Why is hospitality employees’ psychological capital important? The effects of psychological capital on work engagement and employee morale

This study examines work engagement as a partial mediator of the effect of psychological capital (PsyCap) on employee morale in a sample of hotel employees. A survey was carried out with 312 front-line staff from 15 five-star hotels in Seoul, Korea. A one-month time-lag design (Time 1: PsyCap and work engagement; Time 2: employee morale) was used to reduce potential common method bias. The hypothesized relationships in the model were tested using structural equation modeling. The results suggest that work engagement partially mediates the effect of PsyCap on job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. Specifically, front-line employees with high PsyCap are more engaged with their work and more likely to display job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. The study concludes with a discussion of its empirical findings, strengths, theoretical contributions, and practical implications. Limitations and their implications for future studies are also reviewed.     

Job insecurity,subjective well-being and job performance: The moderating role of psychological capital

The article illuminates one of the central concerns in organizational study; the extent to which job insecurity (JI) affects employees’ subjective well-being (SWB) and consequently their job performance (JP) in hospitality industry. Building on the transactional theory stress and coping, the study analyses the buffering role of psychological capital (PsyCap) as a strategy by which employees overcome the negative impact of JI on SWB and JP. Respondents include 250 four and five star hotel employees in Tehran, Iran. The results highlighted the mediating role of SWB, affirming that JI negatively impacts employees’ JP via decreasing their SWB. Furthermore, the results show that employees with high level of PsyCap are able to cope with JI. Hotel management teams should make appropriate decisions to minimize or eliminate stressful stimuli, particularly JI in the workplace, which has been found to have severe mental, emotional and behavioural consequences.     

人力资本、社会资本及心理资本对酒店员工的协同作用

酒店是劳动密集型的工作场所,员工不仅需要一定的人力资本,而且更需要社会资本与心理资本,研究这3种资本对酒店员工绩效与组织承诺的协同作用具有理论与现实意义。文章通过实地调研,运用逐步回归方法实证探讨这一问题,研究结果表明：酒店员工的人力资本、社会资本和心理资本都与员工绩效、组织承诺显著相关,且心理资本与社会资本、人力资本能对员工绩效、组织承诺产生协同作用。因此,酒店应该重视员工的社会资本与心理资本,并协同开发这3种资本,以便提高员工绩效,减少流失率。     

Call Center Employees’ Intent to Quit: Examination of Job Engagement and Role Clarity

Call centers have become a valuable resource for hotels in managing customer experiences and relationships, yet they have also developed a reputation for being a stressful job which has made it a significant challenge to retain employees. Given high turnover rates among call center employees, it is important for hospitality firms to understand the factors influencing their intentions to quit. This study focuses on job engagement and role clarity to examine hotel call center employees’ intent to quit. The survey results of call center employees at a large resort hotel suggest that job engagement significantly influences the hotel call center employees’ intent to quit after accounting for job satisfaction and organizational support. Role clarity, however, is not related to intent to quit. Managerial implications and recommendations for increasing employee job engagement are discussed.     

The relationship between purpose of performance appraisal and psychological contract: Generational differences as a moderator

This study aims to explore the relationship between performance appraisal and psychological contract (PC) from the perspective of U.S. hotel employees, as perceived by different generational cohorts. The current study also examines the moderating role of generational difference on the relationship between perceived performance appraisal purpose (PAP) and hotel employees’ PC. A sample of 230 full time frontline U.S.-based hotel employees was employed to investigate these relationships. Hierarchical multiple regressions were used for data analysis and the results indicated that both administrative and developmental PAP were positively associated with PC. The positive relationship between administrative PAP and PC was significantly strengthened for Generation Y employees than for Baby Boomers and Generation Xers. There was no significant moderation effect of generational difference on the positive relationship between developmental PAP and hotel employees’ PC. The research recommended HR management practices related to designing performance appraisal systems for diverse workplace in U.S.-based hotels.     

The effect of psychological capital on conflicts in the work–family interface,turnover and absence intentions

Using Conservation of Resources (COR) and congruence theories as the theoretical underpinnings, the present study develops and tests a research model that investigates the impact of psychological capital (PsyCap) on work–family conflict, family–work conflict, and turnover and absence intentions. The model also examines the effects of two directions of conflict on these employee outcomes. Self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience are the components representing PsyCap. Based on data obtained from frontline hotel employees with a time lag of two weeks in three waves in Romania, the results suggest that PsyCap mitigates work–family conflict, family–work conflict, and turnover and absence intentions. The results further suggest that PsyCap influences the aforesaid employee outcomes indirectly through family–work conflict. However, work–family conflict has no bearing on these outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in the study.     

How can leaders enhance employees' psychological capital? Mediation effect of person-group and person-supervisor fit

Conferring to the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory and social exchange theory as the guiding basis, this inquiry attempts to investigate the mechanism of how servant leaders are able to enhance and elevate the level of psychological capital (PsyCap) among frontline employees in the hospitality setting. Data was gathered from 193 frontline employees in two different waves through a two-week time lag from five-star hotels in North Cyprus. The results proved that servant leader is able to enhance person-group fit (P-G fit) and person-supervisor fit (P-S fit), which in turn affect employees' PsyCap. The results further suggested that both P-G fit and P-S fit both functions as a mediator in the relationship between servant leadership and PsyCap. The abovementioned relationships were assessed using structural equation modeling. Implications for managers as well as directions for future research are also discussed in this study.     

How Does the Work Status Affect Employees’ Job Attitude and Behavior in the Hotel Industry?

The study focuses on how work status impacts employees’ perception of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance in the hotel industry. Also, it explores whether supervisors perceive employees’ job attitudes and behavior in the same way as they perceive. Data were collected from a self-administered survey for five-star hotel employees and supervisors in Seoul, South Korea. A total of 335 valid responses were collected from 280 employees and 65 supervisors and analyzed by using structural equation modeling. The results of the study indicated that nonstandard employees expressed higher job satisfaction and higher organizational commitment but perceived lower job performance than standard employees did. Work status had no significant moderating effect on the relationships between job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance; however, the results of this study indicated that supervisors’ perceptions of nonstandard employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance were quite different from those of the nonstandard employees themselves. This study suggests that hotel operators should develop strategies to fully utilize nonstandard employees who reveal potential for quality service to guests.     

How virtual reality moderates daily negative mood spillover among hotel frontline employees: A within-person field experiment

This study explores how virtual reality (VR) interventions mitigate daily negative mood spillover among hotel frontline employees through a daily dairy study. A within-subject field experiment was conducted to collect data from 87 hotel employees over ten consecutive workdays (846 daily responses). The multilevel analysis supports daily negative mood spillover by revealing positive relationships between negative moods before work and midday negative moods, and between midday negative moods and turnover intentions. Exposure to virtual natural scenes alleviates these daily positive relationships. Employees with high (vs. low) levels of trait mindfulness are less likely to be influenced by their negative moods before work when exposed to the VR intervention. This study advances our knowledge by integrating spillover theory, stress recovery theory, and mindfulness through a multilevel framework of employees’ daily emotional fluctuations moderated by VR interventions. The study findings provide hotel professionals with meaningful information regarding workplace stress management.     

Tourist motivation and place attachment: the mediating effects of service interactions with hotel employees

Using social facilitation theory, this study evaluates the mediating effects of service interactions with hotel employees on the relationship between tourist motivation and place attachment. The moderating effects of nationality and hotel star-rating on these relationships are also examined. The overall model tested on a sample of 545 international visitors to the island of Mauritius showed that service interactions mediated the relationship between tourist motivation and place attachment. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) multi-group analysis found that the relationships among the constructs differed according to tourists’ nationality and the hotels’ star rating. The findings have important implications for hotel managers and destination marketing and management.     

Feeling trusted and taking-charge behaviour: An internal branding perspective based on self-categorization theory

Although the mechanism of internal branding is related to both organizational factors and employees’ personal factors, the existing research mainly focuses on organizational factors. Thus, the literature on the formation and function of internal branding from the employee perspective is scarce. In this multisource study, we applied self-categorization theory to test the relationships among employees’ feeling trusted, perceived insider status, self-efficacy and taking-charge behaviour within the framework of internal branding. Data from 169 employee-supervisor dyads from the hotel industry in Northwest China revealed that employees’ perception of feeling trusted is an important factor that causes them to internalize their hotel employer’s brand and categorize themselves as “insiders” who regard the hotel brand as part of themselves and present brand-aligned behaviour to achieve brand success. In addition, employee self-efficacy is an important boundary-level variable that facilitates the transformation of brand internalization to brand-aligned behaviour. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Effect of hotel employees’ workplace friendship on workplace deviance behaviour: Moderating role of organisational identification

This study aims to explore the effect of friendships at workplaces (including friendship opportunities and friendship prevalence) on the workplace deviance behaviour (including production deviance, political deviance, property deviance, and personal aggression). This study included an examination of organisational identification for moderating relationships. The surveyees were employees and supervisors in five-star hotels in Taiwan who were willing to cooperate with the survey; each supervisor managed ten employees. A purposive sampling method, a non-probability sampling method, was employed. A total of 600 employee questionnaires were distributed, and the number of valid questionnaires was 357. The results reveal the following: (1) the friendship opportunities and friendship prevalence of hotel employees negatively influenced production deviance and (2) friendship prevalence of hotel employees negatively influenced political deviance, property deviance, and personal aggression. Moreover, organisational identification moderates the relationship between hotel employees’ workplace friendship and deviance behaviour. Management implications and follow-up suggestions are proposed based on the study results.     

Knowledge sharing in the hospitality context: The roles of leader humility,job crafting,and promotion focus

Grounded in a view of self-transcendence, leader humility is expected to influence employees to acquire and share knowledge for self-development. This study investigates how and when leader humility activates hospitality employees’ knowledge collection and knowledge donation. The dataset was built from 674 employees and 87 direct managers working in the Vietnam-based hotel organizations. Analyzed through multilevel structural equation approach, the data provided support for the positive relationships between leader humility and knowledge collection and donation behaviors among hospitality employees. The three dimensions of job crafting functioned as mediators for these relationships. Employees’ promotion focus played a moderating role for the relationships between leader humility and seeking resources and challenges, but did not interact with leader humility to impact job demands. The discussion on the implications for hospitality scholars and practitioners from the research findings is presented.     

The ugly side of job rotation

This study would examine the effect of job rotation on two common forms of hindrance stressors witnessed among tourism and hospitality employees namely role ambiguity and role conflict of employees on employees in hotel. Besides, this study will examine the impact of the mentioned hindrance stressors on several negative outcomes such as job-related anxiety, anger and sabotage behavior. Moreover, this inquiry further examined the mediation effect of hindrances stressor the relationship between job rotation and anger, job-related anxiety and sabotage behaviors. By applying judgmental sampling technique, data were collected from 193 frontline employees working in 17 five and four-star hotels in Tehran. The relationship between study constructs were tested through structural equation modeling. The findings of the study revealed that hindrance stressors mediate the relationship between job rotation, anger, anxiety and service sabotage.     

Environment management in the hotel industry: does institutional environment matter?

Limited theoretical attention has been paid to understand the underlying drivers of hotels’ engagement in environment management (EM). By using institutional theory, this study provides an integrated model that captures various social drivers of hotels’ engagement in EM. The associations between the three dimensions of institutional environment and hotel environmental practices were empirically tested, as well as the moderating role of hotel characteristics. A total of 414 usable surveys representing 414 hotels were collected from hotel managers in China. The results demonstrate positive associations of hotel EM practices with supportive state regulations, shared industry standards, competitors’ EM practices and expectations from various stakeholders such as employees, local community, and investors. Particularity, the strength of positive relationships between specific institutional pressures vary across hotel sizes and scales. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed     

Why hotel employees care about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Using need satisfaction theory

The aim of this paper is to investigate hotel employees’ the perception of CSR practices of their firms, within the foundations of need satisfaction theory. The proposed model examines the relationships among types of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Quality of Work Life (QWL), job satisfaction, and the levels of job position. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test the relationships in the model. The results demonstrate that hotel employees’ perceived CSR had a positive effect on their basic and growth needs of QWL and QWL led to job satisfaction. The effects of CSR on QWL were stronger among managerial level employees compared to lower level ones. The findings provide better insights to the underlying mechanism through which type of CSR perceptions of employees influences job satisfaction in hospitality companies where these internal stakeholders become a key to attain competitive advantages.     

Drivers of hotel employee’s voice behavior: A moderated mediation model

This study developed and tested a moderated mediation model for examining the relationships among person-organization fit (P-O fit), employee voice, employees’ perceived nature of the work and employees’ perceived functional quality of their services. Using 265 frontline employees from several 3 star hotels in Taiwan, the analytical results show that P-O fit is positively related to employee voice, and that employees’ perceived nature of the work mediates the positive relationship between these two variables. The analytical results also show that employees’ perceived functional quality of their services moderates the direct effect of P-O fit on employees’ perceived nature of the work, as well as the indirect effect of P-O fit on employee voice via employees’ perceived nature of the work. Theoretical and practical implications for the hospitality literature and hotel practitioners are discussed herein.     

Abusive supervision and deviance behaviors in the hospitality industry: The role of intrinsic motivation and core self-evaluation

Workplace deviance poses a significant challenge in the hospitality and tourism industries. Based on conservation of resources theory, we develop a model proposing relationships between abusive supervision and frontline employees' deviant behaviors via their intrinsic motivation and core self-evaluation. We validate it with two surveys targeting 200 and 600 hotel frontline employees. Results confirm the detrimental impacts of abusive supervision on frontline employees’ deviant behaviors and the helpful mediating and moderating impacts of their intrinsic motivation and core self-evaluation. Courses of action are proposed to reduce the various human and financial costs at the individual, organizational, social and societal levels.     

Too close to work together? Identity conflicts induced by coworker friendships in cyberspace

The meteoric rise in the popularity of social networking sites (SNSs) has connected many employees with their contacts from work. However, clashes are catalyzed when individuals’ professional identities collide with their social ones. This paper aims to explore hotel employees’ identity conflicts stemming from cross-boundary friendships. Building on cognitive dissonance theory and conservation of resources theory, a multilevel model is proposed to examine how befriending colleagues on SNSs induces unfavorable workplace consequences through the mediation effect of identity conflict. The model further scrutinizes whether task interdependence intensifies this negative spillover. This study probes a novel identity issue aroused by SNS interactions in a professional context and advances research on interpersonal dynamics in organizations. It also provides new insights on the role of team-level situational factors. The results generate managerial implications for hotels and employees, suggesting that both groups should be better prepared for possible dilemmas embedded in cross-boundary relationships.     

Do job insecurity,anxiety and depression caused by the COVID-19 pandemic influence hotel employees’ self-rated task performance? The moderating role of employee resilience

The COVID-19 health disaster has had a dramatic impact on the global hospitality industry, affecting millions of people. The aim of this study is to examine the impact of job insecurity on hotel employees’ anxiety and depression, and whether these psychological strains could influence employees’ self-rated task performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also examine the moderating role of hotel employees’ resilience in this context.The hypotheses were examined by collecting data from 353 hotel employees currently working in the Canary Islands (Spain). The results highlight the significant effects of job insecurity on employees’ anxiety and depression levels. However, hotel employees’ task performance was not affected by their job insecurity or by their anxiety and depression. In addition, employees’ resilience has a moderating effect as it reduces the negative influence of job insecurity on depression. Finally, the discussion section sets out various theoretical and practical implications of the findings.