Studying the perception of leadership styles and food handlers’ hygienic practices in food businesses: The role of commitment and job satisfaction as mediators

The softer dimensions of risk management, like the organization's culture and other factors that can influence hygienic practices, have been investigated and reported in the recent food safety literature. This study analyzed the perception of transactional and transformational leadership styles in association with job satisfaction, commitment, and hygienic practices of food handlers working in food businesses in Dubai - United Arab Emirates, UAE. The data were collected in 54 food businesses, and 819 food handlers were involved. The questionnaire encompassed constructs including transactional and transformational leadership, commitment, job satisfaction, and hygienic practices. The questions were assessed by a 5-point Likert Scale, and the answers were converted to mean scores and score percentages. In addition, the statistical analysis included factors analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM). The score percentages of food handlers' perception of transactional leadership, transformational leadership, commitment, job satisfaction, and hygiene practices were 80.67%, 80.12%, 72.79%, 70.00%, and 67.40%, respectively. Transactional and transformational leadership were positively associated with food handlers' job satisfaction (p < 0.05), commitment (p < 0.001), and hygienic practices (p < 0.05). Both food handlers' job satisfaction (p < 0.001) and commitment (p < 0.01) have a significant relationship with hygienic practices and act as partial mediators in both relationships between transactional leadership and hygienic practices and transformational leadership and hygienic practices. Therefore, food businesses should invest in transactional and transformational leadership to improve food handlers' job satisfaction and commitment as a strategy for improving food handlers' hygienic practices and evolving food safety culture. A leader may demonstrate varying degrees of both transformational and transactional leadership. The styles are not reciprocally exclusive, and some combination of both is likely to have a positive impact on improving employee compliance with required hygienic practices.