Consumers’ willingness to pay in socially sustainable restaurants: an application of the decent work scale

Abstract

Purpose

Restaurant and foodservice workers who were formally “essential” throughout the global pandemic were disproportionately subjected to layoffs and furloughs, and are now slowly returning to the industry with expectations of equitable pay and benefits. Given the recent acceleration of the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals and its focus on decent work, the purpose of this study was to determine if restaurant consumers would be willing to pay for decent work that supported the social sustainability of restaurant workers.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 317 restaurant consumers during August 2023. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate the Decent Work Scale adapted for consumers. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the full behavioral model of decent work predicting willingness to pay, while bootstrapping was used to test the mediation.

Findings

The adapted Decent Work Scale for consumers strongly predicted their willingness to pay through a full mediation of Theory of Planned Behavior constructs (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control).

Originality/value

This study demonstrated that restaurant consumers were willing to pay for the decent work and social sustainability of restaurant workers. This study validated an adapted Decent Work Scale in the consumer context, whereas prior research utilizing the scale was of worker self-reports of decent work.

Citation

Mejia, C. (2024), "Consumers’ willingness to pay in socially sustainable restaurants: an application of the decent work scale", British Food Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-01-2024-0052