The social representation of catering: A study comparing French professionals who have or have not undergone retraining

The catering industry sector has been strongly affected by the health crisis, explaining an important turnover since the first lockdown. We have used the Theory of Social Representations (TSR) in order to illustrate the meaning given to the “catering” object, and to understand the position of professionals. Two groups of 30 professionals from the catering sector were compared with the particularity of having or not having undergone retraining. The protocol is based on face-to-face interviews and the use of a mixed methodology (qualitative and quantitative). Results show both with qualitative and quantitative methodology that it is not the same social representation. This illustrates the impact of practices on the meaning given to the object and the impact of the health crisis.

Keywords: Social representations; catering industry; retraining; COVID-19; free associations; characterization questionnaire.