A review of the literature on culture in hotel management research: What is the future?

This paper aims to provide insights into the development of research on culture in the hotel industry by reviewing the existing literature. A total of 107 journal articles published between 1985 and 2010 were retrieved from 12 refereed journals, all of which could be accessed online. The papers were categorized into six major groups according to Pizam's (1993) hierarchy of cultures, and were further sorted by year of publication, source, subject area, region of focus, and the nature of the research. National culture, organizational culture, and cross-cultural comparison were found to be the most popular research topics. In contrast, few studies have investigated industry, occupational, and corporate cultures in association with hotel management studies, prompting concern for future research. In summary, this review paper offers a first and important attempt to understand the development of research on culture in the hotel management field and identifies future research opportunities.     

A critical evaluation of importance–performance analysis

This study is a methodological evaluation of studies on importance and performance measurement, and importance–performance analysis (IPA) which has gained widespread acceptance in the hospitality and tourism research. A synthesis of IPA literature on conceptual and measurement issues is presented with a view to identifying and mitigating potential validity concerns.     

The coronavirus pandemic – A critical discussion of a tourism research agenda

Unquestionable, the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is one of the most impactful events of the 21st century and has tremendous effects on tourism. While many tourism researchers worldwide are currently ‘Covid-19 research gap spotting’, we call for more deliberateness and rigor. While we agree that the coronavirus pandemic is unique and relevant to research, we argue that not all effects are worth researching or novel to us. Previous research on crises and disasters do show similar patterns and existing theories can often very well explain the current phenomena. Thus, six illustrative examples are shown how a research agenda could look like. This includes parts where theoretical explanations from tourism are missing, as well as where we think existing knowledge might be subject to a tourism paradigm-shift due to the coronavirus pandemic.     

A meta-analytic review of antecedents of hospitality and tourism firms’ performance: A cross-cultural comparison

Despite the magnitude of scholarly understanding of firm performance, there has been no robust statistical meta-analytic review of antecedents of firm performance in hospitality and tourism journals. Therefore, this study conducted Hunter-Schmidt random-effects meta-analyses on the relationships between firm performance and its predictors based on Kaplan and Norton's balanced scorecard framework. This study identified fourteen antecedents of firm performance, and all proposed relationships were significant. This study also examined the moderating role of culture on the relationships at continental- and national-approaches by adopting sample z-tests and meta-regression. This study found the moderating role of culture on seven relationships at the continental-level comparison and identified corresponding cultural dimensions responsible for the degree of the relationships. This study expanded the literature on firm performance and contributed to strategic and financial management literature. Based on findings, the authors presented several important practical implications.     

Leadership research in the root of hospitality scholarship: 1960–2020

This study documents the intellectual structure and progress of hospitality leadership research over the past sixty years by presenting a perspective and conspectus. The authors use text mining analysis to explore topic highlights and how they have shifted over time. Leadership development has been the predominant feature followed by contemporary leadership behaviors. Of the eight leadership domains revealed by the co-citation and text mining analyses, four are associated with leadership styles, which in their turn impact on employees. LMX is the leading theme in hospitality leadership research, with growing attention to the darker side of leadership, particularly abusive supervision. The current study contributes to the hospitality literature by considering coverage of leadership issues since the 1960 s. Furthermore, it encompasses the evolution of hospitality leadership research from the development of theory to a focus on impacts, thereby providing crucial insights that may allow industry professionals to lead their organizations more effectively and efficiently.     

Estilo: A preparacão de artigos para: Annals of tourism research

Deve acompanhar o manuscrito um resumo de não mais que 200 palavras. Êste deve deixar bastante claro o qur foi feito e por que, o que for descoberto, e quais as conclusões alcancados pelo trabalho.     

The effect of algorithmic management and workers’ coping behavior: An exploratory qualitative research of Chinese food-delivery platform

While algorithmic management provides new options for organizing service work, it is underexplored in tourism and hospitality research. From food-delivery platforms in China, this qualitative study sources interviews and online reviews to explore the impact of algorithmic management on workers' service behavior and how they cope in response. Our study uncovers an algorithm-human hybrid approach for managing workers, where algorithms and humans function distinctly but complement each other. Algorithmic management influences deliverers’ work either positively, by improving service efficiency, reliability and customer-orientated behavior; or negatively by causing impersonal service behavior, frequent service recovery and extra-role workload. Deliverers employ both problem-focused (i.e., compliance, flexible response and resistance) and emotion-focused (i.e., relief) coping strategies in algorithmic management. In addition to individual resistance, we firstly revealed that deliverers collude with other parties to resist the algorithms. We proposed a conceptual framework that contributes to understanding the dynamic, mutual relationship between algorithms and workers.     

Attribution of Inappropriate Visitor Behavior in a Theme Park Setting – A Conceptual Model

Given the scarcity of academic research on customer-to-customer (C2C) interaction in theme parks, this study was designed to construct and test a conceptual model of visitors’ attribution of inappropriate behavior, satisfaction, and repeat patronage using attribution theory. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and analysis of the effect of visitor type were carried out. The results show that stability and controllability have a significant impact on satisfaction, and satisfaction also influences repeat patronage. Visitor type had no effect on the relationship between attribution and satisfaction. The theoretical and practical insights of the findings are presented along with the limitations of the study and future directions for research.     

Mixed methods in sustainable tourism research: an analysis of prevalence,designs and application in JOST (2005–2014)

This article analyses the use of mixed methods in papers published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism over the 10 years, 2005–2014. First, a content analysis of the articles shows that mixed methods are used primarily for expansion and development of results, and less often for triangulation or complementarity. Sequential designs are slightly more popular than simultaneous designs, with qualitative research preceding the quantitative element. In the majority of cases, both the quantitative and qualitative methods have equivalent importance, yet where one is dominant, this is usually the quantitative part. Second, we contextualise the content analysis by exemplifying the use of mixed methods in selected papers, using commentary from authors who have recently published mixed methods papers. We reflect on the reasons for, strengths and weaknesses of using mixed methods, and we argue that mixed methods provide sustainable tourism academics with more opportunities for pragmatic transformative research for societal change, and increasing research reliability in relation to social desirability bias, stakeholder comparisons and transdisciplinarity. The paper notes the need for greater understanding of mixed methods by researchers, its special value and growing importance in sustainable tourism research, and its challenges and strengths for authors and editors.     

Understanding the past,anticipating the future – a critical assessment of China outbound tourism research

This paper presents a critical assessment of the current state of China outbound tourism research. It draws upon an extensive review of peer-reviewed literature on China outbound tourism published between 2003 and 2015. In seeking an in-depth understanding of the current literature and its implications, the researchers propose five potential directions for future investigation. These include a call for researchers to embrace alternative research techniques that will contribute to theory building, as well as for an alignment of research activity that provides insights into both the evolution and the transformation of China outbound tourism.     

Knowledge mapping of hospitality research − A visual analysis using CiteSpace

Hospitality literature constitutes a considerable accumulation of data for follow-up studies. This study used CiteSpace to analyze investigations published in three top journals of hospitality research: International Journal of Hospitality Management (2008–2014), Cornell Hospitality Quarterly (2008–2014), and International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management (2009–2014). This application resulted in comprehensive knowledge maps of hospitality research. The study identified major disciplines that provide knowledge and theories for the hospitality discipline as well as contemporary research topics and most influential researchers.     

Exploring the impact of personalized management responses on tourists’ satisfaction: A topic matching perspective

As an online reputation management tool, hotel managers increasingly rely on management responses to online reviews to improve the electronic word of mouth (eWOM). Due to the substantial heterogeneity of textual reviews with different topics, it is particularly challenging to personalize the response for customer relationship management. Based on a panel data of 500 hotels in the state of Texas collected from TripAdvisor, this study examines the influence of personalized management responses on rating increase from a topic matching perspective. The empirical results show that (1) a high level of topic matching of management response leads to an increase of hotel online rating; (2) a high valence and a large variation of existing rating weaken the positive influence of such personalized management response; (3) the influence is stronger for economy hotels compared to luxury ones. Lastly, practical implications are provided.     

A critical review of determinants of information search behavior and utilization of online reviews in decision making process (invited paper for ‘luminaries’ special issue of International Journal of Hospitality Management)

This conceptual paper provides a brief review of hospitality consumers’ information search behavior and the factors that are likely to influence their information search behavior and their utilization and processing of online reviews. This study focuses on the factors such as information overload, confusion, information processing, information presentation format, trust and evaluation mode that has not received much attention from hospitality scholars in addition to discussing the impacts of perceived risk and familiarity on information search and information processing approaches utilized by hospitality consumers. This study also discusses opportunities for hospitality researchers to empirically examine the extent to which each of the factors discussed might influence hospitality consumers information search, information processing and especially their utilization of online reviews in their decision making process.     

The management of labour recruitment: The hotel chains during the Spanish tourism boom, 1959–1973

This paper explores the labour management of hotel chains during the Spanish tourism boom, a period characterized by high labour shortages. Focusing on the behaviour of three prominent emerging hotel chains in the Balearic Islands, we adopt a micro-comparative approach to examine their payrolls. Our findings suggest that the economic and geographical characteristics of the areas where they operated were crucial to their decisions. Firms located in populated areas developed channels of seasonal labour that supplied migrant workers through chain migration and kinship links. Conversely, firms in areas of intense landscape transformation pursued recruitment at origin in specific towns on mainland Spain or in foreign countries. This strategy played a key role in the development of new international tourism destinations.     

Food and tourism: an effective partnership? A UK-based review

This paper focuses on the role of food tourism in delivering sustainability agendas by examining how the agriculture and tourism sectors have struggled to realise measurable successes because of constraints, conflicting ambitions and low levels of social capital. It focuses on the United Kingdom, which has tasked regional development agencies to adopt food tourism as a means to grow local economies, create jobs and improve natural resources and diversify. In 2009/10, 16 interviews and six workshops were conducted with stakeholders to gauge industry challenges and needs in implementing food tourism. Based on qualitative findings, a model was developed which maps five emergent themes (knowledge exchange, the supply chain, fear of change, regionalisation and marketing) alongside five sustainability principles (strong and just society, good governance, sustainable economy, working within environmental limits and using sound science responsibly). The paper argues that if food tourism is to deliver its purported sustainable benefits, the policy environment must cultivate significant social capital through the cooperation of different industries with varying needs, motivations and challenges through joint marketing schemes, more localised distribution channels and enhanced policy engagement. Scotland and Wales are more successful than England, but overall food and tourism are not yet in effective partnership.