高星级酒店业的信息技术“生产率悖论”研究——基于广州案例

信息技术与酒店业的结合给酒店业带来了新的发展机会.国外有大量的学者致力于信息技术投资与企业生产率及业绩之间关系的研究,但并没有一致的结论.文章通过对广州市高星级酒店的相关调查,获取了第一手数据,借助AMOS软件的验证性因子分析及SPSS软件的相关性分析和多元回归分析功能,以检验信息技术的应用对酒店业绩的影响.结果显示,信息技术“生产率悖论”在高星级酒店业内不存在,前厅应用、客人相关界面应用、餐厅及宴会管理系统及后台应用均对酒店业绩有积极的作用.其中,客人相关界面应用对酒店业绩影响最大,因此应着重投资.文章的结论将为高星级酒店业决定是否战略性地投资于信息技术或集中于某些特定领域提供重要的信息.最后,文章还对研究的局限性以及后续可以开展的研究进行了一定的展望.

A Study of IT Productivity Paradox in Luxury Hotels: A Case Study in Guangzhou

Information,coupled with technological developments,has been a critical ingredient for hospitality businesses.While serving as a key success factor for effective lodging industry operations in the 21st century,a combination of IT and lodging provides the lodging industry with new opportunity of development.A large number of foreign scholars devote a lot of efforts to investigating the relationships between IT investment,business productivity and performance,but there is still no unanimous conclusion.Many scholars especially Steven,chief economist of Morgan Stanley,and Robert,Nobel Prize laureate in economics,insist that huge investment in IT does not have positive impact on business productivity and economic performance,and name it "Productivity Paradox" for information technology.However,in the late 1990s,IT and Organizational Research Center of University of California at Irvine,and E-commerce Research Center at MIT Sloan School conducted abundant studies which denied the conclusion of the "Productivity Paradox" for information technology.For this reason,the authors investigate into upscale hotels in Guangzhou to obtain first-hand data,and by means of confirmatory factor analysis thorough Amos software and correlation analysis as well as multiple regression analysis thorough SPSS,the authors examine the effect of IT applications on their performance in lodging operations.The results show that for the upscale hotel industry in Guangzhou,the IT Productivity Paradox does not exist.Also,the findings of this study prove that front-office applications,guest-related interface applications,restaurant and banquet management systems and back-office applications have all significantly and positively affected the performance of a hotel.Among these variables,guest-related interface applications are the most significant IT applications affecting performance of upscale hotels,so it is suggested that hoteliers and managers should pay more attention to them and make additional investments.The findings of the study will benefit the lodging industry by providing essential decision reference to hoteliers and managers when they make some decision about strategic investment in IT and in determining specific areas of focus for IT investment.Lastly,the paper sums up the limitations of this study and puts forward future research directions.Applications of information technology in hotel industry are trends of the time and customer needs,but almost no scholar to date has paid attention to its actual effect on business productivity and economic performance.Meanwhile,whether the "Productivity Paradox" for information technology exists or not is critical to the operation and management of hotel industry.Therefore,the topic has both important theoretical and practical value.Besides,research from this point of view provides a basis for comparison with other means of analyzing performance,such as financial report analyses and customer satisfaction and loyalty.Further,on the research approach,the authors draw the conclusions through the establishment of the structural equation model and the confirmatory factor analysis.Compared to qualitative analysis,this conclusion is more scientific and effective,which is an innovation of the research methods.