Job satisfaction in hotel employess: a systematic review of the literature

Hotel employees' job satisfaction is very important to their performance. In a systematic review of the previous literature on hotel employees, it was found that the most studied variable was job satisfaction; there were no other systematic reviews on the topic. In this review, performed in the Web of Knowledge, Web of Science (Social Sciences Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, Medline), and Science Direct between 2000 and 2014, 51 studies were found.These studies indicated that satisfaction is crucial to the financial performance and prosperity of hotels and acts a mediator in customer satisfaction. Contributing to greater satisfaction are factors such as greater autonomy and independence, greater power of decision making, flexible schedules, better working conditions, and training. The factors that promote dissatisfaction are wages and reduced benefits. The studies also indicated that a higher level of job satisfaction can have a direct impact on increasing the financial performance of the hotel. The implications of this study for hoteliers and directors relates to the creation of adequate working conditions to increase job satisfaction and provide hotel employees with a greater sense of subjective well-being

Corporate social responsibility:reviewed, rated, revised

Purpose: Critical literature review of CSR research in both general management and hospitality management literature. Discusses trends,commonalities, and inconsistencies to better understand the state of contemporary scholarship, and calls for a context-specific conceptual engagement with the phenomenon.Design/Methodology/Approach: Systematic literature review, noting and critiquing a general tendency towards measurement of financial and other internal benefit impacts.Findings: Hospitality management is well-positioned to evaluate the opportunities and challenges of CSR, yet research has uncritically adopted the instrumental emphasis on assessing processes, perceptions, and private profitability from the general management literature, without engaging on a contextually-specific and/or theoretical level.Research limitations: CSR research is abundant and therefore difficult to summarise in one article.The primarily Anglo-American and Asian contextual bias is reflected in this review.Practical implications: Consistently inconsistent results challenge the portability of financial impact studies.Studies are needed to re-evaluate the concept of CSR as it pertains to hospitality, and measure the effectiveness of CSR activities relative to context and resource availability.Social implications: Further research into the scope of CSR in hospitality management, with an emphasis on recuperating social value, would lead to widespread positive social implications.Originality/value: This critical review offers a new perspective on CSR in the hospitality literature and industry, calling for a reconsideration of the concept in context, and formulates a working definition

Relocating empowerment as a management concept for Asia

Management theories, especially those in the area of human resource management, are predominantly Western-centric in origin and in the empirical testing that underpins them. The purpose of this paper is to explore perceptions of one such theory, employee empowerment, in an Asian context. Information gathered from an open ended questionnaire and focus groups provide an in-depth examination of hotel managers' perceptions and practice of empowerment in the workplace. This study provides tentative indicators of significant culturally-driven differences in the understanding and application of employee empowerment (in terms of both research and practice) between Western and Asian contexts. The results of this study indicate that empowerment in Asian cultures relates much more to the individual and his/her merits, in contrast to organizationally-driven empowerment in Western countries. The findings also indicate that empowerment by hotel managers is related to the level of personal trust the manager has in an employee

Managing the hotel managers: HRM practices in Greek luxury hotels

This paper explores the current HRM practices employed in the international hospitality industry. More specifically it investigates four key HRM areas regarding the work of General Managers (GMs) in luxury (4 and 5*) hotels in Greece namely: recruitment and selection; training and development (focused in managerial competencies); performance evaluation; networking and communication. The dynamic and complex nature of the management function in global hospitality business today and the realisation that what works effectively in one country may not be as efficient in another, has led management scholars and practicing managers in continuous efforts to enhance their understanding of this context and its effects on international (hotel) managers. This paper focuses in the Greek context since the country is among the most popular tourist destinations in the world. The author argues that managerial work and HRM practices in Greek luxury hotels cannot be unaffected from the strong national context, despite the great pressures for standardisation and homogenisation with the international hospitality industry standards. A qualitative research was conducted in 16 luxury (4 & 5*) city and resort hotels in four popular destinations: Athens, Thessaloniki, Crete and Rhodes. In total 32 GMs and their assistants participated in this country case study. The research tool included in-depth semi-structured interviews, the employment of a Personal Competencies Framework (PCF) questionnaire, non participant observations and collection of company documents related to managerial work. All data were triangulated in order to enhance the validity and reliability of this study. The research’s findings indicated that the ‘base requirements’ of managerial work in Greek luxury hotels appear to be similar and compatible with the international industry HRM standards. What actually changes is the level of formality exercised in managerial and HRM practices. A key theme that emerges from this study is the critical role of the hotel’s ownership status. As a concluding point it can be argued that both divergence and convergence contextual forces co-exist and shape the GMs' work in Greek luxury hotels. Further research is needed to fully understand and appreciate the effects of those forces in GMs' work

National culture and management: the Greek luxury hotel GMs' case

This paper explores the interplay between managerial work and national culture. More specifically it investigates General Managers' (GMs) work in Greek luxury (4 and 5*) hotels from a contextual perspective, focused in national culture. The wider context of the discussion in this paper revolves around the 'global-local' question from an international hospitality industry perspective. During the second half of the twentieth century, the idea for the creation of a truly global management cohort found warm support from north American multinational companies who experienced a rapid pace of internationalisation in the past four decades. Hospitality and tourism were among the first internationalised industries in the aftermath of World War Two (Nickson, 1998; Nickson and Warhust, 2001). The dominant Anglo-Saxon view for universal management practices through the employment of ‘best practices’ in international hotel operators, has been challenged since the advent of cross-cultural management and international human resources management (IHRM) theorists in the early 1980s. Those theorists believe that it is difficult to imagine that a single practice or set of practices would emerge as 'best' in any sense of the word, particularly in globalised organisations (Thomas, 2008). Thus, the dynamic and complex nature of the management function in global hospitality business today and the realisation that what works effectively in one country may not be as efficient in another, has led management scholars and practicing managers in continuous efforts to enhance their understanding of this context and its effects on international (hotel) managers. This paper focuses in the Greek context since the country is among the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Today the hospitality and tourism sector in Greece contributes approximately 15 % of the National Gross Domestic Product (G.D.P.) ranking third in the E.U. after Spain (18.38 %) and Portugal (15.40 %) according to the W.T.T.C. (2010). The hospitality and tourism sector occupies in total eight hundred eight thousand employees, 18% of the country’s entire labour force (SETE, 2003). The authors of this paper argue that managerial work in Greek luxury hotels cannot be unaffected from the strong national context, despite the great pressures for standardisation and homogenisation with the international hospitality industry standards. The existing literature indicates that the Greek context influences managerial work to a certain degree (Bourantas and Papadakis,1996; Makridakis et al. 1997; Papalexandris and Nikandrou, 2000). The high rates of “in-group-collectivism” (Hofstede, 1980/1991; Tromernaars, 1993; Javidan and House, 2001), the values of ‘filotimo’ (Triandis et al. 1968; Broome, 1996), Trust (Fukuyama, 1995) and Humanism (Lessem and Neubauer, 1994; Hampden-Turner and Trompernaars, 1994) are characteristics that differentiate Greek GMs’ behaviour comparing to the so called ‘western’ management style in international hotels. This context also influences the way GMs perform their roles (Mintzberg, 1973 / 1994) and the competencies framework (Dulewicz and Herbert, 1991/1999) required to perform these roles. A qualitative research was conducted in 16 luxury (4 & 5*) city and resort hotels in four popular destinations: Athens, Thessaloniki, Crete and Rhodes. In total 32 GMs and their assistants participated in this country case study. The research tool included in-depth semi-structured interviews, the employment of a Personal Competencies Framework (PCF) questionnaire, non participant observations and collection of company documents related to managerial work. All data were triangulated in order to enhance the validity and reliability of this study. This research's findings indicated that the 'base requirements' of managerial work in Greek luxury hotels appear to be similar and compatible with the international industry standards. What actually changes is the level of formality exercised in managerial and HRM practices. A key theme that emerges from this study is the critical role of the hotel’s ownership status. Thus, local companies (family and local chain hotels) employ a great number of managerial and HRM practices that incorporate a high level of informality, meaning the absence of written rules and procedures. On the other hand, Greek national chains and MNCs demonstrate a high level of formality, regulated by written policies and rules. The Greek context influences the hotel managers' conceptions of work roles and competencies to a great extent in family and local hotel chains, and to a moderate extent to Greek national chains. A handful (less than ten in Greece) of managed MNC hotel chains do not seem to be influenced by the Greek context; on the other hand franchised MNCs are managed in the same manner as national Greek hotel chains. Overall, the influence of the Greek context was evident to a certain degree, in all Greek owned hotels. Based on the research findings, three distinctive profiles of luxury hotel GMs where identified: the 'native' GM; the 'Glocal' GM; and the 'Greek Global' GM. As a concluding point it can be argued that both divergence and convergence contextual forces coexist and shape the GMs' work in Greek luxury hotels. Further research is needed to fully understand and appreciate the effects of those forces in GMs' work

Boston Hospitality Review: Summer 2013

Hospitality Management: Perspectives from Industry Advisors by Rachel Roginsky and Matthew Arrants -- Te Four ‘Ps’ of Hospitality Recruiting by John D. Murtha -- Te Morris Nathanson Design Collection by Christopher Muller -- Still Searching for Excellence by Bradford Hudso

Review of optimism, creativity and spirituality in tourism research

Purpose - Optimism, creativity, and spirituality are important variables in Positive Psychology that can lead to better lives. The authors believe these are also fundamental concepts that can bring a new understanding of the tourism experiences, particularly in the current trend of the 'experience economy'. The study aimed to explore optimism, creativity, and spirituality from a Positive Psychology perspective on tourism settings to deepen the understanding of the state of the art and develop ideas for improvement of tourism research experiences Design - An extensive systematic literature review was developed anchored on PRISMA (2009) guidelines. The search engine Online Knowledge Library (B-On) was used and the search terms 'Optimism', 'Creativity' and 'Spirituality' crossed individually with 'Tourism', 'Travel' and 'Visitor'. In-depth analysis considering the chosen inclusion/exclusion criteria were undertaken concluding with a sample of 31 references. Findings - Overall, results showed a lack of optimism studies on tourism, leading to an urgent need to endeavor in the challenge of developing research. Creativity in tourism is mainly used as a background for the place and its culture and considers organizational, structural and product innovation development. Further, tourism can be seen as a spiritual activity seeking personal enrichment and fulfillment. Originality of the research - This study considers three variables not usually applied to tourism contexts as is clear by the low number of references found. The application of these and consequently of Positive Psychology on tourism is per se new, allowing the emergence of novel and important discussions on tourism.ARDITI - Agencia Regional para o Desenvolvimento de Investigacao, Tecnologia e Inovacao (Regional Agency for Development of Research, Technology and Innovation of Madeira) [M1420-09-5369-FSE-000001, Madeira 14-20