The influence of exploitative leadership on hospitality employees’ green innovative behavior: A moderated mediation model

Growing awareness of environmental sustainability in the hospitality sector has made employee green innovative behavior an important element of their establishment’s performance. Drawing from ego depletion theory, this paper aims to study how and when exploitative leadership influences hospitality employees’ green innovative behavior. We collected data from 467 full-time hospitality employees and their direct leaders in 96 teams, and examined a cross-level moderated mediation model employing multilevel path analysis. The results showed that exploitative leadership in the hospitality sector negatively associates with hospitality employees’ green innovative behavior, mediated by their emotional exhaustion. The results further showed that perceived organizational support moderates the influence of exploitative leadership on emotional exhaustion and subsequent green innovative behavior. Implications for theory and practice in the hospitality sector are discussed.     

Paradoxical leadership and hospitality employees’ service performance: The role of leader identification and need for cognitive closure

Based on the social identity theory, this study examined the relationship between paradoxical leadership and employees’ service performance in the hospitality industry. Data were collected from a multisource, time-lagged survey of 72 leaders and 556 employees in eight full-service hotels in China. Using hierarchical linear modeling, paradoxical leadership was found to be positively related to employees’ leader identification, which consequently enhanced their service performance. Furthermore, the level of an employee’s need for cognitive closure moderated the relationship between paradoxical leadership and leader identification such that paradoxical leadership exerted a stronger positive influence on leader identification for those employees with a lower need for cognitive closure. These findings have implications for both paradoxical leadership and hospitality management practices.     

The effects of service climate and internal service quality on frontline hotel employees’ service-oriented behaviors

When employees in a service profit chain receive quality internal services, they provide quality services to external customers, but extant research does not address what connects internal and external services. This study espouses service climate as an integral part of the service profit chain by exploring its role in linking internal service management and external service performance, and the boundary conditions in which it operates. Data collected from 538 employees of 81 department managers in 24 Chinese hotels were examined using hierarchical linear modeling. Results suggest that managers’ commitment to service quality affects service climate through empowering leadership, service climate links empowering leadership and employee service-oriented behaviors, and external departments’ internal service quality strengthens the positive effect of service climate on service-oriented behaviors. This study advances the literature by integrating service climate and internal service quality into the service profit chain, helping hospitality managers understand how to foster service-oriented behaviors.     

Characteristics of small business leadership from employees’ perspective: A qualitative study

Leadership is a much-studied topic, and yet, the topic still attracts researchers. As an essential factor in every organization, however, leadership contributes significantly to a business failure, especially in small independent restaurant businesses and this could be due to the unique operations of the industry and the lack of leadership studies on small hospitality businesses. This study aims to fill the gap by exploring the ideal characteristics for small independent restaurant leaders to become an effective leader using a qualitative approach from their employees’ perspectives. Qualitative data were collected through four focus groups and one dyadic interview. The findings of the qualitative data analysis revealed nine themes: respectful, compassionate, effective communicator, experienced, effective delegator, gives recognition, sociable, emotionally controlled, organized. The paper discussed implications of the findings for small independent restaurant businesses and the hospitality industry in general as well as implications for theory.     

An examination of the progressive effects of hotel frontline employees’ brand perceptions on desirable service outcomes

The present study scrutinizes how hospitality firms’ internal branding influences the service performance of frontline employees in a progressive way. More specifically, based on social influence and social exchange theories, this study examines if organizational commitment mediates the link between hospitality frontline employees’ perceptions of brand authenticity (BA) and brand-value fit (BVF) and their service-related behaviors such as generating ideas for service improvement (GISI) and service-oriented citizenship behavior. With a matched sample of 286 customer-contact frontline employees and 33 of their supervisors from five-star hotels in South Korea, this study found that the higher employees’ perceptions of BA and BVF, the more likely they were to generate ideas for service improvement and engage in service-oriented citizenship behavior, as they were more likely to be committed to the firm. Based on the findings, implications are discussed for hospitality practitioners and researchers alike in terms of internal branding with frontline employees.     

The determinants of hospitality employees’ pro-environmental behaviors: The moderating role of generational differences

Seeking to build a deeper understanding of the determinants of hospitality employees’ pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs), this study explored linkages between employees’ autonomous and external motivations to perform PEBs, environmental concerns, self-efficacy, and employees’ reported PEBs. Hospitality employees (n = 432) indicated that autonomous motivation was associated with increases in employees’ environmental concern, self-efficacy, and PEBs. External motivation was significantly related to employees’ levels of environmental concern and PEBs. Employees’ environmental concern levels had positive effects on self-efficacy and PEBs. Self-efficacy was, in turn, positively associated with PEBs. The relationships between these variables were moderated by generational differences (e.g., Gen X and Gen Y) because generational characteristics might lead to formulating distinct generational perceptions in an organizational context. There were significant differences in the effects of autonomous motivation on environmental concern levels and PEBs between Gen X and Gen Y. In addition, the differences in effects of external motivation on environmental concern and PEBs were statistically significant between the two generations. Lastly, the impacts of environmental concern and self-efficacy on PEBs were significantly different between the two generations as well. Overall, our results suggest that the interplay of autonomous motivation, external motivation, environmental concern, and self-efficacy is important to the process of influencing hospitality employees’ PEBs.     

The influence of service orientation discrepancy between managers and employees on employees’ affective outcomes

This study attempted to relate service orientation discrepancy (SOD) between employees and managers to employees’ affective reactions [role conflict (RC), role ambiguity (RA), job satisfaction (JS), and organizational commitment (OC)] in the restaurant industry. The findings of the study indicate that there is a SOD between managers and employees; employees saw themselves as more enthusiastic and less bureaucratic than managers. When this SOD was correlated with employee outcomes such as RC, RA, JS, and OC, the results indicated that SOD had a direct effect on RC, JS and OC. SOD also had indirect effects on JS, and OC through RC and RA. RC had a direct effect on JS and an indirect effect on OC. RA had a direct effect on JS. Finally, JS had a direct effect on OC.     

Social servicescape’s impact on customer perceptions of the hospitality brand – The role of branded social cues

This research examines how the social servicescape (i.e., employee-customer, employee-employee and customer-customer) impacts brand-related outcomes via branded social cues. Informed by theories related to cue consistency and conceptual fluency, results from three experimental studies conducted across sectors and scales of hospitality businesses (i.e., luxury hotel, high-end restaurant and limited-service hotel), indicate that branded social servicescape cues have direct, indirect and interactive effects on brand-related outcomes. In luxury contexts, when the brand’s personality is absent in employee-customer social cues, the negative effects were buffered if brand personality is reflected in employee-employee social cues. Conceptual fluency mediated the relationship between branded employee-customer social cues and brand-related outcomes, which was moderated by branded employee-employee social cues. Conceptual fluency also mediated the relationship between branded customer-customer social cues and brand-related outcomes. This research sheds light on how hospitality firms can leverage branded social cues to enhance customer evaluation of the hospitality brand.     

The impact of corporate charitable giving on hospitality firm performance: Doing well by doing good?

While corporate charitable giving (CCG) may have a positive or negative effect on corporate performance (based on value enhancement theory and agency cost theory, respectively), CCG could also have no impact at all. This article tests the extent to which CCG can influence corporate performance of Taiwan's publicly traded hospitality companies. The variable of CCG is defined as the ratio of the total value of corporate giving to total sales revenue. The measures of corporate performance are profitability (return on assets and return on equity), stock performance and Tobin's Q. Panel regression test results reveal that CCG can affect all measures of corporate performance except for stock return. In particular, the impact of CCG on return on assets, return on equity and Tobin's Q is an inverted U-shape, implying that an increased CCG can enhance corporate performance, but as the level of CCG reaches its optimal point, an increase in CCG could have a negative influence on corporate performance. Empirical test results can offer valuable managerial insights for the hospitality industry.     

Will we have the same employees in hospitality after all? The impact of COVID-19 on employees’ work attitudes and turnover intentions

A crisis caused by COVID-19 pandemic affected the whole world leaving long-lasting effects on almost every aspect of human lives. The aim of this study was to test how different effects of COVID-19, expressed through job insecurity, employees' health complaints occurred during isolation, risk-taking behavior at workplace and changes in the organization, may impact work-related attitudes (job motivation and job satisfaction) and turnover intentions of the employees in hospitality industry. Based on the data collected from 624 hospitality workers from Serbia, the results indicated that job insecurity and changes in the organization were predictors of all outcomes, in a negative direction, while risk-taking behavior acted as a predictor of job satisfaction only, also in a negative direction. The significance of demographic characteristics, as control variables, showed that age and marital status had significant impact on job motivation and turnover intentions. The theoretical and practical implications were discussed.     

“Give and take”: A social exchange perspective on festival stakeholder relations

Based on social exchange theory, this research seeks to establish the differences between festival stakeholder relations in terms of trust, control, dependence, and altruism. A total of 1105 participant surveys were collected at six festivals in Ghana across eight stakeholder groups including organizers, government authorities, visitors, volunteers, sponsors, and media. The results indicate that organizers have the highest level of trust for other stakeholders whereas media have the lowest. For other stakeholders trust levels are similar, suggesting that festival organizers capitalize on mutual stakeholder trust to broaden collaboration. Regarding dependence, volunteers showed the least level of dependence on other stakeholders, suggesting that organizers work to more deeply engage their volunteers to improve relationships. This multi-dimensional assessment of social exchange theory in the festival field contributes to our understanding of dynamics among festival stakeholders.     

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on customer experience design: The hotel managers’ perspective

This research responds to calls for research on the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the hospitality industry by investigating how hotel managers are designing safe customer experiences. Specifically, this study examines the measures adopted in high-end and luxury hotels and identifies the effects of such measures on the intended (or planned) experience. Based on thematic analysis of interviews with hotel managers, this study identifies seven safety measures: hygiene and protection, internal work reorganization, servicescape reorganization, investments in technology and digital innovations, customer wait time reorganization, staff training, and updated communication. These measures are expected to affect the intended experience in terms of reassurance, quickness, intimacy, and proximity, as emerged from correspondence factor analysis. Based on these results, this research proposes a model for safe customer experience design and suggests practical implications to help hotel managers formulate strategies aimed at customer experience creation under safe conditions.     

How do hotel employees’ feeling trusted and its differentiation shape service performance: The role of relational energy

Although prior literature has generally shown that feeling trusted plays a crucial role in boosting employee performance, little attention has been paid to exploring how and when feeling trusted promotes service performance. Borrowing from the Pygmalion effect and conservation of resources theory, we craft and scrutinize a cross-level framework elucidating why and when feeling trusted shapes service performance by pinpointing relational energy as a linchpin mechanism, and feeling trusted differentiation as a key contingency. A three-wave survey design is used to examine these assumptions with data culled from 505 hotel employee–leader dyads nested in 97 groups affiliated with 16 hotels in China. As anticipated, we found that feeling trusted can evoke high relational energy, which in turn improves service performance. In addition, these observed effects of feeling trusted become stronger when feeling trusted differentiation is low rather than high. Overall, we conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.     

Transformational leadership and turnover intention: The mediating effects of trust and job performance on café employees in Thailand

ABSTRACT

Immediate managers are the number one predictor of employee turnover. Immediate managers’ transformational leadership style might reduce turnover intention through the employees’ trust in their manager and their perceived job performance. To support the contention, a study was conducted among 187 employees of cafés in Bangkok, hypothesizing that transformational leadership would negatively predict turnover intention and that trust and job performance would mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and turnover intention. Results support the hypotheses. Transformational leadership seems to have an impact to reduce turnover intention and organizations may benefit from development programs to instill transformational leadership style among their immediate managers.     

From customers' fingertips to employees’ well-being: The impact of mobile application ordering from a job demand-resource perspective

Service is entering a 2.0 transformation where service no longer simply involves customer-employee interactions, but customer-technology-employee interactions. However, previous literature predominantly focuses on customers from a marketing approach, failing to incorporate employees' perspective in the face of technology-enabled changes in a service encounter. Building on Job demand-resource model, this study proposes mobile applications as a job resource and examines their impact on restaurant employees. This study conducts interviews and qualitative content analysis in Study 1 and further employs a 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design in Study 2. The results indicate that mobile orders may assist frontline employees to invest less cognitive and emotional effort, even in the condition of higher order complexity, leading to enhanced employee workplace well-being. This study newly introduces mobile apps as job resources and a potential way to improve employees’ well-being at work. This study contributes both JD-R and the well-being literature with practical implications.     

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.     

Predicting hospitality employees’ safety performance behaviors in the COVID-19 pandemic

This study develops and tests a research model to explain and predict how and when organizational safety climate influences hospitality employees’ safety performance behaviors by proposing two boundary conditions: communication transparency and safety-related stigma based on expectancy-valence theory. Specifically, we examined if communication transparency intensifies the impact of perceived safety climate on employees’ safety motivation that drives safety performance behaviors through prevention work focus and if safety-related stigma attenuates the links between safety motivation and safety performance behaviors. Based on two national samples of 214 South Korean and 240 U.S. foodservice employees, this research found that safety climate was positively associated with safety motivation, prompting safety behaviors with the key mediating mechanism of prevention focus work. However, there were different patterns observed for the moderating roles of communication transparency and stigma for the foodservice employees between South Korea and the United States. Implications of the findings are discussed for hospitality researchers and practitioners.     

The influence of service brand orientation on hotel employees’ attitude and behaviors in China

As foreign hotel brands continue to roll out their investment in China, the competitive landscape intensifies. Central to the success of these hotel brands is their ability to offer the unique features of their service offering, as reflected in the brand, in which employees play a key role. However, in the Chinese market, where the introduction of foreign hotel brands is in its initial stages, employee brand knowledge may be limited resulting in service behaviors that are inconsistent with the brand. Therefore, the adoption of a service brand orientation to guide employee attitudes and behavior is considered to be necessary. In an effort to realize productive service employees, this study examines the consequences of adopting a service brand orientation. Results suggest that a service brand orientation is imperative for positive employee brand-oriented behaviors as well as customer-oriented behaviors that are a consequence of an employee customer orientation.     

The effect of employees’ verbal mimicry on tipping

van Baaren et al. (2003) found that a waitress who mimicked their patrons by repeating their order received significantly larger tips. In this study, we tried to replicate these results by testing the effect of repetition after a delay between the customer's initial order and the repetition. A waitress was instructed to mimic or not half of their customers by repeating their order verbatim when she brought the order to the table. Mimicry increased the frequency in tipping and the amount of money left by the customers.