The Effect of Food Sustainability and the Food Safety Climate on the Job Stress, Job Satisfaction and Job Commitment of Kitchen Staff

Kyungcheon Min,Wansoo Hong

doi:10.3390/su13126813

Abstract

Background: The food safety climate within an organization represents the job environment that affects the safe management of food and reveals the characteristics of employees. This study aimed to help establish a food safety climate in hotel kitchens that would reduce job stress and increase job satisfaction and employee engagement. Methods: This study was conducted with 570 chefs in 12 five-star hotels in South Korea using a questionnaire-based survey. A total of 570 questionnaires were distributed; 504 usable responses were used in the empirical analysis. Results: The results of this study are summarized as follows. First, among the food safety climate factors perceived by hotel chefs, leadership, resources and communication affect job stress. Second, all five factors of the food safety climate affect the job satisfaction of hotel chefs. Among these factors, leadership, responsibility and communication have positive effects on job satisfaction, while risk awareness and resources have negative effects. Third, the leadership and resources of the food safety climate have positive effects on job commitment. (4) Conclusions: This study has useful recommendations for the service industry, especially the hotel industry, for better human resource management, emphasizing food sustainability in kitchen staff job performance enhancement.

Highlights

Food safety measurement systems have been developed and implemented by many organizations and governments to provide safe food, food safety accidents such as food poisoning are still observed [1]
Research and communication build trust and generate positive organizational behavior based on the social exchange between members of the organization [26]. It has a direct effect on satisfaction [32]. This present study focuses on the empirical analysis of the structural relationships between the food safety climate, job stress, job satisfaction and job commitment perceived by hotel kitchen staff based on the theoretical background discussed above
It verifies the relationships among the latent variables and between the observed and latent variables, and differs from exploratory factor analysis (EFA) in that the number of factors and items are specified before the analysis in confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) [53]

Summary

Introduction

Food safety measurement systems have been developed and implemented by many organizations and governments to provide safe food, food safety accidents such as food poisoning are still observed [1]. Research has been conducted to develop more accurate tools that can assess the food safety culture and environment of organizations. The food safety climate within an organization represents the job environment that affects the safe management of food and reveals the characteristics of employees. This study aimed to help establish a food safety climate in hotel kitchens that would reduce job stress and increase job satisfaction and employee engagement. Among the food safety climate factors perceived by hotel chefs, leadership, resources and communication affect job stress. All five factors of the food safety climate affect the job satisfaction of hotel chefs. Among these factors, leadership, responsibility and communication have positive effects on job satisfaction, while risk awareness and resources have negative effects. The leadership and resources of the food safety climate have positive effects on job commitment. (4) Conclusions: This study has useful recommendations for the service industry, especially the hotel industry, for better human resource management, emphasizing food sustainability in kitchen staff job performance enhancement

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion