Exploring the internal factors affecting job satisfaction in the fast food industry in Malaysia

The food industry in Malaysia is a fast growing industry. It keeps transforming due to the high demands of food and beverage products. In this industry, having talent, skillful and knowledgeable employees in a company is important. This means that the satisfaction of these talented employees is a priority in this industry. The purpose of this study was to investigate the internal factors affecting the job satisfaction of employees at fast food outlets in Malaysia. Twelve fast food outlets were targeted at Klang Valley, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A quantitative study was conducted, and questionnaires were collected from 440 fast food employees. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire based on the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ). The collected data was analyzed by adopting mean scores, Pearson’s r correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis. The study showed that internal factors like pay & benefits, fairness and promotion, working conditions, coworkers and communication significantly influenced employee job satisfaction in the fast food industry. The research provided a better understanding regarding the factors affecting job satisfaction in the fast food industry. The results can help managers to identify strategies to increase employee job satisfaction by increasing their motivation for the job performed thus leading to higher productivity and increased customer satisfaction.


Introduction
*In Malaysia, Roziyana (2012) argued that job satisfaction is getting more attention but not much empirical research is done in this area. However, they stated that managers in Malaysia are increasingly aware of the issue of job satisfaction due to two reasons. They explained that one of the reasons is that the managers believe that they have the moral responsibility to provide a satisfying work environment for their employees. The other reason is that they believe that the workers who have a high job satisfaction will be able to positively contribute to the company. These show that the employees' job satisfaction is important because it can have a direct impact towards a company's performance. Job satisfaction is an attitude emanated from employees' perceptions of their jobs or work environments and refers to the extent to which a person likes his/her job (Spector, 1997). The level of job satisfaction reflects-and is affected by-one's work experiences as well as his/her present situation and future expectations. Job satisfaction is an attitude very sensitive to the features of the context in which it is studied. There is no model of job satisfaction applicable to all work settings as there are no general truths regarding the factors and the mechanisms accounting for such an elusive and subjective concept. Lists of fast food chain brands in Malaysia were shown in Table 1.
The Malaysian fast food industry has grown rapidly since the 1960's and there are now more than 1000 fast food outlets in Malaysia. The expansion of the fast food industry can be evidenced by the increased number of outlets. The rapid development of the Malaysian fast food industry may have also been influenced by a new and faster pace of life in major cities and the need to combine mealtimes with time engaged in other activities such as shopping, work or travelling (Ali, 2008). Today is the era of fast food chains. Fast food restaurants are universally and expected to be expanding and growing over the years. Due to relatively inexpensive costs and quick, convenient service, fast-food restaurants have become "home away from home" for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (Wright and Davis, 2003). Fast-food business is one of the most common business mainly in developed countries showed that delivers food process more quickly than any other system other restaurants and it takes time to prepare food and ready to eat and or submit to customers. America franchises have dominated the fast food industry in Malaysia (Malik et al., 2010). It includes Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Pizza Hut, Kenny Rogers Roasters, A&W, McDonald's, Burger King, Domino's Pizza and etc. These example fast food brands have gain popularity among Malaysian. However, local fast food gain small market share if compared to American franchises. The first local fast food brand is Marry Brown which established in 1981 whereas the most successful local fast food brand is "Ayamas".
In Malaysia, the fast food industry is regarded as one of the important industry and job satisfaction plays an important role in the lives of staff at any industry (Ali and Ahmed, 2009). Although the fast food industry plays a vital role in contributing to Malaysia's economy, human capital problems have consistently occurred in this industry but has often been neglected by researchers. As the industry has more than 100,000 employees, recruitment and retention of employees are among the most important challenges it faces. Therefore, an understanding of employees and the possible causes why they leave is important to better prevent labor turnover from happening. The causes of labor turnover have not, to date, been substantially documented for the Malaysian fast food industry. In addition, many turnover studies which deal with other industries may not be of relevance due to unique features specific to the Malaysian fast food industry. Customer service is an essential component in the service sector and maximizing customer satisfaction can and will lead to higher profit. This can be accomplished through committed employees (Lee and Way, 2010). Committed employees can provide good service to patrons and increasing satisfaction of customers leads to loyalty to the company. The customer is one of the most important keys to organizational performance in the fast food industry (Chiang et al., 2005). Employees working in the fast food industry face a different situation in terms of work hours, conditions, salary offered than regular restaurant staff hence different factors affecting employee job satisfaction in the fast food restaurants. Service rendered by staff is an important element in the fast food restaurant to achieve business success (Ting, 1997). Locke (1969) emphasized that satisfaction is "a person's feeling of pleasure resulting from comparing a product's perceived performance in relation to his or her expectations". The aim of this study is to determine the internal factors affecting job satisfaction in the fast food industry. The internal factors include operating conditions, pay and benefits, fairness and promotion and communication are the independent variables; job satisfaction and customer satisfaction is the dependent variable.
The purpose of the study was to determine the internal factors affecting employees' job satisfaction in the fast food industry in Malaysia. The study focused on pay and benefits, fairness and promotion, working conditions, coworkers and communication as the major elements that affects employee job satisfaction.

Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction defined as "An attitude that individuals have about their jobs". It results from their perception of their jobs and the degree to which there is a good fit between the individual and the organization. Job satisfaction is a personal attitude towards work and a positive emotional situation when employees reach their expectation on their work and careers (Ivancevich et al., 2004). The attitudinal nature of job satisfaction implies that an individual would tend to stay with a satisfying job and quit a dissatisfying job (Judge and Church, 2000). In research literature job satisfaction is closely associated with organizational commitment (Heskett et al., 1997). According to Dienhart et al. (1992), job satisfaction is made up of five (5) components:  Attitude towards colleagues  General working conditions  Financial benefits  Attitudes towards supervision Job satisfaction occurs when a job meets the expectations, values and standards of an individual and will influence their commitment and performance (Rogers et al., 1994). The greater the degree of the expectations being met the higher will the level of job satisfaction be. According to Igalens and Roussel (1999), staff will be satisfied if they are justifiably treated by the outcomes they receive or the processes that are implemented. However, they also warn that a satisfied worker may not necessarily be a productive worker. Job satisfaction can also be portrayed as a feeling of pleasure that stems from an employee's impression of his or her job. In addition, Tremblay et al. (1998) agreed that job satisfaction is an attitude and an internal state that can be associated with personal feelings of achievement, either quantitative or qualitative. At the same time, Dawal and Taha (2006) concurred that job satisfaction is an attitude towards ones' job and the cognitive, affective and evaluative reactions towards their job. For some people they may feel consistently satisfied with their jobs whilst others may be feeling quite dissatisfied. The definitions of job satisfaction can therefore be summed up as a collection of attitudes, feelings, beliefs and behavior one has towards his or her job. For the purpose of this study it can also be concluded that job satisfaction is a work-related attitude that symbolizes an emotional feeling of accomplishment that can be either quantitative or qualitative (Wadhwa et al., 2011). The subsequent sections of the paper focus on theoretical and conceptual issues, the methodology, and the results. The conclusion is presented in the final section.

Customer satisfaction
According to Bodla and Hameed (2008) has stated that the customer is the most important part of any business and they are the ones that have a great influence and impact on the business, including fast food business, and besides, customer satisfaction is our personal feelings about food and services in the fast food business, which has considered as one of the most important aspects. Customer satisfaction can be referring to in term of meeting customer expectation in terms of satisfaction (Kamal and Hanif, 2009). Customer satisfaction is customer ratings for goods and services in terms of whether it needs customers or it is not satisfied with the product performance and not according to the expectations of customers and sometimes customers is more satisfied if the performance of the product is beyond their expectations (Kreitner and Kinici, 2004). In addition, if one of the aspects of products and services does not meet customer satisfaction and they cannot be satisfied with the overall performance. It is thus hypothesized that: H2: Job satisfaction in the fast food industry has a positive impact on customer satisfaction

Pay and benefits
The importance of equitable reward is a factor to consider here. One could add fair promotion policies and practices to fair pay (Wech, 2002). Employees expect a certain level of monetary rewards for their organizational contribution, and pay constitutes a quantitative measure of an employee's worth. In order to compete for the most talented workers, companies need to provide attractive and equitable pay. It has been argued that pay is a motivator for many employees initially, but it is not a powerful motivator over the long term. The role of pay in attracting and retaining people at work has been recognized for many decades and is increasingly important in today's competitive, economic environment where strategic compensation planning is needed (Sumi, 2013). It is thus hypothesized that: H1A: Pay and benefits in the fast food industry has a positive impact on job satisfaction

Fairness and promotion
Competent employees are essential to the success of any organization. An important factor driving satisfaction in the service environment is service quality. One school of thought refers to service quality as a global assessment about a service category or a particular organization (Kinzl et al., 2004). Recently, it has been argued that satisfaction is generally viewed as a broader concept and service quality is a component of satisfaction (Dawley et al., 2008). This is because satisfaction derives from various sources, such as service encounter satisfaction and overall satisfaction. In other words, a little satisfaction from each service encounter leads to overall satisfaction with the service. Highly qualified employees are especially critical to service organizations where the product is a performance and employees are the cast-members (Adams et al., 1996). Therefore, the fast food restaurant operator must understand from how and to what extent it affects the fast food restaurant business.
In general terms rewards programs come within the overall concept of compensation strategies which are defined as the "deliberate utilization of the pay systems as an essential integrating mechanism through which the efforts of various sub-units or individuals are directed towards the achievement of an organization's strategic objectives" (Caplan, 1983). All businesses use pay, promotion, bonuses or other types of rewards to encourage high levels of performance (Mowday et al., 1982). Berkowitz et al. (1987) acknowledged that lack of promotion and mundane work task significantly contributed to employees' intention to leave an organization. By adopting "job enrichment" programs, many employers were able to retain employees and provide better career advancement opportunities. Besides promotion opportunities, changing the selection and evaluation criteria used to rate promotion and reward systems also had a positive effect on intentions of employees leaving the organization (Gazioglu and Tansel, 2006). Ineffective performance appraisal and planning systems contributed to employees' perceptions of unfairness and they were more likely to consider leaving the organization (Yakin and Erdil, 2012). Additionally, an emphasis on internal promotion is likely to provide a sense of fairness and justice among the employees who note that organizational tenure is valued in the company (Harter et al., 2002). Gazioglu and Tansel (2006) found a significant and positive correlation between promotion practices and perceived employee performance; however, HR outcomes were used as mediating variables. It is thus hypothesized that: H1B: Fairness and promotion in the fast food industry has a positive impact on job satisfaction

Working conditions
Working conditions that assures greater physical comfort and convenience is desired by employees than the absence of such conditions is deemed unsatisfactory to worker's mental and physical wellbeing (Geralis and Terziovski, 2003). Abuduaini (2009) advocated that working conditions will influence job satisfaction, as employees are concerned with a comfortable physical work environment. In turn this will render a more positive level of job satisfaction. According to Huning and Thomson (2010), factors such as temperature, lighting, ventilation, hygiene, noise, working hours, and resources are all part of working conditions. Employees dealing with hard labor mentally and physically will rebut poor working conditions as it will only add insult to their negative working condition hence poor performance. In such a case the employee does not really appreciate his good working conditions, or if it is the contrary, this may not bother or affect him. Moreover, the employee may use poor working conditions as an excuse to get back at management because they may feel that management does not appreciate or acknowledge their efforts or work done, Sidek and Muhamad (1999) have identified why, it is necessary to examine how these work condition factors influence an individual's behavior. This can be an essential aspect for the employees, as the variations in job satisfaction levels can impact negatively or positively on their jobs. In the ever-changing marketplace, fast food restaurants may need to update their concepts if they want to continue competing successfully. It is thus hypothesized that: H1C: Working conditions in the fast food industry has a positive impact on job satisfaction

Coworkers
The nature of the coworkers or team will have an effect on job satisfaction. Friendly, cooperative coworker or team members are a modest source of job satisfaction to individual employees. The work group, especially a tight team serves as a source of support, comfort, advice and assistance to the individual workers. A good work group makes the job more enjoyable. However, this factor is not essential to job satisfaction. On the other hand, if the reverse conditions exist, the people are difficult to get along with, this factor might have a negative effect on job satisfaction. It would appear that good intragroup working and supportive colleagues have value in not permitting job satisfaction to surface, rather than in promoting job satisfaction. Therefore, according to social network theory support from peers at work serves as a means of job satisfaction (Cable and Judge, 1994). Several authors stated that the understanding and good relationship between co-workers enhance job satisfaction (Kim and Jogaratnam, 2010). People get more out of work than merely money or tangible achievements. For most employees, work also fills the need for social interaction. Not surprisingly, therefore, having friendly and supportive co-workers leads to increased job satisfaction. It is thus hypothesized that: H1D: Coworkers in the fast food industry has a positive impact on job satisfaction

Communication
Communication satisfaction has been defined as the support provided when a communication event fulfills positive expectations (Gallardo et al., 2010). By meeting the needs and expectations of employees in a positive way, customers and guests of the organization are more likely to have their needs and expectations met. Communication satisfaction has also been defined as the level of satisfaction an employee has between the overall communication flow and relationship variables within their organization (Saeed et al., 2013). Traditionally, communication satisfaction was considered to be one-dimensional, with employees expressing general satisfaction or dissatisfaction with organizational communication. However, this view did not consider the multiple forms of communication used within organizations (Parvin and Kabir, 2011). Aslam et al. (2011) viewed communication satisfaction as a multidimensional construct in the organization. These aspects may include the types of information shared, communication climate, and relationships among colleagues. Specifically, supervisor communication, work environment, and personal feedback were found to be major contributors to the communication satisfaction / job satisfaction relationship among nurses (Santa Cruz et al., 2014). In the same study, Santa Cruz et al. (2014) also explored the relationship between communication satisfaction and job performance. Results showed that employees' perceptions of communication satisfaction were related to job performance. However, the study revealed the link between communication satisfaction and job performance was weaker than the link between communication satisfaction and job satisfaction. Similar to job satisfaction, supervisor communication, communication climate, and personal feedback influenced the communication satisfaction/job performance relationship. It is thus hypothesized that: H1E: Communication in the fast food industry has a positive impact on job satisfaction

Research framework
The research framework in this study is built upon the literature review. It is therefore theorized that each variable in human resource management has an influence on job satisfaction. Given the fact that certain individual factors may affect employee job satisfaction in the fast food industry, personal variables such as age and gender are taken into consideration. Fig. 1 depicts the research framework of this study.

Research design and population and sampling
This study used a quantitative approach to measure the relationship between pay and benefits, fairness and promotion, working conditions, coworkers, communication, job satisfaction and customer satisfaction. In this study, the targeted population was employees from the fast food outlets like McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Burger King, Marrybrown etc. This is justified on the ground that these frontline employees are in the best position to evaluate customer satisfaction and their observations characteristically converge with customer perceptions (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2001). Comparative reviews of approaches to customer satisfaction have also found support to the use of self-report measures. All these responses to the scale items were sought on 5-point scales ranging from 5 (strongly agree) to 1 (strongly disagree) A total of 625 structured questionnaires were distributed to employees from twelve fast food outlets around Klang Valley, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A total of 455 questionnaires were received and out of this, 15 sets of the questionnaires were considered unusable because over 25 percent of the question in Part 1-Section A of the questionnaire were not answered (Sekaran and Bougie, 2010). It was assumed that the respondents were either unwilling to cooperate or not serious with the survey. Therefore, only 440 usable sets of received questionnaires were used for the data analysis. Thereby, the response rate was 70.4 percent.

Research instruments
As stated by Spector (1997), there are various methods for measuring job satisfaction. The job descriptive index (JDI), created by Spector (1997), is a specific questionnaire of job satisfaction that has been widely used. It measures one's satisfaction in five dimensions such as pay, promotion, promotion opportunities, and relationship with coworkers, supervision and the work itself. The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ measures job satisfaction in 20 facets and has a long form with 100 questions (5 items from each facet) and a short form with 20 questions (1 item in each facet). The MSQ and JDI are the measuring instruments that will be employed to determine job satisfaction in this study. The reason for using these instruments is that it extracts a detailed picture of the workers' specific satisfaction and dissatisfactions. Section A collects the respondents' personal factors (demographic) like gender, age, marital status, education level, department worked, position held, work experience, salary earned etc. Section B collects information related to employee job satisfaction and section C is related to factors affecting employee job satisfaction in the fast food industry. The entire instrument which was selected was tested for reliability and validity.

Data analysis technique
Answers to the questionnaire were coded using the SPSS version 22.0. The results were then summarized using appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics. A reliability test was done by observing the Cronbach's alpha value with the cutoff point of 0.70. Descriptive statistics such as means, standard deviation and variance and percentage values for interval-scaled independent and dependent variables were obtained. Frequency distributions were obtained for all the personal data or classification variables. The frequencies were computed to analyze the respondents profile in terms of age and gender. To test the strength of the relationship among the independent variables and dependent variable, Pearson Correlation Coefficient analysis and Multiple Regression analysis was used. Table 2 shows that out of the 440 sets of questionnaires collected, 58 percent (255) were males and 42 percent (185) were females respondents. Table 2 presents the distribution of respondents according to age. From the output shown below, we know that there are 172 respondents aged between 21-29 years old representing the majority of the workforce, followed by 30-39 years old representing 119 respondents. 16 percent of the respondents were between the age group 40-49 while a mere 7 percent respondents were above 50 years old. The findings implied that males were the core employees in the fast food outlets. In terms of department, approximately 53 percent of the respondents worked in the service side of the fast food outlets while 26 percent worked in the kitchen while managers represented by a modest 14 percent.

Reliability analysis
Reliability is the degree to which measure are free from error and therefore yield consistent results. The reliability of a measure indicates the stability and consistency with which the instrument measures the concept and helps to assess the "goodness" of a measure. According to Sekaran and Bougie (2010), the closer the reliability coefficient gets to 1.0, the better it is, and those values over .80 are considered as good. Those values in the 0.70 is considered as acceptable and those reliability value less than 0.60 is considered to be poor (Sekaran and Bougie, 2010).
All the constructs were tested for the consistency reliability of the items within the constructs by using Cronbach's alpha reliability analysis. Cronbach's Alpha values in respect of each variable are given in Table 3. Respondents were also assured about the confidentiality as information shared in this regard would be used for academic and research purposes only. In conclusion, the results showed that the scores of the Cronbach's alpha for all the constructs exceeded the threshold of 0.70 indicating that the measurement scales of the constructs were stable and consistent.

Validity test
Validity test is the degree of precision between the data which happens in reality and the data collected by the researcher. Validity of instrument has to consider two factors, i.e., factor of precision and factor of accuracy. Validity is one of the degrees of precision or reliability of instrument measurement on the content of questions. Applied test technique is correlation technique through product moment correlation coefficient. Ordinal score of every question item to test the validity is correlated to ordinal score of all items; if correlation coefficient is positive, the item is considered as valid, conversely if it indicates negative correlation, the item is invalid and it will be taken out from the questionnaires or be changed by statement of repair. The following is how to find value of correlation: Where r is correlation coefficient; N is number of pairs; XY is product of XY (multiply) and ∑XY is multiply each X times each Y, then sum the products.
Minimum requirement to consider that an instrument is valid is by value of validity index ≥ 0.3 and if product moment correlation coefficient is higher than r table (Table 3). Therefore, all statements having correlation degree of under 0.3 have to be corrected due to its invalid value.

Descriptive analysis
Descriptive statistic of means and standard deviation were obtained from the independent and dependent variables. The summary of the descriptive statistics is shown in Table 4. All variables were measured using a 5-point Likert scale (1 being strongly disagree to 5 being strongly agree). The mean values for pay and benefits, fairness and promotion, working conditions, coworkers, communication, job satisfaction and customer satisfaction were above 3.0. As far as the mean values are concerned employees are satisfied on pay and benefits, fairness and promotion, working conditions, coworkers and communication received.

Pearson correlation coefficient
Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) is a measure of the strength of the association between the two variables. According to Sekaran and Bougie (2010), in research studies that included several variables, beyond knowing the means and standard deviations of the dependent and independent variables, the researcher would often like to know how one variable is related to another. While correlation could range between -1.0 and +1.0, the researcher need to know if any correlation found between two variables is significant or not (i.e.; if it has occurred solely by chance or if there is a high probability of its actual existence). As for the information, a significance of p=0.05 is the generally accepted conventional level in social sciences research. This indicates that 95 times out of 100, the researcher can be sure that there is a true or significant correlation between the two variables, and there is only a 5 percent chance that the relationship does not truly exist. The correlation matrix between dependent variable and independent variables are exhibited in Table 5. As shown in Table 5, all five dimensions have significant correlation with job satisfaction. The highest coefficient of correlation in this study was between communication and job satisfaction. There was a significant positive relationship between communication and job satisfaction (r=0.675, p<0.05, n=440). The positively moderate correlation was working conditions and job satisfaction (r=0.602, p<0.05, n=440) and the weakest correlation was for fairness and promotion and job satisfaction (r=0.587, p<0.05, n=440). In other words, the results indicate that all five variables have significant correlation with job satisfaction. The results also indicate that job satisfaction has a positive significant relationship with customer satisfaction (r=0.666, p<0.05, n=440)

Regression analysis
The hypotheses (H1A-H1E) about the influence of internal factors on job satisfaction is tested using multiple regression analysis. The more detailed picture of the relationship between pay and benefits, fairness and promotion, working conditions, coworkers, communication and job satisfaction at construct level and factor levels were revealed by the findings of regression analysis. Table 6 summarizes the regression results of the regression analysis at the construct level. The data indicate that internal factors accounts for 63 percent of the variance in job satisfaction (adjusted R 2 0.630). The results confirm the alternative hypothesis of organizational factors as having a positive influence on job satisfaction and is accepted. Thus, the hypotheses (H1A-H1E) is supported. All the five independent variables pay and benefits, fairness and promotion, working conditions, coworkers, communication has positive and significant influence on job satisfaction. As for the hypothesis H2 on the influence of job satisfaction on customer satisfaction, the finding reveals that there's a positive influence on customer satisfaction and is supported.

Conclusion
This study focused on the internal factors that affected job satisfaction in the fast food industry; the central objective of this study was to establish the influence of the chosen variables, pay and benefits, fairness and promotion, working conditions, coworkers, communication and job satisfaction in the fast food industry. A literature review was made to form the theoretical premises for the study. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between pay and benefits, fairness and promotion, working conditions, coworkers, communication and job satisfaction. This finding is consistent with the previous research, which has concluded that pay and benefits has a positive influence on job satisfaction (Rowden, 2002). The findings are also consistent with past studies on the impact of communication on job satisfaction. Hospitality firms use verbal and written communications to connect with employees, which leads to job satisfaction (Arokiasamy and Abdullah, 2013;Arokiasamy, 2013). Arokiasamy and Abdullah (2013) showed that when an internal communication is managed in parallel with external marketing communication, it prepares service employees to provide services effectively leading to job satisfaction. Arokiasamy (2013) found that fairness and promotion showed some significant influence on job satisfaction. One explanation for this phenomenon is that fairness and promotion means of appraising employee's performance is perceived less important by the respondents as compared to other components. Since performance appraisal system is part and parcel of their routine human resource practices; it was perceived as the system must have been complying with all procedural standards. Further research is needed to examine this problem. Aminuddin and Mahazril (2011) found that job satisfaction is increased by conducive working conditions. Whereas the results of this study contradicted with the study results of Arnett et al. (2002) and Chi and Gursoy (2009) that working conditions is negatively associated with employees' job satisfaction whereas extrinsic rewards are the best motivator to cause job satisfaction. From the research, we found that, in the service industry, coworkers' relationship has positive affect on job satisfaction. This study demonstrated and in addition confirmed that coworker support does have an effect on job satisfaction. The study findings are coherent with past researches. For example, Hair et al. (2010) and Rowden (2002) reported that there is positive effect of coworker support on job satisfaction in the Turkish Hotel Industry. The study also found that job satisfaction is a key driver to customer satisfaction. The second hypothesis is supported. Findings of this study support a number of studies, which have reported a positive relationship between the constructs of job satisfaction of front-line employees and customer satisfaction (Parvin and Kabir, 2011).

Limitation of the study
The sample size of this study is limited and lack of geographical coverage to seek for wider range of data, this is because the data is obtained and focused on specific location which is Klang Valley, Kuala Lumpur. There are only 440 respondents from twelve fast food restaurants in the food industry, thus the scope of the respondent for the questionnaires is medium in size. Hence, this sample size might not accurately represent all the employees in food industry in Malaysia. The data obtained from this research is only applicable for fast food restaurants and cafeterias, and did not include hotels, motels, and inns. Thus, the recommendations and suggestions may not be applicable to other country's fast food outlets.

Recommendations
For future research the following suggestions should be considered: 1) It is suggested that for future research a proportionate stratified random sample be used to compare other service sector; public and private sector using a larger sample. 2) The research is needed to further investigate the potential relationships and effects these variables and other extraneous variables, such as role ambiguity, job level, contingent rewards and cowork have on job satisfaction. 3) Create favorable work conditions for the company. Guide the staff to communicate effectively, build a good interpersonal environment within the company, and create good work conditions. 4) To improve the pay treatment of fast food restaurant employees. Fast food restaurants should improve the overall wage level of employees; on the other hand, two shifts or three shifts is a way to reduce the workload of staff. 5) To improve fairness in fast food restaurants: create a scientific performance appraisal system in the organization. Utilize the other developed countries' scientific performance systems, and use these systems to evaluate employee work performance and evaluate employee service quality. 6) Concern about the employee's education and training. Fast food outlets employees generally have low levels of education; organizations have to provide the employees with effective education and train them in science and cultural knowledge, and let the employees acquire practical knowledge.