Job Motivation Mediating the Effects of Standardization on Restaurant Frontline Employees’ Job Outcomes: Evidence from Lebanon

ABSTRACT This study applied the principles of the role theory and the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to examine the impacts of job standardization on job motivation, as well as the influence of job motivation on emotional labor, turnover intention, and job satisfaction of guest-contact employees in a hospitality context. This research also analyzed the mediating function of job motivation on the relationship between job standardization and stated job outcomes. The data was gathered in casual foodservice operations in Lebanon. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) outcomes revealed a direct favorable impact of job standardization on job motivation, and a negative association between job motivation and job outcomes of emotional labor and turnover intention, but a positive link to job satisfaction. Job motivation was also found to mediate the relationship between job standardization and emotional labor, turnover intention, and job satisfaction. The analysis offers operational and theoretical suggestions, as well as directions for future inquiries.