Social evaluations of restaurant managers: The effects on frontline employees’ job attitudes and turnover intentions

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the effects of restaurant managers’ warmth and competence on employees’ turnover intentions mediated by job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The study aims to enhance existing literature related to the influence of social perceptions that casual dining restaurant employees may adopt regarding their restaurant managers.

Design/methodology/approach

The data came from 781 employees of a large US-based casual dining restaurant franchise group that owned 43 restaurants. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed, followed by multilevel path and post hoc mediation analyses, to assess the effects of the proposed model.

Findings

Results demonstrated that managers’ warmth and competence represented a single factor, instead of two distinct constructs, thus contradicting several sociopsychological studies. Moreover, managers’ warmth and competence had an indirect influence on employees’ turnover intentions through both job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Practical implications

Knowing that employees develop improved job attitudes and lower turnover intentions when they evaluate their managers as warm and competent individuals, restaurant operators should focus on both of these social characteristics when designing interviewing processes, management training, and performance appraisal programs.

Originality/value

By studying a casual dining restaurant franchise group that operates a single brand, thus minimizing variation in policies and procedures, this paper fulfills an identified need to examine two fundamental social dimensions that people often use in professional settings, and which have not been vastly studied in organizational behavior or hospitality literature.

Citation

Bufquin, D., DiPietro, R., Orlowski, M. and Partlow, C. (2018), "Social evaluations of restaurant managers: The effects on frontline employees’ job attitudes and turnover intentions", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 1827-1844. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-11-2016-0617