Improving elderly social well-being through hospitality: the interface between service, social interaction, satisfaction and quality of life

This research aims to investigate how elderly customers’ social interactions with hospitality services influence their experience and satisfaction and how this affects the quality of life of the elderly. It will employ a mixed method approach in two phases. In the first phase, quantitative data will be collected through structured interviews with 300 elderly people living in the UK. In the second phase, focus group interviews will be conducted with a mixed selection of relevant policy makers, elderly customers and local hospitality business owners/managers in each group to explore the enablers and disablers of elderly social interactions with hospitality service providers and with other customers, and how their consumption experience and satisfaction could be best enriched. This study will make a distinct contribution to knowledge by exploring the social impact of hospitality through evaluating how a societal issue, quality of life of the elderly, can be enhanced through hospitality

Nurturing small and medium sized enterprises in Europe

Tourism is one of the world’s major industries responsible for economic growth, foreign exchange earnings, employment opportunities and regional balances in individual countries and across regions. This industry generates over 5% of the European Union (EU) gross domestic product and has strong linkages with other economic sectors. In fact, tourism triggers infrastructural developments that are related to the industry such as airports, seaports, parks, roads and rails. Within the EU alone, the tourism sector consists of about 1.8 million businesses. Most of these tourism businesses are small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that employ 5.2% of the total European workforce that translates to approximately 9.7 million jobs, with a significant proportion of young people (EU, 2010). This chapter considers relevant academic literature that differentiates SMEs from their larger counterparts. It maintains that small businesses are often constrained by their size and limited resources. Arguably, the accessibility to finance is one of the most critical factors for the SMEs’ inception and growth. These entities are often viewed by financial institutions as relatively risky when compared to enterprises from other industries. Therefore, this chapter contends that tourism SMEs may easily find themselves in an ‘equity gap’ where it may prove very difficult to raise capital for further investment. Consequently, national governments and other regulatory stakeholders are increasingly stepping in to support micro and small enterprises in many contexts. In this light, the European Union (EU) has reaffirmed its commitment for SMEs. As a matter of fact, the EU has drafted the ‘Small Business Act’ in 2008 and refined it again in 2011. The EU’s commitment is quite evident from their frequent calls for research and training schemes in the subject areas of “SMEs” and “tourism”; where grants are frequently issued under ‘Marie Curie’ and ‘Cordis FP7’ programmes. Therefore, this chapter identifies specific policies and initiatives that are aimed at fostering a climate for job creation and competitiveness for SMEs in Europe. By the end of the chapter you should be able to: • Define small and medium sized enterprises in the European Union context; • Distinguish the differences between small and medium sized enterprises and large firms; • Learn about the European Union measures that are currently supporting the financing needs of small and medium sized enterprises; • Be knowledgeable of crowd-funding as an alternative form of financing.peer-reviewe

Factors that shape a hotel company's risk appetite

Despite a growing scholarly interest in risk management within the field of hospitality, risk appetite, which plays a key role in effective risk management, has not yet received wider attention. This paper contributes to our understanding of risk appetite by exploring the factors that influence risk appetite in a hotel company context. Through in-depth interviewing with risk appetite experts and corporate-level hotel executives, we identified two sets of factors (‘primary’ and ‘secondary’) that influence a hotel company’s risk appetite. Although, at corporate level, these factors do not differ from other industry contexts, they can be used by managers in the hotel sector as a starting point to understand drivers and inhibitors of their companies’ risk appetite while researchers can use them as a basis to develop descriptive or predictive models of a hotel company’s risk appetite

Disentangling the effect of family involvement on innovativeness and risk taking: the role of decentralization

This study investigates the effect of family involvement on family firms' entrepreneurial behavior through decentralization. Borrowing from agency theory and using a sample of 145 entrepreneurs, this study contributes to entrepreneurship literature by providing a fine-grained explanation about how a decision-making mechanism such as decentralization influences the relationship between family involvement and innovativeness, and risk taking of family firms. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the importance of considering heterogeneity of family firms and the focal role of decentralization in spurring up firm-level entrepreneurship

Emotional Intelligence and Creative Performance:Looking Through the Lens of Environmental Uncertainty and Cultural Intelligence

Distributing of transporting work is considered in the system of public passenger transport for existent directions of payment of travel. The structure of Organ of management by a transport is offeredРассмотрено распределение транспортной работы в системе городского пассажирского транспорта для существующих направлений оплаты проезда. Предложена структура Органа управления транспортомРозглянуто розподіл транспортної роботи в системі міського пасажирського транспорту для існуючих напрямів оплати проїзду. Запропонована структура Органу управління транспорто

Emotional Intelligence and Creative Performance:Looking Through the Lens of Environmental Uncertainty and Cultural Intelligence

Despite the need to better understand the relationship between employee creativity and emotional intelligence, research remains scant and ambiguous. We examine the effect of emotional intelligence (EI) on frontline employees’ creativity and the mediating role of environmental uncertainty (EU) as an explanatory mechanism to understand the EI and creative performance (CP) relationship. In addition, we test for the interaction effect of EI and CI on frontline employees’ creativity. Using a sample of 283 frontline employees (FEs) from four and five star hotels, structural equation modeling is employed to test the proposed hypotheses. Results reveal that EI has a positive impact on FEs’ creative performance. The findings also confirm the mediating role of EU in the relationship between EI and CP. Moderating regression analyses show that CI strengthens the impact of EI on CP, albeit with a marginal increment in explanatory power. Important theoretical and managerial implications flow from our findings

Impact of Crowded Restaurant Perception on Affectivity and Behavioral Intentions

This research aims to assess the influence of restaurant customers\u27 perceived crowdedness on their behavioral intentions. The data were collected via a questionnaire developed based on the literature. Obtained 459 questionnaires were analyzed using explanatory and confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling methods. It was determined that perception of human crowdedness impacted behavioral intentions in a positive manner, while the perception of spatial crowdedness had a negative influence. Therefore, findings show that perceived human crowdedness does not influence affectivity, whereas spatial crowdedness has a negative effect on it

The influence of politics on the governance of an entrepreneurial ecosystem in a developing country:a generative institutional discourse approach

Entrepreneurship is often about the individual drive for innovation and the exploitation of opportunities; however, in an increasingly connected world, entrepreneurial ecosystems have gained considerable research interest. In many developed countries, entrepreneurial ecosystems emerge from organic collaborations between businesses and investors, with little political involvement. However, in a post-communist country like Kazakhstan, different stakeholders have diverse expectations, leading to tensions among them. In this study, we took a qualitative approach and drew from discursive institutionalism theory in entrepreneurship research in order to understand the influence of politics on the governance of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Our findings reveal tensions between collective aspirations and individual goals, generating multiple institutional logics. The generative institutional discourse that is brought about by politics, their influence on governance, and facilitating factors is a mechanism that helps to turn such tensions into policies and collective action. To gain a better understanding of the influence of politics on the governance of entrepreneurial ecosystems, we propose a generative institutional discourse model.</p

Knowledge transfer and isomorphism in franchise networks

This study draws on institutional and organisational learning theories to evaluate how knowledge transfer (KT) practices contribute to the development of isomorphism in franchise networks. It also analyses how the characteristics of franchise partners influence this process. Research conducted across a sample of hospitality and retail franchisees in Turkey reveals how the transfer of explicit knowledge aids in the realisation of coercive isomorphism and the transfer of tacit knowledge supports mimetic isomorphism. Additionally, the study identifies the factors that influence the extent to which these types of isomorphism are achieved. In doing so, it identifies the importance of franchisor institutionalisation, or the degree to which a strong and supportive infrastructure is developed, to isomorphism within franchise networks. Institutionalisation impacts on the antecedents to KT. Differences between the KT practices of hospitality and retail franchise networks are also identified