Search results

The service-profit chain model (Heskett, Jones, Loverman, Sasser, & Schlesinger, 1994) highlights the well-documented relationship between employee and customer attitudes suggesting that employees who are satisfied and engaged with their work provide better customer service resulting in higher levels of customer satisfaction and, ultimately, driving firm revenue. The authors propose an expansion of the service-profit margin identifying the leadership behaviors that create positive employee attitudes and engagement. Specifically, the authors suggest that leaders who focus on recognition, involvement, growth and development, health and safety, and teamwork (Kelloway, Nielsen, & Dimoff, 2017) create a psychologically healthy workplace for customer service providers and, ultimately, an enhanced customer experience.

The present study aims to identify the determinants of the capital structure of restaurants firms in Portugal, as well as to analyze the application of capital structure theories in those companies.

In order to reach the objectives, a sample of 400 companies belonging to the restaurant sector was used. The analysis was carried out between 2008 and 2017, and multiple linear regression, based on panel data, was applied.

The obtained results allowed to verify that the considered variables have different effects on the capital structure of the companies under study and that the restaurant sector partially applies the trade-off, pecking order and signaling theories.

ELIZABETH MYERS was writing in the war years when the term ‘Kitchen Sink’ had not yet been coined to describe the pre‐occupation of dramatists and novelists with the seamy side of life. Real life then was providing grief and horror enough for most of the population.

The COVID-19 crisis has brought to the forefront the importance of rural health enterprises (RHEs), the peculiarity, in these terms, of rural areas, and the impact of rurality on health entrepreneurial activities. This paper aims to undertake a literature review regarding RHEs in the EU, identify research gaps and set future research directions.

A systematic literature review was conducted and the key aspects coded across four thematic areas – after examining 68 papers.

The findings reveal that more intense research should be conducted across four area which emerged; rural health providers vs urban health providers; RHEs and rural development; RHEs and quality of life; and social RHEs.

Future research avenues were identified and suggestions for further research on RHEs were provided.

The paper provides insights into how rural areas can attract health enterprises and how health enterprises can operate in rural areas.

This research expands on the limited existing knowledge of RHEs and sets the foundations for further research.

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally impacted upon the travel supply chain and influenced tourist behaviours. This is further evidenced in corporate and travel firm concerns surrounding future sales and profitability. Instilling confidence amongst tourists is therefore imperative to ensure consumers continue purchasing the holiday product. However, the management of an intangible and relatively unknown virus has compounded the already difficult management of the tourist experience.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The chapter reviews the impact of COVID-19 in the context of the tourism supply chain and the safety and security measures implemented in destinations. The financial implications of safety and security measures are acknowledged with management challenges and solutions discussed. The chapter underpins its analysis with the use of regional, national and international examples.

Findings: Contingency strategies ranging from quarantine to health and safety certification have been deployed by national governments and regional authorities. However, the complexity of the tourism product and the range of stakeholders involved in its make-up and distribution compounds the ability to ensure safety from the virus.

Practical Implications: The review acknowledges limitations of health and safety measures in the field and forwards alternative suggestions that can be adopted by tourism destinations and enterprises.

Originality/Value: The chapter is novel in that it reviews health and safety and financial security practices in the field as they relate to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in vital implications for tourism education and curricula, and the education effectiveness in times of crisis ought to be resilient in the light of its preparedness, response and recovery policies and research. Purpose of the study is to analyse the academic practices in tourism education with a specific focus for incorporating the resilient adaptation strategies.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The study is conducted using content analysis of published data along with interviews with heads of the tourism educational institutions.

Findings: Very few universities are offering courses on resilience and disaster management as part of the curriculum in the tourism study programmes.

Originality/Value: The chapter provides strategies on the effective integration of resilient tourism policy and practices as mitigation measures into the tourism education system with a special emphasis on disaster prevention, mitigation and vulnerability reduction at the destinations in the post-COVID-19 scenario.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many employees had to switch to remote work. While some adjusted successfully to this transition, others have struggled. Leveraging information systems (IS) to adjust to major exogenous shocks is called digital resilience. The purpose of this paper is to understand what we can learn about employees' digital resilience from externally enforced transitions to remote work.

As digital resilience is challenging to measure, this study uses an embedded mixed methods approach. The authors conducted a qualitative analysis of 40 employees' statements on their remote work experience during the first six months of the pandemic and complemented these findings with scale-based digital resilience scores.

The authors find that employees' digital resilience largely depends on the amount of technical equipment and support they receive from their organizations as well as their ability and willingness to learn how to adequately use and communicate through information and communication technologies. Being self-disciplined and self-responsible positively affects digital resilience, while social isolation threatens it. Organizations can foster digital resilience building by encouraging digital networking, building a digital culture and netiquette, and treating digital resilience as a sociotechnical phenomenon.

This is one of the first empirical studies of digital resilience on a human level. It sheds light on the missing link between IS-enabled resilience and transitions to remote work. Specifically, it provides original insights into its development and manifestation in a remote work context during the COVID-19 pandemic. For researchers, it provides novel guidance on choosing appropriate measurement instruments to capture digital resilience.

By conceptualising patriarchy in the workplace as a social situation, the purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of patriarchal attitudes and their impact on women’s workplace behaviour among Nigerian organisations.

The study uses a qualitative research approach, drawing on data from 32 semi-structured interviews with female employees and managers in two high-street banks in Nigeria.

The study finds that patriarchy shapes women’s behaviour in ways that undermine their performance and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB). Furthermore, the study finds that patriarchal attitudes, often practised at home, are frequently transferred to organisational settings. This transference affects women’s workplace behaviour and maintains men’s (self-perceived) superior status quo, whereby women are dominated, discriminated against and permanently placed in inferior positions.

The extent to which the findings of this research can be generalised is constrained by the limited sample and scope of the research.

The challenges posed by the strong patriarchy on women’s workplace behaviour are real and complex, and organisations must address them in order to create a fairer workplace in which employees can thrive. It is therefore essential for organisations to examine periodically their culture to ensure that all employees, regardless of gender, are involved in the organisation’s affairs. Furthermore, organisations need to help women become more proactive in combating patriarchal behaviour, which often affects their performance and OCB. This requires organisations to affirm consistently their equal opportunities, equal rights and equal treatment policies. It is essential that organisations take this problem seriously by attaching due penalty to gender discrimination, as this will go a long way in ensuring positive outcomes for women and providing a fairer workplace.

This study provides empirical evidence that a more egalitarian work environment (in Nigerian banking) will result in improved performance from female employees and organisations. It calls for greater policy and organisational interventions to create a more inclusive work environment and an equal society.