Error management culture and turnover intent among food and beverage employees in deluxe hotels: the mediating effect of job satisfaction

This study aimed to investigate interrelationships among organizational error management culture (EMC), job satisfaction, and turnover intent among food and beverage in a deluxe hotel. This study also investigated the mediating effects of employees’ job satisfaction on the relationships between organizational EMC and turnover intent. A total of 321 food and beverage employees in South Korea participated in the study using a self-administered questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to examine the hypothesized relationships between the constructs. The results showed a positive relationship between organizational EMC and employee job satisfaction. An employees’ job satisfaction reduces his or her turnover intent. Another important finding of this study was that job satisfaction appears to play a mediating role between organizational EMC and turnover intent. These findings have important implications for controlling and facilitating EMC in the hotel industry. This study implies that active EMC can be an important variable that can effectively manage turnover intent. It is important to build a system that can facilitate communication in the case of error occurrence and prevent the recurrence of the same error by sharing experience of and knowledge about errors. Moreover, a system that can instantly respond to and analyze an error situation should be developed and implemented. It is important to systematically manage errors as part of a firm’s culture through the appropriate use of EMC. Thus, it might be useful to identify and prioritize EMC specifically in the hotel industry, which could lead to higher job satisfaction, lower turnover intent, and higher profitability.