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.     

Ethical purchasing perceptions and practices of Oklahoma restaurant managers

This study examined ethical business perceptions and practices in purchasing dealings between junior and senior managers in the U.S. restaurants. This study investigated the managerial style in the context of business ethics relative to employees’ loyalty, ethical working behavior, attitude, and decision‐making process of restaurant's food purchasing personnel. Additionally, organizational business ethics training for employees is a crucial component to enhance adherence to an ethical code of conduct. The findings revealed that the managers’ ethical purchasing perceptions and practices of their employees’ behaviors were not different in terms of gender, age, and years of experiences as a manager. Corporate ethical standards and managerial ethical practices can guide managers and employees as to how to behave when confronted with a dilemma with regard to ethics and personal interest. Consequently, the prime principle of management or purchasing personnel in terms of ethical dealings has tremendous impact on a firm's operational performance and employees’ morale.     

Fueling the intrapreneurial spirit: A closer look at how spiritual leadership motivates employee intrapreneurial behaviors

This study enriches the hospitality literature by testing a theoretical model on the direct and indirect (via psychological empowerment) relationships between spiritual leadership and intrapreneurial behaviors among hotels' frontline employees. The study also tests the moderating role of work centrality in these relationships. Using time-lagged data from 204 employees and 48 supervisors in 48 hotels, our results show that spiritual leadership is positively associated with frontline employees' psychological empowerment, which in turn increases intrapreneurial behaviors. We also find evidence that work centrality increases the strength of these positive relationships. Our results thus provide new insights on how spiritual leadership motivates hotels’ frontline employees to depart from customary ways of performing their jobs, towards seeking new opportunities to create value for the organization. We suggest that managers, through their vision, altruistic love and faith, can indeed inspire feelings of empowerment among frontline employees and encourage them to engage in intrapreneurial behaviors.     

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.     

Inversionary and Liminoidal Consumption: Gluttony on Holidays and Obesity

This study aims to explore gluttony as a liminoidal and inversionary form of behavior on all-inclusive holidays and its possible relationship with obesity. The study particularly looks at tourists’ attitudes toward food and drinks on all-inclusive holidays, that is, whether they consume food and drinks excessively on holidays; and if they do, whether their excessive eating and drinking habits are continued after their all-inclusive holidays. The findings suggest that people who go on all-inclusive holidays consume more food and drinks (both in terms quantity and variety) and a significant proportion of them, though to a varying extent, continue their excessive consumption habits after their holidays.     

Employee perceptions of well-being and organizational wellness offerings: A study of line-level employees in select-service hotels

ABSTRACT

This research assessed line-level employee perceptions of their own well-being and their awareness of wellness benefits offered by their organizations. Completed questionnaires were collected from 187 employees of select-service hotels in the Midwest. Employees had above average levels of well-being with full-time employees having significantly higher levels of well-being than part-time employees. Employees who are aware of available wellness programs had higher levels of well-being than those who are not aware of these programs. The findings suggest the need for organizations and managers to implement and communicate wellness program offerings to all employees.     

Food allergy knowledge and training among restaurant employees

As the number of Americans with food allergies continues to increase, restaurant employees should be trained to serve customers who have this condition. This study investigated restaurant employees’ food allergy (FA) knowledge and identified previous FA training, the preferred characteristics of future FA training, and the reasons why some employees were not interested in FA training. A study questionnaire was developed based on interviews with restaurateurs and previous literature and was completed by 229 restaurant employees. The results showed that the participants have some FA knowledge (20.8 ± 3.4 of 28). Many were not trained in FA but expressed interest in attending such training. The participants expressed a preference for self-paced training programs that use real-world examples and simple language. Some reasons for not being interested in attending FA training included “time consuming”, “not beneficial”, and “boring”. The restaurant industry benefits from the findings of this study by gaining a greater understanding of the current food allergy knowledge and training of restaurant employees.     

How the COVID-19 pandemic affected hotel Employee stress: Employee perceptions of occupational stressors and their consequences

This study sought to examine the impacts of the global coronavirus pandemic on hotel employees’ perceptions of occupational stressors and their consequences. Paired t-tests and structural equation modeling were applied to examine the responses of 758 hotel employees in the United States. The findings showed that occupational stressors after the outbreak of the pandemic consisted of three domains: traditional hotel-work stressors, unstable and more demanding hotel-work-environment stressors, and unethical hotel-labor-practices-borne stressors. The impacts of these stressors differed from the hypothesis that traditional hotel-work stressors positively affect job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The findings showed that job satisfaction and organizational commitment significantly explained job performance, subjective well-being, and prosocial behavior, but they did not significantly influence turnover intention. Hotel employees’ pre-pandemic perceptions of occupational stressors and their consequences also differed significantly from their perceptions after the pandemic had broken out.     

Depletion of psychological,financial, and social resources in the hospitality sector during the pandemic

This study details how psychological, financial, and social factors shape employee deviant interpersonal behaviors during a pandemic. Data were collected with a survey of 372 front-line employees of hotels and analyzed with PLS-SEM. The findings showed social disconnectedness and perceived risk of unemployment leads to perceived isolation, which further creates depression in employees. The findings also showed that depression is positively related to employee deviance. Financial strain is a major cause of perceived isolation, depression, and deviant behaviors among front-line employees. Results also proved that social support reduces fear of isolation, depression, and employee deviance. This study provides guidelines that hotels need to understand the psychological stance of employees and design policies to overcome employee perceived fears and psychological disorders.     

Inconsistent organizational images of luxury hotels: Exploring employees' perceptions and dealing strategies

This paper explores employees' perceptions regarding the inconsistent images of luxury hotels. Based on individual interviews with 16 employees (front and backline staff), 4 managers, and 2 hospitality experts from Pakistan, the study found that five-star hotels' employees experienced wide inconsistencies between their organizations' external hotel image and internal employer image. This external-internal image inconsistency not only played a major role in forming employees' perceptions towards the attractiveness of their organizations as an employer, but also influenced their organizational attachment levels (e.g., intention to quit) and recommendation behaviors (e.g., referring the organization to others). The paper also explores different ways through which employees deal with these perceived inconsistencies. Three distinct employee clusters were identified, as employees adopted different strategies to deal with these inconsistencies, based on their inclination towards either or both of the external and internal image. Practical implications in terms of hotel branding and talent management are discussed.     

Reducing the plate waste of families at hotel buffets – A quasi-experimental field study

Twenty percent of all global greenhouse emissions are food-related. Tourism and hospitality contribute significantly, with food accounting for nearly half of the waste these sectors produce. One type of food waste – plate waste – could easily be avoided. Plate waste is the food people leave behind uneaten on their plates. It does not increase the enjoyment of the meal, yet costs the hotel money, and harms the environment. We develop and test – in a quasi-experimental field study – a game-based intervention that reduces plate waste by 34 percent, and is available for immediate adoption by hotels globally. Our study contributes to theory by demonstrating the power of increasing pleasure in pleasure-seeking contexts when aiming to change environmentally significant tourist behaviour. Our findings also challenge established behavioural theories, which postulate that people's beliefs are the key drivers of pro-environmental behaviour.     

Retention of Hourly Hotel Employees

Abstract

The major objective of this study was to explore the reasons behind hourly employee turnover in the hotel industry. Data was collected from 230 hourly employees in ten small and medium-size hotels located in the Southeast U.S. The results empirically confirmed that hourly employees' retention was predicted by self-fulfillment and working conditions rather than monetary rewards. More specifically, employees who were more likely to stay with their current employer: were not interested in finding another job, had a positive experience with their hotel's company policies, were satisfied with their current job, attributed a higher level of importance for paid vacation, had a positive experience with regard to their hotel's humane approach to employees, and did not attribute a high level of importance for having a fun and challenging job.     

Disentangling green service innovative behavior among hospitality employees: The role of customer green involvement

Regardless of the role of customers in co-creating value with organizations, how customer involvement drives employees, particularly in the hospitality industry, to engage in green service innovative endeavors has been scarcely examined. This study seeks to uncover how and when customer green involvement nurtures green service innovative behavior among hotel employees. The dataset was formed from the responses from 519 employees and 84 managers working in Vietnam-based hotels and analyzed via multilevel structural equation modeling. The results demonstrated the role of hotel employees’ green information management motivations (i.e., green information proactiveness, transparency, and formality) in mediating the positive relationship between customer green involvement and employee green service innovative behavior. Internal green marketing orientation functioned as an enhancer for the effects of customer green involvement on green information management motivations. This research contributes to the stream of green behavior research by bringing together customer green involvement and green service innovative behavior in the hospitality literature and unraveling the mechanisms behind their relationship.     

如何提高饭店业一线员工的服务补救绩效:模型与实证

文章应用巴顾兹(Bagozzi)的态度模型,采用结构方程建模方法,构建并验证了基于饭店业一线员工感知视角的服务补救绩效预测模型。实证结果表明:(1)一线员工对授权、培训、奖励以及对饭店进行顾客抱怨管理的感知正向影响其工作满意度;(2)顾客抱怨管理和授权不仅通过一线员工情感变量(工作满意和情感承诺)的中介作用间接正向影响服务补救绩效,还能够直接预测服务补救绩效;(3)一线员工的情感变量是解释员工培训和奖励正向影响其服务补救绩效的完全中介变量;(4)工作满意直接正向影响一线员工的情感承诺,而在工作满意和服务补救绩效之间的间接正向影响关系中,情感承诺变量起到了全部中介效应。文章最后总结了对服务补救理论和饭店业管理实践的贡献。     

Exploring the antecedents of intentions to leave the job: The case of luxury hotel staff

The aim of this study is to assess the antecedents of employee’ intentions to resign from their jobs in luxury hotels in India. Two aspects are considered in this context: firstly, the employees’ enthusiasm for the profession and organisation, the nature of the work and its impact on social and family life. Secondly, their level of satisfaction with the job in terms of organisational loyalty, relationship with supervisors, job security, earnings and additional benefits. A theoretical model (see Fig. 1) and seven hypotheses are tested to indicate whether the employees’ level of agreement with statements about the job and their level of satisfaction with the job will impact their intentions to quit. The study further examines if any current employees intend to leave their job. The term luxury hotel is used to represent 5 star and 4 star hotels of India.Findings from the analyses of 884 responses suggest that, when considering intentions to resign from the job, a negative relationship is found between professional and organisational enthusiasm and perceptions about the work being stimulating. No support was found for a positive relationship between the extent work impacted social and family life and the intention to quit. However, results supported the notion that the employee's organisational loyalty has a negative effect on his/her intention to resign from the job. Our findings contradict several other studies in that they suggest the employee's intention to resign from the job increases as job security and earnings improve. The study is distinctive as it explores intentions luxury hotel employees in India to leave their jobs; three is little evidence in the wider literature of similar attempts in the context of the Indian hotel industry. The outcomes have implications for both theory and practice as this is the first such major study in the context of the hotel industry in India where there is a population of over a billion people and an expanding hotel industry.     

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.     

Extending the scope of hotel client reactions to employee injustice: Hotel employer reviews on the Internet

Third-party literature is concerned about the way others perceive what happens in organizations. When dealing with the perceived justice of the employer-employee relationship, it has mainly adopted an on-site approach. The scarce research focusing on the consequences of perceived justice for client variables in hotels has shown that it can impact client loyalty. In this study, we adopt an on-line view, and we analyze how the comments posted by hotel employees on the Internet about their work conditions influence guest perceptions. This topic is relevant because it is well known that clients’ perceptions influence client satisfaction, WOM and revisit intentions. Through an experiment based on real hotel employer reviews, results confirm that these comments have an impact on the organizational image dimension of service quality, hotel clients’ satisfaction, WOM, and revisit intentions. Thus, as occurs with client eWOM, hotel managers should be aware of these comments and manage them appropriately.     

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.     

Stay away from fickle supervisor! Supervisors’ behavioral fluctuation diminishing the effect of job embeddedness on employees’ service behavior

This study examined how hotel employees’ job embeddedness influences their in-role and extra-role service behaviors, and under what boundary conditions this influence can be magnified based on the psychological ownership and information-processing theories. Using longitudinal data from a matched sample of 163 hotel employees and their supervisors in China, the moderated mediation analysis revealed that affective commitment mediated the effect of job embeddedness on in-role and extra-role service behaviors, while a supervisr’s behavioral fluctuations moderated the mediation of affective commitment between job embeddedness and in-role and extra-role service behaviors; this mediation effect was stronger for employees with a supervisor exhibiting stable behaviors. These findings provide theoretical and managerial implications for tourism researchers and practitioners.