Decisive mechanism of organizational citizenship behavior in the hotel industry – An application of economic game theory

This paper applies an economic game theory model to explain the decisive mechanism of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The Sub-game Perfect Nash Equilibrium (SPNE) indicates that an employee's unique motivation of OCB is to maximize his or her own performance outcome. The findings also suggest that workload, importance of work to performance outcomes and cost of OCB jointly determine the amount of OCB that each individual employee exhibits. An empirical test utilizing frontline hotel employees was performed (N = 175). Using a partial related test and logistical model, the results supported three propositions, suggesting that the amount of OCB exhibited by each employee is jointly influenced by the workload, cost of OCBs and OCBs performed by coworkers.     

Understanding organizational citizenship behavior from a cultural perspective: An empirical study within the context of hotels in Mainland China

Scholarly concerns in organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) have increased dramatically over the past two decades. Nevertheless, there are significant issues yet to be addressed and resolved, one of which relates to the influences of cultural values on such voluntary behaviors. In view of the importance of OCB in meliorating hotel service and cultivating customer loyalty, the current study seeks to investigate a possible mechanism through which Chinese values (CVs) may function on employee citizenship behaviors within the hotels in Mainland China. The research questions focus on whether CVs have a direct impact on OCB and its verified antecedents, leader–member exchange (LMX) and employee organizational commitment (OC). Eventually, the research findings have verified the conceptual model and confirmed all the postulated linkages among the constructs under study.     

Employee performance outcomes and burnout following the presentation-of-self in customer-service contexts

This study examines how emotional intelligence and occupational commitment have a moderating effect on the relationship between emotional labour and its potential outcomes. Two acting strategies reflect emotional labour, namely surface and deep acting, with burnout and performance as the prospective outcomes. Burnout is operationalized into emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and diminished personal achievement; whereas performance is operationalized into task performance and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). The study investigates employee responses from several tourism and hospitality organizations in Florida, USA. The results show that emotional labour relates most positively to task performance and to burnout in the case of surface acting. Tests of moderation show that occupational commitment enhances performance outcomes by facilitating emotional labour strategies, and the prevalence of higher emotional intelligence amongst employees reduces burnout. These findings contribute to the literature on emotional labour by incorporating emotional intelligence and occupational commitment as moderators and by incorporating OCBs within performance analyses.     

Hospitality,Tourism, and Lifestyle Concepts

ABSTRACT

This article provides an overview of the significance of the lifestyle concept for the management of service quality and customer satisfaction in the hospitality and tourism industry. It discusses aspects of its continuing evolution and outlines the contents of articles relevant to this volume, providing a brief summary of the articles collected. It concludes by identifying a number of opportunities for further research into hospitality and tourism lifestyle concepts.     

Recent Tourism and Hospitality Research in China

ABSTRACT

Although China's tourism has become a vital part in the world tourism market, little is known internationally about tourism and hospitality research in China. This study reviewed 500 articles published from 2000 to 2005 in China's leading tourism research journal, Tourism Tribune, and provided an overview of China's recent tourism and hospitality research. Content analysis results showed that tourism research themes in China primarily focused on tourism attraction/resources development and management, tourism planning, and tourism industry development issues. Most research under review used a qualitative approach, while 15% of the articles employed some quantitative methods. Articles using advanced statistical techniques were scarce.     

How to motivate your older employees to excel? The impact of commitment on older employees’ performance in the hospitality industry

This study examined the relationship between employee age and performance, defined as in-role performance and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB), using a sample of 599 hospitality employees from Hong Kong. Results of a regression analysis indicated a negative relationship between age and in-role and OCB. We also examined whether organizational commitment is a necessary condition for older workers to perform well. Findings indicated that organizational commitment moderated the relationship between age and work performance, such that the relationships were strong and negative only when commitment was low.     

Mapping the progress of social media research in hospitality and tourism management from 2004 to 2014

ABSTRACT

One hundred and five articles on social media in hospitality and tourism during 2004–2014 were identified from three databases and seven journals. Seven dimensions were used for analysis. Results indicated that social media research in hospitality and tourism is in its early stages with two turning points. The number of articles rose dramatically in 2010 and unexpectedly dropped in 2014. Research gaps are apparent in several industry sectors in topics beyond online reviews and in research methods, where literature reviews suffer from small numbers and few prominent researchers. Implications and future research directions are also discussed.     

Interviews as a Selection Tool for Entry-Level Hospitality Employees

Abstract

Behavior based interviewing is a technique that has been used successfully in many industries for a number of years. This paper investigates the process of developing behavior based interviews for hospitality use with entry level employees. The first step of the investigation process is to identify critical job behaviors. This paper reports on a survey conducted with hospitality professionals to identify these behaviors. Results suggest that clear identification of these key behaviors may be an area of weakness.     

Feeling empowered and doing good? A psychological mechanism of empowerment,self-esteem,perceived trust,and OCBs

Building on agency theory and signaling theory, this study investigated the psychological mechanism of how empowerment impacts hotel frontline employees' self-esteem, perceived trust, and OCBs performed toward both internal and external customers. Using a longitudinal research design with data collected via three waves, the results supported that three out of four dimensions of empowerment had significant and positive influence on employees' self-esteem and perceived trust, both of which are significant predictors for three types of OCBs. The study makes important contributions to literature and suggests that hotel employees feeling empowered can enhance their overall wellness while contributing to their OCB performances. Thus, empowerment should be properly used as a strategy to facilitate employees’ contextual performance.     

Social exchanges as motivators of hotel employees’ organizational citizenship behavior: The proposition and application of a new three-dimensional framework

This study developed and empirically tested a three-dimensional framework of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in the hotel industry. Using a social exchange perspective, the study expanded social exchange theory's emphasis on leader–member exchange to include coworker exchange and customer–employee exchange. The three types of social exchanges were tested as motivators for three types of OCB; organizational, interpersonal and customer. The findings support the distinctiveness of the three types of OCB and the importance of social exchanges as motivators for OCBs. This study contributes to the literature on OCB dimensionality in service organizations, as well as social exchange theory's application to discretionary performance in the hotel industry.     

Influence of guanxi on hospitality career performance in China: Is more necessarily better?

Careers in hospitality are inevitably influenced by interpersonal relationships which, in China, are embodied in the unique cultural-relational phenomenon of guanxi. The study challenges the conventional wisdom that in China more guanxi is necessarily better for one’s career by distinguishing between two distinct guanxi behaviors and investigating their effects on the career performance of hospitality employees. Using multi-source data from a sample (n = 351) of hospitality employees, the results show that behaviors for developing guanxi contribute positively to hospitality career performance up to an inflexion point, after which they turn negative. Behaviors for maintaining guanxi provide additional resources that can attenuate the negative influence of excessive guanxi development on career performance. The implications of the findings that more guanxi is not necessarily better for the career performance of hospitality employees are fully discussed, along with suggestions for future research and practice.     

Linking employee attitudes and behaviors with business performance: A comparative analysis of hotels in Mexico and China

Organizations have been studied extensively through the lenses of employee attitudes and behaviors, yet links with organizational performance have not often been considered. This research uses established measures of commitment, job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) to analyze data obtained from workers in a multinational hotel chain operating in Mexico and China. Mexico and China are selected due to their importance as emerging global markets. Quantitative analysis shows significantly different levels of commitment, job satisfaction and OCB in line with low and high performance in these national hotel groups. The research finds that commitment, job satisfaction and OCB are associated significantly with financial performance, but not with guest satisfaction.     

Influences of Campus Recruiting on Applicant Attraction to Hospitality Companies

ABSTRACT

Many hospitality companies use college recruiting to attract managers to work for them. This study expands on previous research to further investigate initial reaction to recruiter behavior, during campus interviews, as it relates to the pursuit of the job in regard to expectancy (of a job offer) and attractiveness of the job. The study findings confirmed that applicant perceptions of recruiter behaviors influence applicant attraction, particularly in regards to a perceived interest in candidate and professionalism. Given the highly competitive atmosphere for recruitment of qualified hospitality managers, this study could prove useful regarding attraction of potential hospitality managers.     

The importance of career goal in relation to academic performance: a case study of hospitality management students

ABSTRACT

Hospitality management programs have commonly offered exclusive learning opportunities to talented students in order to keep “brains” in the industry. While academic performance indices are often used to identify “brains” in the education sector, scant research has empirically examined whether “brains” are intended to stay in the industry. This study surveyed 304 hospitality management students and examined the relationships between their career-goal related factors and academic performance. Findings indicate that career goal and positive job valence toward the hospitality industry are significantly related to academic performance. The results of this study contribute to the limited literature on the relationship between career goal and academic performance.     

The Development of an Instrument to Address the Negative Perception of Hospitality Jobs

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to introduce a new construct that would assist in understanding employee attitudes and behaviors in hospitality sector jobs. The research introduces job-esteem and justifies it as a unique construct worthy of further study. Job-esteem is defined as the level of respect and dignity an individual believes is associated with his/her job. An instrument was developed to assist in measuring the level of job-esteem found in hospitality employees. The instrument was then administered to 75 employees of a large hotel chain in Hawaii. Tests show the instrument meets reliability standards.     

Virtual MICE Promotion

ABSTRACT

Hong Kong and Singapore have been the leading cities for hosting MICE in Asia. Every year, thousands of events are held, both by local and international organizers, in Singapore and Hong Kong. Despite the significant economic contributions of MICE to a local economy, hospitality and tourism literature seldom analyzes Hong Kong and Singapore in terms of MICE promotion. The absence of published articles is particularly true in the context of virtual promotion. This paper reports on a study examining events promotion in the Web sites of the Hong Kong Tourism Board and the Singapore Tourism Board. The paper also analyzes the performance of the official Web sites in providing useful site selection information to event organizers and meeting planners. Empirical results of a content-based analysis indicate that the information provided by the Singaporean Web site is more comprehensive than its Hong Kong counterpart.     

Is digital technology the magic bullet for performing work at home? Lessons learned for post COVID-19 recovery in hospitality management

PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly brought about a number of disruptions to when and where work is undertaken for hospitality employees. The rapid spread of COVID-19 forced many hospitality managers to use digital technologies to perform work from home, termed digital work connectivity. Yet little is known about how hospitality employees cope with it. The purpose of this study is to investigate an important yet underspecified issue as to how digital work connectivity can be detrimental for employees’ work behavior.Design/methodology/approachWe test our hypotheses using multi-wave and multi-source data collected from 467 middle managerial-level hospitality employees in China.FindingsThe findings show that digital work connectivity can lead to self-control depletion, which in turn is associated with disengagement from work. Further, the findings show that relational energy is an important resource that can buffer the detrimental effects of digital work connectivity on hospitality employees.Practical implicationsThe association of digital work connectivity with employee withdrawal behavior highlights the urgent need for hospitality enterprises to have clear guidelines that regulate technology use at home for work purposes.Social implicationsOur research shows that the absence of clear guidelines in relation to the use of digital technology for work at home risks producing unintended consequences for both hospitality employees and their enterprises.Originality/valueOur research draws from recent advances in resource allocation theories of self-control and adopts a more nuanced approach to uncover a counterintuitive reality that while people use digital technology to remain connected with work, doing so can actually contribute to their withdrawal behavior.     

The Role of Training in Achieving TQM in Restaurants

Abstract

TQM, and its application to the hospitality and tourism industries, has begun to receive more attention in the literature. However, few articles focus exclusively upon TQM in the restaurant industry and fewer still have examined the relationship between TQM and employee training. This article examines this relationship through interviews with managers with two prominent restaurant chains in Canada.     

Examining the Influences of Senior Discount Usage in the Hospitality Industry

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of this study was to examine older adult attitudes and behaviors of discount usage in the hospitality industry. A secondary purpose was to understand the relationship between usage category (nonusers, light users and heavy users), age and influences of discount usage in the hospitality industry. Results suggested that (1) the profile of the older adult discount user in the hospitality industry reveals that the average discount user is married'partnered, educated, with a variety of income levels, basically the “average” older adult and (2) generally, the age of the senior does not have a significant impact on discount usage, but rather previous discount behavior and institutional barriers played a significant role. Employees in the hospitality industry need to be trained to recognize and manage for “ageism.” Seniors will be less inclined to use discounts if employees in the hospitality industry treat older adults poorly. If use of hospitality discounts is related to general discount then specials or cents-off coupons should be placed in the newspapers along side of general coupons.     

Total Quality Management and Tourism and Hospitality Education

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the application of quality management concepts in relation to the provision of tourism and hospitality education, with a specific focus on Thailand. The key quality concepts, namely quality control, quality assurance, quality audit and “Total Quality Management” (TQM) are identified, and the applications of these concepts in the provision of tourism and hospitality education are discussed. The paper explores three main themes. The first is to examine how quality issues have been applied to tourism and hospitality education. Second, the paper outlines the concepts of quality management, which represent the key element of a TQM strategy to implement conformance to standards and quality improvement. The third theme discusses the specific case of Thailand, drawing on research in its early stages which examines quality management in tourism and hospitality education in Thailand. An outline of the nature of tourism and hospitality education in Thailand is provided, followed by a synopsis of the significant challenges facing Thai tourism and hospitality education. A procedure for examining quality in tourism and hospitality education in Thailand is proposed.