Restaurant waiting staff's intention to dissuade customers from over-ordering: an extended theory of planned behaviour

Purpose: This study aims to validate the impact of waiting staff’s attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control on customer dissuasion from over-ordering and identify their antecedents using an extended theory of planned behaviour. Design/methodology/approach: We selected three categories of restaurants (30 in total, including fine dining, casual dining, and fast food) in Macao and Zhuhai (China) for conducting the survey using a purposive sampling approach. The respondents were waiting staff who took customers’ orders in the past three months. In total, 393 valid responses were used for a structural-equation-modelling analysis. Findings: The results show that restaurant waiting staff’s attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control have positive effects on their intention to dissuade customers from over-ordering. Our study further reveals that perceived behavioural control is far more influential than attitudes and subjective norms on restaurant employees’ intentions to intervene with over-ordering. We also validate seven antecedents, including environmental concern and communication for attitudes, peer influence, supervisor influence, and organisational support for subjective norms, and self-efficacy and training for perceived behavioural control. Originality/value: The food-waste literature tends to focus on consumers in home and restaurant settings and has paid scarce attention to the role of restaurant waiting staff in intervening in consumers’ waste behaviours. We fill in this research gap by revealing a formation mechanism for waiting staff’s intention to dissuade over-ordering.