Moderating effects of leader-member exchange (LMX) on job burnout in dietitians and chefs of institutional foodservice

Stress, "an adoptive response to a situation that is perceived as challenging and threatening to a person's well-being", is a ubiquitous phenomenon at work places today [1, 2]. One job stress-related response that has received considerable attention from both practitioners and researchers is burnout. Burnout is defined as "a syndrome of emotional exhaustion and cynicism that occurs frequently among individuals who do 'people-work' of some kind" [3]. Persons experiencing burnout show low energy and motivation, negative and callous feelings about themselves or their work, and distance from interpersonal interactions [3, 4]. Eventually job burnout creates negative outcomes in organizations such as reduced productivity, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment as well as increased absenteeism and turnover [4, 5]

As burnout is considered a pervasive occupational hazard in many industries, researchers have investigated the prevalence, causes, and consequences of job burnout in various work settings including foodservice operations. The literature findings suggest that service professionals are likely to burnout due to a high degree of interaction with clients and changing work environment, and reveal that the professions that demonstrate high burnout also report high turnover [6, 7]. Korean foodservice employees' job stress was reported to be very strongly associated with turnover intention [7].

The hospitality industry is notorious for unfavorable job characteristics and working conditions such as long and unsociable working hours, high emotional labor, hot and loud workplaces, and time pressure, which all contribute to burnout [8, 9]. In the foodservice industry, turnover rates are known to be higher than in the overall private sector. The turnover rate of middle managers was also significantly higher in the hospitality industry than in other service sector industries [10, 11].

The Korean foodservice industry has grown continuously during past decades, and the market size of the institutional foodservice industry was estimated as approximately 600 billion won in 2006 [12]. Among the institutional foodservice industry, contract management companies share more than half of the market and that proportion continues to grow. To obtain a competitive edge in the market, foodservice corporations have invested significant time and money on hiring and maintaining qualified staff. In institutional foodservice operations, dietitians and chefs as front-line managers, who usually take managerial roles, are more likely to experience stress and be easily burned out since they have to meet the needs of customers and organizations at the same time, which may conflict each other. Consequently it is clear that in order to maintain qualified middle managers, foodservice corporations should pay attention to managing job burnout in dietitians and chefs.

Every occupation has its own specific characteristics related to burnout, which are classified into two groups - job demands and job resources [13]. Job demands refer to "characteristics associated with the task or working environment that require workers to exert physical or mental efforts [14]." Examples are high work pressure, role overload, emotional demands, and poor environmental conditions. Job resources refer to "aspects of a job that facilitate accomplishing goals, decrease the demands of the job, or enhance personal growth [14]." Resources include support from colleagues, supervisory coaching and support, participation in decision-making, rewards, and advancement opportunities [15]. In general, job demands and resources are negatively related and high job resources reduce job demands [16]. The relationship between job resources and demands is known as the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model. Using the JD-R model, Bakker et al. [13, 16] contended that the impact of job demands on burnout is strong when employees do not have enough resources. Kang et al. [8], Humborstad et al. [17], and Tabacchi et al. [18] also reported that service employee burnout was mitigated by higher perceived organizational support.

One critique of the burnout literature is that it has largely neglected the study of how leadership processes affect burnout [14]. Early leadership theories assume that leaders engage in a single leadership style with all subordinates. However, researchers have conceptualized leadership in workplaces as a social influence process and proposed Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory, suggesting that leaders do not use the same style in dealing with all subordinates, but rather develop a different type of relationship or exchange with each subordinate [19]. Research on LMX has shown significant associations with many important work outcomes. For example, LMX is negatively related to turnover and turnover intentions, and positively related to organizational commitment, satisfaction with supervision, supervisory ratings of job performance, autonomy, satisfaction with work, and frequency of promotions [19].

Bakker et al. [16] stated that various job demands and resources play a role in a certain organization depending upon the specific job characteristics. Today most research on burnout conducted in Korea has focused on assessing the prevalence of burnout and examining the effects of demographic and organizational characteristics on job burnout. Few research studies have focused on how to manage job burnout among employees from the viewpoint of organizations, and no research studies have tried to explore the effects of supervisor-subordinate relationships on managing burnout among middle managers in the foodservice industry.

The objectives of the study were to assess levels of job stress and perceptions of LMX, and to evaluate moderating effects of LMX on burnout in dietitians and chefs at institutional foodservices. Based on a literature review, the following hypotheses were proposed (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
Study Model

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Hypothesis 1: Workload has positive effects on job burnout among foodservice managers.

Hypothesis 2: The quality of relationships between foodservice managers and their supervisors has a negative effect on job burnout.

Hypothesis 3: The positive effects of workload on job burnout are moderated by the quality of relationships between foodservice managers and their supervisors.

Job stress and burnout in the hospitality industry has been a concern of both practitioners and researchers in recent decades [6, 10, 18, 24-27]. Burnout and its consequences cost employees and organizations. Previously, job burnout was closely related to turnover intentions of dietitians and chefs in a contract management company and in school foodservices [5, 28]. In particular, the turnover of front line managers is more serious since it results in discontinuation of management and quality problems [6]. Therefore, to maintain qualified foodservice managers, foodservice corporations should be interested in managing job burnout [5]. The present study tried to assess the effects of workload and LMX on job burnout, and to investigate the buffering effects of LMX on the relationship between workload and job burnout. Three hypotheses were developed based on the JD-R model and related literature [16, 19, 29-31].

PA and NA, described as "the disposition to perceive events and individuals in a generally positive and enthusiastic or negative manner," are known to be related to perceptions of job stressors [32]. When measured on a seven-point scale, PA was rated higher than NA among the surveyed dietitians and chefs. PA was positively correlated with professional efficacy whereas NA was positively correlated with emotional exhaustion and professional efficacy. Iversion et al.[32] reported similar results, stating that NA predicted high emotional exhaustion and depersonalization (corresponding to cynicism in the study) and PA showed a reverse pattern. Researchers thought that one high in NA tended to show a spuriously inflated stressor-burnout relationship and have controlled NA, in particular, in investigating burnout [5, 33, 34]. Therefore, PA and NA were controlled, before investigating the effects of the study constructs, workload and LMX, on burnout.

Even though practitioners' interest seems high, to date limited research has been conducted on employees' burnout in institutional foodservice. The responding dietitians and chefs perceived themselves to have moderate levels of emotional exhaustion and cynicism. These results are consistent with the previous literature. In hospital and welfare foodservice settings, Korean dietitians' burnout was similar to the findings of this study, and emotional exhaustion was higher than cynicism [35, 36]. Dietetic technicians in the U.S. and certified chef members of the American Culinary Federation showed similar levels of burnout [8, 37]. In a study with middle managers in the U.S. hotel industry, 40% and 28% of the responding middle managers scored high on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, respectively [6].

A review of burnout literature in the hospitality industry revealed that most studies have focused on assessing burnout levels and on comparing burnout by general characteristics of respondents and organizations. The burnout of dietetic technicians was not significantly different by working experiences [37]. Age, educational background, and location of operation did not influence dietitians' burnout in welfare foodservices [36]. However, Buick and Thomas [6] identified the profile of a manger who is most likely to experience burnout as relatively young, single or divorced, female, relatively new to managerial responsibilities and working in food production, front offices, or food and beverage service departments. They also stated that the high incidence of burnout among women should gain managerial attention since the majority of managers in the hospitality industry are female. Today, as more women are being educated and encouraged to seek managerial appointments in the foodservice industry, foodservice corporations should be more supportive of female managers to gain respect and confidence from their supervisors and subordinates [6].

It is true that demographic and organizational characteristics can be personal and situational factors that influence job burnout perceptions [4]. Unfortunately, however, they cannot be changed or managed easily. Thus, research findings focusing on demographic characteristics of employees and organizations do not provide rich information for practitioners on how to manage front line managers' stress and job burnout. Therefore, researchers have shifted their interest to the roles of job demands and resources in finding ways to manage burnout effectively.

Based on the JD-R model and LMX theory, workload and LMX were selected as the job demand and resource for this study, respectively. The responding dietitians and chefs in the contract management corporation perceived workload moderately. When PA and NA were controlled, workload was a significant predictor of emotional exhaustion and professional efficacy. When PA and NA were controlled, however, workload did not influence cynicism significantly. This finding of the study is partially consistent with the literature.

Work overload was reported to be more closely related to emotional exhaustion [4]. Previous research has revealed that work overload such as job demands, lack of autonomy, and emotional demands can lead to exhausted feelings and callous attitudes towards work [38, 39]. Maslach and Jackson [40] reported that cynicism or depersonalization developed as a coping response to work overload, but the relationship was not confirmed in the study.

A survey with foodservice managers revealed that long work hours were one of the most important reasons for turnover [9], and Lee and Kim [7] reported that job stress was positively correlated with work overload among foodservice employees. Krone et al. [25] also reported that managers working over 70 hours per week were more emotionally exhausted than those working under 60 hours in hospitality settings.

The literature has shown that both the quantity (e.g., hours worked, work overload, and time pressure) and quality (role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload) of work demands influence job burnout [4]. Krone et al. [24, 25] suggested the possible effects of role overload on burnout among food and beverage service and food production employees. They observed that burnout is greater at lower management levels where managers must perform a wide variety of tasks under time pressure and dynamic and unpredictable environments while constantly juggling conflicting interests of employees, customers, and organizations. Lee and Shin [5] reported that dietitians perceived workload significantly higher than chefs in a contract management company. They explained the higher workload perception in the dietitian group by qualitative workload. In institutional foodservice, dietitians conduct a wide range of tasks including menu planning, purchasing, financial/accounting management, nutrition and food safety management, scheduling, handling paperwork, and attending to customer needs.

Chefs, middle level managers in the culinary field, are also exposed to an environment of unique and constant stress. The frequently mentioned stressors for chefs are a hectic pace, long working hours, high energy levels required to succeed, workplaces with potential dangers such as hot ovens and slippery floors, and fluctuation in work demands by daily business flow [26, 41]. A chef's work becomes more complex since they work in the manufacturing production environment where they cannot face customers directly but are judged in a service environment. Fine [42] stated that the conflict between the aesthetics of culinary arts and the realities of production is a cause of job stress. In this study, workload was the only job demand but role overload can be incorporated in future studies to better understand job burnout in foodservice managers.

Among job resources, support from supervisors can influence stress perceived by their subordinates. In a hotel setting, middle managers perceiving less support from their supervisors may experience more burnout than those perceiving sufficient support [6]. Thomas and Lankau [14] stated that the quality of the relationship with a leader represents a valuable resource that can help employees cope with job demands and reduce the likelihood of burnout. In this study, support from supervisors was measured by the quality of relationships between supervisors and subordinates. LMX theory assumes that a supervisor has a unique relationship with each subordinate and that these dyadic relationships vary in quality. High quality LMX is characterized by higher levels of mutual trust, respect, liking, interaction, and support [14]. A review by Gerstner and Day [43] revealed that LMX is significantly correlated with increased subordinate satisfaction, increased subordinate performance, enhanced subordinate career outcomes, and decreased propensity to quit.

The four dimensions of LMX were rated from 4.1-4.7 based on a 7-point scale. Among the respondents, LMX seemed to be at moderate levels since dietitians and chefs in contract management corporations work without the support of someone with a similar background or a supervisor's direct control on site. In many cases, one dietitian and one chef are placed in each operation. Contrary to the hypotheses, LMX did not influence any burnout dimensions independently in three models. Thomas and Lankau [14] reported from a study of employees in a health care setting that high LMX supervisors serve as resources that minimize emotional exhaustion through increased socialization and decreased role stress. Seltzer and Numerof [44] found that subordinates reported less burnout when their supervisors provided a higher amount of consideration behaviors and greater autonomy.

In the present study, a significant buffering effect of LMX on the relationship between workload and burnout was found for cynicism. When the unit managers perceived higher LMX, workload increased cynicism less than when they perceive lower LMX. Byrne and Hochwarter [45] found that perceived support enhances employees' performance by affecting the degree of burnout, especially the cynicism dimension. Bakker et al. [46] found that the impact of job demands such as workload, physical demands, and patient harassment on emotional exhaustion was particularly strong when home-care professionals had few resources like autonomy, possibilities for professional development, and performance feedback. In their study of employees at a higher education institute, Bakker et al. [13] also showed that job demands influenced burnout only when employees possessed few job resources (autonomy, social support, supervisory coaching, and feedback).

Supervisors are in positions to have the chance to recognize subordinates' burnout symptoms and take corrective action before early symptoms become obvious burnout. Supervisors and subordinates in these relationships may be more likely to communicate with one another about effective role management. The findings suggest that foodservice corporations can reduce middle managers' job burnout even when it is difficult to reduce or redesign job demands and organizational characteristics. Therefore, supervisors of dietitians and chefs should try to develop high quality LMX.

Many researchers suggest that organizations should focus on preventing rather than managing burnout [47]. In addition to supervisors' support, social support from co-workers, family, friends, and others is an effective stress management practice. Social support refers to a person's interpersonal transactions with others. Social support is effective in reducing stress by improving employees' perceptions that they are valued and worthy, providing information to help employees interpret, comprehend, and possibly remove the stressor, and offering emotional support directly helping to buffer the stress experience [1]. Buick and Thomas [6] reported that middle hotel managers who perceived less support from family experienced more burnout. Creative family-friendly and work/life initiatives could be helpful, considering significant numbers of mangers in foodservice corporations are female [1].

From a study with hotel employees, Kim et al. [48] stated that support from colleagues moderated the effects of emotional labor on cynicism. They explained that cynicism is a response related to people, and that cynicism could be mitigated by peers who the employees had significant contact with during working hours. Dietitians and chefs who are in charge of managing units in a contract management corporation often work without the support of a person with a similar background, since one dietitian and one chef are placed in each operation in many cases. Therefore, finding mentors or collaborative colleagues within a corporation and joining a professional group to share experiences may be helpful [49]. In organizational levels, support from the human resource department can be provided. Buick and Thomas [6] viewed that the increasing number of specialists and professionals in hotel HR departments is an optimistic movement towards a better work environment.

This study was limited to dietitians and chefs in one foodservice corporation whose operations are located nationwide. Future research should incorporate more corporations to reflect diverse organizational environments and investigate the effects of other job demands and resources such as role overload, organizational supports, and autonomy, with desires to mitigate harmful personal and organizational effects. As today's employees have various and new types of social networks like Twitter, the effects of these different social networks can also be evaluated. Today's technological advances may be used by dietitians and chefs to network within their corporation and outside their corporation.