Responsible but unsupported: Latent profiles of hospitality employees in kitchen food waste management

Food waste in hospitality is usually discussed as a technical, operational, or cost-control problem, yet its prevention depends heavily on employees who work inside professional kitchens. Existing re-search often examines average associations between attitudes, organizational support, and waste-reduction practices, thereby obscuring whether different configurations of employees coexist within the same sector. This study adopts a person-centred approach to identify latent profiles of hospitality employees involved in kitchen food waste management. Survey data were collected from 323 employees working in kitchen departments of hospitality and tourism establishments in Vojvodina, Serbia. Latent profile models were estimated using standardized indicators of perceived barriers, responsible behaviour, moral-environmental beliefs, financial awareness, management and training support, peer sup-port, storage knowledge, waste-reduction effort, operational practices, and job satisfaction. A four-profile solution was retained as the most interpretable balance between statistical fit, class size, and substantive meaning. The largest group was labelled Responsible but unsupported (53.25%), indicating relatively responsible employees who perceived limited management and training support. Three additional profiles were identified: Low engagement and lower satisfaction (10.53%), highly engaged, supported, and satisfied (20.12%), and Barrier-exposed but management-supported (16.10%). Profiles differed strongly on operational practices, management/training support, job satisfaction, moral-environmental beliefs, and responsible behaviour. The findings show that kitchen employees are not a homogeneous implementation group and that food waste interventions should be segmented rather than generic. By integrating person-centred modelling with a theoretically grounded distinction between individual readiness and organizational enactment, the study offers segmentation logic for designing more targeted food-waste interventions in professional kitchens.