Constructing the Smart Hotel Architecture – A Case Study in Taiwan

A smart hotel is an intelligent hotel with a range of information technologies working together to let the customers have an honorable and convenient vacation environment. It allows customers to have a profound image about not only the hotel, but also the city and the country. Furthermore, it can increase the customer loyalty and repurchase rate as well. Thus, developing a smart hotel is critical for the hospitality industry in practice. This research presents a case study of a new five star intelligent hotel- Fleur de Chine Hotel at Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan. It describes how they built their digital hotel and virtual housekeeper service platform. Through the networked facilities and integrated information systems, people could get relevant information easily and efficiently. In addition, this smart system could provide hotel customers with the housekeeper service similar to a very important person (VIP) room or a presidential suite

Approach to C2F2C (customer to factory to customer) strategy: a case study of the Fanqing Furniture Company

Hotel furniture manufacturers, as key components of modern service industry, have become leading service companies concerning China's economic development. Consumer-driven business model and mass customization are becoming important direction of hotel furniture manufacturers’ transformation and upgrade. In a context of fragmented competition and individualized customers’ demand, it is difficult to take advantage of the low cost and high efficiency of mass production, while meeting the customers’ individualized needs. Internet led business increases the difficulty of balancing the offer of large production and customization, because companies face a high cost (Customer to Factory), while the customers’ satisfaction is low (Factory to Customer). Finding a solution to this trade-off is not only a major challenge in the process of company model transformation, but also an important topic that has not yet been studied in depth. Based on Fanqing Hotel Furniture Company’s empirical case of solving the contradiction between individualized demand and mass production, this thesis studies the evolution of hotel furniture manufacturers’ (HFM) innovation ecosystem and the value co-creation mode. The C2F2C (Customer to Factory to Customer) strategy of Fanqing was constructed based on both company innovation ecosystem theory and customer value co-creation theory. By implementing the C2F2C strategy, Fanqing has realized standardization, informatization and lean production, and also fulfilled customers’ needs and improved their satisfaction. The C2F2C strategy also helps to reduce costs and achieve value co-creation between the company and customers. This thesis explores an effective way to improve technological innovation ability and international competitiveness of HFM in China.As empresas de móveis para hotéis constituem um sector importante no desenvolvimento da indústria de serviços modernos, liderando já a indústria no desenvolvimento económico da China. Seguir um modelo de negócio de personalização em larga escala e orientação para o consumidor aponta ser uma direção significativa a tomar para a transformação e inovação das empresas de serviços. Face à concorrência individualizada e fragmentada na procura de clientes da indústria hoteleira, é difícil oferecer ao cliente uma personalização em larga escala, que permita atingir as vantagens de baixo custo e alta eficiência de produção em volume, atendendo simultaneamente à personalização das necessidades de cada cliente. Na comercialização pela internet é mais difícil equilibrar a oferta de uma produção em larga escala e personalizada, porque é elevado o custo em C2F, mas em contrapartida baixo o nível de satisfação do cliente em F2C. Como suporte empírico, esta tese analisou o caso da empresa de Móveis para Hotéis Fanqing, que resolveu a contradição entre procura individualizada e produção de massa em grande escala, permitindo estudar a evolução para um ecossistema inovador e de criação conjunta de valor entre empresas de móveis e clientes nesta industria de mobiliário para hóteis (HFM). A estratégia da relação cliente para fabricante e deste para cliente (C2F2C) da Fanqing foi desenvolvida com base nas teorias da inovação do ecossistema e da criação de valor conjunta. Ao implementar a estratégia de C2F2C, a Fanqing operou tanto a standardização, a informatização e a produção lean, como a satisfação do cliente preenchendo as suas necessidades. A estratégia C2F2C permite reduzir custos e potencia a criação conjunta de valor entre fabricantes e clientes, explorando uma maneira eficaz de melhorar a capacidade de inovação tecnológica e a competitividade internacional das empresas de móveis para hotéis da China

Enhancing Service Personnel’s Emotional Labour Techniques: An Empirical Case for Spiritual Intelligence

The paper aims to examine the relationship between emotional labour (EL) techniques of surface acting (SA) and deep acting (DA) with spiritual intelligence (SQ). Building on Multiple Intelligence Theory (MI), 373 service personnel, mainly teachers, were drawn through a list-based simple random sampling, from 30 secondary schools around Peninsular Malaysia. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses, and the proposed model was assessed through renowned model fit indices. Findings revealed that SQ buffers EL costs, as both SA and DA routine became positively related to SQ. Proposed model had reasonable fit indices with χ² / df  ratio (1002.288 / 336) = 2.983, RMSEA (0.078) and CFI (0.931). Providing empirical support to the hypotheses that EL performance tends resonate well with spiritual intelligent service personnel. The adequacy of this paper’s findings is vital as it cut across all Faiths. Practically, it tends to stimulate service personnel towards a higher degree of self-awareness and imbue them with the capacity to be flexible, face and transcend pain and suffering. Socially, it sustains a friendly and cordial interpersonal relationship with others (customers). Policy wise, it informs organizations to re-align HR strategies to capture ‘Type B’ personalities. Theoretically, it stirs more research on SQ as it affects service personnel’s organizational behaviours. The paper is cross-sectional and limited to one group of service personnel (teachers). Future study may consider other groups to ascertain the generalisability of these findings. While augmenting body of knowledge on organizational behaviour, the study is pioneered as the first to propose SQ to buffer EL costs, in order to enhance SA and DA techniques

Don’t worry, be emotionally intelligent Hotel functional managers’ trait emotional intelligence and its relation to task and contextual performance within organisational culture in Hungary

This thesis aimed to explore Hungarian hotel functional managers’ emotional intelligence traits and examined if there was a relationship between the emotional intelligence traits and the level of individual task and contextual performance. Moreover the research studied the role individual and organisational factors played in managers’ emotional intelligence and performance. Additionally it identified the present dominant and the preferred organisational culture of Hungarian hotels as perceived by functional managers. The thesis followed a positivist research philosophy and focused on the deductive approach. Meanwhile it aimed to adopt methodological triangulation by applying both quantitative and qualitative research techniques. A questionnaire was developed to test the proposed hypotheses allowing for multiple regression and correlation analysis. On the one hand an internationally applied reliable and valid trait emotional intelligence questionnaire was adopted and validated in Hungarian. On the other hand, an individual performance measurement scale was developed based on previous research outcomes and case studies via interviews with hotel managers. Principle component analysis was applied to identify task and contextual performance items. Present and preferred organisational culture was explored taking individual and organisational variables into consideration as control variables. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to perceive which independent variables had a higher influence on the dependent variable. A strong positive relationship was found between hotel functional managers’ trait emotional intelligence and their global performance. The relationship was medium and strong even at factorial level. ‘Hierarchical culture’ was identified as the present dominant hotel culture, and ‘clan’ as the most preferred. Furthermore the hierarchy culture indicated a strong negative correlation with performance, especially within contextual performance. Considering gender female functional managers’ emotionality was found to be higher than their male colleagues’ while male functional managers’ self-control differed significantly from their female colleagues’. It was managers’ tenure rather than age that had significant influence on emotional intelligence and performance. Functional managers with higher optimism and social awareness levels were found to complete their task performance better, while those with high empathy, happiness and adaptability were likely to accomplish better contextual performance. Within contextual performance, female managers’ loyalty was found to be significantly higher than their male counterparts. Regardless of gender, functional managers with high optimism, social awareness, and happiness and empathy levels seemed to have been more loyal to their hotels. The development and validation of an individual performance scale is a specific outcome of the research. This attempt was the first to examine separately individual task and contextual performance in Hungary with a reliable measurement that was developed specifically for hotel functional managers. Furthermore, the introduction of the international emotional intelligence measurement in Hungarian academic life is also a novelty of the thesis. This enables researchers to apply a valid and highly reliable measurement in future research. The results of the combination of three human resources phenomena (emotional intelligence, performance and organisational culture) and the pilot case study will offer real-life implications to hotel management as how to select and train functional managers in the future. As emotional intelligence traits (among them emotionality and self-control as the most significant factors) were identified stronger determiner of performance than age or hotel category, HR managers should consider these when hiring or training employees. Besides, gender differences should be taken into consideration especially empathy, stress control and loyalty facets. Moreover individual preferred organisational culture and hotel present culture have clashed noticeably. Those working in clan and adhocracy hotel cultures and prefer to continue so demonstrated higher performance levels, especially on contextual performance. While in hierarchic organisational cultures hotel managers’ performance showed a negative relationship. This tells owners and general managers that functional managers prefer and do work better in family atmospheres (clan culture) or creative, innovative and flexible (adhocracy culture) hotels than in more controlled and monitored environments (hierarchy culture).The thesis developed a new performance scale measurement for the hospitality industry. Furthermore, it identified certain emotional intelligence traits that enable high task- and contextual performance. Triangulation, in the form of the combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, is one of the strengths of the research. It is the first research of its kind in the Hungarian hospitality industry. The outcomes of the thesis can therefore act as a firm basis for a carefully developed selection, training and performance assessment process for hotels. The question of what makes one person perform higher despite external circumstances and what makes one stay in an organisation and endure hardship has always intrigued me. Being a frequent guest in hotels, first involuntarily and then purposely, I began to observe how employees behave and affect each other, the business outcomes of these interactions and obviously the behaviour of guests. Knowing that there have only been a few empirical studies carried out investigating soft factors that can influence work outcomes in organisational culture (especially in Hungary) in hospitality, I deliberately decided to take the challenge and focus on these in my research. Furthermore as a lecturer and as one of the founding members of the Hungarian Association of Hotel and Restaurant Educational Board, I feel responsible for contributing both to the academic and practical knowledge with the results of this research

An Integrated Theoretical Model of Information Systems Success/Technology Adoption for Systems Used by Employees in the 4 And 5-Star Full-Service Hotel Sector in the UK

This study aspires to combine several components of extant theoretical frameworks of Information Systems (IS) evaluation and develop a new mechanism/model, the Integrated IS Success/Technology Adoption Model, which can be applied in the context of the 4 and 5-star UK hotel industry. It is hoped that this new model can reliably measure the IS Success and technology adoption of the technological innovations used by hotel employees. Current research tends to concentrate on general emerging IS trends such as Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), including mobile and virtual reality applications. Even though there is abundant research on Information Systems used by hotel customers, the numbers of available published material seem to diminish when it comes to IS evaluation from the viewpoint of hotel employees. To complicate matters even further, most hotel employee-related studies originate from the USA or Southeast Asia. Aiming to combat this distinct shortage in academic papers, the present thesis recognises the evident research gap and seeks to fill it by presenting a study that is pertinent to the realities of hotel employees working in 4 and 5-star fullservice hotels in the UK. A major difference between a customer/guest use of IS and an employee use is that the former does not have to use a hotel’s systems; however, this is not the same with employees, for whom daily system use is compulsory as part of their jobs. Therefore, different metrics apply for each subset. iii The secondary research makes every effort to showcase a comprehensive account of IS evaluation approaches, starting from general strategies and frameworks to the breakdown of specialised IS success and technology adoption models and their dimensions. The primary research incorporates 28 (two sets of 14) interviews with hotel department managers in order to corroborate existing or identify new IS evaluation dimensions and subthemes. The interview analysis produces two previously unexploited by the literature themes that have a major impact on System Quality, one of the central dimensions of IS Success. The key contribution of the current study is the Integrated IS Success/Technology Adoption Model, developed through corroborating the interview findings with the literature review outcomes. The Model is based on two prominent IS evaluation models, the IS Success Model (DeLone and McLean, 1992) and the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989). The originality of the Model springs from the fusion of these two frameworks, but also from the modifications added. For example, the proposed model features Social Norms, a dimension that permeates the Theory of Actioned Reason (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). Other additions include the use of IT training, senior management support, and facilitating conditions as external variables. Future research efforts could perhaps concentrate on testing and validating the proposed research model by use of quantitative methods in the form of a research questionnaire that would obtain the opinions of hotel line employees about the systems they work with on a daily basis

Drivers and barriers influencing sustainable food procurement in the hospitality industry

In late years, the tourism and hospitality industry became one of the most important contributors to the global economy and sustainable development. Corporate responsibility is now accepted to be a viable strategy to achieve competitive advantages as well as stakeholders’ satisfaction. By interviewing representatives from six Lisbon hotels and one expert association, the present study aims to identify the drivers and barriers influencing a hotel’s ability to implement a sustainable food procurement system as well as to determine how, and in what ways, specific hotel characteristics and market position can impact its motivations, setbacks and overall ability to manage food procurement in a sustainable way. The interviews’ responses and the case-studies have shown how the quest for quality, internal and external communication, education and mutual collaboration with all stakeholders, corporate responsibility programs and guidelines and ultimately, business values and philosophy are the more recurrent reasons motivating hotels to achieve sustainable food procurement. On the other hand, the lack of prioritization of sustainable objectives, lack of implementation of such values throughout all hierarchies, lack of administrative freedom and an overall lack of sustainable supply chains and sustainable suppliers and products have been identified as the biggest difficulties hampering the process of implementing sustainable food procurement policies. Despite many factors being identified as possible factors affecting these results, we have ultimately concluded that a balance between sustainable development, customer satisfaction and financial sustainability are key for the achievement of sustainability related policies.Nos últimos anos, a indústria do turismo e da hospitalidade contribuiu fortemente para a economia global e o desenvolvimento sustentável. A responsabilidade empresarial é agora aceite como uma estratégia competitiva que satisfaz todos os interessados. O presente estudo, que parte de entrevistas a representantes de seis hotéis de Lisboa e a uma associação especializada, tem como objetivo identificar que motores e obstáculos influenciam a capacidade de os hotéis implementarem um sistema sustentável de compras de alimentos e determinar os efeitos das suas características específicas e do seu posicionamento no mercado nessas respetivas motivações e dificuldades. As respostas dos inquiridos e os estudos de casos mostram como a procura da qualidade, a comunicação interna e externa, a educação das partes interessadas e a colaboração entre elas, os programas e diretrizes de responsabilidade empresarial e, em última instância, os valores e as filosofias empresariais são os fatores que mais influenciam, e mais frequentemente, a política de aquisição sustentável de alimentos. Por outro lado, a falta de prioritização dos objetivos de sustentabilidade, a falta de inscrição dos respetivos valores em toda a cadeia hierárquica, a falta de liberdade administrativa e, por fim, a falta generalizada de cadeias de fornecimentos, fornecedores e produtos sustentáveis foi identificada como o maior travão à implementação de políticas sustentáveis de aquisição de alimentos. Apesar de vários fatores terem sido identificados como possíveis obstáculos a esses objetivos, concluímos que equilibrar o desenvolvimento sustentável com a satisfação do cliente e a sustentabilidade financeira é fundamental para implementar políticas de sustentabilidade

Cyborgs as Frontline Service Employees: A Research Agenda

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Purpose This paper identifies and explores potential applications of cyborgian technologies within service contexts and how service providers may leverage the integration of cyborgian service actors into their service proposition. In doing so, the paper proposes a new category of ‘melded’ frontline service employees (FLEs), where advanced technologies become embodied within human actors. The paper presents potential opportunities and challenges that may arise through cyborg technological advancements and proposes a future research agenda related to these. Design/methodology This study draws on literature in the fields of services management, Artificial Intelligence [AI], robotics, Intelligence Augmentation [IA] and Human Intelligence [HIs] to conceptualise potential cyborgian applications. Findings The paper examines how cyborg bio- and psychophysical characteristics may significantly differentiate the nature of service interactions from traditional ‘unenhanced’ service interactions. In doing so, we propose ‘melding’ as a conceptual category of technological impact on FLEs. This category reflects the embodiment of emergent technologies not previously captured within existing literature on cyborgs. We examine how traditional roles of FLEs will be potentially impacted by the integration of emergent cyborg technologies, such as neural interfaces and implants, into service contexts before outlining future research directions related to these, specifically highlighting the range of ethical considerations. Originality/Value Service interactions with cyborg FLEs represent a new context for examining the potential impact of cyborgs. This paper explores how technological advancements will alter the individual capacities of humans to enable such employees to intuitively and empathetically create solutions to complex service challenges. In doing so, we augment the extant literature on cyborgs, such as the body hacking movement. The paper also outlines a research agenda to address the potential consequences of cyborgian integration