Description
An international study in designNearly 40% of UK chefs leave the commercial kitchen, with nearly a fifth of them in the first few years, making it hard for restaurants to respond to the high demand for eating-out. However, the majority of chefs remain, and this has not been researched adequately up to now. The project aims to identify the key reasons of chefs’ retention attempting a cross-country investigation in culturally diverse areas of the world: UK, Greece, Australia, Belgium and Switzerland – there is a provision to expand in Asian countries too (India, Malaysia, Brunei) and the USA. Local higher education organisations have already been approached and have agreed to assist in the collection of data. The research will derive from the lead investigator’s framework of intrinsic drivers of chefs’ retention, which was introduced in 2023, the theories of job embeddedness and occupational embeddedness and the active role of locus of control in chefs’ desire to stay in their jobs. Conducting quantitative cross-cultural research in the abovementioned countries, we aim to reach a consensus on the core reasons chefs stay in the commercial kitchen. These will offer grounds to compare the causes chefs stay in various cultural environments and predominantly help hospitality organisations sustain their business, while assisting aspiring chefs select their careers by focusing on the appropriate, hence more sustainable, personal qualities. Also, the outcome of the study will set the foundation for extending the retention framework to the wider market of retaining hard to replace talents in other industries and sustain their business.
| Period | 1 Jul 2025 |
|---|---|
| Degree of Recognition | Local |