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Face Time in the Hotel Industry: An Exploration of What it is and Why it Happens
Abstract
Many hotel companies, and the hotel industry in general, have been cited as having a culture of face time, that is, a culture inducing its managers to spend considerable amounts of nonproductive time at work. This subject exploratory study seeks to provide greater understanding regarding this apparently common practice but understudied academic topic. This empirical study analyzes how and to what extent the culture of the hotel industry, and of specific lodging companies, relate to levels of face time. It also analyzes how differences in hotel location and size and differences in manager age and tenure affect the extent to which hotel managers report putting in nonproductive face time at work. © 2012 International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education.
... Importantly, work time is needed to be productive, and the amount of time spent at work is associated with career success, salary, and promotions (Feldman et al., 2020;Ng & Feldman, 2008). The impact of work hours are especially strong in industries with a "face time" norm where working longer hours is a signal of high performance and dedication-as is the case in hotels Munck, 2001;O'Neill, 2012). Extended presence at work is also associated with being an "ideal worker," according to many commonly held views (Acker, 1990;Kelly, Ammons, Chermack, & Moen, 2010). ...
... Managers often report having to come in during time off if an employee fails to show for a shift, or when a maintenance problem occurs Mulvaney et al., 2007). Furthermore, many hotels have deeply ingrained "face time" cultures, where spending more time at the hotel is equated with higher performance-forcing managers to work long hours to maximize their chances at promotions (Munck, 2001;O'Neill, 2012). Given these challenges, hotel managers are often faced with decisions about whether to sacrifice sleep to get work donemaking them an ideal sample for the current study. ...
... To address this concern, organizations could explicitly acknowledge the sleep dilemma for managers and educate them about the short-term and longer-term trade-offs (sleeping an hour less leaves 31 more minutes for work on average, but has nonlinear costs to work affect). Perhaps more importantly, organizations could actively combat the "face time" culture present in many jobs (Munck, 2001;O'Neill, 2012), which may pressure managers to sleep less to spend more time at work. This could involve carefully evaluating the present culture of an organization-including how managers' performance is assessed and incentivized (Feldman et al., 2020). ...
Managers often do not get the recommended amount of sleep needed for proper functioning. Based on conservation of resources theory, we suggest that this is a result of sleep having both resource gains (improved affect) and losses (less time) that compete to determine managers' perceived productivity the next day. This trade-off may, in turn, determine the amount of investment in sleep the next night. In a diary study with hotel managers, we found support for sleep as resource loss. After nights with more sleep than usual, managers reported lower perceived productivity due to fewer hours spent at work. In fact, for every hour spent sleeping, managers reported working 31 min, 12 s less. Further, when perceived productivity is reduced managers withdraw and conserve their resources by getting more sleep the next night (12 min, 36 s longer for each scale point decrease in perceived productivity), consistent with loss spirals from conservation of resources theory. Exploratory analyses revealed that sleep has a curvilinear effect on affect, such that too little or too much sleep is not beneficial. Overall, our study demonstrates the often-ignored trade-offs of sleep in terms of affect and work time, which has downstream implications for managers' perceived productivity.
... Hospitality work is described as temporary (Harris, 2009), seasonal, convenient, physically hard (Lee-Ross, 1999), part-time, low skilled, feminized (Adib & Guerrier, 2003;Korczynski, 2002). As a career option, hospitality is associated with poor status (Baum, 2007;Reichel & Pizam, 1984;Sandiford & Seymour, 2010;Yamashita & Uenoyama, 2006), low pay and long hours (Acker, 2006a;O'Neill, 2012a;Purcell, 1997), precarious employment practices (McNamara et al., 2011), low trust working practices (Timo & Davidson, 2002) and relentlessly high staff turnover (Deery, 2008;Hinkin & Tracey, 2000;Williamson, Harris, & Parker, 2009). ...
... This concept still appears to hold some validity; however, further research has failed to establish consistent links between personality type and job satisfaction (Arnold, 2004). The effect of personality on career success is a theme that continues to be echoed in hospitality career literature (Akrivos, Ladkin, & Reklitis, 2007;Baum, 2002;O'Neill & Xiao, 2010;O'Neill, 2012a). ...
... Not only frontline employees work long hours. Managers are required to be visible to guests and staff for long periods of time, which causes conflict between family and work obligations (O'Neill, 2012a). In the traditional career ladder departments of Food and Beverage and Front Office, the unpredictability and irregularity of shifts is associated with stress and burnout in workers (Chuang & Dellmann-Jenkins, 2010;Knox & Walsh, 2005;Kong et al., 2011;Yang, 2010). ...
Literature on the hospitality career often portrays hospitality work as physically hard, dirty, stressful and badly paid. Much hospitality research is descriptive in nature and neglects aspects such as power relations and gender. In recent years, critical researchers have investigated the conditions of hospitality work. Their conclusions have been that, in the main, those disadvantaged in terms of employment opportunities, the young, the old, women and migrants populate hospitality employment.
This study investigated the career experiences of long-term hospitality workers. The aim of the research was to find out why people build and maintain long careers working in the hospitality industry. An intersectional methodology explored how age, gender, ethnicity and occupational class processes affected career longevity. Three memory-work sessions were held with hospitality academics that had previously held operational positions in hospitality. Nineteen semi-structured interviews with current hospitality employees followed.
Findings show that in many respects the hospitality career shows characteristics of a boundaryless career model, for example, a wide network of industry contacts facilitate career advancement. It is also clear that boundary enablers and constraints, such as geographical mobility, regulate hospitality careers. Two careers paths in hospitality were found. There is an accelerated career path for men and women who conform to the industry-wide male hetero-normal beliefs established by the industry gatekeepers, such as general managers. The rewards associated with this career path are high status, excellent remuneration and a wide network of industry contacts. Then there is a more limited career path, for those who do not progress past the boundary gatekeepers. The rewards associated with this path are strong work-based social connections, the respect of their peers and adequate financial compensation. Both career paths provide a high level of job satisfaction, expressed by the participants as a ‘passion’ to ‘do the job’ well. At all levels of the hospitality hierarchy, from General Manager to Kitchen Porter, this passion ensures career longevity.
The contribution of this study is that, firstly, it extends the use of intersectionality beyond the investigation of oppression, to an understanding of the complex interplay between privilege and penalty. Secondly, it reveals that an intersectionality paradigm can combine with other frameworks, such as career theory, to enrich understanding of how organisational processes confer privilege in the workplace. Thirdly, the focus on why people remain in a hospitality career, rather than a focus on why they leave, enables a clearer vision of what is required to ensure a more equitable workplace for all employees. A career construct model based on the study findings illustrates how variables such as age, gender, ethnicity and class influence the pace of career progression for individual workers. Further longitudinal and critical research could fill the remaining gaps in our knowledge about the longevity of hospitality careers.
... The interferes with the non-work domain and vice versa; Wayne, Musisca, & Fleeson, 2002) might influence the job experience is analyzed in the current study. Work-life balance has been previously linked to many organizational outcomes in the hospitality literature, such as job satisfaction and turnover (Mulvaney, O'Neill, Cleveland, & Crouter, 2006;O'Neill, 2012;O'Neill et al., 2009), and levels of anticipated work-life balance is used in this study to understand attraction to hospitality organizations. ...
... A great deal of recent literature has examined work-life balance in the hospitality industry (Cleveland et al., 2007 O'Neill, 2012;O'Neill et al., 2009;Xiao & O'Neill, 2010). The main thrust of the recent hospitality research on work-life balance has focused on the time-based nature of the phenomenon. ...
... The main thrust of the recent hospitality research on work-life balance has focused on the time-based nature of the phenomenon. It has been found that, with hotel professionals, the time-based nature of work-life balance was related to turnover (McNamara et al., 2011;O'Neill, 2012;O'Neill et al, 2009). Additionally, stress came home with hotel professionals and potentially diminished the balance between home life and work life. ...
The purpose of this research study was to investigate how processing fluency moderates the effect of value fit on attraction to hospitality organizations. Specifically, the study found that processing fluency moderates the relationship between value fit and attraction to an organization so that highly fluent advertisements induce higher feelings of attraction to organizations than do advertisements that are not highly fluent. This article extends the reach of the marketing-based processing fluency framework into the study of recruitment, while also suggesting that value fit may not always explain attraction to organizations. Recommendations are given to practitioners regarding how they should present information to job seekers to attract the right quantity and quality of applicants.
... Hotels were chosen for this study because they employ many young professionals who would be able to give insight as to why this demographic group is choosing to leave the industry. Hospitality experiences a high rate of turnover, which was estimated to be 52% in 2006, and it appears to be rising, with a 62% rate in 2011 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006, 2012. One of the most common issues for service organizations and hotel companies is the turnover rates among managers (Deery and Shaw, 1997;Cleveland et al., 2007). ...
... Work-life conflict has attracted recent research attention in the hospitality literature (O'Neill, 2012;McNamara et al., 2011;Xiao and O'Neill, 2010). Much of the research has focused on the timebased work-life conflict, which has been echoed by the respondents of this study as a harbinger of career change. ...
... Much of the research has focused on the timebased work-life conflict, which has been echoed by the respondents of this study as a harbinger of career change. Also, the time-based nature of work-life conflict is related to turnover with hotel professionals (O'Neill, 2012;McNamara et al., 2011). The stress that comes home with hotel professionals potentially exacerbates the conflict that results from the time spent away from home. ...
... Organizational culture has been investigated primarily in terms of the characteristics of organizations' work-family climate/culture such as managerial support, perceived career consequences and organizational time expectations (O'Neill et al., 2009;O'Neill, 2012a). Factors specific to frontline positions such as presenteeism (Cullen and McLaughlin, 2006) and "face time" O'Neill, 2012b) have also been studied, because employees and managers were often expected to be in position as much as possible regardless of the actual need. ...
... Demographic differences describe surface-level variations among employees and are considered as control variables in the proposed model. Some studies have investigated (Namasivayam and Mount, 2004;Karatepe and Baddar, 2006;Karatepe and Uludag, 2007;Karatepe, 2013;Zhao and Mattila, 2013;Gamor et al., 2014;Ryan et al., 2015;Zhao and Ghiselli, 2016); work-family interferences (Zhao et al., 2011); work-home role conflict (Cannon, 1998;Tromp and Blomme, 2014); work-life conflict (Hsieh et al., 2009;McGinley et al., 2014); work-leisure conflict (Wong and Lin, 2007;Elgammal and Wilbert, 2013;Lin et al., 2013;Lin et al., 2014) Positive work-family relationships Work-family facilitation and enrichment (Karatepe and Bekteshi, 2008;Karatepe and Magaji, 2008;Lövhöiden et al., 2011) Balanced work-family relationships Work-life balance (Wong and Ko, 2009;Deery and Jago, 2015); work-family balance (Vanderpool and Way, 2013;Ruizalba et al., 2014;Alegre et al., 2015); work and personal life balance (Hsieh et al., 2004;Hsieh and Lin, 2010); employees' perceived balance (Deery and Jago, 2009;Chiang et al., 2010;Lub et al., 2012) Work environment and organizational practices Coping resources (Karatepe and Kilic, 2007;Karatepe and Uludag, 2008b); supportive supervisors (Kong, 2013); work social support (Karatepe, 2010); schedule flexibility ; work-family climate/culture (O'Neill et al., 2009;O'Neill, 2012a); presenteeism (Cullen and McLaughlin, 2006); face time O'Neill, 2012b); hospitality job characteristics (Zhao and Ghiselli, 2016) Theoretical perspectives ...
Purpose
This review aims to summarize previous research on work–family relationships in the tourism and hospitality contexts. It then integrates the various approaches into a holistic model and identifies important areas for future research.
Design/methodology/approach
Over 150 research papers from the past 20 years were retrieved from Elsevier Science Direct, SAGE, Emerald, Taylor & Francis and EBSCOHost. In total, 77 papers reporting empirical research were analyzed in terms of concepts, theories, antecedents, consequences and methods.
Findings
The major findings on work and family issues in the tourism and hospitality contexts were synthesized. Critical topics for future research were identified. A holistic model of the factors that affect work and family was developed to improve the consistency of future research.
Research limitations/implications
An overview of work–family studies will provide a solid research background to tourism and hospitality faculty members and graduate students who are considering research in this area. This paper is a general review of previous research, and the review focus is relatively global.
Originality/value
This paper is the first comprehensive summary and narrative review of work and family studies in tourism and hospitality.
... The types of networking described above reflect managerialist values that shape the ways male and female managers practice gendered behaviours (McDonald, 2011;Kumra and Vinnicombe, 2010). In large hotels, an example of practicing gender is the culture of "face time" (O'Neill, 2012) that is normalized behaviour for managers. This practice requires spending time "above and beyond what is needed to complete the job, for the purpose of expressing to one's peers and superiors one's commitment to the job or the organization" (O'Neill, 2012, p. 479). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show how the social categories of gender, age and class influence networking practices and career progression in the 4–5-star hotel sector in Australia and New Zealand. It argues that in this type of workplace the practice of networking is so normalized that it is assumed an inclusive, gender-neutral activity.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on 18 semi-structured interviews. Inductive analysis was used uncover themes, sub-themes and emergent patterns. An intersectionally sensitive approach was followed.
Findings
The significance of networking processes for career progression in the 4–5-star hotel sectors was a recurring theme. Networking reflects historically embedded gendering practices that heighten existing class-based structural privilege for groups of men.
Research limitations/implications
The focus is on hotel employees in Australia and New Zealand with the findings are not implicitly generalizable.
Practical implications
Networks are important for women as their “merit” may not be immediately visible. Well-structured mentoring schemes need to be adopted as part of the affirmative action required to tilt the “skewed playing field”.
Originality/value
Studies that indicate how the gendering of networking practices reinforce career privilege and penalty in specific organizations have been lacking, as have studies favouring an intersectional approach. This study seeks to redress these omissions.
... As previously noted, it is common practice in the hospitality industry to require employees to dedicate ample "face time." However, the amount of work hours and nonstandard work schedules contributed to perceptions that the hospitality industry creates work and nonwork stressors for employees (O'Neill, 2012a). Results from survey-based research studies demonstrated that WFC was significantly predicted by the frequency in which employees worked overtime hours (Tromp & Blomme, 2012 as well as the number of hours they worked (Lawson et al., 2013). ...
Work–family conflict has become a growing area of research in the hospitality field. Research has previously shown that employees who experience conflict between their work and family roles are likely to report negative individual and job-related outcomes. Given the serious outcomes associated with work–family conflict, it is essential for researchers and practitioners to better understand why and when it occurs, as well as to identify possible interventions that may lessen its impact on employees. This systematic review synthesizes and summarizes the extant literature as it relates to work–family conflict. The results from the review provide insight into the well-established antecedents and outcomes of work–family conflict, while also highlighting areas that may require additional attention. The review concludes with a discussion of future research directions that may be used to advance the study of work–family conflict research.
... Las empresas hoteleras se caracterizan por requerir de una elevada disponibilidad (O'Neill, 2012), pues ofrecen sus servicios 24 horas al día los 365 días del año, lo cual genera altos niveles de estrés no sólo en el trabajador sino también en su familia (Cleveland et al., 2007). Sin embargo, las obligaciones familiares pueden limitar el desarrollo de la carrera profesional de las mujeres, sobre todo debido a los requisitos de movilidad geográfica y de elevada disponibilidad (Mulvaney et al., 2006). ...
RESUMEN Esta investigación pretende analizar el nivel de igualdad de género entre hombres y mujeres en puestos directivos intermedios en la industria hotelera valenciana. El sector turístico supone una oportunidad para el desarrollo profesional de las mujeres, pero es necesario describir con mayor precisión qué factores potencian la carrera profesional de las mujeres y qué barreras son las más significativas. A través de una metodología mixta, combinando análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo, este trabajo busca dar respuesta a esta cuestión. Las conclusiones de esta investigación son especialmente reveladoras: las mujeres poseen ciertas competencias clave para la industria hotelera, que pueden permitirles llegar a puestos directivos intermedios con una adecuada gestión de las barreras profesionales a las que se enfrentan. Palabras clave: igualdad de género, competencias directivas, barreras profesionales. ABSTRACT This research aims to examine the gender equality level in middle managerial positions in the valencian hotel industry. The tourism sector offers an opportunity for female professional development, although it is needed a deeper precision in describing the factors that enhance female professional career, and the most significative professional barriers. Through a mixed methodology, combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this work might respond to this issue. We found highly revealing conclusions: women possess specific and key competencies for the hotel industry that might allow them to achieve middle managerial positions with an accurate management of professional barrierrs they have to face.
... For instance, a review of women's participation in hospitality management in the United States indicates that at governmental level, there is 'inadequate reporting and publicising of information relevant to glass ceiling issues' (Clevenger and Singh, 2013, p. 389). There is considerable work-life conflict in the hospitality sector due to the unpredictable nature of business levels (Burke et al., 2011;Cleveland et al., 2007), and the workplace requirement that managers be visible for guests and employees (Guerrier, 1986;O'Neill, 2012). For women managers, work-life conflict is exacerbated by the societal expectation that women will take care of older dependents (to a greater or lesser extent depending on the culture), household management and childcare generally (Lan and Wang Leung, 2001). ...
Abstract
This chapter explores women’s employment in the hospitality sector and how they negotiate their professional identities across varying national and business contexts. An overview is given of women’s employment patterns, career paths and career progression, which highlights the contribution of strong social connections, effective mentoring relationships and interesting jobs, to career longevity. The chapter further explores the well documented issues that significantly reduce the job quality and promotional opportunities for women in the sector, for example, occupational sex stereotyping, sexual harassment and the enduring glass ceiling. The chapter concludes with an appraisal of how enlightened human resource management practices can enable women to fulfil their career and life style aspirations when working in the hospitality industry.
A systematic assessment of the papers published in the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research for the past several decades is presented in this study. This special edition of the Journal presents a bouquet of the past and present memories by members and others interested in the ICHRIE (International Council of Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education) during the past 75 years. The role played by the Journal in providing a media for the development of hospitality education and research through several decades is explored. All available papers from 1976 to November 2020 were reviewed and classified based on important topics. It becomes evident from the publications’ incremental strength how scholarship growth was initiated and substantiated by the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research.
Purpose
This study aims to illustrate how organizational support can reduce work-family conflict (WFC) and improve job/life satisfaction by synthesizing the empirical findings among hospitality employees.
Design/methodology/approach
Previous empirical papers were searched through tourism and hospitality journals and 54 studies were ultimately selected. The correlation coefficients were coded and examined through meta-analysis, after which they were used to test the hypothesized model via meta-analytic structural equation modeling.
Findings
Findings demonstrated that organizational support plays a critical role in helping employees release WFC and improve life satisfaction but not job satisfaction. The number of children is a salient factor at the individual level on predicting WFC, whereas gender relates only to life satisfaction. The asymmetric permeable roles of WFC dimensions among work, family and life domains were also shown.
Practical implications
The findings can help hospitality managers be aware of the critical roles of organizational support in assisting employees to handle WFC and improve job and life satisfaction.
Originality/value
The relationships among organizational support, WFC and job/life satisfaction of frontline employees have been examined for the first time via meta-analytic SEM. In this manner, previous consistent and inconsistent findings can be synthesized for future theoretical development.
Hospitality Industry has a particular context, it is broadly competitive, and in permanent change. An organizational culture can improve the results of different organizations. This study evaluates the organizational culture research in the field of the hospitality industry to obtain an understanding of its actual situation and future. The study used bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review to examine publications of five journals about hospitality in the Web of Science database, from 1980 to April 2019. Findings indicate that hotels are the main field of research of the hospitality industry, and the quantitative methodology approach is the most used. Moreover, it shows three paths of recent research for future analysis.
Explores the role of collaboration in tourism to sustain livelihoods, create profitable partnerships, and protect cultures and the environment.
Research shows that displaying face time—being observed by others at work—leads to many positive outcomes for employees. Drawing on this prior work, we argue that face time helps employees to receive better work and leads to career advancement because it is a strong signal of their commitment to their job, their team, and their organization. But when employees are geographically distributed from managers who control the assignment of work, they are often unable to display face time. To compensate, employees must engage in other behaviors that signal commitment. Our study of two large, globally distributed, product-development companies demonstrates that employees who engage in certain behaviors can effectively signal their commitment to the organization and, as a consequence, will receive better work assignments. But because they operate in a competitive signaling environment, they have to continually engage in the behaviors that produce desired signals to the point where they often feel that they are sacrificing their personal lives for their job. We induct a model from our data that explains why simple behaviors that signal commitment eventually turn into feelings of sacrifice and why employees at headquarters who have the power to assign better work fail to notice the sacrifice behind the signals. We discuss the implications of this model and the signal misalignment it explains for theories of distributed work and signaling in organizations.
The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2018.1265 .
Purpose
Work–family research has established the existence of a crossover effect, wherein a given perception is transferable between two intimate persons. However, little research has been done to delineate this crossover process. Therefore, grounded in the conservation of resources theory, the present study aims to examine why and how a supervisor’s work–family conflict (WFC) is related to his or her subordinates’ WFC. The authors focus on three resource-related mechanisms and explore the consequences of subordinates’ WFC.
Design/methodology/approach
Questionnaire surveys were collected from 180 supervisor–subordinate dyads from five hotels. Mplus was used to test the framework.
Findings
The results support the notion that supervisor’s negative affect and subordinate’s workload account for the crossover effect of WFC. Moreover, subordinates’ WFC is found to be related to lower job satisfaction and higher turnover intention.
Research limitations/implications
The current study highlights the downward effect of supervisors’ WFC, a phenomenon that has been understudied in the extant research. Alternative mediators or moderators in the relationship between supervisors’ WFC and subordinates’ WFC can be explored by future research.
Practical implications
Hotels should help supervisors to effectively manage the work and family dynamic through training and changing the “face time” culture.
Originality/value
Grounded in the conservation of resources theory, the authors propose a framework that incorporates WFC into the crossover model.
Career change models evaluates career change as a separate variable apart from turnover. Despite comprehensive researches
on this matter, few studies examined career change and the leading factors. The purpose of this article is to explain the reasons
underlying career change of hotel managers. In the study, career change decisions of young hotel managers is examined depending on
grounded theory approach. In order to explain career change decisions of managers in hotel companies in Ankara, data obtained
through a set of open-ended interviews performed with young managers who have quited job were analyzed. It was paid special
attention on the fact that all respondents were working in another job except hotel industry during the research; but worked as entrylevel
hotel manager in their previous careers. Interviews were performed on skype or face to face. Interview protocol was applied
depending on suggestions in Grounded Theory and Damaske which enables carrying out a systematical analysis between respondents.
In line with interviews conducted with young managers who have changed their careers in hotel industry in Ankara, three factors
influencing their turnover decision were found. These three factors leading career change are job satisfaction dimension, daily life-work
conflicts and weak ties. It is considered this study would contribute to available knowledge of senior managers via explaining the effect
of job satisfaction-based expectations of young managers, daily life-work conflicts and weak relations on reasons underlying possible
career change.
Employment and professional mobility are important aspects of life for both hospitality organizations and individual employees. Across two studies, we examine the effects of work–life conflict and actual (Study 1) and perceived (Study 2) progression in one’s career on hotel managers’ intentions to leave their organizations or leave the hotel industry altogether. In Study 1, positive relations between work–life conflict and turnover and career change intentions were found among actual hotel managers. Similarly, in Study 2, job seekers who were experimentally induced to expect higher work–life conflict in their future careers reported higher turnover and career change intentions. Across both studies, this effect was stronger among those with less progression in their careers. These results provide a more nuanced understanding of the high turnover rates in the hospitality industry, and we discuss how hospitality organizations can leverage this knowledge in managerial retention efforts.
Purpose
– This study aims to theoretically construct the role of hospitality job characteristics (HJCs), conceptually identify specific HJCs and empirically examine the relationships of these to work–family conflict and job stress. Hospitality employees work in a “smile factory” – often under stress.
Design/methodology/approach
– Data were collected from 346 hotel employees in China and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) and a series of hierarchical regression analyses (HRA).
Findings
– The SEM results confirmed the general role of HJCs as a job stressor, and the HRA findings differentiated the specific impacts of the characteristics on work–family conflict and job stress.
Research limitations/implications
– The survey was cross-sectional and correlational in nature. Furthermore, the results were also from selected hotels, and the respondents do not fully represent all hotel employees. Finally, the measures of hospitality job uniqueness were employees’ subjective agreement on the given statements.
Practical implications
– The study offers a systematic framework of specific job characteristics in the hospitality context for the reconciliation of previously inconsistent research findings. The findings may also be useful to hospitality managers as they attempt to analyze and understand the specific job characteristics that are the most salient reasons for withdrawal attitudes and behaviors.
Originality/value
– The present study identified the list of HJCs by summarizing previous studies and examining the roles of HJCs in work attitudes among hospitality employees. These efforts could be helpful both for scholars by constructing a consistent base for future research and for managers by precisely analyzing the specific job attributes.
More hotels adopt ecofriendly practices and implement innovative technologies to reduce carbon footprints and increase a viable green image. Many hotel guests value hotels that offer up-to-date technology and demonstrate sustainability efforts through various sustainable programs. Previous studies investigated how ecofriendly practices would induce higher customer loyalty and increase the image of a hotel brand in the past decade and reported the benefits of implementing green efforts in hotels. This study, which included distributing surveys to over 1200 existing hotel guests in 2013–2014 in the southeastern United States, examined how technologies, innovations, and sustainable-effort-related factors have an impact on customer perceptions, selection decisions, experience, and post-experience.
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is reconceptualized in terms of civic citizenship as described in political philosophy. We used this theoretical foundation to derive substantive categories of OCB and to propose a nomological network of its potential antecedents. We also propose a new measurement of organizational citizenship behavior based on these substantive categories. Finally, data from 950 employees in diverse organizational and occupational contexts support the construct validity of the measurement of OCB proposed here.
With smaller, more efficient workforces, hotel organizations are competing to retain highly valued managers. Work stress and burnout are often cited as precursors to work and family stress, and together these factors influence employee intentions to leave an organization. However, work and family issues have received little attention in the hospitality and tourism literature. Using focus groups and semistructured interviews with three groups of participants (new entrants into the hotel industry, hotel managers, and their spouses), the authors explore the connections among work characteristics, work stress, and the work—family interface. Results of the multisource qualitative research suggest that long, unpredictable hours create individual and family-related stress. Furthermore, there is agreement among the three sources regarding the stressors and benefits associated with working in the hotel industry. Discussion of future research and practice is presented.
We examine how passive ‘face time’ (i.e. the amount of time one is passively observed, without interaction) affects how one is perceived at work. Findings from a qualitative study of professional office workers suggest that passive face time exists in two forms: 1) being seen at work during normal business hours — or expected face time, and 2) being seen at work outside of normal business hours — or extracurricular face time. These two forms of passive face time appear to lead observers to make trait inferences (i.e. they lead observers to perceive employees as either ‘dependable’ or ‘committed’, depending on the form of passive face time). Findings from an experimental study confirm our qualitative findings and suggest that trait inferences are made spontaneously (i.e. without intent or knowledge of doing so).We discuss the implications of our findings for theories of person perception and the practice of performance appraisal.
We developed a measure of work–family culture (i.e., the shared assumptions, beliefs, and values regarding the extent to which an organization supports and values the integration of employees' work and family lives) and examined its relationship to work–family benefit utilization, organizational attachment, and work–family conflict. Using survey data from 276 managers and professionals, we identified three dimensions of work–family culture: managerial support for work–family balance, career consequences associated with utilizing work–family benefits, and organizational time expectations that may interfere with family responsibilities. As predicted, perceptions of a supportive work–family culture were related to employees' use of work–family benefits. Both work–family benefit availability and supportive work–family culture were positively related to affective commitment and negatively related to work–family conflict and intentions to leave the organization. In addition, the three culture dimensions were found to have unique relationships with these behaviors and attitudes.
This article presents an empirical study of lodging industry executives’ beliefs regarding strategic issues that they consider to be most important. The authors theorize that fundamental factors exist indicating certain commonalties regarding executives’mental models about strategic issues.The possible influence of an industry macroculture is investigated as a source of similarity of mental models among executives competing in the lodging industry, and hypotheses are developed and tested regarding the sources of the macroculture. The results of an exploratory factor analysis indicate that among 20 potential strategic issues rated by executives in the study, 3 fundamental strategic directions exist. Furthermore, the results of the study indicate that professional journals, associations, conferences, and previous employment may be sources of the macroculture. Implications for research and practice are presented.
Focuses on the introduction of personal contracts to replace terms and conditions of employment derived from collective agreements in light of the findings from three surveys of employer organizations conducted in 1991/92, 1994/95 and 1995/96 by the Employment Relations R&D Centre at Anglia Polytechnic University. Argues that personal contracts reflect employer power and preferences rather than providing a mechanism for the empowerment of the individual employee through creating or increasing the ability of the individual to determine their terms and conditions of employment. Discusses the political and legal background to the decline in trade union power at the workplace. Contends that a real empowerment of employees is best achieved within a collectivist framework and is thus dependent on the re-establishment and strengthening of individual and collective rights at work.
An analysis is reported of the relations between the semantic responses obtained from managers of four nationalities. A total of 365 expatriate and local managers in the Singaporean subsidiaries of 34 American, British and Japanese M.N.C.s assessed their own and each of the other groups along each of 18 adjectival antonym pairs. For each nationality the correlations between the semantic items are used as similarity data for multidimensional scaling of the adjectives. It is shown that the 18 adjectival pairs can be reduced to a two-dimensional circular map for each nationality, and that the placing of the adjectives on the circle agrees with a root mean square misfit of about 10° for the four nationalities. The results support the hypothesis that, for the groups considered, a shared international culture exists in the managerial context. The two dimensions on which the 36 semantic items can be mapped are interpretable as functional/dysfunctional and open/closed.
A model of the relationship between work and family that incorporates variables from both the work-family conflict and social support literatures was developed and empirically tested. This model related bidirectional work-family conflict, family instrumental and emotional social support, and job and family involvement to job and life satisfaction. Data came from 163 workers who were living with at least 1 family member. Results suggested that relationships between work and family can have an important effect on job and life satisfaction and that the level of involvement the worker assigns to work and family roles is associated with this relationship. The results also suggested that the relationship between work and family can be simultaneously characterized by conflict and support. Higher levels of work interfering with family predicted lower levels of family emotional and instrumental support. Higher levels of family emotional and instrumental support were associated with lower levels of family interfering with work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Prior research has demonstrated the importance of distinguishing among foci and bases of commitment. Foci of commitment are the individuals and groups to whom an employee is attached, and bases of commitment are the motives engendering attachment. This study uses distinctions among foci and bases of commitment to develop four profiles of commitment, and examines the extent to which differences in these patterns predict other variables. Cluster analysis of 440 employees suggests the following profiles: (1) The Locally Committed (employees who are attached to their supervisor and work group), (2) the Globally Committed (who are attached to top management and the organization), (3) the Committed (who are attached to both local and global foci), and (4) the Uncommitted (who are attached to neither local nor global foci). The profiles are differentially related to intent to quit, job satisfaction, prosocial organizational behaviors, and certain demographic and contextual variables. Implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.
In this article, we summarize previous empirical studies that examined antecedents, correlates, and/or consequences of organizational commitment using meta-analysis. In total, 48 meta-analyses were conducted, including 26 variables classified as antecedents, 8 as consequences, and 14 as correlates. Statistical artifacts were found to account for the variance between studies in only one meta-analysis that used attendance. Type of organizational commitment (attitudinal vs. calculative) was proposed as a moderator variable and was found to account for significant between-study variance in 9 of 18 comparisons. Theoretical and methodological issues pertaining to the measurement of various forms of organizational commitment, its interrelations with other forms of attachments, and its role in causal models of behavior in organizations are reviewed. Directions for future research are highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)
Marriott International for many years had a deeply ingrained culture of face time - if you weren't working long hours, you weren't earning your pay. That philosophy didn't seem totally off base in an industry that provides 24/7 service, 365 days a year. But it had a price: By the mid 1990s, Marriott was finding it tough to recruit talented people, and some of its best managers were leaving, often because they wanted to spend more time with their families. "Our emphasis on face time had to go," recalls Bill Munck, a Marriott vice president for the New England region. In this article, Munck describes how Marriott transformed its "see and be seen" culture by implementing an initiative dubbed Management Flexibility at several of its hotels. This six-month pilot program was designed to help managers strike a better balance between their work lives and their home lives-all while maintaining Marriott's high-quality customer service and its bottom-line financial results. Munck explains how he and his leadership team took the first, relatively easy, step of eliminating redundant meetings and inefficient procedures that kept managers at the office late. The tougher task, he says, was overhauling the fundamental way managers thought about work. Under the pilot, Marriott's message to employees was: Put in long hours when it's needed, but take off early if the work is done - and don't be shy about doing so. As a result of the program, managers are working five fewer hours per week with no drop-off in customer service levels; they report less stress and burnout; and they perceive a definite change in the culture, with less attention paid to hours worked and a greater emphasis placed on tasks accomplished.
The rapid growth of research on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) has resulted in some conceptual confusion about the nature of the construct, and made it difficult for all but the most avid readers to keep up with developments in this domain. This paper critically examines the literature on organizational citizenship behavior and other, related constructs. More specifically, it: (a) explores the conceptual similarities and differences between the various forms of "citizenship" behavior constructs identified in the literature; (b) summarizes the empirical findings of both the antecedents and consequences of OCBs; and (c) identifies several interesting directions for future research.
Faced with turbulent national and international environments, entire U.S. industries-most notably steel and automobiles-have revealed a distinct propensity to overlook radically new types of competitors, cling to traditional technologies, and remain mired in similar, yet outdated, strategic postures. In this article, we ascribe the adaptive failures of entire industries not only to the microcultures of single organizations, but also to what we term interorganizational "macrocultures"-relatively idiosyncratic beliefs that are shared by managers across organizations. More specifically, we propose that value-added networks linking organizations into collectivities both induce and reflect the existence and persistence of more or less homogeneous macrocultures. In turn, homogeneous macrocultures (a) increase the level of inertia these organizations experience, (b) influence the inventiveness of organizations and the diffusion of innovations among them, and (c) increase the similarity of member organizations' strategic profiles.
The rapid growth of research on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) has resulted in some conceptual confusion about the nature of the construct, and made it difficult for all but the most avid readers to keep up with developments in this domain. This paper critically examines the literature on organizational citizenship behavior and other, related constructs. More specifically, it: (a) explores the conceptual similarities and differences between the various forms of “citizenship” behavior constructs identified in the literature; (b) summarizes the empirical findings of both the antecedents and consequences of OCBs; and (c) identifies several interesting directions for future research.
This study explores the role identification plays in the relationships between the constituencies that work for cultural organizations and the organization itself, focusing on employees, volunteers, and the board of directors. Although much literature exists about employee engagement within the private sector, little to no information exists about employee engagement in cultural organizations. This article examines in great detail how the concept of identification can impact constituencies working to support a cultural organization. For this study, eight in-depth anonymous interviews were conducted with high-level managers and executive directors of cultural organizations varying in size and organizational structure.
One of the central beliefs about career success within the hospitality industry is that new employees must “pay their dues.” In Study 1, free-response format interviews with 40 hospitality program graduates generated functional and dysfunctional connotations of this belief statement for both the individual and the organization. In Study 2, 35 graduating seniors were asked to describe the extent to which the “pay your dues” message was present during job interviews. Future research and implications for surfacing and rethinking this belief are discussed.
Recent performance of all-suite hotels in the United States indicates that the rapid development of new all-suite hotel brands, including fourteen new ones in 1996, may not be warranted. The development of such new brands may be based more on the macroculture of the hospitality industry than on any actual future viability of this hotel type. The mutual support organizations encompassing the macroculture provide to one anothermaybe maintaining this momentum of brand development, despite the fact that during 1996, the average daily vacancy in all-suite hotels actually increased by 17%. As the previous downturn of the hotel industry in the late 1980s and early 1990s indicates, while mutual support is comfortable in the short term, itmaybe dysfunctional and disastrous in the long term. © 1997 THE COUNCIL ON HOTEL, RESTAURANT AND INSTITUTIONAL EDUCATION.
A research project on work-life balance and Irish hotel managers by McLaughlin and Cullen (Managers and work-life balance: a case of Irish hospitality industry, Irish Management Institute, Dublin) noted high levels of presenteeism amongst focus group participants. This paper analyses the qualitative data obtained during this project with a view to identifying drivers of this finding and discusses possible consequences for hotel managers. Presenteeism is found to be embedded in narratives of managerial identity and in the management culture of the hotel industry. Three core rationales, which present at organisational and environmental levels, are proposed as forces that reinforce presenteeism as a managerial value in hotels.
This paper examines the significance of the concept of culture for organizational analysis. The intersection of culture theory and organization theory is evident in five current research themes: comparative management, corporate culture, organizational cognition, organizational symbolism, and unconscious processes and organization. Researchers pursue these themes for different purposes and their work is based on different assumptions about the nature of culture and organization. The task of evaluating the power and limitations of the concept of culture must be conducted within this assumptive context. This review demonstrates that the concept of culture takes organization analysis in several different and promising directions.
Reports and analyses the findings of recent research undertaken in
five Scottish centres to assess hotel and catering workers' attitudes to
trade unions. Initially, reviews the reasons advanced in explaining low
union density in the hotel and catering industry. These explanations
formed the basis to the research project which are reported. The
research fieldwork comprised interviews with hotel and catering workers
in a variety of establishments across a range of industry sub-sectors.
Contrary to what would have been expected from a review of previous
research, Scottish hotel and catering workers demonstrated positive
views of trade unions and a high level of interest in union membership.
In the light of such views, gives consideration to the reasons why hotel
and catering workers remain largely non-unionized in terms of employer
hostility to trade unions and employee doubts about the potential for
union success in the industry.
This paper presents the results of a study on organizational cultures in twenty units from ten different organizations in Denmark and the Netherlands. Data came from in-depth interviews of selected informants and a questionnaire survey of a stratified random sample of organizational members. Data on task, structure, and control characteristics of each unit were collected separately. Quantitative measures of the cultures of the twenty units, aggregated at the unit level, showed that a large part of the differences among these twenty units could be explained by six factors, related to established concepts from organizational sociology, that measured the organizational cultures on six independent dimensions. The organizational culture differences found resided mainly at the level of practices as perceived by members. Scores of the units on the six dimensions were partly explainable from organizational idiosyncrasies but were also significantly correlated with a variety of task, structural, and control-system characteristics of the units.
A quantitative review of 55 studies supports the conclusion that job attitudes are robust predictors of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The relationship between job satisfaction and OCB is stronger than that between satisfaction and in-role performance, at least among nonmanagerial and nonprofessional groups. Other attitudinal measures (perceived fairness, organizational commitment, leader supportiveness) correlate with OCB at roughly the same level as satisfaction. Dispositional measures do not correlate nearly as well with OCB (with the exception of conscientiousness). The most notable moderator of these correlations appears to be the use of self- versus other-rating of OCB; self-ratings are associated with higher correlations, suggesting spurious inflation due to common method variance, and much greater variance in correlation. Differences in subject groups and work settings do not account for much variance in the relationships. Implications are noted for theory, practice, and strategies for future research on OCB.
The tourism industry is well known as one where operating managers have had to make sacrifices in their family and personal lives. This article reviews what is known about the work-family interface in relation to hotel managers in an effort to identify ways to gain a strategic advantage in this competitive sector. By integrating research from several disciplines, this article presents a heuristic framework delineating organizational level inputs to work-family relationships for tourism managers. It examines organizational-, individual-, and family-level outcomes of the interface, as well as the processes linking these components and moderators thought to impact these relationships. Conclusions focus on innovative practices implemented to address work-family concerns.RésuméUn modèle de la dynamique travail-famille des directeurs d’hôtel. Il est bien connu que le tourisme est une industrie où les directeurs d’opération sont obligés de faire de grands sacrifices dans leur vie familiale et personnelle. Cet article fait le point sur ce que l’on sait de l’interface travail-famille chez les directeurs d’hôtel afin d’identifier des façons de gagner un avantage stratégique dans ce secteur compétitif. En intégrant des recherches de plusieurs disciplines, l’article présente un cadre heuristique représentant des apports organisationnels aux relations travail-famille pour les directeurs de tourisme. On examine les résultats aux niveaux organisationnel, individuel et familial de l’interface aussi bien que les processus qui relient ces éléments et les facteurs qui semblent avoir un effet sur ces relations. Les conclusions portent surtout sur des pratiques innovatrices pour aborder les questions de travail-famille.
Emotional exhaustion is a type of burnout and a state of mental weariness. It is an important issue for hospitality organizations because customer contact employees and hospitality managers function in an environment that is particularly susceptible to the creation of the antecedents of burnout. Further, emotional exhaustion itself is costly to hospitality organizations and individuals because it has been shown to result in depersonalization, detachment, decreased service quality and job performance, and increased turnover. Using a sample of 544 hotel managers from 36 hotels located throughout the United States, this study examines whether emotional exhaustion is a function of organizational and occupational characteristics, including job demands, quality orientation, pressure to produce, and need for “face time.” In addition, this study analyzes whether personality traits of the managers themselves, including extroversion and neuroticism, are predictors of emotional exhaustion. This study found emotional exhaustion of hotel managers to be a function of not only job and organizational characteristics, but also personality characteristics.
This article was originally published [following peer-review] in Personnel review, published by and copyright Emerald Group Publishing Limited. This paper examines employee relations management in a non-union sector, showing how employers in the hotel industry remain relatively free to manage in an arbitrary and determined fashion, in spite of an increasingly wide net of statutory employee rights. These management practices are effected in the way the workforce is structured, and in the differential treatment of workers in the same organisation. Notably “peripheral” unskilled workers, which are in the majority, are subjected to a more “hard” form of human resource management and are made more vulnerable from lack of eligibility to employment protection rights. Employers are not constrained from dismissing workers and fail to comply with many minimum legal requirements or observe the law in spirit. “Determined opportunism” represents an extreme instance of a “retaining control/cost-control” style of management.
This paper presents empirical research analyzing the relationship between work-family climate (operationalized in terms of three work-family climate sub-scales), organizational leadership (i.e., senior manager) characteristics, organizational commitment and turnover intent among 526 employees from 37 different hotels across the US. Using multilevel modeling, we found significant associations between work-family climate, and both organizational commitment and turnover intent, both within and between hotels. Findings underscored the importance of managerial support for employee work-family balance, the relevance of senior managers' own work-family circumstances in relation to employees' work outcomes, and the existence of possible contagion effects of leaders in relation to work-family climate.
- Abrahamson E.