Do employees’ satisfied customers respond with an satisfactory relationship? The effects of employees’ satisfaction on customers’ satisfaction and loyalty in a family restaurant

The purpose of this study is to understand the interrelationships among employees’ satisfaction and customer's satisfaction and loyalty in a family restaurant. The study was administered to 69 employees and 258 customers. The results showed a positive relationship between employees’ satisfaction and customer satisfaction. However, employees’ satisfaction did not have a significant, direct impact on customer loyalty, but showed an indirect influence via customer satisfaction. In addition, customer satisfaction was positively associated with customer loyalty. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.     

Justice and trust’s role in employees’ resilience and business’ continuity: Evidence from Egypt

Resilience is increasingly recognized as a means of reducing the effects of disasters on tourist destinations. However, there is limited understanding of the contextual factors that promote resilient attitudes and behaviors among employees of tourism and hospitality organizations, which in turn lead to business recovery and success. Using a capital-based approach, this study explores the impact of employees' resilience – as manifested by hardiness, resourcefulness and optimism– on two indicators of business continuity: perception of job insecurity and creative performance. The mediating effects of distributive justice and trust in the organization are also tested to establish how they affect this relationship. Data were gathered from 960 employees in tourism and hospitality organizations affected by terrorist attacks in Egypt. Using results obtained through structural equation modeling, we demonstrate a direct relationship between employees' resilience and business continuity, with distributive justice and trust partially functioning as mediators. The implications and limitations are discussed.     

Hotels’ environmental leadership and employees’ organizational citizenship behavior

Expanding on a stream of literature connecting employee motivation to environmental practices, this research investigated why hospitality employees participated in organizational citizenship behaviors related to company sustainability efforts. The results of this study suggest that employees’ environmental belief partially mediates the influences of both environmental-transformational leadership and environmental policies on organizational citizenship behavior toward the environment, while it fully mediates the association between environmental training and the outcome. The findings also demonstrate that employees’ perception of organizational support moderates the relationship between environmental belief and organizational citizenship behavior toward the environment. Pointedly, hospitality workers reported they were increasingly more likely to engage in ecologically friendly organizational citizenship behaviors as their environmental beliefs increased, and as such, organizational support moderated the association so that the more support received, the more likely workers would engage in such behaviors, and the less support received, the less likely they were to do so.     

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.     

Organizational trust in times of COVID-19: Hospitality employees’ affective responses to managers’ communication

During a crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, what managers communicate to their employees can greatly impact important organizational attitudes, such as organizational trust. There is, however, very little research focusing on the mechanisms explaining how managers’ messages during a crisis can influence employees’ organizational trust. To address this gap, the current study examined the role that emotions play in developing organizational trust using a 2 (following CDC norms vs. ignoring CDC norms) by 2 (employee focus vs. bottom-line focus) between-subjects factorial experiment, with COVID-19 as the context. The results showed that a manager’s communication that followed the CDC social norms made employees feel grateful, whereas communication that ignored CDC social norms enhanced fear and anger toward the organization. The feelings of gratefulness and fear influenced organizational trust. These results provide important theoretical and practical implications for understanding organizational trust during a crisis.     

Hotel employees’ fun climate at work: Effects on work-family conflict and employee deep acting through a collectivistic perspective

Although the importance of workplace fun in hospitality organizations has been emphasized by scholars, discussion of the mechanism of a workplace fun climate in collectivistic cultural contexts is still rare in current literature. Therefore, based on a collectivistic perspective, this study aims to examine the effects of a three-component fun climate at work (socializing with coworkers, celebrating at work, and global fun at work) on employee deep acting and work-family conflict. A total of 389 usable survey responses were collected from full-time hotel employees in China. The results of this study reveal that socializing with coworkers and celebrating at work enhance global fun at work. Moreover, global fun at work significantly reduces employees’ work-family conflict and strengthens their deep acting at work. Findings of this study not only contribute to knowledge of understanding workplace fun climate in hospitality literature but also offer valuable practical implications to the hospitality industry.     

Hotel customers’ environmentally responsible behavioral intention: Impact of key constructs on decision in green consumerism

Since rapidly growing numbers of customers prefer environmentally responsible products, efforts to “green” hotel operations are becoming increasingly important. The study reported here was designed to investigate guests’ intention formation when selecting an environmentally responsible hotel. The intention was to extend the Model of Goal-directed Behavior (MGB) by integrating several essential variables (environmental awareness, perceived effectiveness, and eco-friendly behavior and reputation) in explicating customers’ eco-friendly behavior. Findings from the measurement model indicated that study variables included a satisfactory level of reliability and validity. Results from the structural modeling revealed that the proposed theoretical framework had a strong ability to anticipate intention; incorporated constructs that played a vital role in hotel guests’ decision formation; and identified attitudes and desires that acted as mediators. The role of established variables in the original MGB was redefined. Our model had superior prediction power over the MGB, accounting for guests’ environmentally friendly buying behavior accurately.     

How to fuel employees’ prosocial behavior in the hotel service encounter

With mounting customer expectation for excellent service, frontline service employees’ prosocial service behavior is of great importance since it helps enhance customers’ perceived service quality, which is critical for maintaining a hotel’s competitive advantage relative to its comp set. Regardless of the importance of prosocial service behavior, role clarity, perceived organizational support, and psychological empowerment in encouraging employees’ prosocial service behavior has not received much attention. This study examines the effects of the above three predictors on the prosocial service behavior of customer-contact employees. The authors developed a conceptual model of prosocial service behavior and empirically tested it using structural equation modeling. The findings suggest that role clarity and psychological empowerment have a direct influence on prosocial service behavior. Psychological empowerment partially mediates the relationship between role clarity and prosocial service behavior and fully mediates the relationship between perceived organizational support and prosocial service behavior.     

Impacts of cruise industry corporate social responsibility reputation on customers’ loyalty: Mediating role of trust and identification

Despite the high relevance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in service businesses, investigations of its influence on the cruise sector are scarce. Relying on institutional theory, this study proposes a model with cruise customers’ trust and identification as the key factors between CSR reputation and customers’ loyalty. Using data from 292 cruise customers, results support the impact of customers’ perceived CSR reputation of cruise companies on two relational constructs and loyal behavior. Only customers’ identification mediates the relationships between reputation and brand loyalty. Thus, findings suggest that cruise customers likely form high-level loyal behavior when they perceive companies’ CSR activities and their similarities with such companies. From these significant findings, the authors draw several theoretical and practical implications, including the importance of enhancing the company’s focus on its CSR reputations. This study also provides directions to promote identity strengths for enhancing the impact of CSR reputation on company performance.     

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.     

The role of brand personality,self-congruity,and sensory experience in elucidating sky lounge users’ behavior

This study attempted to develop an integrated model linking brand personality, self-image congruity, hedonic and utilitarian values, and behavioral intentions in the sky lounge context. Our results indicated that brand personality was significantly related to self-image congruity, which in turn influenced hedonic and utilitarian values. While hedonic value significantly affected intentions to revisit and recommend, utilitarian value significantly influenced intention to recommend. Moreover, self-image congruity and values played a significant mediating role. Furthermore, the links from hedonic value to intentions to revisit and recommend, and from utilitarian value to intention to revisit were significantly moderated by sensory experience.     

Antecedents and consequences of employees’ job stress in a foodservice industry: Focused on emotional labor and turnover intent

The purpose of this study is to understand the interrelationships among employees’ emotional labor, emotional dissonance, job stress, and turnover intent in the foodservice industry. The study was administered to 338 family-style restaurant employees. The results showed that employees’ emotional labor was positively associated with emotional dissonance, job stress, and turnover intent. However, employees’ emotional dissonance did not have a significant, direct impact on turnover intent. In addition, employees’ job stress was positively associated with turnover intent.     

Consequences of Customer Dissatisfaction in Upscale and Budget Hotels: Focusing on Dissatisfied Customers’ Attitude Toward a Hotel

It is important to understand customer dissatisfaction in order to maintain a sustainable business, given that the negative effects of customer dissatisfaction in service businesses may be even greater than the positive effects of satisfaction. This study investigates customer dissatisfaction and its consequences by focusing on the mediating role of attitude toward a hotel according to different hotel classes related to customer expectation level. The results show a mediating role for attitude in the relationship between customer dissatisfaction and specific negative behavioral intentions. This study broadens our knowledge of customer dissatisfaction and the role of attitude toward a hotel in the relevant literature. The empirical findings demonstrate that regardless of hotel type, customer dissatisfaction significantly affects their attitude and their consequent negative behavioral intention.     

Environmental certification schemes: Hotel managers’ views and perceptions

This paper contributes to research into environmental certification schemes in the hospitality industry, by discussing three objectives of such schemes: (1) promote the implementation of sustainability practices in the hospitality industry; (2) increase profitability; and (3) provide more accurate information to guests. This paper provides a first insight into the perception of managers towards certification schemes. Interviews with 21 London managers from a range of star-rated hotels, and an analysis of 196 websites of London hotels, indicates that these objectives are not all achieved. It is discussed how certification schemes provide knowledge to hoteliers and helps against claims of ‘greenwash’. The effect of certifications on profitability, however, is questioned, and due to limited communication of certifications by hotels, certifications are failing to provide guests with more accurate information. Implications, recommendations and limitations of the research are discussed.     

Travel app users’ continued use intentions: it’s a matter of value and trust

This study examines the factors that influence the continued use intention of mobile apps designed for travel-related purposes. Interviews with 22 individuals provided data for developing a conceptual model of travel app continued use intention. The model draws on the expectation confirmation model framework, as well as interviews, to illustrate the relationship between functional value, hedonic value, satisfaction, and trust, and to discuss the link between moderators of familiarity, travel purposes, travel app types, and technology proficiency as predictors on continued use. The study’s results establish an in-depth understanding of continued use for travel apps.     

When and how does leader humor promote customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior in hotel employees?

This study explores whether leader humor can encourage staff to exceed job expectations in their positive behavior toward customers, even in the notoriously stressful context of the hospitality industry. Based on our findings, leaders who use humor are more likely to prompt employees to engage in customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Leader humor affects customer-oriented OCB through the mediating effect of relational energy. In addition, employee traditionality and relational energy differentiation moderate the process. Using time-lagged data collected from 456 employees in 71 teams in China’s hotel industry, this study adds significant knowledge to the under-researched area of humor and leader humor in the hospitality industry. The findings suggest that hospitality leaders can implement humor to obtain positive effects by raising relational energy and triggering customer-oriented OCB, particularly among less-traditional workers and in situations of low relational energy differentiation.     

COVID-19 and China’s Hotel Industry: Impacts,a Disaster Management Framework,and Post-Pandemic Agenda

This exploratory study reviews the overall impacts of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on China’s hotel industry. A COVID-19 management framework is proposed to address the anti-pandemic phases, principles, and strategies. This study also suggests that COVID-19 will significantly and permanently affect four major aspects of China’s hotel industry—multi-business and multi-channels, product design and investment preference, digital and intelligent transformation, and market reshuffle.     

Perceived corporate social responsibility and customers’ behaviors in the ridesharing service industry

This study aimed to investigate how a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices affect customers’ attitudes, their self-brand connection, and, in turn, brand preference with ridesharing services (e.g., Uber). Adopting a second-order construct of perceived corporate social responsibility (PCSR) reflected from three CSR dimensions—environment, economy, and ethics—this study posited PCSR influences customers’ brand attitudes, self-brand connection, and brand preference. A total of 300 valid responses was collected from a convenience sample. Results revealed PCSR showed significant impacts on customers’ brand attitudes and self-brand connection. However, no direct impact of PCSR on customers’ brand preference was identified, while mediation effects were detected between PCSR and brand preference by brand attitudes and self-brand connection. This study also discussed the managerial and theoretical implications of PCSR practices for a ridesharing service industry.     

Hotel Theming in China: A Qualitative Study of Practitioners’ Views

Facing increasing competition, many hotels have adopted “theming” as a marketing strategy. Although still in its fledgling stage, hotel theming has already gained popularity in the growing Chinese hotel market. This study conducted focus group discussions to understand the concepts behind hotel theming in China. Respondents were 41 practitioners from the Chinese hotel industry, who were enrolled in an executive graduate program. Data revealed that hotel theming has four analytical dimensions, namely, the current state, perceived facilitators, inhibitors, and future prospective for developing such strategy in China. Results showed that the specific traits of the Chinese hotel market are highly important for the success of hotel theming in the given context.     

Organizational Learning and Hotel Performance: The Role of Capabilities’ Hierarchy

Building on the capabilities’ hierarchy concept, a model of the effect of organizational learning on hotel performance is proposed and tested in this study. Data was collected from 240 managers in the hotel industry of United Kingdom and Pakistan via survey. The results revealed strong direct inter-relation between different level of capabilities and an indirect relation between organizational learning and performance through these capabilities. This paper makes theoretical contributions to management as well as hospitality and tourism research by generating an integrative and unifying framework for an organizational learning performance relationship, clarifying capabilities inter-relationships and empirically revealing the exact way these capabilities enhance performance. Also, it has practical implications for hotel managers’ understanding on the development and use of capabilities as a hierarchy in enhancing their hotel performance.