Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the influences of contract foodservice managers' personal characteristics, foodservice characteristics and organizational characteristics on job satisfaction, including interpersonal relationships, self-actualization and promotion opportunity categories. A survey was administered to four hundred contract foodservice managers of five large companies and five small/medium companies in the Seoul and Kyungin areas. The final response rate was 66% (N = 265), and the data were analyzed using SPSS Windows (ver. 12.0). The respondents were 76.1% female, average age 28.8 years, and 73.0% were regular workers. Contract foodservices have profit and loss contracts (69.1%), single menu types (59.6%) and buffet serving styles (37.7%). There are significant differences of job satisfaction by some personal characteristic variables (gender, martial status, age, education, position, work hours, period of working for the present company, and payroll per year) and foodservice characteristic variables (type of contract and charge of food costs). In three job satisfaction categories, foodservice managers reported the highest interpersonal relationship satisfaction, following self-actualization satisfaction and promotion opportunity satisfaction in both large companies and small/medium companies. However, foodservice managers of large companies tended to be more satisfied regarding their promotion opportunities than foodservice managers of small/medium companies (P < 0.05). Work hours, number of meals served/day, male, workload, communication with the clients, relationship with co-workers, obvious role and autonomy were significant factors to increase the job satisfaction in contract foodservices of large companies. On the other hand, relationships with co-workers and males were significant factors to increase the job satisfaction in contract foodservices of small/medium companies. This research suggests that contract foodservice companies need to understand the characteristics of their managers, foodservices and organizations to enhance the job satisfaction of foodservice managers and to develop specified human resource management strategies that can be applied to each company scale.

• Keywords: contract foodservice; foodservice manager; personal characteristics; organizational characteristics; job satisfaction