Date of Conferral

6-2-2025

Date of Award

June 2025

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Management

Advisor

Howard Schechter

Abstract

School nutrition managers face the challenge of balancing values-based purchasing (VBP) with maintaining student participation and budgetary stability. While VBP integrates sustainability, environmental impact, and animal safety, these priorities may sometimes compete with traditional goals, such as cost efficiency and meal accessibility. Grounded in program evaluation theory, the purpose of this mixed methods explanatory sequential study was to examine how school food service managers implement VPB, integrating procurement and nutrition transparency while managing participation and costs. The quantitative phase focused on participation trends, cost structures, and procurement metrics across diverse school districts to establish a foundation for understanding VBP’s measurable impacts on 113 participants who completed the survey. Animal welfare resulted in a slight decrease in student participation rates. Comparing the two groups was not statistically significant, F(1,74) = 2.56, p < 0.11. The qualitative phase complemented these findings by capturing manager narratives, offering more profound insights into implementation challenges, decision-making frameworks, and stakeholder experiences. Data were collected using semistructured interviews with six school food service managers from U.S. K-12 public school districts. Four themes emerged from the thematic analysis: (a) planning, (b) internal and external perceptions, (c) director values, and (d) understanding procurement. The implications for positive social change include the potential for school food service managers to apply these VBP-identified strategies, along with policy recommendations, procurement strategies, and scalable models for integrating sustainability and equity into school nutrition programs.

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