent variables. These include reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles, while perception, attitude and purchase intention of customers were utilized as the dependent variables. The concept of Pearson Chi Square Test was used to correlate the variables and was done through a statistics software. The results showed that reliability, responsiveness and empathy have a positive relationship with customer perception. On the other hand, reliability, assurance and tangibles have a positive relationship with customer attitudes. Furthermore, reliability, responsiveness and tangibles have a positive relationship with customer purchase intention. Therefore, food establishments generally display a positive response from customers in terms of their perception, attitudes and purchase intention when said establishments hire PWDs as frontline staff.