Hospitality studies and hospitality management: A symbiotic relationship

The key contribution of this paper is to critically analyse advances made since the introduction of hospitality as a higher education subject, to capture contemporary thinking, and to support the recognition of the intellectual benefits for hospitality management theory and practices of a curriculum informed from a social science-based studies perspective. The benefits of this inter-relationship are demonstrated through the inclusion of an illustration informed by historical means of enquiry, which applies hermeneutical analysis and interpretation of St. Benedict's Rule (c. 530 A.D.). This serves to tangibly demonstrate the academic rigour, value, and educational gains achievable through a symbiotic relationship between hospitality studies and hospitality management.     

Transformational leadership and service recovery performance: The mediating effect of emotional labor and the influence of culture

The current study examined the relationship between transformational leadership and service recovery performance and the mediating effect of emotional labor. To uncover potential cross-cultural differences, a sample of 217 front-line hospitality employees from the United States (Study 1) and 219 front-line hospitality employees from China (Study 2) were used. The results demonstrate transformational leadership was positively related to deep acting and negatively related to surface acting emotional labor strategies. Additionally, deep acting was positively related to service recovery performance, while surface acting was negatively related to service recovery performance. These findings were consistent between the U.S. and Chinese sample; however, the mechanisms and paths between transformational leadership and service recovery performance differed between the two samples suggesting culture influenced how transformational leadership is related to service recovery performance through deep acting (Study 1) or surface acting (Study 2) emotional labor strategies.     

When we are onstage,we smile: The effects of emotional labor on employee work outcomes

A growing body of literature has confirmed the deleterious effects of emotional labor on service employees. The study adds to it by investigating two hypothesized antecedents to emotional labor; affectivity and empathy which is conceptualized as a two-dimensional construct composed of emotional contagion and empathic concern. It also examines the impact of emotional labor on job satisfaction and exhaustion. The results confirmed a two-dimensional structure of emotional labor, emotive dissonance, and emotive effort. Hospitality employees with higher positive affect tend to experience less emotive dissonance while individuals with higher negative affect exert more effort to enact emotional labor. A positive relationship was found between emotional contagion and emotive dissonance, and emotive effort and job satisfaction. The results also suggested a negative relationship between emotive effort and emotional exhaustion. An unexpected negative relationship was found between emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion. Managerial implications discuss training and acting techniques to more effectively manage employee emotional labor.     

Measuring the experience of hospitality: Scale development and validation

This paper identifies what customers experience as hospitality and subsequently presents a novel and compact assessment scale for measuring customers’ experience of hospitality at any kind of service organization. The Experience of Hospitality Scale (EH-Scale) takes a broader perspective compared to existing scales, which predominantly measure hospitable behavior of service employees and are specifically developed for organizations in the hospitality industry. A thorough approach containing two qualitative and two quantitative studies resulted in the thirteen-item EH-Scale. The scale measures three experiential factors of hospitality: the experience of inviting (open, inviting, freedom), the experience of care (servitude, empathy and acknowledgement), and the experience of comfort (feeling at ease, relaxed and comfortable).     

Commercial hospitality in restaurants and tourist accommodation: Perspectives from international consumer experience in Scotland

This study investigates international consumer perceptions of their restaurant dining and hotel accommodation experiences to identify the common core elements of hospitality in commercial settings. A qualitative approach was adopted to explore the deep-rooted reactions, feelings, and perceptions of consumers. The empirical data are based on semi-structured interviews with 20 international postgraduate students in Scotland. The data analysis specified five categories of perceived commercial hospitality, including: interpersonal interaction, psychological connection, openness to different cultures, sensation satisfaction, and perceived value. Additionally, this study proposed a model of commercial hospitality for interpreting the dynamic and interactive relationships among different components. Complex hospitality experience relies primarily on customer emotional and social values. Several strategies based on perceived value and cultural differences were also developed to cater to various customer needs.     

The contributions of economics to hospitality literature: A content analysis of hospitality and tourism journals

This paper aimed to develop a concrete understanding of economics topics and methodologies that have been applied to hospitality research and to suggest areas for further research. Content analysis of 292 full-length articles was performed. The results showed that the contributions of economics to hospitality literature were largely empirical and microeconomics-related. Most of the research topics focused on market analysis, which involves demand and supply modelling and price determinants, followed by performance analysis, involving efficiency and productivity studies. Limited contributions of macroeconomic topics to hospitality were determined, highlighting the lack of studies on the impact of government or public policies on the hospitality industry. Moreover, the application of game theory to market structures was found to be limited, creating a vacuum in terms of understanding the competitive and cooperative behaviours of hospitality firms. As a contribution to the literature, the study provides suggestions for future research.     

Understanding corporate philanthropy in the hospitality industry

This study makes a unique contribution to the corporate social responsibility literature, both from a theoretical perspective and corporate philanthropy (CP) perspective that has been under-researched so far. Specifically, it extends the investigation of the motives of CP to the hospitality industry in the emerging country of Taiwan and is the first examination of the determinants of CP in the hospitality industry based on the value enhancement (VE) and agency cost (AC) theories. Previous studies found that either AC or VE determinants, not both, play a major role in making philanthropy decisions. This study reveal new and interesting findings using the data from 13 publicly traded hospitality companies in Taiwan collected between 1996 and 2011. Panel regression test results show that both VE determinants (labor intensity and profitability) and AC determinants (board size and the ratio of independent directors to total directors) were found to be significant factors in explaining the discretionary behavior of CP in the hospitality industry. Furthermore, the lagged philanthropy-to-sale ratio was also significantly related to CP decisions in the hospitality industry in Taiwan, suggesting that the behavior of CP in the Taiwanese hospitality industry is persistent. The possible explanation is that changing philanthropy pattern may lead to market-adverse expectations and reactions and damage the reputation of companies.     

Significant developments and emerging issues in human resource management

A review of over 100 papers concerned with human resource management (HRM) in five leading hospitality journals during 2002 and 2003, finds that the research agenda mirrors what is seen in mainstream HR research and theory, focusing around general HRM, employee resourcing, employee development and employee relations. Given that some mainstream HR academics have ‘highjacked’ topics such as emotional labour, emotional intelligence and HRM in service work as new and innovative, hospitality researchers need to reclaim their territory, push forward the boundaries of theory making and propose theory that is hospitality specific, relevant and useful.     

Development and validation of a hospitality idiosyncratic deals scale

This study explores middle and senior hotel managers’ perceptions of their own idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) and develops a scale to measure i-deals in the Chinese hospitality industry. The study uses a mixed research method consisting of a questionnaire survey of 675 middle and senior hotel managers and in-depth interviews with 20 knowledge workers in the hotel industry in mainland China. The findings reveal that there are three types of i-deals in the Chinese hospitality industry: (1) career and incentives i-deals; (2) task i-deals; and (3) flexibility i-deals. The study proposes and validates a three-dimensional scale of hotel managers’ i-deals, thereby enriching our understanding of the idiosyncratic terms of employment in the hospitality industry.     

Revisiting hospitality's marginal worker thesis: A mono-occupational perspective

This article re-examines the literature on workplace deviance in the context of employment relations in the hospitality industry and presents data from a qualitative study. Intertwining various manifestations of deviance apparent in business management research, sociological literature and that reported in hospitality industry studies, this paper further applies these contexts to investigate the professional experiences of a sample of chefs from Australia. In summary, the findings suggest that while deviance, in its various forms, is an intrinsic occupational idiosyncrasy, and that deviant practices indeed are commonplace in the hospitality industry, workers within the industry are conscious of the negative effects these images have on occupational image. Structural shortcomings including organisational, occupational and industry regulation appear, at least partially, responsible for a cycle of deviance. These findings might assist researchers and practitioners in their endeavours given the efforts of industry leaders and hospitality educators to enhance and professionalise the industry's image.     

Negative affectivity and tipping: The moderating role of emotional labor strategies and leader-member exchange

Negative affectivity (NA) is a personality trait that is likely to impede hospitality employees’ ability to perform service due to their tendency to experience negative emotions that are inconsistent or even contrary to normative display rules.This study examined whether emotional labor strategies and the quality of the relationship with the manager (i.e., LMX) could help NA employees to perform service (expressed as financial gains measured in tip size).The sample was composed of 304 Israeli restaurant servers. The findings show that NA had a positive effect on tip size when engaging in high surface acting or deep acting; however, this effect was not significant for employees who were less engaged in emotional labor strategies. LMX moderated the relationship between NA and tips such that NA was positively related to tips for employees with a high quality LMX relationship but was negatively related to tips for employees with a low quality LMX relationship.     

Commercial hospitality in tourism: A global comparison of what culturally matters

As the hospitality academy matures it has worked towards bespoke theory development. Emerging literature has attempted to quantify, and develop measurements for, the intangible and situationally variable dimensions of hospitality and/or hospitableness. This paper aims to explore whether the importance tourists place on various aspects of ‘hospitality’ differs according to their culture, using country/region of origin as a proxy. A cross-national survey was conducted across multiple destinations in the Asia-Pacific and Europe. Data captured the importance 2248 tourists placed on 12 facets of hospitality. Results indicate that tourists’ nationality influences the importance they place on all facets of the hospitality experience. The study contributes to theory by advancing our understanding of how different cultures evaluate the importance of the multiple aspects of commercial hospitality. Practically, the study challenges hospitality industry conventions, which standardize rather than personalize guest-host interactions.     

华东线导游员情绪劳动的探索研究及实证启示——应用结构方程模型(SEM)

在心理学及情绪劳动相关文献研究分析的基础上,文章结合导游人力资源管理的特点,通过应用结构方程模型研究理论和方法,构建了华东线导游员情绪劳动的理论模型,并对华东线导游员情绪劳动的本质内涵、中介因素和结果变量进行了深入探讨和分析。研究结果表明,情绪劳动模型中各变量之间的关系与假定完全符合。文章在一定程度上填补了目前对导游人员情绪劳动理论探讨的空白,并就在导游人力资源管理中更好地进行情绪管理提出了实际建议。     

The Relationships between National Identity,Hospitality, and Satisfaction among Foreign Hotel Guests

The main objectives of this paper are to examine the effect of hotel hospitality on the satisfaction level of foreign guests in the context of the hotel industry, as well as to explore the moderating effect of national identity (country-specific hospitality) on the relationship between hospitality and guests’ level of satisfaction. In this study, “national identity” refers to the distinctive cultural elements of a specific country that are incorporated into the hotel’s service design. This study, involving 315 foreign guests at Malaysian hotels, used survey administration as the main data collection method. Hierarchical moderated regression analysis was performed and statistical support for the effect of hospitality on the patrons’ satisfaction with their hotel stays, as well as the moderating effect of national identity on satisfaction levels, were found. This study also proposes a new scale to measure “country-specific hospitality”.     

Managing emotional labor for service quality: A cross-level analysis among hotel employees

This study aims is to unify the concepts of emotional labor and service quality on the basis of job demands–resources theory, which is associated with engagement and burnout in working environments. This study draws upon a sample of data on 863 subordinate–supervisor dyads in 92 service teams at 46 international tourist hotels. The results of hierarchical linear modeling showed that emotional deep acting is positively related to work engagement and eventually leads to a high level of service quality. Conversely, emotional surface acting is positively related to work burnout and ultimately causes a low level of service quality. In addition, this study found cross-level interactions between perceived organizational support (POS) and abusive supervision on the relationships among emotional labor, engagement, burnout, and service quality. The positive effects of deep acting on work engagement and service quality were found to be significantly higher for the moderating effects of POS. However, the negative effects of surface acting on work burnout and service quality were found to be significantly higher for the moderating effects of abusive supervision. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of this study for the hospitality industry are also discussed.     

A systematic literature review of research on diversity and diversity management in the hospitality literature

With demographic shifts, international labor mobility, and the blurring of geographical boundaries, workforce diversity and diversity management have assumed an important role in hospitality operations. More importantly previous research has established the role diversity plays on outcomes such as innovation and firm performance. Yet reports of research on diversity and its management in the hospitality industry are fragmented, underdeveloped, and inconsistent. To assess the current state of this research, we provide a systematic review of the available research on the different dimensions of diversity, and on topics related to diversity management. Using articles found in hospitality journals, we identify current themes explored by scholars as well as gaps and limitations. We provide suggestions for topics, themes and methodologies for future research and highlight the importance of research that can inform managerial practice. Our review indicates that there is greater need for theory development, empirical data-driven research, and expansion of contexts in hospitality-diversity research, especially in terms of geographical regions covered by extant studies.     

The Development of an Instrument to Address the Negative Perception of Hospitality Jobs

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to introduce a new construct that would assist in understanding employee attitudes and behaviors in hospitality sector jobs. The research introduces job-esteem and justifies it as a unique construct worthy of further study. Job-esteem is defined as the level of respect and dignity an individual believes is associated with his/her job. An instrument was developed to assist in measuring the level of job-esteem found in hospitality employees. The instrument was then administered to 75 employees of a large hotel chain in Hawaii. Tests show the instrument meets reliability standards.     

A review of entrepreneurship research published in the hospitality and tourism management journals

This research evaluates the entrepreneurship research in field of the Hospitality and Tourism Management to obtain a better understanding of its progress and potential. The study examines entrepreneurship articles published in seven leading hospitality and tourism management journals from 1986 to 2006. Findings indicate that Tourism Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management, and International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management are the top three journals that publish entrepreneurship research. However, the amount of entrepreneurship research in the leading hospitality and tourism management journals appears less than expected. Publication of empirical work has not increased over time over the past 21 years, and theoretical work remains at a consistently low level. Even for empirical studies, there is a lack of methodological sophistication of analytical and statistical tools. The results suggest a concern that entrepreneurship research remains under studied; therefore, more theoretical work is needed to map a course of study and to develop a framework unique to the entrepreneurship domain of hospitality and tourism research. The good news is that there are abundant opportunities for scholars in hospitality and tourism management to explore the field of entrepreneurship as a viable research paradigm.     

The Hospitality Culture Scale: A measure organizational culture and personal attributes

The hospitality industry has a unique and specific culture when compared to other industries. Because of this, not everyone will want to make this industry a career, as evidenced by the high turnover. Yet, the hospitality industry needs to attract and keep motivated and dedicated employees. This study set out to discover attributes that are unique to hospitality organizations as well as the characteristics and values of a person who would be successful in a work environment that exhibited this culture. This includes determining if a person is a match to the culture of the hospitality industry. In order to identify the variables of hospitality culture, an extensive review of the literature and a panel of industry experts were consulted. The items identified from both groups were used to establish the constructs for a scale, which is called the Hospitality Culture Scale. Seven hundred and forty one hospitality professionals rated the attributes. Principal component analysis determined the final factors for the organizational culture and personal attributes. These constructs included: management principles, customer relationships, job variety, job satisfaction, principles, propitiousness, leadership, risk taker, accuracy, and composure.     

Conceptual model for analysing management development in the hospitality industry: A UK perspective

This paper presents a conceptual, contingent model of hospitality management development (MD). Having explored the dimensions and relationships in the model, it is then applied to the UK hospitality industry through analysing the nature of the hospitality industry for potential influences on MD and evaluating research into its practice. The embryonic model is presented as a vehicle to enhance understanding of the complex influences and contexts of hospitality MD and to distinguish distinctive characteristics of MD in the hospitality industry.