Does bureaucracy kill individual initiative? The impact of structure on organizational citizenship behavior in the hospitality industry

In their quest for improved service quality, hospitality organizations face a paradox. Standardization and centralization are generally perceived as essential to maintaining high service standards. These bureaucratic mechanisms, however, are suspected to have a negative impact on spontaneous “organizational citizenship” behaviors, which are equally essential for flawless service delivery. Empirical results from the Swiss hotel industry suggest that “helping” behavior is more widespread than “voice” behavior among hotel employees. The results also provide support for the hypothesis that “helping” and “voice” behaviors are negatively affected by a centralized organization structure. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

To be true or not to be true: authentic leadership and its effect on travel agents

This study examines authentic leadership and its impact on employees in the travel industry. Based on previous studies, the study proposes and tests a framework, in which four dimensions of authentic leadership influence two types of trust (supervisor trust and organizational trust), which in turn affect employee burnout. The data were collected by using a survey on travel agents in South Korea. The study finds that not all four dimensions of authentic leadership influence trust and that supervisor trust affects organizational trust. Trust is found to mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and employee burnout. The study offers theoretical implications and practical suggestions.     

Determinants and outcome of career competencies: Perspectives of hotel managers in China

This study aims to explore the determinants and outcome of career competencies. Based on the notion that organizations and individuals have respective obligations in the career management of employees’, this study developed perceived “organizational career management’ (OCM) and “career commitment” as determinants and career satisfaction as an outcome of career competencies. Data were collected in the state-owned hotels in China, and structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed relationships. The findings indicate that both perceived OCM and career commitments have positive, direct effects on career competencies. The findings of this study may benefit both hotels and hotel employees by providing valuable implications.     

Hotel employees’ perceptions on corporate social responsibility: The case of Hong Kong

This study examines the perceived importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) attributes of Hong Kong hotel employees and their hotels’ performance on those attributes, and to determine underlying performance factors that ultimately lead to the perceived overall CSR effectiveness of hotels. The importance–performance analysis results show that Hong Kong hotels generally performed well on 17 out of the indicated 30 CSR attributes. Furthermore, the attribute “promote innovation in products and services” was considered to be overkill, and another attribute, “demonstrates a commitment to the environment,” requires the immediate attention of hotels. Six performance factors were extracted and Hong Kong hotels performed best in the area of finance. The factors “state of affairs” and “novelty” positively and significantly affected employees’ perceived overall CSR effectiveness of their hotels. Almost 70% of the respondents agreed that Hong Kong hotels had been effective in carrying out their CSR. Hotels in Hong Kong should find our study results helpful in pinpointing CSR attributes considered of various importance and performance levels from the perspective of one of their important stakeholders, their employees. In particular, the relatively low awareness toward the environment of both the employees and the hotels should alert the hotel management to invest greater efforts in environmental protection.     

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.     

Pygmalion leadership: Theory and application to the hotel industry

ABSTRACT

This research investigates the role of Pygmalion leadership and the influences of employees’ trust in a leader, trust in an organization, and job engagement on task performance in the hotel industry. Through examining Pygmalion leadership, trust, and engagement in the literature, this research establishes and tests a model to identify the interrelation among four dimensions of Pygmalion leadership (e.g., climate, output, input, and feedback), trust in a leader, trust in an organization, job engagement, and task performance. Using data collected from hotel employees, this study finds that climate, output, and feedback are critical for nurturing two dimensions of trust that enhance job engagement and task performance.     

Competency analysis of top managers in the Taiwanese hotel industry

The purpose of this study was to identify top managers’ competencies in hotel unit leaders perceived to be most critical for career development, and using the Fuzzy Delphi and Analytic Hierarchy Process methods to determine perceptions of the importance of various competencies in different dimensions. This study uses snowball sampling methods to collect data from 25 hotel top managers and uses qualitative and quantitative surveys, including interviews, questionnaire review and a questionnaire survey. A two-stage research design is adopted to understand the differences in perceived competency requirements better. The analytical results demonstrate the required competencies of top managers in the hotel industry, and divide them into generic and technical dimensions, 18 competency domains, and 107 competency indices. The top three most important competency domains are “leadership,” “crisis management,” and “problem-solving.” The proposed management competency framework provides an important implication for educators, practitioners, and researchers.     

The mediating role of trust between expatriate procedural justice and employee outcomes in Chinese hotel industry

This study draws from social exchange theory to examine the roles cognitive and affective trust play in mediating the relationship between expatriate supervisors and their local employees. We differentiate the two forms of trust by proposing, on the one hand, that cognitive trust mediates the relationship between the procedural justice displayed by expatriate supervisors and job satisfaction and organizational commitment of their employees and, on the other hand, that affective trust mediates the relationship between the procedural justice displayed by expatriates and the level of employee satisfaction with and altruism toward their supervision. We then support the hypotheses by using structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze data collected from 286 employees working with expatriate supervisors in China's hotel industry. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Urban ecotourism: Defining and assessing dimensions using fuzzy number construction

This study assesses the dimensions of urban ecotourism. The indicators in this study undertaken in Taiwan were shaped by a novel approach, the fuzzy number construction approach. This approach possesses various advantages, including an ability was to cope with ambiguous issues; its comprehensive nature and the need for subjects to respond with a single number. The results revealed that economic factors played a lesser role than did social and environmental factors. Additionally the study reinforces the significant position of community participation while promoting urban ecotourism. The paper reports data and findings derived from two ecotourism destinations, one located in urban area and the other located in non-urban area. The findings indicate that “identifying with local culture” had the highest weight (7.19%), followed by “inclination of supporting environmental conservation” (7.06%),“satisfying local environment” (6.82%), “the 5 degree of habitat diversity” (6.58%),“inclination of urban ecotourism” (6.50%), and “coverage of the green areas” (6.36%). Implications for management indicate that urban park areas suffer greater stress due to recreational usage.     

Procedural justice,ethical climate and service outcomes in restaurants

The literature suggests that ethical climate may actually contribute to organizational success by enhancing employee performance. Ethical climate is considered to be highly relevant to the hospitality industry, since it enhances service-providers’ contact with customers. This study reinforces previous researches by exploring the relationships between ethical climate, service, and customer satisfaction in restaurants. We have also examined the relationship between ethical climate and the fair treatment of employees by an organization. The study was conducted in 20 restaurants, with 171 employees and 103 customers. Data were obtained from employees, customers, and “mystery shoppers”. As expected, ethical climate was found to be related to service performance which, in turn, was found to fully mediate the relationship of ethical climate with customer satisfaction. Ethical climate was also found to correlate positively with procedural justice. Our results indicate the benefits of the ethical message conveyed through consistent managerial practices in service organizations.     

The impact of CSR on relationship quality and relationship outcomes: A perspective of service employees

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained increasing attention over the past decade. While many studies examined an impact of CSR on consumers, only dearth of research is found that attempts to understand the impact of CSR on employees from the relationship marketing perspective. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of CSR in predicting relationship quality and relationship outcomes. The four dimensions of CSR used in the study include economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic aspects. Data were collected via survey from employees of franchised foodservice enterprises located in South Korea. The findings of the study show that not all dimensions of CSR have the same effect on relationship quality. While economic and philanthropic dimensions have a significant influence on organizational trust, only ethical dimension has a positive effect on job satisfaction. As expected, relationship quality has a significant impact on relationship outcomes.     

The influence of restaurant co-workers’ perceived warmth and competence on employees’ turnover intentions: The mediating role of job attitudes

The current study examines the influence of co-workers’ perceived warmth and competence on employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions in a casual dining restaurant setting. The warmth and competence dimensions represent two fundamental social dimensions that people often use to evaluate other individuals or groups. The current findings determined that co-workers’ perceived warmth and competence had significant effects on employees’ job satisfaction, which in turn improved their organizational commitment.Furthermore, job satisfaction and organizational commitment mediated the relationships between co-workers’ perceived warmth and competence and employees’ turnover intentions. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Working onboard - Job perception, organizational commitment and job satisfaction in the cruise sector

This paper focuses on the perceived work environment and its influence on organizational commitment and job satisfaction in the cruise sector. Two focus group interviews were conducted in addition to one survey among the crew in an upmarket cruise line. The focus groups elicited responses concerning crew experiences of working onboard. Based on this information, a questionnaire was constructed to measure job perceptions among crew members. The results indicate that all of the experience domains were related to job commitment and job satisfaction, but that the strongest effects were found to be perceived “Respect”, the “Social atmosphere”, and “Food and living quarters”.     

Effects of organizational/occupational characteristics and personality traits on hotel manager emotional exhaustion

Emotional exhaustion is a type of burnout and a state of mental weariness. It is an important issue for hospitality organizations because customer contact employees and hospitality managers function in an environment that is particularly susceptible to the creation of the antecedents of burnout. Further, emotional exhaustion itself is costly to hospitality organizations and individuals because it has been shown to result in depersonalization, detachment, decreased service quality and job performance, and increased turnover. Using a sample of 544 hotel managers from 36 hotels located throughout the United States, this study examines whether emotional exhaustion is a function of organizational and occupational characteristics, including job demands, quality orientation, pressure to produce, and need for “face time.” In addition, this study analyzes whether personality traits of the managers themselves, including extroversion and neuroticism, are predictors of emotional exhaustion. This study found emotional exhaustion of hotel managers to be a function of not only job and organizational characteristics, but also personality characteristics.     

Feeling empowered and doing good? A psychological mechanism of empowerment,self-esteem,perceived trust,and OCBs

Building on agency theory and signaling theory, this study investigated the psychological mechanism of how empowerment impacts hotel frontline employees' self-esteem, perceived trust, and OCBs performed toward both internal and external customers. Using a longitudinal research design with data collected via three waves, the results supported that three out of four dimensions of empowerment had significant and positive influence on employees' self-esteem and perceived trust, both of which are significant predictors for three types of OCBs. The study makes important contributions to literature and suggests that hotel employees feeling empowered can enhance their overall wellness while contributing to their OCB performances. Thus, empowerment should be properly used as a strategy to facilitate employees’ contextual performance.     

饭店业员工过度劳动的实证分析与管理

近年来,过度劳动问题已严重影响到人们的工作生活和健康。文章以山东省饭店业为例,对员工的过度劳动状况进行调查。基于因子分析结果,从员工的生理表现、工作状态、行为反应3个维度14项指标进行过度劳动的方差分析。结果表明,饭店员工的过劳程度总体呈现中等偏上的水平,其中,性别、年龄、职位层级不同,过度劳动的生理表现差异性显著;受教育程度、工作年限、职位层级、饭店星级的不同,过度劳动的工作状态差异性显著;性别和受教育程度的不同,过度劳动的行为反应差异性显著。在分析结论的基础上,提出过度劳动两大系统6个层面的有效管理系统。     

When my pay is lower than my expatriate colleagues: Where do the Hospitality Managers go from here?

Evidence suggests that the failure of expatriate managers has a great impact on MNCs in the hospitality industry. While this mainly stems from poor interrelationships with local subordinates, little is known about ways to ameliorate the detrimental effect. Given this, we examined the moderating roles of trust on compensation gap-work outcomes relationships. The Multilevel approach was used on a sample of 286 local team members and 32 expatriate team leaders from hotel companies in China. Results show that compensation gap between locals and expatriates relates negatively to local employee work outcomes. The negative compensation gap–work outcome relationship is moderated by trust. Affective trust significantly reduces the negative effect of compensation gap on employees’ satisfaction with expatriate managers and altruism towards them while cognitive trust minimizes the effect on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. We suggest an increase in trust dimensions to reduce perceived injustice in hospitality international management.     

Organizational Climate of Food and Beverage Employees

Abstract

Seven dimensions of organizational climate and measures of perceived customer satisfaction were gathered from food and beverage employees of 14 hotels. Regression analysis revealed organizational climate to explain 26.9% of the variance in customer satisfaction with food and beverage and only two organizational climate dimensions, professional and organizational esprit, and conflict and ambiguity, displaying a unique relationship to customer satisfaction with food and beverage. Customer satisfaction with food and beverage was found to explain 18.45% of the variation in RevPAR among the hotels. Recommendations are made as to which dimensions of organizational climate should be targeted for intervention programs attempting to increase hotel financial performance.     

Propensity to trust and knowledge sharing behavior: An evaluation of importance-performance analysis among Nigerian restaurant employees

Drawing from knowledge management theory, this study examines the relationships between employee's propensity to trust, organic organizational structure, knowledge sharing behavior, and service innovation in a multivariate nexus in restaurants. Data from 180 restaurants with a total of 453 employees were used to test the research hypotheses via partial least square structural equation modelling. As expected, the results of the empirical analysis revealed that propensity to trust is positively related to knowledge sharing behavior, organic organizational structure and service innovation; and knowledge sharing behavior is positively related to organic organizational structure and service innovation. Further, this study established that both knowledge sharing behavior and organic organizational structure serially mediates the positive effect of propensity to trust on service innovation. The result of importance-performance analysis highlights propensity to trust as the highest important predictor of service innovation while knowledge sharing is the best performance factor for service innovation in restaurants.     

The influence of hospitality leaders’ relational transparency on followers’ trust and deviance behaviors: Mediating role of behavioral integrity

This paper investigates the effect of leader’s relational transparency on follower organizational deviance through followers’ perception of leader’s behavioral integrity and their trust in leader. Multi-level modeling results from a multisource survey-based field-study with 24 hospitality student project teams (N = 149) show that behavioral integrity mediates the relationship between leader’s relational transparency and follower’s trust in leader. Furthermore, multi-level path analysis suggests that leader’s relational transparency, a team-level construct, exerts a cross-level effect on follower’s organizational deviance through the mediating roles of behavioral integrity and follower’s trust in leader. The study has yielded theoretical and practical implications that are useful for hospitality leaders.