Search results
1 – 10 of 741I. Zografou, E. Galanaki, N. Pahos and I. Deligianni
Previous literature has identified human resources as a key source of competitive advantage in organizations of all sizes. However, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) face…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous literature has identified human resources as a key source of competitive advantage in organizations of all sizes. However, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) face difficulty in comprehensively implementing all recommended Human Resource Management (HRM) functions. In this study, we shed light on the field of HRM in SMEs by focusing on the context of Greek Small and Medium-sized Hotels (SMHs), which represent a dominant private sector employer across the country.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and 34 in-depth interviews with SMHs' owners/managers, we explore the HRM conditions leading to high levels of performance, while taking into consideration the influence of internal key determinants.
Findings
We uncover three alternative successful HRM strategies that maximize business performance, namely the Compensation-based performers, the HRM developers and the HRM investors. Each strategy fits discreet organizational characteristics related to company size, ownership type and organizational structure.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors' knowledge this is among the first empirical studies that examine different and equifinal performance-enhancing configurations of HRM practices in SMHs.
Details
Keywords
Dianne H.B. Welsh, Orlando Llanos-Contreras and Melany Rebeca Hebles
This article explains the causal mechanism supporting sustainable longevity by analysing the last three generations of one of the oldest family firms in Latin America.
Abstract
Purpose
This article explains the causal mechanism supporting sustainable longevity by analysing the last three generations of one of the oldest family firms in Latin America.
Design/methodology/approach
An explanatory single-case qualitative research based on critical realism explores why and how this family firm has been able to maintain its multigenerational longevity.
Findings
Los Lingues's evolutionary strategy, driven by transgenerational entrepreneurship under effectuation, has supported this family firm's sustainable longevity. Its effectual logic emerged mainly from the richness of the firm's historical resources embedded in its identity, knowledge and social capital and priority to preserve socioemotional wealth.
Originality/value
This study integrates socioemotional wealth and effectuation theory to explain a family firm's ability to survive through generations and sustain longevity. The study demonstrates the relevance of effectual logic in the entrepreneurial dynamics of a multigenerational family firm. Effectual logic drives the firm evolution and adaptation for sustainable longevity.
Details
Keywords
This study aims to examine why women transition from wage work to self-employed entrepreneurship, the seemingly insecure and unruly economic sector compared with the stable iron…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine why women transition from wage work to self-employed entrepreneurship, the seemingly insecure and unruly economic sector compared with the stable iron rice bowl and the fancy spring rice jobs.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on in-depth interviews in Zhejiang, the entrepreneurial hotbed in coastal China, this study examines the experiences of self-employed female entrepreneurs who used to work in the iron rice bowl and the spring rice jobs and explores their nonconventional career transition and its gendered implications.
Findings
This study finds that these women quit their previous jobs to escape from gendered suppression in wage work where their femininity was stereotyped, devalued or disciplined. By working for themselves, these women embrace a rubber rice bowl that allows them to improvise different forms of femininity that are better rewarded and recognized.
Originality/value
The study contributes to studies on gender and work by framing femininity as a fluid rather than a fixed set of qualities and fills the research gap by illustrating women’s agency in reacting to gender expectations in certain workplaces. The study develops a new concept of rubber rice bowl to describe how entrepreneurship, a seemingly women-unfriendly sphere, attracts women by allowing them to comply with, resist, or improvise normative gender expectations.
Details
Keywords
Szilvia Vanessza Schalk-Nador and Ida Rašovská
This study examines empirically the development of efficiency levels in the hotel industry and its key drivers, by juxtaposing pre- and post-COVID-19 results in the four most…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines empirically the development of efficiency levels in the hotel industry and its key drivers, by juxtaposing pre- and post-COVID-19 results in the four most important cities in the United States in terms of international arrivals.
Design/methodology/approach
A two-step approach was employed by first utilising the data envelopment analysis method to characterise the efficiency of United States hotels. A multiple linear regression analysis was performed to compare hotel performance in the two years prior to the COVID-19 outbreak with the first two years after the outbreak.
Findings
The results indicated the positive effect of size and the economy hotel category on efficiency, while increasing property age, urban location and a lack of brand affiliation showed a negative effect. During the pandemic, size and the economy category remained significant and positive, whereas urban location continued to represent a negative effect.
Practical implications
This study assists decision makers regarding prospective investments, supports existing and future portfolio analyses, contributes to observations on competition, and offers a wider perspective of the industry.
Originality/value
First, this study investigated the evolution of factors that influenced efficiency before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, the results offer insights into the impact of the pandemic on hotels' efficiency levels. Third, the study proposes directions for the restoration of hotel efficiency to pre-COVID-19 levels.
Details
Keywords
Syed Muhammad Ali Shahbaz Habib, Mahwish Sindhu and Irfan Saleem
Drawing upon social exchange theory, this research investigates the interplay of corporate philanthropy, environmental marketing strategy, relationship quality, greenwashing, and…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing upon social exchange theory, this research investigates the interplay of corporate philanthropy, environmental marketing strategy, relationship quality, greenwashing, and customer citizenship behavior in the family-owned hotels of an emerging market.
Design/methodology/approach
A field survey questionnaire was used to gather the data from 394 hotel customers by randomly selecting three premium family-owned hotels in Lahore: Faletti’s, Avari, and Holiday Inn. The data was analyzed using the structural regression modeling (SRM) technique with the assistance of AMOS version 24.
Findings
The results show that corporate philanthropy and environmental marketing strategy positively influence relationship quality, and relationship quality positively influences customer citizenship behavior. Relationship quality partially mediates the association between corporate philanthropy and customer citizenship behavior, but we found that greenwashing does not have a moderating role.
Research limitations/implications
This research has theoretical implications for marketing scholars and practical implications of family-owned hotels in emerging markets.
Originality/value
The study has contributed contextually by collecting a unique dataset from family-owned hotels in an emerging market. Theoretically, we have conceptualized a model through the Social Exchange Theory by recommending relationship quality as a mediator and greenwashing as a moderator.
Details
Keywords
Juan Pedro Mellinas, Jacques Bulchand-Gidumal and María-del-Carmen Alarcón-del-Amo
This paper aims to classify tourist accommodation using data from Booking.com and TripAdvisor and analyse the extent to which the different segments identified differ in terms of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to classify tourist accommodation using data from Booking.com and TripAdvisor and analyse the extent to which the different segments identified differ in terms of being adults-only.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 1,535 properties located in nine Spanish sun and beach destinations were examined using a latent class cluster analysis (LCCA). The bias-adjusted three-step approach was used to investigate the differences between belonging to adults-only accommodation or not among the identified clusters.
Findings
Results show that adults-only accommodation tends to belong to the cluster with higher online ratings. In small Spanish islands, adults-only hotels account for a large share (more than 25%) of hotels.
Research limitations/implications
It was not possible to analyse whether the higher rating was due to the accommodation being better or due to the tourists being more satisfied with their stay.
Practical implications
In urban destinations, the model is not widely used. However, in coastal destinations, it is becoming more than a novelty or a new trend.
Social implications
In small Spanish islands, people traveling with children are becoming a minority. Families may feel discriminated against and express dissatisfaction with this situation in the future.
Originality/value
This study covers the gap in the academic literature on this growing hotel segment.
Details
Keywords
Xinyuan (Roy) Zhao, Fujin Wang, Anna S. Mattila, Aliana Man Wai Leong, Zhenzhen Cui and Huan Yang
Customer misbehavior has a negative impact on frontline employees. However, the underlying mechanisms from customer misbehavior to employees’ negative outcomes need to be further…
Abstract
Purpose
Customer misbehavior has a negative impact on frontline employees. However, the underlying mechanisms from customer misbehavior to employees’ negative outcomes need to be further unfolded and examined. This study aims to propose that employees’ affective rumination and problem-solving pondering could be the explanatory processes of customer misbehavior influencing employee attitudes in which coworker support could be a moderator.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-method approach was designed to test this study’s predictions. Study 1 conducted a scenario-based experiment among 215 full-time hospitality employees, and Study 2 used a two-wave, longitudinal survey of 305 participants.
Findings
The results demonstrate the impact of customer misbehavior on work–family conflict and withdrawal behaviors. The mediating role of affective rumination is supported and coworker support moderates the processes.
Practical implications
Customer misbehavior leads to negative outcomes among frontline employees both at work and family domains. Hotel managers should help frontline employees to cope with customer misbehavior by avoiding negative affective spillover and providing support properly.
Originality/value
The studies have unfolded the processes of affective rumination and problem-solving pondering through which customer misbehavior influences work–family conflict and withdrawal behaviors among frontline employees. The surprising findings that coworker support magnified the negative effects have also been discussed.
Details
Keywords
Isidoro Romero, José Fernández-Serrano and Rafael Cáceres-Carrasco
This study explores the role of international tour operators as the agents assuming the governance and the upgrading of the tourism global value chains (TGVCs), with a special…
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores the role of international tour operators as the agents assuming the governance and the upgrading of the tourism global value chains (TGVCs), with a special focus on their influence on the development of technological capabilities (TCs) in the hotel industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The data used in this article originates from a survey carried out in 2016 on Spanish small and medium-sized hotel companies. An ordinal regression analysis is employed to test the hypotheses proposed in this research.
Findings
This study finds that tour operators exert a positive effect on the technological upgrading process in the hotel industry by stimulating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to invest in TCs. The causal mechanisms through which these effects take place differ across the various stages of the relationship between hotel companies and tour operators.
Practical implications
The results have implications both for hotel management in terms of how hotels take advantage of technological upgrading to become more competitive, and for public administrations in terms of what measures can boost the development of hotel TCs in order to increase their added value.
Originality/value
To date, very few studies have analysed the tourism sector based on the influence on the development of TCs of SME hotels by combining GVC concepts and the resource-based view. It is also the first time that the causal mechanisms are shown to explain such influences.
Details
Keywords
Jinyun Sun and Feiting Wu
This case is mainly about the development journey of Tujia, a unicorn in China's accommodations-sharing sector, as well as the development status of the sector. On December 1…
Abstract
This case is mainly about the development journey of Tujia, a unicorn in China's accommodations-sharing sector, as well as the development status of the sector. On December 1, 2011, Tujia.com—China's first medium- and high-end vacation apartment booking platform—was formally launched, and it announced the first round of capital injection in less than half a year after its launch. It completed D and D+ round of financing on August 3, 2015, securing $300 million with an estimated value exceeding $1 billion. The completion of this financing round meant that Tujia formally entered the $1 billion club composed of “unicorn” Internet companies. In June 2016, it announced the strategic M&A of Mayi; in October 2016, it announced its strategic agreement with Ctrip.com and Qunar.com for the M&A of their apartment and homestay businesses. The completion of these transactions manifested the matrix with the four major platforms Tujia, Mayi, Ctrip, and Qunar. Since then, Tujia has become the absolute pacesetter in China's online accommodations-sharing sector.
Thien Le, Thanh Ho, Van-Ho Nguyen and Hoanh-Su Le
This study aims to use the voice of the customer (VoC) strategy to collect user-generated content (UGC) compare customer expectations with reality, make the necessary improvements…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to use the voice of the customer (VoC) strategy to collect user-generated content (UGC) compare customer expectations with reality, make the necessary improvements for the business and create personalized strategies for each customer to maximize revenue, focus on hospitality industry in Vietnam market.
Design/methodology/approach
This study proposes a synthesis of techniques for a deep understanding of the VoC based on online reviews in the hospitality industry. First, 409,054 comments were collected from websites in the hospitality sector. Second, the data will be organized, stored, cleaned, analyzed and evaluated. Next, research using business intelligence (BI) solutions integrating three models, including net promoter score (NPS), graph model and latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), based on natural language processing (NLP) technique, experiment on Vietnamese and English data to explore the multidimensional voice of customer’s row. Finally, a dashboard system will be implemented to visualize analysis results and recommendations on marketing strategies to improve product and service quality.
Findings
Experimental results allow analysts and managers to “listen to the customer’s voice” accurately and effectively, identify relationships between entities, topics of discussion in favor of positive and negative trends.
Originality/value
The novelty in this study is the integration of three models, including NPS, graph model and LDA. These models are combined based on the BI solution and NLP technique. The study also conducted experiments on both Vietnamese and English languages, which ensures more effective practical application.
Details