Exploring service sabotage in the foodservice industry: scale development

This study develops a scale for service sabotage behaviour in the foodservice industry. First, a focus group was conducted with 32 on-the-job service employees. Content analysis of the data yielded 34 incidents of restaurant sabotage behaviour. Then, exploratory factor analysis with 186 full-time table-service restaurant employees and confirmatory factor analysis with 436 students who had internships in restaurants were used to purify the scale and establish its reliability and validity. The final scale is comprised of 18 items, and five factors were extracted to represent the conceptual definition of restaurant service. The paper discusses theoretical implications, practical applications, and directions for future research.