How does employee commitment impact customers' attitudinal loyalty?
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights
ISSN: 2514-9792
Article publication date: 8 February 2021
Issue publication date: 6 April 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Studies in hospitality and tourism have seldom investigated the role of employee commitment to building customers' attitudinal loyalty. This study examines the impact of employee commitment on customers' attitude-based loyalty. The study contributes to knowledge of how employees' affective attitude (i.e. employee commitment) impacts and mediates the relationships within this model by considering service quality attributes separately in the context of China's Greater Bay Area.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a quantitative approach, 664 customers visiting hotels and tourist attractions within three cities of Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai were surveyed. A convenience sampling technique was employed to administer questionnaires within these contexts. A structural equation modeling (SEM) using AMOS software was used to test the relationships in the proposed model.
Findings
The results suggest that while service quality attributes have a different impact on employee commitment, employee commitment plays a response-predictor-mediator role in the attitudinal loyalty framework. For instance, personal interactions and technical quality are significant predictors of employee commitment. Employee commitment influences customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Moreover, employee commitment fully mediates the relationship between technical quality and customer satisfaction and partially mediates the association between personal interaction and customer satisfaction.
Practical implications
Given that employee commitment could be derived from personal interaction with customers, hoteliers and destination management organizations should encourage customers through their websites to be responsive to employees by providing constructive feedback on their service delivery. Management of hotels, attractions and destinations need to motivate employees through incentives such as pay raise, bonuses, time-off and paid holidays.
Originality/value
The paper is inimitable in its attempt to extend the customer attitudinal loyalty debate by including employees' attitude (i.e. commitment) in the measurement of customers' attitudinal loyalty in the hospitality and tourism industry.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Faculty Research Grant of the Macau University of Science and Technology for their support of this project. The authors are grateful to our anonymous reviewers and respondents who participated in the survey. The authors are deeply grateful to our research assistants who assisted in the process of translating our data instruments. The authors would like to extend our appreciation to Huang Yuanting, a post-graduate student at the Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Macau University of Science and Technology, for her assistance with this project.Funding: This paper was funded by the Faculty Research Grant of the Macau University of Science and Technology (FRG-19-048-FHTM).
Citation
Agyeiwaah, E., Dayour, F. and Zhou, (J).Y. (2022), "How does employee commitment impact customers' attitudinal loyalty?", Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 350-376. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHTI-09-2020-0169
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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