A Study on the Influence of Dietitians' Service Leadership on School Foodservice Employees' Attitudes

Son, Dae Rae; Kim, Hyun Ah

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to examine school foodservice employees' awareness on dietitians' service leadership and to analyze the effects of the service leadership on employee attitudes (leader reliability, value correspondence, and leader satisfaction). Questionnaires were distributed to 208 school foodservice employees from November 2007 to January 2008. The results were as follows. First, in terms of the employees' perception on the dietitians' service leadership, service belief gained the highest score, followed by insight, attitude, and ability: the average score was 3.8 point. Second, the leader reliability and leader satisfaction scores perceived by the employees were over 3.8 point on average but the awareness on the value correspondence was 3.43 point. Third, among the service leadership factors, service belief (p<0.001) and insight (p<0.001) had positive effects on leader reliability. Also, service belief (p<0.01), service ability (p<0.001), and insight (p<0.01) had positive effects on value correspondence. Finally, service belief (p<0.001), service ability (p<0.05), and insight (p<0.001) had positive effects on leader satisfaction. Fourth, a hypothesis test using path analysis revealed that dietitians' service leadership produced positive effects on school foodservice employees' attitudes (leader reliability, value correspondence, and leader satisfaction). In conclusion, the service leadership of dietitians directly contributed to leader satisfaction, value correspondence, and leader reliability in school foodservice employees.