Food Protection Trends - September/October 2020 - 307

have used the Social Cognitive Theory in the commercial
foodservice setting. This study is among the first attempts
to develop a scale to measure the constructs of the Social
Cognitive Theory in this setting. The developed scale may
encourage future studies to advance the theory and yield
theoretical and practical implications to improve food safety
behaviors in different settings in the foodservice industry.
The hypothesized model in this study was significant in
predicting food safety behavioral intentions (F = 75.246,
P = 0.002) and explained about 60.6% of the variance in
food safety behavioral intentions. This was comparable to the
results of a similar study using the constructs of the Social
Cognitive Theory (67).
Implications
The results of this study can be used by public health
officials and food safety professionals to help owners, managers, and supervisors identify better ways to communicate
information about positive food safety practices with food
handlers in independent ethnic restaurants. Unlike non-ethnic restaurants, an ethnic restaurant is a unique environment
where employees' ethnic culture mingles with the business
culture. This is particularly true because most independent
ethnic restaurants are family-owned and family-operated
businesses (3). The results of this study would help guide the
understanding of the social cognitive factors that influence
food safety behaviors in these operations. The following are
recommendations for operators of independent Chinese and
Mexican restaurants and public health officials, based on the
results of this study:
* Owners, managers, and supervisors should educate
their food handlers on the consequences of improper
food safety behaviors by using persuasive messages to
improve their behaviors or to motivate them to continue
to perform proper food safety behaviors. These messages
can be expressed verbally or in the form of posters in the
spoken language of the food handlers.
* Operators and managers should focus on increasing
social support among employees to prepare food safely
and build up confidence in those who feel they are ill
equipped to perform food safety behaviors properly.
* Operators in independent ethnic restaurants need
to support food handlers' self-efficacy by telling
the person that he or she can perform the proper
behavior. Consistent encouragement can reinforce
confidence to bring about more efforts toward
improving food safety behaviors. Also, observing
managers, supervisors, and coworkers performing
successfully can increase self-efficacy.

* Operators of independent ethnic restaurants
should motivate their food handlers to follow selfregulation strategies such as monitoring their food
safety practices, setting goals, and evaluating their
performance to gain a sustained intention to perform
proper behaviors over time.
* Public health officials and developers of educational
interventions and training programs should consider
targeting food handlers' self-efficacy, self-regulation,
outcome expectations, and environmental determinants
in the workplace that influence food safety behaviors
when developing training materials.
Limitations and recommendations for future research
This study has some limitations. First, the sample consisted
of food handlers in independent Chinese and Mexican
restaurants in three counties in Kansas. Therefore, the
results cannot be generalized to other independent ethnic
restaurants and other foodservice operations. It would be
important for future studies to replicate the study in other
foodservice settings and involve other employees, such as
servers, who might influence food safety.
The role of ethnicity was not examined in this study
because of the lack of ethnic diversity in the study sample.
Future studies utilizing a sample that represents a wider range
of ethnic backgrounds are encouraged and would be more
effective at measuring potential differences in food safety
behaviors based on ethnicity of food handlers.
The computed mean values of all items in the measurement
scales were high (4.38 and above). Therefore, results should
be interpreted with caution and in the context of this study.
Finally, this study utilized a survey and self-reported
accounts of behavior. Although steps were taken to mitigate
the potential impact of common method bias associated with
the cross-sectional self-report method used for identifying
food safety behaviors, the behaviors may have not been
accurately measured because the participants may have
exhibited recall bias.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This study was supported by funds made available from
the Foodservice Systems Management Education Council
(FSMEC) Grant and the Small Grant Program for Kansas
State University Students in Arts, Humanities, and Social
Sciences. The funding agencies only provided funds to
complete the project as proposed; no input on the research
design, methods, data collection and analysis, and/or
publication process was received from either funding agency.

September/October Food Protection Trends

307

Food Protection Trends - September/October 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Food Protection Trends - September/October 2020