The effect of openness to experience personality trait of kitchen staff on creativity potential: The mediating effect of food neophobia and the moderating effect of occupational self-efficacy

Employee creativity plays an important role in creating a sustainable competitive edge in the culinary sector, much like many others. Thus, it is also important to analyze the variables that impact employee creativity and the relationship between such variables. This study examines the creative potential of kitchen staff within the context of openness to experience personality traits, food neophobia, and occupational self-efficacy variables. In this relationship, it was thought that food neophobia might have a mediating role and occupational self-efficacy might have a moderating role. Therefore, the study tests the mediating role of food neophobia and moderator role of occupational self-efficacy on the relationship between openness to experience and creative potential. Data for the study was collected from a total of 393 respondents, who work amongst kitchen staff of five-star hotels in Turkey, with convenience sampling. The study concluded that the creative potential of the kitchen staff is affected positively by openness to experience personality traits and negatively by food neophobia. Findings also verify the mediating role of food neophobia and moderator role of occupational self-efficacy on the relationship between openness to experience personality traits and creative potential. According to the results obtained from the study, low openness to experience personality trait and high food neophobia cause negative effects on kitchen staff's creativity potential. However, it has been determined as a striking finding that the handicaps arising from these two variables can be dealt with by investing in occupational self-efficiency factor. This result reveals a practical solution to cope with the low openness to experience personality trait and high food neophobia variables, which negatively affect the creativity potential of kitchen staff. According to the findings of the study, implications for gastronomy are offered as well.