Role stress and alcohol use on restaurant server's job satisfaction: Which comes first?

The relationship between work stressors and alcohol consumption has been extensively researched, and two premises have emerged: (1) work stressors precede employee alcohol use and (2) alcohol use precedes work stressors. Despite the continuous call for a paper to address hospitality employees' alcohol use, no study in hospitality has compared these two premises. Using role stress, a specific type of work stressor commonly found among frontline employees, this study was designed to confirm which of the two premises best encompasses the role stress-alcohol use relationship among front-of-house restaurant servers in the United States. Using structural equation modeling, it was found that role ambiguity had a significant positive impact on alcohol use and a negative impact on job satisfaction. Alcohol use significantly increased job satisfaction, and had a positive indirect effect on the relationship between role ambiguity and job satisfaction. Job satisfaction had a significant negative impact on turnover intentions.