Leadership in the Lodging and Non-Commercial Food Service Industries

The qualities of vision, communication, trust, and perseverance are strongly identified by leaders in the lodging and food service businesses as characterizing effective leaders. The authors report on their research into essential qualities which mark the innovative industry leader.

Application of a PERT-Type System and "Crashing" in a Food Service Operation

A pert-type system, a combination of the program evaluation and review technique (PERT) and the critical path method (CPM), might be used by the hospitality industry to improve planning and control of complex functions. The author discusses this management science technique and how it can assist.

Competencies of a Recreational Food Service Manager

Recreational food service is a newly-identified industry segment. It represents over 3 percent of the total industry and has its own specific competency requirements, in addition to core food service management competency needs. The education, training, and development needs for professionals in this industry segment have not as yet been ascertained. This article is an effort to establish a benchmark for future research in this area.

Financial Planning by Contract Food Service Management Companies

Drugs in the workplace is a growing problem that threatens a valuable human resource - the employee. Managers in the hospitality industry can take a proactive stance in meeting the problem head on. The authors discuss what managers can do.

Recreational Food Service Management: A New Academic Challenge

The School of Hospitality Management at Florida International University recently offered a new course, recreational food service management, in an effort to address the specialized needs of that segment of the industry. The author discusses the size and scope of this area, its history and presentations, its specialized operational nature, its menu structure and style of service, and the unique management requirements for success.

Solid Waste Disposal: Independent Food Service Practices

Solid waste disposal is a major concern today. This study seeks to identify the current practices and attitudes of managers of independent food services toward solid waste management and the characteristics of food services which were most likely to be involved with a solid waste management program

Contracted School Food Service: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Political Concerns

Schools have evolved to be providers of education as well as suppliers of ancillary services to the population that they serve. This article examines one of these ancillary services, food service, in order to provide some awareness of the political aspects of the decision-making process in choosing whether or not to contract this service, as well as the pros and cons of the situation.

Industry Education: The Merger Continues

In the discussion - Industry Education: The Merger Continues - by Rob Heiman Assistant Professor Hospitality Food Service Management at Kent State University, the author originally declares, “Integrating the process of an on-going catering and banquet function with that of selected behavioral academic objectives leads to an effective, practical course of instruction in catering and banquet management. Through an illustrated model, this article highlights such a merger while addressing a variety of related problems and concerns to the discipline of hospitality food service management education.” The article stresses the importance of blending the theoretical; curriculum based learning process with that of a hands-on approach, in essence combining an in-reality working program, with academics, to develop a well rounded hospitality student. “How many programs are enjoying the luxury of excessive demand for students from industry [?],” the author asks in proxy for, and to highlight the immense need for qualified personnel in the hospitality industry. As the author describes it, “An ideal education program concerns itself with the integration of theory and simulation with hands-on experience to teach the cognitive as well as the technical skills required to achieve the pre-determined hospitality education objectives.” In food service one way to achieve this integrated learning curve is to have the students prepare foods and then consume them. Heiman suggests this will quickly illustrate to students the rights and wrongs of food preparation. Another way is to have students integrating the academic program with feeding the university population. Your author offers more illustrations on similar principles. Heiman takes special care in characterizing the banquet and catering portions of the food service industry, and he offers empirical data to support the descriptions. It is in these areas, banquet and catering, that Heiman says special attention is needed to produce qualified students to those fields. This is the real focus of the discussion, and it is in this venue that the remainder of the article is devoted. “Based on the perception that quality education is aided by implementing project assignments through the course of study in food service education, a model description can be implemented for a course in Catering and Banquet Management and Operations. This project model first considers the prioritized objectives of education and industry and then illustrates the successful merging of resources for mutual benefits,” Heiman sketches. The model referred to above is also the one aforementioned in the thesis statement at the beginning of the article. This model is divided into six major components; Heiman lists and details them. “The model has been tested through two semesters involving 29 students,” says Heiman. “Reaction by all participants has been extremely positive. Recent graduates of this type of program have received a sound theoretical framework and demonstrated their creative interpretation of this theory in practical application,” Heiman says in summation.

Manager-Customer Relationship in Food Service Commissary Operations

Documented reports of day-to-day decision-making in food service tend to emphasize technical aspects. However, this view does not represent completely the decision-making process managers go through. The author reports on the effect of the manager-customer relationship in decision-making by managers.

Food service Contracts That Win: Essentials in the Development of a Food service Agreement

The authors provide tips for institutions wanting to place a contract for operation of their food service and for companies and/or individuals in the business of managing food service operations for a fee.

Correlates of Non-Institutional Food Service Turnover

The high rate of restaurant employee turnover, particularly of the non-supervisory employee, is a continuing problem. The authors assess the possible correlates of this turnover and their relative strengths, ranking and comparing working hours, quality of supervision, chance for promotion, on-the-job training, pay, work of others, employees' attitudes, and management's interest in employees to present possible solutions for the high rate of turnover.

Fresh Food Vending Trends and Practices

Fresh food vending represents $1.5 billion in sales each year in the United States. The implications for a better understanding of fresh food vending are significant in terms of profitability and improved market share for vending operators. Of equal importance is a better understanding of the significance of the route driver on the overall fresh food vending operation. Developing a better understanding of this area of the food service industry will help vending operators increase profits and provide better product choices to consumers

Gauging Employee Theft and Other Unacceptable Behaviors in Food Service Operations

Unacceptable employee behavior ultimately results in higher prices for consumers. Members of the Indiana Hospitality and Restaurant Association were surveyed about the practices being used to safeguard their assets and control employee deviance in food service. They were also asked to estimate the losses that result from employee theft. This information was used to investigate whether certain policies and procedures were more effective than others in limiting their losses.

Characterizing Poor Performance in For-Profit and Not-for-Profit Food Service Operations

In this article the authors explore the performance-related employee behaviors that are the most troublesome in food service. Four subsegments of food service were surveyed and differences in profit and not-for-profit operations analyzed. Significant differences were found between the two groups, with for-profit operations indicating more severe problems in all but one behavior category.

Personal Style of On-Site Food Service Managers

Myers-Briggs Type Indicators (MBTI) assess preferences based on Carl Jungs theory of psychological types. They are widely used in organizational development, management and leadership training, and team building. This study examines MBTl of food service managers in a single organization to determine whether food service managers have a typical personal style and whether this style varies.