Islamic Work Ethic,innovative work behaviour,and adaptive performance: the mediating mechanism and an interacting effect

This study’s focus is on the relationship between Islamic Work Ethic (IWE) and adaptive performance with the mediating role of innovative work behaviour (IWB) and moderating role of ethical leadership among hospitality sector employees in Pakistan. Data were collected using questionnaires from 257 employees working in various hotels across Pakistan. Results indicate that IWE significantly predicts adaptive performance both directly and indirectly through IWB. In addition, results also confirm the moderating role of ethical leadership between IWE and IWB. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

An empirical investigation of psychological capital among flight attendants

Our paper develops and tests a research model that examines whether psychological capital (PsyCap) mediates the relationship between servant leadership and work engagement (WE) and whether WE mediates the effect of PsyCap on service recovery performance and life satisfaction. Data were collected from flight attendants with a two-week time lag in three waves and their pursers in the private airline companies in Iran. The results suggest that servant leadership influences WE indirectly only through PsyCap. The results also suggest that WE is a partial mediator between PsyCap and the aforesaid attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Our study discusses theoretical implications and provides recommendations for managers in the airline industry.     

The impacts of perceived organizational prestige and organization identification on turnover intention: the mediating effect of psychological empowerment

This study examined the attitudes of workers employed at hotels in Turkey. An integrated model was developed to highlight the relationship between organizational prestige and organizational identification with turnover intention as mediated through psychological empowerment. Using a sample of 332 employees, structural equation modelling was conducted to establish this relationship by analysing the responses of employees of hotels in Turkey. The findings of the study reveal a strong relationship between organizational identification/organizational prestige and hotel employees’ turnover intention. The study discusses the implications of the presented findings and suggests potential practical applications.     

Do job characteristics lead to employee creativity in travel agencies?

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between job characteristics and employee creativity among different job types in travel agencies. This study collected data from 289 employees of 63 consolidated travel agencies headquartered in Taipei. The sample included tour managers, route controllers, operators and salespersons. Results indicate that both job characteristics and employee creativity differ with the four job types. Also, different job types moderate the effect of job characteristics' five dimensions on employee creativity. Implications of these findings for stimulating employee creativity as well as future research directions are also provided. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Investigation of entrepreneurial orientation development with airline employees: Moderating roles of a cooperation-competition mechanism

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) represents a powerful predictor of firm performance, and the cooperation-competition mechanism is gaining importance in entrepreneurial development. In this study, we propose three research paths: (1) exploring how knowledge sharing influences EO; (2) exploring how knowledge sharing correlates with EO as a mediator of motivation, creativity, and human capital; and (3) exploring how cooperation, climate and competitive intensity as critical moderators affect motivation and creativity. We tested our hypotheses using data collected from 505 airline employees from airline organizations. The following findings were identified: (1) knowledge sharing is positively and directly correlated with EO; (2) knowledge sharing affects EO through motivation, creativity, and human capital but creativity does not indicate mediation effects between motivation and human capital; (3) both cooperative climate and competition intensity are positively affected by motivation and creativity; and (4) competition intensity positively affects knowledge sharing and motivation. To address the theoretical and managerial contribution of this study, a robustness examination was conducted to generalize the findings. Furthermore, this study further enriches the creativity and EO theory of uniqueness and identification. More importantly, this study provides effective and appropriate methods for airline organization management by guiding their employees to conduct entrepreneurial orientation in a cooperative circumstance successfully, and it especially emphasizes the role of knowledge sharing in facilitating motivation, creativity and human capital. Lastly, limitations and suggestions for future research are also discussed.     

Developing a framework for the analysis of power through depotentia

Stakeholder participation in tourism policy-making is usually perceived as providing a means of empowerment. However, participatory processes drawing upon stakeholders from traditionally empowered backgrounds may provide the means of removing empowerment from stakeholders. Such an outcome would be in contradiction to the claims that participatory processes improve both inclusivity and sustainability. In order to form an understanding of the sources through which empowerment may be removed, an analytical perspective has been developed deriving from Lukes' views of power dating from 1974. This perspective considers the concept of depotentia as the removal of ‘power to’ without speculating upon the underlying intent, and also provides for the multidimensionality of power to be examined within a single study. The application of this analytical perspective has been tested upon findings of the government-commissioned report of the Countryside and Community Research Unit in 2005. The survey and report investigated the progress of Local Access Forums in England created in response to the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. Consideration of the data from this perspective permits the classification of individual sources of depotentia which can each be addressed and potentially enable stakeholder groups to reverse loss of empowerment where it has occurred.     

Perceived organizational support as the mediator of the relationships between high-performance work practices and counter-productive work behavior: Evidence from airline industry

In light of Signaling theory, this study investigates the mediating role of perceived organizational support (POS) in the relationship between high-performance work practices (HPWPs) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Judgmental sample of flight attendants in Iran was used to asses this relationship. The results of multiple regression analysis indicate that empowerment, reward and promotion as indicators of HPWPs are negatively related to CWB. Further, the results support the mediating role of POS in this relationship. Specifically, results indicate that POS acts as the partial mediator in the relationships between empowerment, reward and CWB. Moreover, results support full mediating role of POS in the relationships between promotion and CWB. This study advances our understanding of organizational level antecedents of CWB and mediating role of POS as the social mechanism through which HPWPs predict employees’ behavioral outcomes.     

The impact of airline internal branding on work outcomes using job satisfaction as a mediator

Within the context of the airline industry, this study offers an integrated approach measuring the effects of internal brand communication, brand-centered training, transformational leadership, brand ideology, and internal brand communities on job satisfaction and work outcomes. It further explores the role of job satisfaction as a mediator between internal branding and work outcomes. Following an analysis of 485 responses, we find that leadership, ideology, and communities positively influence job satisfaction, which in turn affects intention-to-stay, team performance, and brand commitment. Job satisfaction is also found to mediate the relationships between internal branding (i.e., transformational leadership, brand ideology, and internal brand communities) and work outcomes. These findings highlight that appropriate branding strategies can enhance airline development through employee satisfaction.     

Perceived stress and burnout syndrome: A moderated mediation model of self-efficacy and psychological comfort among polish air traffic controllers

How can one protect oneself against stress and burnout syndrome? What is the role of human cognitive processes? This study explores the moderated mediation effects of the trait of self-efficacy in a mode of perceived stress and burnout syndrome in a group of Polish air traffic controllers. The first aim of this study was to develop a better understanding of the construct of perceived stress. We proposed a latent variable, called psychological comfort, to clarify the role of self-efficacy in relation: stress and burnout. The second aim was to test the assumptions about the mediating role of self-efficacy in the relationship between stress and burnout via the level of psychological comfort. The most important aim was to investigate whether the direct and indirect associations between stress and burnout were moderated by the level of psychological comfort. For the study, self-report questionnaires were distributed to 609 active air traffic controllers from 18 air traffic control centers of the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency (PANSA). Three hundred forty sets of questionnaires were returned (55.88%) of which 110 were correctly completed (return rate - 18.1%). We formulated 5 hypotheses. Two of them were confirmed: the indirect effect of perceived stress on occupational burnout via general self-efficacy was significant and the indirect relationship between perceived stress and occupational burnout would be different for air traffic controllers characterized by various levels of psychological comfort. The study emphasizes the role of certain human cognitive resources which may play a role in the relationship between stress and burnout: self-efficacy, perceived stress, and psychological comfort. There are important practical conclusions from the research. Knowing about the level of psychological comfort helps to plan better actions to protect against the negative impact of chronic stress on cognitive functions and against the development of clinical symptoms of burnout syndrome.     

The effect of Covid-19 depression on spirituality and psychological well-being through the perceived environmental restorativeness of a pilgrimage route: Focusing on pilgrims on Seoul Catholic Pilgrimage Route

During the COVID-19 pandemic, policies adopted by various countries to prevent the spread of the disease exacerbated social isolation among people, and their prolonged implementation has had a negative effect on people's mental health, leading to increased anxiety, stress, and depression. Group religious activities were prohibited, so believers continued their faith practices through individual pilgrimages. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship between depression caused by COVID-19 and its impact on spirituality and psychological well-being, through the perceived restorative environment of the Seoul Catholic Pilgrimage Route. The results confirmed that COVID-19 depression had a negative effect on perceived environmental restorativeness and psychological well-being but perceived environmental restorativeness had a positive effect on Spirituality, and Spirituality had a positive effect on psychological well-being. These results imply that pilgrims who have experienced depression due to the pandemic can improve their spirituality and psychological well-being through nature-based pilgrimages.     

Should I stay or should I go? Negotiating township tours in post-apartheid South Africa

This article focuses on township tours outside Cape Town and Johannesburg during the past decade. By examining the subjectivities of guides and tourists, as well as public discourses about townships, I argue that township tours are ethically problematic and ambiguous, but do not go uncontested. Questions about voyeurism and development are negotiated during the tours in a number of ways. First, the morality of witnessing townships – not through the modality of vision, but through participating in contact zones – is asserted. Second, public discourses that valourize the creativity of the poor, and which harness history as a force for reconciliation and development, inform the tours. Third, tour guides attempt to reform charity and to highlight ethical consumption. An ethnographic and discursive analysis leads me to conclude that township tours are part of a larger post-apartheid project of re-imagining and remaking marginalized urban spaces.     

Paternalistic leadership and cabin crews’ upward safety communication: The motivation of voice behavior

Being the frontline operators in the airline industry, flight attendants constantly obtain and collect first-hand information from their interactions with passengers and other crew members. Their experiences and observations may contribute greatly to airlines' safety management and policy making. It is thus critical to learn how to enhance cabin crews' voice behavior, particularly communicating safety related issues upward through specific leadership styles. The current research aims at the flight attendants working for Taiwanese international airlines. The cabin crew department managers' paternalistic leadership style is adopted to observe how it may trigger cabin crews' different types of voice behavior. This research addresses the following two major questions: 1. What is the motivation for cabin crew to conduct upward safety communication? 2. How does department managers' paternalistic leadership style impact cabin crew's voice behavior? Regression analysis is used to analyze the empirical data collected by the questionnaire survey. The results are applied to provide airlines with practical references for constituting human resource management policies, and the findings also enhance existing literature regarding management applications and employees voice behaviors.     

An explorative study of corporate travellers’ perception at a German airport

The modern working environment is changing at a fast pace due to factors such as globalisation, digitalisation, and demographic trends. Taking an exploratory approach, this study examines how prevailing factors shaping the working world may influence the perception of business air travellers. Relevant factors are identified through a literature review, which results are confirmed by expert interviews (N = 11). Business travellers are surveyed (N = 67) at Munich Airport regarding their personal experiences and their evaluations of these identified factors. Their perceptions concerning the psychological and physical experience, digitalisation, age, and gender are examined in detail.Findings provide insights into the development of business air travel, with a focus on German business travellers. Despite the influence of advanced information and communications technology, survey results reveal that air travel might stay an essential part of the working world, as face-to-face meetings are not fully replaceable. Increasing multi-partner project work and flexible work structures could even lead into an increase of air travel. The study also delineates recommendations and research potential, such as the extension of the study in the light of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The question of how trends within the working world influence the perception of business related air travel is rarely studied. This study contributes to this gap in the scientific community.     

Transition process activities and team efficacy of flight attendants

The research goals of this study were to investigate how transition process activities among flight attendants affect team efficacy. We distributed a total of 600 questionnaires to flight teams in an airline company, which yielded a usable response of 275 fully completed questionnaires in the end. The research model and the hypotheses were tested using a structural equation modeling approach.Our findings suggest that transition team activities have emerged as an important asset in team efficacy; moreover, increasing flight attendants' job satisfaction should be a priority for airline companies. Second, communication between flight attendants requires not just the delivery of information but also receipt and comprehension of the knowledge interchange, third, the development of shared leadership should be concerned in flight teams.     

Tourism innovation: when interdependencies matter

This research note highlights the relevance of tourism’s natural system of interdependencies in the context of innovation creation. The lack of studies on tourism inter and intra-sectoral interdependencies and on their role in innovation creation is emphasized. Then recent developments in the study of interdependencies and their role in generating creativity and innovation are presented. The discussion shows avenues for future research within the tourism realm.     

‘Be global,go local’ – innovation and creativity in the development of alternative guiding services in Budapest

Based on qualitative research methods, the paper explores the emergence of creativity and innovation in the development of guiding services, and analyses the cultural and spatial characteristics of alternative guided tours developed for niche markets in Budapest, Hungary. The study is part of a 3-year (2011–2014) research programme entitled ‘Creativity and its contribution to niche tourism development – following and creating trends’ that aimed to investigate the potential of niche tourism products in the Hungarian market. In order to understand the development process, characteristics and significance of alternative guiding in the city, a complex methodology of interviews, participant observation and content analysis of service providers’ websites and customers’ feedback on social media sites was used. The analysis suggests that although the impact of these alternative guided tours on the city’s tourist image is currently limited, they contribute to the repositioning of the destination and enrich its ambiance.     

The effects of high-performance work practices and job embeddedness on flight attendants' performance outcomes

This paper proposes and tests a conceptual model that investigates job embeddedness (JE) as a mediator of the effects of high-performance work practices (HPWPs), as manifested by selective staffing, job security, training, empowerment, rewards, teamwork, and career opportunities, on creative performance (CP) and extra-role customer service (ERCS). Data obtained from flight attendants with a time lag of two weeks in Iran were used to test the aforementioned relationships through structural equation modeling. The results suggest that JE functions as a full mediator of the joint effects of HPWPs on performance outcomes. Specifically, HPWPs jointly enhance JE. JE in turn leads to elevated levels of CP and ERCS. Implications of the results are discussed and future research directions are offered.     

Teasing the boundaries of ‘volunteer tourism’: local NGOs looking for global workforce

Ongoing scholarly discussions on international volunteer tourism focus primarily on volunteer tourists as subjects and local communities as their near-static objects. This ethnographic study reverses that focus. Five developmental Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are explored as active agents that see tourists and travellers as a resource and a free workforce in Dharamsala's Tibetan diaspora settlement in India. These NGOs have found a unique way of increasing the volume of volunteer tourism by offering tourists and travellers accessible volunteering opportunities on the spot, particularly as English-language tutors for Tibetan newcomers. Tourists and travellers in Dharamsala are backpacker oriented and usually interested in Tibetan culture, representing a perfect target group for NGOs offering them meaningful encounters with Tibetans. This study aims to broaden the scope of scholarly discussion and conceptualization of volunteer tourism. It provides an example of how volunteer tourism could become an increasingly effective tool for NGOs in the Global South, in an increasingly equitable manner. It also demonstrates how the method found by the Tibetan NGOs contests the current critique of commodification in volunteer tourism. Within volunteer tourism, true empowerment of local communities can only occur when the locals are in control and able to set their own goals.     

Optimizing transit maintenance and rehabilitation to support human development and sustainability: A case study of Costa Rica’s railroad network

Public transportation plays a critical role in improving human development and consequently the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by United Nations. Convenient and efficient transit enable inhabitants to reach labor markets, access social support facilities as well as health and education services. This study develops a decision-making support framework for transit agencies to select optimum maintenance, rehabilitation, and upgrade alternatives to accomplish good levels of service and improve human development and sustainability indexes. A case study of Costa Rica’s great metropolitan area is used to illustrate the study with various budget scenarios. The results show that the proposed system can accomplish significant improvements on both level of service and human development. It is also confirmed that the explicit consideration of human development and sustainability made a significant difference as compared to the classical approach, which only considers the level of service (LOS). The proposed model could be used by other public transit systems.