Emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion among hotel employees in Nigeria

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a model, which investigated emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion among employees in frontline service jobs. Data were gathered via self-administered questionnaires from a sample of frontline hotel employees in Nigeria, which is one of the neglected developing sub-Saharan countries in the African continent. The results of the hierarchical multiple regression analyses demonstrated a number of significant direct and partial mediating effects and provided support for the majority of the hypothesized relationships. Specifically, emotional dissonance partially mediated the relationships of negative affectivity and intrinsic motivation with emotional exhaustion. The results also revealed that emotional exhaustion partially mediated the effect of emotional dissonance on turnover intentions. Unexpectedly, emotional dissonance was found to be positively related to job performance. Implications for frontline employees and their managers and directions for future research are discussed.     

Affectivity and organizational politics as antecedents of burnout among frontline hotel employees

This study investigates perceptions of organizational politics as a mediator of the effects of negative affectivity and positive affectivity on burnout. Based on data obtained from frontline hotel employees in Turkey, results reveal that the impacts of negative affectivity on exhaustion and disengagement, through perceptions of organizational politics, are stronger than positive affectivity.     

Effects of organizational/occupational characteristics and personality traits on hotel manager emotional exhaustion

Emotional exhaustion is a type of burnout and a state of mental weariness. It is an important issue for hospitality organizations because customer contact employees and hospitality managers function in an environment that is particularly susceptible to the creation of the antecedents of burnout. Further, emotional exhaustion itself is costly to hospitality organizations and individuals because it has been shown to result in depersonalization, detachment, decreased service quality and job performance, and increased turnover. Using a sample of 544 hotel managers from 36 hotels located throughout the United States, this study examines whether emotional exhaustion is a function of organizational and occupational characteristics, including job demands, quality orientation, pressure to produce, and need for “face time.” In addition, this study analyzes whether personality traits of the managers themselves, including extroversion and neuroticism, are predictors of emotional exhaustion. This study found emotional exhaustion of hotel managers to be a function of not only job and organizational characteristics, but also personality characteristics.     

The impact of the challenge and hindrance stress on hotel employees interpersonal citizenship behaviors: Psychological capital as a moderator

This study investigates the relationships between challenge and hindrance stressors and hotel employees’ interpersonal citizenship behaviors (ICB). The study also tests the moderating role of hotel employees’ psychological capital (PsyCap) on the aforementioned relationships. Data were collected from 213 U.S. hotel frontline employees. The results showed that both challenge and hindrance stress had a negative relationship with ICB. PsyCap was found to moderate both relationships. Implications for hospitality researchers and industry practitioners are discussed along with the limitations and suggested avenues for future research.     

Moderating effects of gender and organizational level between role stress and job satisfaction among hotel employees

This study investigates the moderating roles of gender and organization level in the relationship between role stress and job satisfaction for hotel employees. A survey instrument that included measures of job satisfaction, role stress (conflict and ambiguity) and demographic information was used to collect information from hotel employees in Republic of Korea. Data from 320 respondents, representing a 64% of response rate, were analyzed. Findings show that the effect of role stress on job satisfaction is significantly stronger for female employees and supervisory employees than male employees and non-supervisory employees. Research implications and suggestions for future research are provided.     

A diary study of work consequences for hotel employees victimized by supervisor from a demand-resource perspective on employee emotions

How would perceiving oneself as a victim of abusive supervisor behavior affect one’s work attitudes? This study examines the mediating role of emotional change on the detrimental work outcomes caused by hotel employees’ perceived victim identity. It further investigates how emotional exhaustion moderates the relationship between perceived victim identity and two outcome variables, daily job satisfaction and work engagement. The research hypotheses were tested by a multi-level analysis (cf., hierarchical linear modeling) using a sample of 128 hotel employees in China who took surveys twice per day over 14 consecutive days. The findings show that emotional change significantly mediates the negative effect of hotel employees’ perceived victim identity on their work attitudes, and emotional exhaustion moderates this effect such that higher exhaustion exacerbates the negative relationship. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings for hospitality researchers and practitioners are discussed.     

COVID-19: The effects of job insecurity on the job engagement and turnover intent of deluxe hotel employees and the moderating role of generational characteristics

COVID-19 has caused an unprecedented crisis in all industries around the world. This study sought to verify that job insecurity, as perceived by deluxe hotel employees, significantly affects their job engagement and turnover intent and to determine the moderating effect of generational characteristics. The finding showed that perceptions of job insecurity had negative effects on the engagement of deluxe hotel employees. Also, employees’ job engagement can decrease turnover intent. The engagement of employees fully mediated the relationship between perceptions of job insecurity and turnover intent, and job insecurity caused by COVID-19 had a greater influence on Generation Y than Generation X in reducing job engagement, indicating that the negative impact of job insecurity is higher in Generation Y.     

Antecedents and outcomes of work–family facilitation and family–work facilitation among frontline hotel employees

This study developed and tested a model grounded in the scarcity and expansion-enhancement perspectives that investigated the antecedents and consequences of two directions of conflict and facilitation between work and family roles. Based on data obtained from 107 frontline hotel employees via self-administered questionnaires in Albania, the abovementioned relationships were tested using LISREL 8.30 through path analysis. The results of this study provided support for the majority of the hypothesized relationships. Specifically, work social support enhanced facilitation between work (family) and family (work) domains. The results revealed that family social support alleviated conflicts in the work–family interface and increased family–work facilitation. As predicted, employees who were confronted with both directions of facilitation displayed higher performance in the workplace. It was observed that work–family facilitation was significantly and positively related to life satisfaction. The results also indicated that family–work conflict reduced life satisfaction. Implications of the results and future research directions are presented in the current study.     

Individual employment characteristics of hotel employees that play a role in employee satisfaction and work retention

The variation of individual employment characteristics may influence how employees feel about their work environment. This study intended to identify employment characteristics that influenced employee satisfaction with work environments related to employment retention. Factors played different roles in measuring job satisfaction and employee retention according to individual employment characteristics, while factors related to the work environment (location, communication, accomplishment, and department) should be addressed regardless of employment characteristics. It is recommended that hoteliers provide a customized improvement agenda directed to and focused on individual groups according to that group's employment characteristics.     

When I put on my service mask: Determinants and outcomes of emotional labor among hotel service providers according to affective event theory

This article develops and tests a model of emotional labor in the hotel industry using affective event theory. A multiple-wave longitudinal analysis using data from 424 hotel service employees and their immediate supervisors reveals how work contexts (supervisory support) affect work events (interactional justice), and thereby influence the affective (negative emotions), attitudinal (job satisfaction), and behavioral (emotional labor, service quality, and voluntary turnover) reactions of hotel service employees. The results show that (1) supervisory support relates positively to supervisory interactional justice; (2) supervisory interactional justice is negatively associated with negative emotions; (3) negative emotions relate positively to surface acting and negatively to deep acting; (4) surface acting leads to lower job satisfaction, whereas deep acting leads to higher job satisfaction; and (5) job satisfaction leads to higher service quality and lower turnover. The implications suggest important recommendations for hotel managers.     

The bright side of work-related deviant behavior for hotel employees themselves: Impacts on recovery level and work engagement

This study examines the immediate positive benefits of work-related deviant behavior on hotel employees’ recovery level and work engagement leveraging conservation of resources (COR) theory as an overarching framework. Using a two-wave daily diary approach, data from 74 hotel employees over 10 consecutive workdays were collected to examine potential immediate benign effects of work-related deviant behavior and whether moral identity can intensify or mitigate the positive consequences of this behavior. Findings suggest that work-related deviant behavior exerts an immediate positive influence on recovery level. Moreover, conducting work-related deviant behavior has a positive indirect effect on work engagement via recovery level. Additionally, the observed effects are moderated by moral identity, such that these effects become stronger among employees with low (vs. high) moral identity. We further interviewed 17 hotel employees to supplement our quantitative results. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.     

The effects of job and personal resources on hotel employees’ work engagement

Our study developed and tested a research model, which predicted the impacts of job (supervisor support) and personal resources (trait competitiveness and self-efficacy) on work engagement. Respondents were full-time employed frontline employees of the five- and four-star hotels of Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria. We used path analysis in LISREL 8.30 for testing the study hypotheses. The results demonstrated that trait competitiveness predicted three dimensions of work engagement better than did self-efficacy. That is, trait competitiveness enhanced frontline employees’ feelings of vigor, dedication, and absorption, while self-efficacy significantly and positively influenced only absorption. Unexpectedly, supervisor support had no significant effects on three dimensions of work engagement. The results further revealed that frontline employees who had elevated levels of competitiveness and adequate supervisor support in the workplace had higher self-efficacy beliefs. Implications of the empirical findings and limitations are discussed in our study.     

Effects of ownership change on organizational settings and strategies in a Taiwanese hotel chain

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of ownership change on a local-chain hotel in Taiwan: how the new chief executive officer (CEO) planned a blue ocean strategy and how he led all employees to achieve pre-established goals. This study applied qualitative research methodology whereby the data were collected by participant observations in the study field and subsequent in-depth interviews with an application of the QSR NVivo software program. This study implies that, in the assimilation stage of the change, (1) the CEO should use democracy instead of dictatorship; (2) sub-cultures, factions and conflict could be prevented by organizational socialization and equal opportunity treatment; and (3) blue ocean strategies enable a shift of organizational image and identity. This qualitative study supplements the existing literature by showing that organizational politics might be affected by organizational change and how the concept of blue ocean strategy might be implemented in the course of organizational change.     

The effects of nonverbal communication of employees in the family restaurant upon customers’ emotional responses and customer satisfaction

The purpose of this study was to understand interrelationships among customers’ perception of nonverbal communication, customers’ emotional responses and customer satisfaction in the family restaurant. A total of 333 customers in Korea participated. The results showed that employees’ kinesics and proxemics among nonverbal communications have a significant effect on customers’ positive emotions, while employees’ kinesics and paralanguage affect customers’ negative emotions. Also, it was found that whether customers feel positive or negative determines their satisfaction. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.     

Effects of work status congruence and perceived management concern for employees on turnover intentions in a fast casual restaurant chain

The current study examines a proposed turnover intention model on hourly employees in a large fast casual dining restaurant chain located in the United States. High levels of turnover have been a consistent and costly issue in the restaurant industry. The study was developed to help restaurant owners and managers determine how relationships between variables influence the turnover intentions of their employees, in order to overcome the economic hardship that organizations face when their turnover rates are high. Many factors were found to influence employee turnover intentions, including work status congruence, perceived management concern for employees, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Hence, it is important for fast casual restaurant operators in the United States to develop their managers' human resource skills, in order to have satisfied and committed hourly employees, who should as a result develop lower turnover intentions. Managerial and academic implications are discussed in detail.