Demystifying the impact of self-indulgence and self-control on customer-employee rapport and customer happiness

Past research mostly ignores the link between customers' purchase orientations and their engagement with frontline service employees. This paper addresses this gap by using socio-emotional selectivity theory to investigate the effects of customers’ self-indulgence/control on their rapport building efforts with frontline service employees and on their own happiness. It also explores the moderating effects of age, gender and shopping day on the impact of self-indulgence/control on happiness. Data from 252 Australian customers shows that self-control has no significant influence on rapport or happiness while rapport and self-indulgence positively affect happiness. Finally, all the moderating effects only find partial support.     

Which formula for national happiness?

The World Happiness Report is published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network and contains an international ranking of national average happiness, as measured by surveys of personal life evaluations. It also contains an analysis which tries to explain the happiness figures from more than 150 countries using data on six key variables. That analysis assumes the factors combine in an additive manner and therefore operate independently of each other. By contrast, we explore a multiplicative model, which allows for interactivity or synergy between factors, as well as the possibility of diminishing marginal benefit at higher levels of achievement. We find that this model provides a better fit to the data and is therefore superior in its explanatory power. The implication for policy-makers is that they should focus on improving those factors which are the lowest for their nation as this will provide greater relative benefits to subjective well-being. At an individual level this means focusing on improving conditions for those who are experiencing the lowest levels of well-being.     

Do religion and spirituality matter for hotel workers’ well-being and guests’ happiness? An update of the Attraction-Selection-Attrition theory

Drawing on the Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) theory (Schneider et al., 1995), this paper examines how adhering to religious regulations and offering spiritual facilities may affect hotel workers’ psychological well-being and guests’ happiness. Using a mixed method approach, we collected data through two studies on religious practices and spiritual facilities at 5-star hotels in Jordan. In the first stage, interviews were conducted with 18 senior managers at hotels in the Dead Sea area (study 1). In the second stage, data were collected from Muslim guests who visited and stayed at a 5-star hotel in Jordan (study 2) and the hypotheses were tested with partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 3.3.3. Our results indicate that spiritual facilities at hotels enhance workers’ well-being and guests’ happiness while not adhering to religious regulations adversely affects workers’ well-being and guests’ happiness. The paper offers a contextual and novel framework to understand the linkages between religion/spirituality and psychology at hotels in a diverse cultural context in the Middle East. The empirical studies highlight the contextual relevance and extension of Schneider’s (1995) ASA theory by incorporating religiosity/spiritualty and well-being of hotel employees in a Middle Eastern context.     

Happiness sentiments and the prediction of cross-border country exchange-traded fund returns

This research examines whether social media (Twitter) happiness sentiment and country-level happiness sentiment indices predict cross-border ETF returns. To account for complicated associations between happiness sentiment and ETF returns, we use a quantile regression approach and find that Twitter and trading market (U.S.) happiness sentiments are strong predictors of future ETF returns, for which both have far greater predictive power than those of their home countries. Home country happiness indices exhibit asymmetric impacts across quantiles, suggesting the importance of trading country (U.S.) and Twitter happiness sentiments. Higher U.S. and home countries’ freedom to make life choices, absence of corruption perception, and confidence in national government precede higher ETF returns, while U.S. GDP, social support, health life expectancy, positive affect, and negative affect precede lower (abnormal) returns. We find that higher return quantile country ETFs provide a safe haven for U.S. investors during a U.S. bear market.     

Exploring tourists’ stress and coping strategies in leisure travel

Leisure travel can mediate daily stress, but also provoke stress. Tourists experience multiple stress during their vacations. The aim of this study was to identify what types of stress tourists encounter during their travel experiences and what strategies they use to cope with stress. Using semi-structured interviews and participant observation, the study findings reveal that tourists encounter four major types of stress (i.e., service-provider-related stress, traveler-related stress, travel-partner-related stress, and environment-related stress) during their vacations and use many strategies (i.e., problem-focused and emotion-focused coping) to cope with stress. These findings not only contribute to tourism research by documenting specific types of stress in the travel context and exploring new insights into ways of coping with stress, but also provide suggestions for how tourism and hospitality professionals should modify programs/experiences in response to tourists’ stress and the need to cope with stress during travel experiences.     

Moderating effects of presenteeism on the stress-happiness relationship of hotel employees: A note

This research note investigates the moderating effects of presenteeism on the stress-happiness relationship of 358 hotel employees in Sabah, Malaysia. The results support the moderating role of presenteeism in the relationship between stress and happiness. More specifically, the findings identify the presence of a non-monotonic relationship between perceived stress and happiness over the range of the degree of presenteeism. Contributions and limitations of the study are identified and discussed.     

Happiness before and after an election: An analysis based on a daily survey around Japan’s 2009 election

This paper investigates whether the Japanese voters became happy and/or unhappy due to the results of the General Election in 2009. We conducted a daily web survey for seven days before and after the election, obtaining 1068 responses. Estimating a fixed effects model, we found that among those whose expectation differed from the reality, supporters of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the winner, became significantly happier, and supporters of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP) and New Komeito, the losers, became significantly unhappier on the day following the election. However, happiness returned to the previous level in one or two days, implying people adapted to the news very quickly. On the other hand, the happiness level of those whose expectation of the election results were realized did not change. In a word, only unexpected results matter. Dividing those who support the policies of DPJ into two groups, those who expect material benefits from the victory of DPJ and those who do not, the obtained results suggested that the reason why the supporters of the winner (DPJ) felt happy was not because they obtained material benefits from the change of government.     

Tourism and wellbeing

Wellbeing has been a philosophical and sociological concern since the beginning of time, and research has extended over time to disciplines such as psychology, health sciences and economics to name just a few. Tourism studies has also become more focused on wellbeing in the last few decades, both from a theoretical and methodological perspective. After examining the philosophical background of wellbeing from different perspectives, the paper takes a closer look at how these frameworks can inform tourism research and practices. It explores the relationship between diverse terminologies and perspectives as well as the ways in which hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing can be derived through tourism experiences. A spectrum and a model are proposed which outline the relationship between various types of wellbeing, tourism and activities.     

Lags and Leads in Life Satisfaction in Korea: When Gender Matters

Using detailed longitudinal data from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS) from 1998 to 2008, this paper finds significant gender differences in impacts as well as adaptation patterns to major life and labor market events in Korea. Men remain on a higher happiness level throughout marriage, while women return to their baseline happiness within only two years. Consequently, men suffer more from divorce and the death of a spouse. This marital gender happiness gap is equivalent to a (husband only) increase of annual per capita household income of approximately US$17,800. The study further finds that men suffer more from unemployment. Results are robust to the inclusion of multiple simultaneous events and the use of different estimators.     

试析亚里士多德的德性幸福论

古往今来许多哲人岛学说都涉及过幸福问题，但其中最具有智慧和影响力的要数古希腊思想家亚里士多德的幸福论。亚里士多德认为至善是幸福，幸福是灵魂合与德性的实现活动，只有具备一定德性的人才能够获得幸福。