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.     

Turnover intention in the hospitality industry: A meta-analysis

This study meta-analytically examined 35 antecedents of turnover intention in the hospitality industry. Results based on 391 correlations from 144 independent studies indicated that work attitudes, job strains, and role stressors/interrole conflicts showed relatively large effects on turnover intention. Compared to the findings from previous meta-analyses in other industry contexts, burnout, role stressors/interrole conflicts, coworker support had stronger relationships with hospitality employees’ turnover intention. The results also showed some evidence of national cultures and job levels being the potential moderators of the relationships between turnover intention and its antecedents.     

Antecedents and outcomes of emotional labour in hospitality and tourism: A meta-analysis

This paper meta-analytically investigates a theoretical framework of emotional labour and its antecedents and outcomes in the hospitality and tourism literature with 57 correlation matrices from published journal papers. Adopting the psychometric meta-analytical methods and meta-structural equation modelling (meta-SEM) methods, the study finds that emotional labour is related to antecedents including personality, emotional intelligence, customer orientation, social support and display rules, as well as related to attitudinal, behavioural, and customer-related outcomes. In addition, strain mediates the relations between emotional labour and its outcomes. This paper is the first meta-analysis on the relations between emotional labour and the antecedents and outcomes in hospitality and tourism management.     

Fostering absorptive capacity and facilitating innovation in hospitality organizations through empowering leadership

Empowering leadership facilitates a high-quality exchange of knowledge among employees. Although existing research highlights important contributions of empowering leadership at an employee level, there is little understanding of organizational mechanisms that benefit from this type of direction. Specifically, this study examined the connection of empowering leadership to the abilities of hospitality organizations to acquire and apply knowledge, namely absorptive capacity. Also, the relationships between absorptive capacity and multidimensional organizational innovation have been scarcely investigated. To bridge the research gap, this study used a time-lagged data collection method and examined a proposed structural model using the R Lavaan package. The results revealed empowering leadership had a positive relationship with potential and realized absorptive capacity. Absorptive capacity had a positive relationship with the product, process, and administrative innovation. Also, empowering leadership was indirectly associated with innovation through potential and realized absorptive capacity. Accordingly, contributions and implications of this study were discussed.     

A meta-analysis of behavioral intentions for environment-friendly initiatives in hospitality research

Research on environment-friendly initiatives has received increasing attention in hospitality research. However, an integrated literature review of research examining the impact of consumer perceptions of green initiatives on their behavioral intentions is lacking. To that end, a quantitative meta-analysis of 26 articles published in hospitality journals was conducted in order to determine the effect sizes of the relationship between consumers’ perceptions and their green behaviors. This research intended to examine how two broad categories – internalized perceptions (i.e. personal values, attitudes, environmental knowledge/awareness, and perceived benefits) and perceptions of the firm (i.e. hotel/restaurant image, perceived quality, and satisfaction) – influence consumers’ behavioral intentions toward green hotels/restaurants (e.g., word-of-mouth intentions, retentions, willingness to pay, and willingness to pay a premium). This meta-analysis shows that both internalized perceptions and perceptions of the firm had a strong positive association with behavioral intentions. The average effect sizes for internalized perceptions and perceptions of the firms were r = 0.3177 and r = 0.4240, respectively. The findings of this research suggest that the positive relationship between consumer perceptions and behavioral intentions is well-established. Therefore, it might not be fruitful to continue to apply identical frameworks (e.g., the theory of planned behavior or the theory of reasoned action) in future research. We thus suggest that hospitality and tourism researchers in the area of environment-friendly initiatives need to either significantly improve the existing models or look for new and more diverse frameworks in order to make meaningful theoretical contributions.     

Practicing effective knowledge sharing in international hotel joint ventures

Knowledge sharing can be described as the process by which individuals mutually exchange their knowledge and collaboratively generate new knowledge. Since international hotel joint venture partners typically possess skills in competing areas, this process of knowledge sharing is critical to the success of these alliances. Therefore, this article presents a framework that can be used to foster effective knowledge sharing at the individual joint venture manager level, at the relationship level between individuals, and across the entire organization.     

Workplace ostracism and knowledge hiding in service organizations

As a pervasive workplace phenomenon in service organizations, knowledge hiding can cause serious economic losses to companies. This study seeks to identify a new interpersonal antecedent of knowledge hiding, specifically workplace ostracism. We further focus on the moderating roles of negative reciprocity beliefs and moral disengagement in the relationship between workplace ostracism and knowledge hiding in service organizations. Using a time-lagged research design, we collected data from 253 samples in 17 Chinese hotels. As predicted, we found that workplace ostracism was positively related to hospitality employees’ evasive hiding and playing dumb, but not related to rationalized hiding. In addition, we supported a hypothesized three-way interaction involving workplace ostracism, negative reciprocity beliefs, and moral disengagement on evasive hiding and playing dumb, but not on rationalized hiding. In particular, workplace ostracism was most positively related to evasive hiding and playing dumb when both negative reciprocity beliefs and moral disengagement were high. However, workplace ostracism was not related to evasive hiding and playing dumb when service workers have low levels in either or both.     

Transferring Tourism Knowledge

SUMMARY

Knowledge sharing and quality assurance in hospitality and tourism is a very broad topic to cover. This paper focuses mainly on the role of higher education in transferring knowledge into practice. Knowledge can be defined as “an understanding of something and the ability to use that understanding through study and experience.”¹     

Knowledge sharing between academic researchers and tourism practitioners: a Japanese study of the practical value of embeddedness,trust and co-creation

Nature-based tourism (NBT) practitioners urgently need to develop more and better quality products through including the findings of tourism and other scientific researchers. However, in many cases, NBT enterprises do not have enough resources to invest in building a sustainable relationship with such researchers. This paper reports on the long-term involvement of university researchers in value co-creation – producing a new value in tourist experiences – jointly with tourism practitioners, encouraging significant and innovative NBT outcomes. It articulates how knowledge sharing was achievable between these parties in their shared practices, focusing on the importance of tacit knowledge sharing. A case study approach was complemented by long-term monitoring from 2011 to 2015; data was collected by interview and participant observation and qualitatively analysed. The results vividly depict that the key factor for effective tacit knowledge sharing and long-term co-creation is largely related to embeddedness, and also to trust, long-term partnerships, and the creation of win-win situations for all sides. Although limited to one set of actors and one socio-cultural context, one Japanese university and one enterprise, this study pioneers empirical research on the relationships between co-creation, knowledge sharing, and embeddedness in sustainable tourism that could be replicated in other situations.     

Knowledge agents as drivers of environmental sustainability and business performance in the hospitality sector

This study examines the role of knowledge agents as key enablers in the process of creating and updating the environmental knowledge base of a firm and, in doing so, having a positive effect on business performance. From the perspective of a hotel as the most important cog in the machinery of the hospitality sector, knowledge agents are those individuals who can provide information and knowledge that enables the firm to deal with environmental issues effectively. The paper describes an empirical, longitudinal study of 87 organisations in the Spanish hospitality industry. The results highlight the importance of the relationship between knowledge agents and environmental knowledge for business performance. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the role of knowledge agents is also relevant for the future management of the environmental knowledge base of a firm within the hospitality sector.     

Understanding the FLE-based organizational knowledge creation process in hospitality firms

This study explores how front-line employees' (FLE) knowledge is stepwise transformed into a hotel's organizational knowledge. It combines insights from organizational knowledge creation theory with empirical evidence from three Chinese five-star hotels. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews and reading archives, and analyzed using thematic analysis. We develop a novel framework comprising three types of FLEs' knowledge activities–knowledge demonstration (KD), knowledge justification (KJ), and knowledge re-contextualization (KRC)–which can routinely trigger the hotel's bottom-up organizational knowledge creation process. We also explain how FLEs' KD/KJ/KRC activities facilitate the hotel's organizational knowledge creation practices by examining changes in the new knowledge's scope of application and the participant structure of knowledge-related interactions induced by these activities. This study contributes to knowledge management research in hospitality by proposing a new perspective that encompasses FLEs' knowledge activities and the concomitant knowledge transformation that occurs in hotels.     

Antecedents and consequences of knowledge sharing in international tourist hotels

The purpose of this empirical study is to investigate factors which influence knowledge sharing, organizational learning and effectiveness. Of self-completed questionnaires collected from international tourist hotels in Taiwan, 615 were usable for data analysis. The structural equation modeling results showed that leaders played the roles of mentor, facilitator and innovator, and nurtured a supportive environment at the levels of workgroup, immediate superior and organization. In addition, employees had a positive attitude towards learning and to sharing. All of these contributions facilitate transformation of collective individual knowledge to organizational knowledge, resulting in the advancement of organizational learning, and thus, greater organizational effectiveness.     

Empowerment in hospitality organizations: Customer orientation and organizational support

Although empowering employees has often been prescribed as an efficient strategy for hospitality organizations, the strategy alone cannot ensure success. Individual and organizational factors should be considered to increase employees’ perception of empowerment. This study examines the impact of employees’ customer orientation and organizational factors on the employee empowerment perceptions. Our findings, based on a survey of 203 guest contact employees, suggest that organizations should hire customer oriented people, guide them with service training, provide a reward system, and facilitate service standards communication in order to increase perceived empowerment. Implications of these findings for hospitality service managers are discussed.     

Visual representation of knowledge networks: A social network analysis of hospitality research domain

Intellectual relationships and collaboration networks are the basis for the development of a knowledge domain. The visual representation of such “knowledge networks” contributes to the overall understanding of intellectual collaborations in a particular knowledge domain. Based on the co-authorship data from recent journal publications over a period of five years, the authors applied social network analysis to explore the network structures and identify their network properties in the hospitality research domain. The analysis revealed the core and peripheral networks where the power law distribution was observed on the pattern of publishing academic papers. The overall network was further examined by nine research streams in both “global” and “contextual” views to understand a broad variety of the collaboration patterns of hospitality researchers.     

Factors affecting the knowledge sharing attitude of hotel service personnel

The accumulation and sharing of knowledge is an important managerial approach to attracting customers and increasing customer satisfaction. However, knowledge sharing is not an automatic behavior. The primary purpose of this study is to understand the organizational and personal factors motivating employees to share knowledge. Personnel in international tourist hotels in Taipei who provide front-line services for travelers were surveyed. This study shows that internal marketing and organizational culture influence knowledge-sharing attitudes and perceived behavioral control. In addition, perceived behavioral control influences the relations among internal marketing, organizational culture, and knowledge-sharing attitudes. This research suggests that to develop knowledge-sharing attitudes among personnel that benefit customer service, it is important for managers to model supportive attitudes, give actual support in forms such as bonuses and resources, and develop a culture that encourages personnel to attempt innovation.     

Review and Application of Knowledge Management and Knowledge Sharing in Tourism

Knowledge and its management are generally recognised as a strategic asset that provides organisations with a competitive edge. Prior research demonstrates that knowledge sharing (KS) is crucial because it helps organisations promote best practice, facilitate knowledge creation and enhance effectiveness. Although there is a growing realisation that KS is critical to knowledge creation and organisational performance, this is still an emerging area of inquiry whose key variables, relationships and implications for tourism organisations are not yet clear. In this paper, key concepts of knowledge, organisational knowledge, knowledge management (KM) and KS are reviewed. This paper would be of interest to readers who would like to understand more about how KM and KS can be applied to tourism.     

Towards a theoretical model of technology adoption in hospitality organizations

Technology is an important strategic asset for hospitality organizations to improve organizational performance and strategic competitiveness. However, adoption and diffusion of technology are complex processes, which are affected by a number of internal and external factors. As a result, understanding the factors affecting a hospitality organization's technology adoption behavior is of paramount importance to both practitioners and academia. This study proposes a model that describes the process of technology adoption in hospitality organizations. Specifically, two modifications of the existing Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) have been proposed in order to capture the adoption behavior at the organizational level.     

Hospitality studies and hospitality management: A symbiotic relationship

The key contribution of this paper is to critically analyse advances made since the introduction of hospitality as a higher education subject, to capture contemporary thinking, and to support the recognition of the intellectual benefits for hospitality management theory and practices of a curriculum informed from a social science-based studies perspective. The benefits of this inter-relationship are demonstrated through the inclusion of an illustration informed by historical means of enquiry, which applies hermeneutical analysis and interpretation of St. Benedict's Rule (c. 530 A.D.). This serves to tangibly demonstrate the academic rigour, value, and educational gains achievable through a symbiotic relationship between hospitality studies and hospitality management.     

Theory in hospitality management

This paper comments on the absence of any commonly agreed theoretical framework about hospitality management. A tentative proposition is made for a model which identifies the inter-dependent and inter-related elements of hospitality management which might be used as a basis for management teaching and development as well as for research.     

Destination image and tourist behavioural intentions: A meta-analysis

This article aims to understand the relationship between destination image and tourist’s behavioural intention. In this study, we used a meta-analysis to synthesize the effects of destination image from 87 studies. The results reveal that destination image plays significant role in predicting tourist’s intentional behaviour, in different magnitudes. To be more precise, overall and affective images have the greatest impact on behavioural intention, followed by cognitive image. Of the different dimensions of behavioural intentions, destination image has the greatest impact on intention to recommend. Implications are provided for destination management and tourism researchers based on meta-analysis.