The journal’s purpose is to facilitate collaborative work that can make a difference, and over the years, applied research reported in Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes has led to advances in food safety. See, for example, WHATT volume 3 number 5: “Can evolving methods of food safety management provide global solutions for the food service sector?” and WHATT volume 7 number 1: “What action can government take to improve food safety in a diverse and multi-cultural hospitality industry environment?” This issue examines the extent to which the culture of safety and quality in organizations (with particular reference to food management) can be measured and changed and I should like to thank theme editors Kevin Kane and Joanne Taylor and their team of contributors from universities, specialist centres and hotel and catering companies. Together, they have developed and tested approaches that enable industry to review and improve these aspects of its operations.
WHATT aims to make a practical and theoretical contribution to hospitality and tourism development and we seek to do this by using a key question to focus attention on an industry issue. If you would like to contribute to our work by serving as a WHATT theme editor, do please contact me.
Richard Teare
Managing Editor, WHATT
Can the culture of safety and quality in organizations be measured and changed?
The importance of having a strong safety and quality culture is increasingly recognized in a wide range of industries, but challenges remain in terms of how to quantify and change it. This WHATT issue presents current literature, research studies, case studies and viewpoints which investigate the conceptualization and measurement of safety and quality culture in the food industry, with a focus on the hospitality industry.
In the first article, Louise Manning provides a review of current literature in the field of food safety culture, focusing particularly on the hospitality industry. The article highlights the value for industry in gaining a deeper understanding of their food safety culture and presents a range of models and approaches to quantifying and measuring it. Louise also focuses on recent literature in the second article, taking a broader look at the concept of the verification of food safety and quality standards and discussing the criteria for an effective evaluation of food safety and quality management.
The third article (Joanna Taylor and Katherine Rostron) provides an overview of the academic underpinning of the Culture Excellence model of safety and quality culture based on a 16-year research and development process. It demonstrates the four categories and 20 dimensions of safety and quality culture within the model and its associated assessment tool. Following on from this, the fourth article (Joanna Taylor and Luke Budworth) explains further the development of the online assessment tool and provides data on broad statistical trends amongst companies who have undertaken the assessment so far. The fifth and sixth articles present detailed case studies from two hospitality companies who have used the Culture Excellence assessment. The fifth article (Aurelia Caccamo et al.) draws on insights and experiences from a five-star hotel, and the sixth article (Nancy Nouaimeh et al.) offers the perspective of a large catering company. In both the cases, the data were used to develop targeted strategies for improvement that resulted in an improvement in their culture scores.
The seventh (Bertrand Edmond) and eighth (Rounaq Nayak) articles are viewpoints; Edmond offers an industry perspective from Campden BRI, incorporating a survey sent out to thousands of food businesses along with feedback from members of the Culture Excellence program. Nayak offers government inspector viewpoints from a research study that conducted semi-structured interviews with food inspectors from the UK. Finally, Kevin Kane brings together the theme issue literature, research, case studies and viewpoints to provide a detailed discussion of the importance, content and impact of organizational culture.
