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An analysis of attitudes towards management during culture shifts
International Journal of Hospitality Management 86 (2020) 102439
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International Journal of Hospitality Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhm
An analysis of attitudes towards management during culture shifts
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Hilmi A. Atadil*, Alison J. Green Department of Global Hospitality and Tourism Management, College of Business, 11000 University Parkway, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL, 32514, USA
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Organizational change Culture change Culture shift Employee attitudes Social exchange theory
Based on the principles of the Social Exchange Theory, the purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to investigate the underlying dimensions of employees’ attitudes towards management factors during a time of organizational change with a focus on culture shift, and (2) to evaluate the relationships of these dimensions with job satisfaction and job recommendation. The data were gathered from 1807 employees of a world-wide hospitality company with 744 hotels. The online survey instrument was utilized. Analyses included factor and multiple regression. Study findings enabled the development of an “attitude towards management” scale during culture shifts. The findings of the research introduce and conceptualize the culture shift term within the hospitality industry context. Results also validate the efficacy of the Social Exchange Theory in predicting and explaining the attitudes of employees during the organizational change process. Additionally, findings suggest key strategies for hotel businesses to successfully manage an organizational change.
1. Introduction Tourism defined by Leiper (1979) is an open system that continuously interacts with a broader environment. Alterations in this environment such as technological innovations, emerging markets, increasing globalization and competition, new government laws and regulations, and unpredictable economic, social, and political events create a constant need for tourism and hospitality organizations to change (Chiang, 2010; Mullins, 1995). In addition to the external environment, alterations in the internal environment such as cost and operation inconsistency and employees’ job satisfaction issues inspire organizations to consider making ongoing changes (Okumus and Hemmington, 1998b). However, the organizational change process is not easy and straightforward (Bercovitz and Feldman, 2008). Several researchers stressed that more than 50 percent of the organizational change initiatives fail to implement and/or meet intended goals (e.g., Miller, 2001; Okumus et al., 2017). Therefore, it is important to further research the ways that changes in organizations affect employees and businesses within the tourism and hospitality industry. Organizational change can be considered the rearrangement of components of an organization to improve efficiency and effectiveness, and can be implemented from the broadest (e.g., revising the mission or vision statements) to the narrowest (e.g., changing a piece of equipment or an employee) levels in an organization such as a hotel business (Boohene and Williams, 2012). The broader the change level, the more comprehensive and slower the change will be. Conversely, changes in
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the narrower levels will be more specific and frequent (Mintzberg and Westley, 1992). While the former type of organizational change is referred to as culture change, the latter is considered culture shift in the present study. According to Shin et al. (2012), management researchers concluded that the concept of employees’ attitudes towards organizational change is a major determinant of success or failure for all change efforts. On the other hand, Kiefer (2005) reported that employees have more negative emotions (e.g., anger, frustration) when they experience more changes in their work environment. Based on Kiefer’s study, such emotions lower employees’ trust in management and encourage withdrawal. Management factors such as coaching and empowerment can control employees’ resistance to change (Chiang, 2010). Therefore, we propose that employees’ attitudes towards these management factors should also be critical for the successful implementation of culture change. Central to manufacturing starting with planned change and participative management, organizational change has been a popular research subject in the management literature (Lewin, 1942). Van De Ven and Poole (1995) even considered how and why organizations change as a central goal of management researchers. In hospitality research, organizational change has received limited attention. For instance, Chiang (2010) explicitly stated that how employees perceive and manage change in the hotel industry has been examined by very little research. Earlier, Okumus and Hemmington (1998b) stressed that the majority of the literature regarding managing change such as culture shift is related to the manufacturing industry rather than the services
Corresponding Author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (H.A. Atadil), [email protected] (A.J. Green).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2019.102439 Received 23 December 2018; Received in revised form 1 November 2019; Accepted 24 November 2019 0278-4319/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
International Journal of Hospitality Management 86 (2020) 102439
H.A. Atadil and A.J. Green
De Ven and Poole (1995) used the terms “change” and “development” in their study, with “change” referring to an empirically observable difference in an organizational entity such as an organizational strategy or program, or the overall organization, and “development” denoting the change process taking place during the existence of the organization. In hospitality research, Chiang (2010) examined perceived organizational change in the hotel industry by conceptualizing the concept in two different modes: continuous and radical. Accordingly, continuous changes are frequent alterations in the regular activities, obstacles, particular circumstances, and issues within an organization. On the other hand, radical changes are discontinuous and revolutionary. Alterations in the fundamental rules of an organization and its mission are examples of such changes (Chiang, 2010; Greenwood and Hinings, 1996; Huy, 2002). After synthesizing the related literature, we decided to use the term culture shift to refer to the faster and narrower level (Mintzberg and Westley, 1992) and continuous (Chiang, 2010; Greenwood and Hinings, 1996) transformations. The term culture change is employed to refer to slower and broader level radical transformations. Lastly, organizational change can comprise both culture shifts and culture changes. Seminal studies employed the spiral model approach to describe how culture shifts function (e.g., Hall, 1989; Mintzberg and Westley, 1992). For instance, Hall (1989) suggested the spiral model as a better way of looking at culture shifts where small alterations can be made within the larger context of organizational change. Within the spiral model, culture shift is thought of as something that moves, where the small shifts lead to transformation, which then leads to culture change within organizations (Hlupic, 2014). For example, within the context of hospitality organizations, viewing culture shift as a spiral may come in the form of implementing a new training program, as a management factor, to align with the culture change. If a training program is successful and perceived as positive by the employees, the shift will be at the top of the spiral getting broader and more effective, whereas if it is unsuccessful and perceived negatively, the shift will slide down the spiral as it gets narrower and more ineffective. Culture shifts naturally create a spiral effect during a time of organizational change (Laurent, 1990).
industries. Yet, in today’s business platform, change management including managing innovation is still considered to be a concept requiring more research by multiple hospitality studies (e.g., Martin-Rios and Ciobanu, 2019). Additionally, Chen et al. (2012) published a review of the literature on culture in hotel management research. Among the 107 research papers from the 12 hospitality and tourism journals they investigated, such as Cornell Hospitality Quarterly and International Journal of Hospitality Management, only 5 of the research papers included organizational change as a major concept. Moreover, Chen et al. (2012) explicitly presented the attitudes of employees towards organizational change as one of the suggested future research directions at the end of their study. The theoretical model supporting this study is the Social Exchange Theory (SET), which proposes that human relationships are formed based on the exchange of resources such as information, money, love, and goods (Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005; Blau, 1964). Individuals evaluate these exchanges by considering the benefits and costs associated with them, and this evaluation eventually affects their perception of exchanges and corresponding behaviors (McGehee and Andereck, 2004). For this study, it is proposed that if hotel employees perceive more benefits than costs from the exchanges occurring during the organizational change process, their attitudes towards the management factors of organizational change such as coaching will also be positive and provoke positive behaviors such as job satisfaction. Based on the previous discussion and principles of the SET, the purpose of the study is twofold: (1) to investigate the underlying dimensions of employees’ attitudes towards management factors during a time of organizational change with a focus on culture shift, and (2) to evaluate the relationships of these dimensions with job satisfaction and job recommendation. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, most of the research to date in the limited organizational change literature within hospitality research has generally focused on culture change rather than culture shift. However, the examination of culture shifts such as employees’ attitudes during these changes should be part of the organizational change process to reach the intended goals of companies. The findings of this study can enable hoteliers to better understand the needs and wants of their employees during culture shifts. In this way, hoteliers can lower turnover, increase the satisfaction of their employees, improve revenue, and obtain many other positive outcomes of the successfully managed organizational change process. Theoretically, this study creates awareness and adds to the hospitality literature by introducing culture shift as a part of a larger phenomenon: culture change. The developed scale to assess the employees’ attitudes during organizational change can be utilized by researchers in both hospitality and management research. Also tested in the study is the efficacy of the SET within the context of organizational change in the hotel industry.
2.2. Management factors for successful organizational change While culture change, as a radical change, affects critical aspects of an organization such as systems, schemes, procedures, values, and accepted actions, this significant transformation necessitates a new management approach (Katz and Miller, 1996). Miller (1998) proposed five actions for implementing an efficient and continuous culture change strategy, such as coaching the leaders and change agents to lead the transition. In a similar study, Gilley et al. (2009) examined the behaviors related to the effectiveness of leadership in implementing change. The authors concluded that coaching is one of the leadership skills and abilities that is positively related to the successful implementation of organizational change. Moreover, Krazmien and Berger (1997) defined coaching as a continuous procedure of employee performance evaluation and constructive feedback provision to motivate employees and better communicate the performance standards in order to increase job performance. The authors also explicitly stated that organizational change necessitates coaching. In addition, Katz and Miller (1996) stressed that a successful culture change will not be possible if there is no engagement and assistance from senior managers. Therefore, coaching is vital to the change process. In hospitality research, Okumus and Hemmington (1998a) suggested that active training and communication, which are components of coaching, are key strategies for successfully controlling resistance to organizational change. More recently, Chiang (2010) also found that hotel employees perceive communication and training as critical support strategies that organizations can provide for them during times of transformation.
2. Literature review 2.1. Culture change and culture shift Continuously fluctuating external and internal business environments force those organizations that want to remain competitive in the current business climate to initiate an ongoing organizational change (Carnall, 2003; Kiefer, 2005; Mintzberg and Westley, 1992). A plethora of research studies have concentrated on organizational change process within the management and business fields (Chiang, 2010; Van De Ven and Poole, 1995). These studies have utilized different approaches to conceptualize this process. For instance, in their seminal piece, Mintzberg and Westley (1992) proposed that organizational change can happen in different levels ranging from the broadest or most abstract to the narrowest or most specific levels. Thus, revising the core values of a company and replacing employees’ laptops would be examples of the broadest and narrowest levels of changes, respectively. The authors further claimed that the scope of change will increase, and its speed will decrease, as the level of transformation gets broader. Furthermore, Van 2
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management factors such as coaching and empowerment are critical components of a successful organizational change process. Therefore, this study specifically focuses on employees’ attitudes towards management factors during such a process. The present study is supported by the Social Exchange Theory (SET). Ap (1992) considered the SET to be a general sociological theory that aims to examine the exchange of resources between individuals in social interactions. Cropanzano and Mitchell (2005) identified these resources as information, money, love, services, goods, and status. According to the SET, after an assessment of benefits and costs related to an exchange activity, individuals participate in a social interaction to enhance benefits and decrease costs (Blau, 1964; Nunkoo and Ramkissoon, 2012). Cropanzano and Mitchell (2005) explicitly stated that the SET is one of the most influential theoretical models for understanding workplace behavior. Multiple management researchers have employed the SET to understand attitudes of employees towards organizational change. For instance, Shin et al. (2012) found that employees’ commitment to organizational change and their behaviors during the process are outcomes of a continuous exchange relationship between employees and the organization. As another example, Neves and Caetano (2006), who utilized the SET to examine the role of organizational trust in the implementation of culture change, reported that trust in supervisors is a central variable to understand the outcomes of the process for employees. Based on the previous discussion, the authors of this study propose that if hotel employees perceive more benefits than costs from the exchanges during the organizational change process, their attitudes towards management factors will be positive. These positive attitudes will also trigger positive behaviors such as job satisfaction and recommendation. Ferguson and Cheyne (1995) explicitly stated that negative attitudes towards organizational change will lower the job satisfaction of employees, which supports our previous claim. Furthermore, Yousef (2000) investigated if job satisfaction directly impacts attitudes toward organizational change, and the study findings illustrated direct and indirect influences. Generating successful incentive programs can increase job satisfaction and, in turn, lower employees’ resistance to organizational change (Yousef, 2000). Similarly, based on his review of the literature, Giauque (2015) stressed that reforms happening in a company may influence job satisfaction and employee performance. Based on the previous discussion, we believe the successful implementation of management factors during organizational change such as coaching, empowerment, and the customer orientation of hotel employees will increase job satisfaction and recommendation. Accordingly, the following research hypotheses were tested:
Similar to coaching, empowerment is a critical component of a successful organizational change. Empowerment can be described as the process of increasing the self-efficacy levels of employees through organizational practices and techniques in order to distinguish and eliminate the conditions enhancing powerlessness (Conger and Kanungo, 1988). More specifically, empowerment is a process that involves a redistribution of decision-making power to those employees who do not have it (Cunningham et al., 1996). Kruja et al. (2016) investigated the effects of organizational (e.g., leadership) and individual antecedents (e.g., gender) on employee empowerment in the hospitality industry and concluded that a foundational change in the organizational culture is needed to empower employees to improve their performance. Similarly, Erstad (1997) considered empowerment as a change strategy with the goal of enhancing the ability of both organizations and individuals to act. Empowering employees during a time of organizational change can increase their acceptance of change (Chiang, 2010). A management factor that is significantly associated with empowerment is customer orientation, which is defined as the collection of beliefs that puts the needs of the customers first without ignoring the needs of the other stakeholders such as managers for long term profitability (Deshpande et al., 1993). Furthermore, Brown et al. (2002) proposed that, within the service context, two main components form the customer orientation concept: employees’ confidence in their capability to meet customer needs and their natural enjoyment in serving customers. In addition, Ro and Chen (2011) examined the influence of customer orientation and organizational factors on perceived empowerment and found that having customer-oriented employees is one of the strategies to develop empowerment culture in hospitality organizations. Furthermore, Brymer (1991) stated that empowerment will result in a more flattened organizational chart in which the responsibility of guest service will be shared among managers and employees, which will improve customer orientation. Due to this significant association between empowerment and focus on customer needs, we propose that customer orientation is also a critical management factor for culture change. We know that customer orientation would be traditionally considered either an antecedent or outcome of employees’ attitudes towards management factors; rather than a dimension of it. However, customer orientation is being measured as a critical management factor in the present study. Deshpande et al. (1993) explicitly stated that customer orientation is a component of foundational corporate culture. In addition, Okumus and Hemmington (1998a) considered customers as a source of possible resistance to organizational change in hotels. Thus, we believe that formulation and implementation of a customer orientation approach by the management can lead to a successful transformation process in hospitality companies.
H1. The attitudes towards management factors positively relate to job satisfaction. H2. The attitudes towards management factors positively relate to job recommendation.
2.3. Social exchange theory and hypotheses development As suggested by Shin et al. (2012), management researchers have stressed that the success of all organizational change efforts such as management factors is dependent on the attitudes of employees. Also important is the emotional aspect of organizational change, which results in additional challenges for organizational leaders and change implementers. Organizational change increases uncertainty and provokes strong emotional responses among employees that are often negative, such as anger, anxiety, and fear (Wittig, 2012). In hospitality research, Chiang (2010) even hypothesized that attitudes towards organizational change are positively associated with perceived organizational change. Based on the study findings, Chiang supported this hypothesis. Similarly, Okumus and Hemmington (1998a) considered employees as a possible source of resistance to organizational change in hotels. In this study, we also concentrate on the attitudes of employees during times of organizational change. Based on our synthesis of the previously discussed studies in the literature review, it is notable that
3. Methodology 3.1. Sample The participants were employees of a world-wide hospitality company with 744 hotels located across the globe. The sample population was adults over the age of 18 with job positions in the areas of front desk, custodial, housekeeping, management, and supervisory work groups at a hospitality organization. The participants were employed during the implementation of a new training program as a management factor that was part of an organizational change process. This particular organizational change had the goal of rearranging critical components of the hospitality company including its vision and overall structure. The implemented training program was face to face, on property, during work hours, and paid. Moreover, the training program was 3
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4. Research findings
designed for on-property managers, supervisors, housekeeping, custodial, and front desk employees. Once the training program was implemented, the participants were asked to complete an online survey while at work. The study survey examined employees’ attitudes towards management factors at the end of the implemented training program. The attitudes of employees are formed gradually depending on elements such as mission, vision, job descriptions, and goals of an organization (Daniela et al., 2013). Therefore, we believe that investigation of these attitudes will also reveal attitudes towards the management factors during the culture shifts (e.g., new tasks, new equipment) that occurred gradually during the training program. A non-probability convenience sampling was utilized for data collection. This process resulted in a high usability percentage: out of 2210 surveys distributed, 1954 were returned. One thousand eight hundred and seven of these returned surveys were valid for data analysis, with a response rate of 82 %. Regarding the demographic characteristics of the obtained sample, respondents fell into the following age categories: 31–50 (47.3 %), 51–65 (25.7 %), 21–30 (17 %), 66–78 (2.6 %), and 18–20 (1.5 %). Moreover, the majority was female (64 %). The work locations of the study participants were in different regions in the United States; 56 % of the participants were from the Northeast, 16 % from the Northwest, 9 % from the Southeast, 8 % from the Southwest, and 11 % were from outside of the United States. The obtained sample had 353 front desk, 284 custodial, 572 housekeeping, 212 management, and 250 supervisory employees. Such distribution is representative of workgroups of a traditional hotel organization. For instance, housekeeping is known to be the department with the greatest number of employees (Walker, 2016). Therefore, this outcome increases the representativeness of our obtained sample.
4.1. Factor analysis of attitudes towards management scale A factor analysis was performed on the 20-item attitudes towards management scale in order to identify its dimensions. Initially, an item analysis was conducted to evaluate the item level distributions. More specifically, obtained standard deviation values were less than 1.6. Regarding skewness, the maximum value was absolute 2.7 and the majority had less than absolute 2. Moreover, all items had kurtosis values of less than absolute 4, except 3 items. The highest observed kurtosis value was 7.5 among these 3 items.1 The scale also had a significantly high reliability (α = 0.89). Last but not least, many researchers have indicated that the ideal size for proper factor analysis is 5–10 subjects per variable or item (e.g., Comrey and Lee, 2013; Gorsuch, 1983). Thus, based on our study sample and above findings, it is confirmed that the attitudes towards management scale is appropriate for factor analysis. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) extraction method with Varimax rotation was utilized (KMO value = 0.94). As an orthogonal rotation technique, Varimax boosts the variance of factor loadings (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2001). One item was removed due to a cross loading issue. The number of extracted factors was chosen based on the eigenvalue greater than one rule and the scree plot technique. Four factors were extracted with the Cronbach’s alpha values ranging from 0.67 to 0.89 (Table 1). These factors explained 60 % of the variance in the data. Based on the related hospitality literature and the authors’ industry experience, the factors were labeled as (1) Overall Management, (2) Coaching, (3) Customer Orientation, and (4) Empowerment. Furthermore, a Harman’s single-factor test was conducted to determine whether the common method bias was an issue or not. Accordingly, the explained variance was 37 %. Since this amount of explained variance was below 50 %, it was concluded that the common method bias is likely not a serious concern.
3.2. Instrument The survey was constructed by first seeking the advice of experts in the industry. These experts, at the level of director and above, helped the researchers with building the primary overarching questions that were in the survey. Then, the survey was generated based on researching previous related scale developments (e.g., Dawson et al., 2011; Tepeci and Bartlett, 2002) and the feedback obtained from the industry experts. For example, the Hospitality Culture Scale developed by Dawson et al. (2011) included factors such as management principles and customer relationships. Additionally, the perceived organizational culture dimensions scale of Tepeci and Bartlett (2002) included factors such as employee development and valuing customers. The researchers then fine-tuned the survey questions, presented them to the industry experts, and collaborated on a final set of questions. A pilot study was conducted with a sample of 22 employees across 5 hotels. In addition, the survey was sent to hospitality graduate students to examine it for face validity and readability. Once the pilot survey was returned, the panel of industry experts and researchers used the results to collaborate on one final set of questions to complete the survey development, which included a 20-item attitudes towards management scale. We employed a five-point Likert scale for the scale items (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree), which was designed to evaluate the attitudes of employees towards management factors during the culture shifts that occurred through the training program. The survey also included items evaluating the job satisfaction and recommendation of employees, as well as identifying their demographic information and work groups. More specifically, job satisfaction and job recommendation were included as dependent variables, and were assessed with the following items in the survey, respectively: “I am satisfied with my position at the hotel,” and “I would recommend working at my hotel to a friend.” Analyses included factor and multiple regression statistical techniques.
4.2. Regression analysis on the predictive power of attitudes towards management Following the factor analysis, two separate multiple regression analyses were performed to determine the predictive power of the identified attitudes towards management factors in the job satisfaction and job recommendation dependent variables. The results demonstrated significant correlations for all the independent variables. More specifically, the Job Satisfaction model (F (4, 1691) = 364.097, P = 0.001) explained 46 % of the variance, and the Job Recommendation model (F (4, 1691) = 392.380, P = 0.001) explained 48 % of the variance in the dependent variables (Tables 2 and 3). Tolerance and VIF values indicated no multicollinearity problems for the models. Based on these findings, the research hypotheses of the study were successfully accepted. 5. Conclusions and implications The first purpose of the present study was to investigate the underlying dimensions of employees’ attitudes towards management factors during a time of organizational change with a focus on culture shift. A 19-item scale was developed and tested to aid in the collection of data. Overall management, coaching, customer orientation, and empowerment were the dimensions successfully identified based on study findings. The first dimension, overall management, was 1 Tabachnick and Fidell (2001) explicitly stated that standard errors for both skewness and kurtosis minimize as the sample size increases. Taking into account the assumptions of the Central Limit Theorem and large sample size of the current study, scale items were considered normally distributed.
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Table 1 Factor Analysis of Attitudes towards Management.
Factor 1. Overall Management 1. I have a good working relationship with my fellow work associates. 2. I feel enabled to learn more and excel in my current position. 3. My position includes clearly defined long term goals and expectations. 4. My job makes good use of my skills. 5. When I was hired, I was given a clear explanation of why the guest is important to the hotel. 6. I feel well informed about changes in policies that affect my job. 7. I have a clear understanding of the expectations of my position. 8. My work gives me a feeling of personal accomplishment. 9. I have the tools and support to effectively accomplish my daily assignments/tasks. 10. My annual review provides me with useful information about my performance. Factor 2. Coaching 11. I feel comfortable asking my supervisor for feedback. 12. I know that if I make a decision about an upset guest my supervisor will back up the decision. 13. I feel comfortable asking my supervisor about matters that have to do with revenue and sales. 14. My supervisor often gives me verbal feedback on my performance. Factor 3. Customer Orientation 15. I take ownership of any needs of our guests. 16. I anticipate the needs of our guests. 17. I understand that an unhappy guest may not return to the hotel and how that impacts the hotel. Factor 4. Empowerment 18. I have to wait until my supervisor gives me directions when dealing with a complaint from our guest. 19. I have to ask my supervisor for permission when making decisions to satisfy an upset guest.
Factor Loading
Meana
Eigenvalue
Explained Variance (%)
αb
.61 .59 .75 .77 .50 .61 .68 .73 .66 .63
4.53 4.23 4.21 4.34 4.44 3.95 4.48 4.34 4.26 4.27
7.48
39.38
.89
.71 .72 .76 .60
4.30 4.12 3.98 4.14
1.70
8.95
.81
.68 .68 .75
4.61 4.56 4.65
1.21
6.40
.67
.90 .89
2.70 2.97
1.01
5.31
.76
Note: KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) measure of sampling adequacy = .94. n = 1696. Cut-off value: 0.40. a On a scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. b Cronbach’s Alpha value. Table 2 Multiple Regression Model for Job Satisfaction. Independent Variable
Standardized Coefficient Beta
t-Value
p
Unstandardized Coefficient Beta
Standard Error
Tolerance
VIF
Overall Management Coaching Customer Orientation Empowerment
0.621 0.249 0.071 0.099
34.845 13.984 3.975 5.555
0.001* 0.001* 0.001* 0.001*
0.734 0.294 0.084 0.117
0.021 0.021 0.021 0.021
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
Note. Dependent variable = I am satisfied with my position at the hotel. Overall model: F (4, 1691) = 364.097, P = 0.001, R2 = 0.463, Adjusted R2 = 0.461. * Significant at .05 (α) level. Table 3 Multiple Regression Model for Job Recommendation. Independent Variable
Standardized Coefficient Beta
t-Value
p
Unstandardized Coefficient Beta
Standard Error
Tolerance
VIF
Overall Management Coaching Customer Orientation Empowerment
0.616 0.307 0.076 0.037
35.188 17.553 4.333 2.107
0.001* 0.001* 0.001* 0.035*
0.709 0.354 0.087 0.042
0.020 0.020 0.020 0.020
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
Note. Dependent variable = I would recommend working at my hotel to a friend. Overall model: F (4, 1691) = 392.380, P = 0.001, R2 = 0.481, Adjusted R2 = 0.480. * Significant at .05 (α) level.
emphasized that culture change requires a new management approach. Thus, understanding the overall attitudes of employees to this new management approach is important for the success of culture change. Moreover, multiple researchers also stressed that coaching is a critical requirement for the success of the organizational change process (e.g., Gilley et al., 2009; Miller, 1998). According to our findings, customer orientation and empowerment were perceived to have relatively lower levels of positive relationships with job satisfaction and recommendation. However, these relationships were still statistically and significantly supporting the claims of the previous research on the relationships among empowerment, customer orientation, and organizational change (e.g., Chiang, 2010; Okumus and Hemmington, 1998a).
comprised of items associated with different sub-dimensions such as communication, feedback, and teamwork. Even though our scale was named “attitudes towards management,” it can also be described as an organizational culture scale within the context of culture shift. We evaluated the relationships of the identified dimensions of the attitudes towards management with job satisfaction and job recommendation to achieve our second purpose. Accordingly, two separate multiple regression models were tested. In both models, overall management and coaching received the highest coefficient beta values indicating the relative importance, or predictive power, of these independent variables in explaining job satisfaction and recommendation. Based on the obtained findings, employees’ attitudes towards overall management and coaching positively relate to job satisfaction and recommendation during culture shifts. Katz and Miller (1996) also 5
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supervisors for feedback” items received the highest levels of agreement under these management factors. Okumus and Hemmington (1998a) reported that teamwork was an important strategy in the organizational change process of hotel companies. Since the critical aspects of the company such as structure, procedures, and actions are significantly impacted by organizational change, employees will require continuous feedback during this process. All of the other items of these two factors also received high agreement scores from the study participants. These items should be considered in order to effectively implement an organizational change process by hotel organizations. Our findings also indicate that customer orientation and empowerment are management factors that have significant but lower levels of relationships with the job satisfaction and recommendation behaviors of employees. Even though the literature suggested these factors would have greater influence, our findings provided different results. As discussed earlier, due to its significant changes in essential aspects of an organization such as leadership, policies, and goals, the organizational change process is likely to trigger negative emotional responses such as stress and uncertainty (Wittig, 2012). Such reactions might cause employees to be more focused on their own needs and wants rather than on those of customers. Similarly, these emotional responses might negatively affect the attitudes towards empowerment. The leading managers of the organizational change process should consider the associations among emotional responses, customer orientation, and empowerment in the implementation of this critical transition process.
5.1. Theoretical implications Academic researchers have stated that there is a need for scale development studies on organizational culture within the hospitality industry (e.g., Bavik, 2016; Tepeci and Bartlett, 2002; Tepeci, 2005). The current study makes a theoretical contribution to the body of hospitality knowledge via the proposed attitudes towards management scale within the culture shift context. Among the previously developed organizational culture scales, Bavik (2016) reported nine factors, whereas Tepeci and Bartlett (2002) identified eight factors. Considering the findings of the previous research as well as this study, we can claim the construct of organizational culture (or management factors) illustrates an unstable factor formation. One explanation for this outcome could be the context of the study, such as organizational change, in which the management factors are being examined. Two research hypotheses based on the principles of the SET were developed. According to our findings, both of these hypotheses received support. Therefore, we can state that attitudes towards management factors positively relate to job satisfaction and job recommendation during culture shifts. This outcome validates the efficacy of the SET in predicting and explaining the attitudes of employees towards management factors during the organizational change process within the hospitality research context, and also supports the previous related management research that employed the SET (e.g., Neves and Caetano, 2006). Based on our findings, we conclude that effective execution of management factors such as coaching, empowerment, and customer orientation during culture shifts will provide more benefits to hospitality employees. Thereafter, employees will have positive associations with these shifts, which will lead them to have higher levels of job satisfaction and recommendation in these critical transition periods. Additionally, this study makes a contribution to the conceptualization of the customer orientation by identifying it as a dimension of employees’ attitudes towards management factors. Customer orientation should be considered an important management practice for the organizational change process. Grissemann et al. (2013) also found a significant association between customer orientation and innovativeness of hotels such as an organizational culture of willing to accept new ideas and services. Finally, the current study introduces and conceptualizes the culture shift term within the hospitality industry context.
5.3. Limitations and future research There were limitations to this research study, and it is suggested that future researchers should consider the following discussion. One of the limitations was the collection of the data at the end of the implemented training program. Conducting not only a post-test but also a pre-test would provide more insights regarding the attitudes of employees towards management factors during culture shifts. Additionally, social desirability bias could be another limitation of our study. Participants were asked to complete an online survey while at work, which might have put some pressure on them. Future research can enable study participants to complete the study survey out of their work environment to decrease the possibility of such pressure. As stressed in this paper, future research should focus more on the culture shift concept as there are literature and research gaps for this research area. There is an opportunity to implement a follow-up study and build on the literature of Tepeci and Bartlett (2002); Dawson et al. (2011), and Fernandes et al. (2018) to create a stronger instrument to identify specific items related to the employees’ attitudes and behaviors during culture shifts. Also, future studies could explore the research on a longitudinal design and take into account the current economy, human resources trends, and the process of planned organizational change. This study looked at the employees over a specific time frame, during a specific initiative, in a specific brand within the hospitality industry. It would benefit the body of research to look at global organizations throughout time and track the data output over time. This would allow for current trends to also be incorporated into the study. In addition, it is highly recommended in the longitudinal study to incorporate qualitative methods such as interviewing for a richer data set. Finally, aligning this study with hospitality organization outcomes that measure service levels, quality, and revenue would make this topic interesting to share with hospitality leadership. At this time in scholarly research surrounding organizational change, it would be good to focus on specific questions that will help the hospitality industry understand their transitional process and tie those items to important business outputs at the corporate level and the individual unit level. Hospitality organization outcome factors such as service level, and culture shift variables such as management factors could also be examined through structural equation modeling techniques. Additionally, future
5.2. Practical implications The findings of the current study also enable the development of practical applications for the hospitality industry. Hoteliers should satisfy the needs and wants of their employees experiencing culture shifts to successfully manage the organizational change process. In order to do this, hoteliers should understand the attitudes of employees towards management factors during organizational change. “Having a clear understanding of the expectations of my position” and “having a clear explanation of why the guest is important to the hotel” were the overall management items with the second and third highest agreement scores, respectively. Thus, we recommend that hotel managers and other change implementers should be very clear when communicating with their employees, as clarity can be considered one of the needs of employees during a transformation. Furthermore, “my job makes good use of my skills” and “my work gives me a feeling of personal accomplishment” were the following overall management items with the highest agreement scores. Therefore, we suggest change implementers take employees’ skills and personal achievements into full consideration when managing an organizational change. Moreover, hotel organizations undergoing an organizational change process should pay close attention to the overall management and coaching, as these management factors positively relate to job satisfaction and recommendation. The “having a good working relationship with fellow work associates” and “feeling comfortable asking 6
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researchers in this area should assess the discriminant validity of their developed scale. Endogeneity bias could be another limitation since no demographic controls were included in the regression models. Future research should generate such regression models and test them via hierarchical regressions.
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International Journal of Hospitality Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhm
An analysis of attitudes towards management during culture shifts
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Hilmi A. Atadil*, Alison J. Green Department of Global Hospitality and Tourism Management, College of Business, 11000 University Parkway, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL, 32514, USA
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Organizational change Culture change Culture shift Employee attitudes Social exchange theory
Based on the principles of the Social Exchange Theory, the purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to investigate the underlying dimensions of employees’ attitudes towards management factors during a time of organizational change with a focus on culture shift, and (2) to evaluate the relationships of these dimensions with job satisfaction and job recommendation. The data were gathered from 1807 employees of a world-wide hospitality company with 744 hotels. The online survey instrument was utilized. Analyses included factor and multiple regression. Study findings enabled the development of an “attitude towards management” scale during culture shifts. The findings of the research introduce and conceptualize the culture shift term within the hospitality industry context. Results also validate the efficacy of the Social Exchange Theory in predicting and explaining the attitudes of employees during the organizational change process. Additionally, findings suggest key strategies for hotel businesses to successfully manage an organizational change.
1. Introduction Tourism defined by Leiper (1979) is an open system that continuously interacts with a broader environment. Alterations in this environment such as technological innovations, emerging markets, increasing globalization and competition, new government laws and regulations, and unpredictable economic, social, and political events create a constant need for tourism and hospitality organizations to change (Chiang, 2010; Mullins, 1995). In addition to the external environment, alterations in the internal environment such as cost and operation inconsistency and employees’ job satisfaction issues inspire organizations to consider making ongoing changes (Okumus and Hemmington, 1998b). However, the organizational change process is not easy and straightforward (Bercovitz and Feldman, 2008). Several researchers stressed that more than 50 percent of the organizational change initiatives fail to implement and/or meet intended goals (e.g., Miller, 2001; Okumus et al., 2017). Therefore, it is important to further research the ways that changes in organizations affect employees and businesses within the tourism and hospitality industry. Organizational change can be considered the rearrangement of components of an organization to improve efficiency and effectiveness, and can be implemented from the broadest (e.g., revising the mission or vision statements) to the narrowest (e.g., changing a piece of equipment or an employee) levels in an organization such as a hotel business (Boohene and Williams, 2012). The broader the change level, the more comprehensive and slower the change will be. Conversely, changes in
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the narrower levels will be more specific and frequent (Mintzberg and Westley, 1992). While the former type of organizational change is referred to as culture change, the latter is considered culture shift in the present study. According to Shin et al. (2012), management researchers concluded that the concept of employees’ attitudes towards organizational change is a major determinant of success or failure for all change efforts. On the other hand, Kiefer (2005) reported that employees have more negative emotions (e.g., anger, frustration) when they experience more changes in their work environment. Based on Kiefer’s study, such emotions lower employees’ trust in management and encourage withdrawal. Management factors such as coaching and empowerment can control employees’ resistance to change (Chiang, 2010). Therefore, we propose that employees’ attitudes towards these management factors should also be critical for the successful implementation of culture change. Central to manufacturing starting with planned change and participative management, organizational change has been a popular research subject in the management literature (Lewin, 1942). Van De Ven and Poole (1995) even considered how and why organizations change as a central goal of management researchers. In hospitality research, organizational change has received limited attention. For instance, Chiang (2010) explicitly stated that how employees perceive and manage change in the hotel industry has been examined by very little research. Earlier, Okumus and Hemmington (1998b) stressed that the majority of the literature regarding managing change such as culture shift is related to the manufacturing industry rather than the services
Corresponding Author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (H.A. Atadil), [email protected] (A.J. Green).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2019.102439 Received 23 December 2018; Received in revised form 1 November 2019; Accepted 24 November 2019 0278-4319/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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De Ven and Poole (1995) used the terms “change” and “development” in their study, with “change” referring to an empirically observable difference in an organizational entity such as an organizational strategy or program, or the overall organization, and “development” denoting the change process taking place during the existence of the organization. In hospitality research, Chiang (2010) examined perceived organizational change in the hotel industry by conceptualizing the concept in two different modes: continuous and radical. Accordingly, continuous changes are frequent alterations in the regular activities, obstacles, particular circumstances, and issues within an organization. On the other hand, radical changes are discontinuous and revolutionary. Alterations in the fundamental rules of an organization and its mission are examples of such changes (Chiang, 2010; Greenwood and Hinings, 1996; Huy, 2002). After synthesizing the related literature, we decided to use the term culture shift to refer to the faster and narrower level (Mintzberg and Westley, 1992) and continuous (Chiang, 2010; Greenwood and Hinings, 1996) transformations. The term culture change is employed to refer to slower and broader level radical transformations. Lastly, organizational change can comprise both culture shifts and culture changes. Seminal studies employed the spiral model approach to describe how culture shifts function (e.g., Hall, 1989; Mintzberg and Westley, 1992). For instance, Hall (1989) suggested the spiral model as a better way of looking at culture shifts where small alterations can be made within the larger context of organizational change. Within the spiral model, culture shift is thought of as something that moves, where the small shifts lead to transformation, which then leads to culture change within organizations (Hlupic, 2014). For example, within the context of hospitality organizations, viewing culture shift as a spiral may come in the form of implementing a new training program, as a management factor, to align with the culture change. If a training program is successful and perceived as positive by the employees, the shift will be at the top of the spiral getting broader and more effective, whereas if it is unsuccessful and perceived negatively, the shift will slide down the spiral as it gets narrower and more ineffective. Culture shifts naturally create a spiral effect during a time of organizational change (Laurent, 1990).
industries. Yet, in today’s business platform, change management including managing innovation is still considered to be a concept requiring more research by multiple hospitality studies (e.g., Martin-Rios and Ciobanu, 2019). Additionally, Chen et al. (2012) published a review of the literature on culture in hotel management research. Among the 107 research papers from the 12 hospitality and tourism journals they investigated, such as Cornell Hospitality Quarterly and International Journal of Hospitality Management, only 5 of the research papers included organizational change as a major concept. Moreover, Chen et al. (2012) explicitly presented the attitudes of employees towards organizational change as one of the suggested future research directions at the end of their study. The theoretical model supporting this study is the Social Exchange Theory (SET), which proposes that human relationships are formed based on the exchange of resources such as information, money, love, and goods (Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005; Blau, 1964). Individuals evaluate these exchanges by considering the benefits and costs associated with them, and this evaluation eventually affects their perception of exchanges and corresponding behaviors (McGehee and Andereck, 2004). For this study, it is proposed that if hotel employees perceive more benefits than costs from the exchanges occurring during the organizational change process, their attitudes towards the management factors of organizational change such as coaching will also be positive and provoke positive behaviors such as job satisfaction. Based on the previous discussion and principles of the SET, the purpose of the study is twofold: (1) to investigate the underlying dimensions of employees’ attitudes towards management factors during a time of organizational change with a focus on culture shift, and (2) to evaluate the relationships of these dimensions with job satisfaction and job recommendation. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, most of the research to date in the limited organizational change literature within hospitality research has generally focused on culture change rather than culture shift. However, the examination of culture shifts such as employees’ attitudes during these changes should be part of the organizational change process to reach the intended goals of companies. The findings of this study can enable hoteliers to better understand the needs and wants of their employees during culture shifts. In this way, hoteliers can lower turnover, increase the satisfaction of their employees, improve revenue, and obtain many other positive outcomes of the successfully managed organizational change process. Theoretically, this study creates awareness and adds to the hospitality literature by introducing culture shift as a part of a larger phenomenon: culture change. The developed scale to assess the employees’ attitudes during organizational change can be utilized by researchers in both hospitality and management research. Also tested in the study is the efficacy of the SET within the context of organizational change in the hotel industry.
2.2. Management factors for successful organizational change While culture change, as a radical change, affects critical aspects of an organization such as systems, schemes, procedures, values, and accepted actions, this significant transformation necessitates a new management approach (Katz and Miller, 1996). Miller (1998) proposed five actions for implementing an efficient and continuous culture change strategy, such as coaching the leaders and change agents to lead the transition. In a similar study, Gilley et al. (2009) examined the behaviors related to the effectiveness of leadership in implementing change. The authors concluded that coaching is one of the leadership skills and abilities that is positively related to the successful implementation of organizational change. Moreover, Krazmien and Berger (1997) defined coaching as a continuous procedure of employee performance evaluation and constructive feedback provision to motivate employees and better communicate the performance standards in order to increase job performance. The authors also explicitly stated that organizational change necessitates coaching. In addition, Katz and Miller (1996) stressed that a successful culture change will not be possible if there is no engagement and assistance from senior managers. Therefore, coaching is vital to the change process. In hospitality research, Okumus and Hemmington (1998a) suggested that active training and communication, which are components of coaching, are key strategies for successfully controlling resistance to organizational change. More recently, Chiang (2010) also found that hotel employees perceive communication and training as critical support strategies that organizations can provide for them during times of transformation.
2. Literature review 2.1. Culture change and culture shift Continuously fluctuating external and internal business environments force those organizations that want to remain competitive in the current business climate to initiate an ongoing organizational change (Carnall, 2003; Kiefer, 2005; Mintzberg and Westley, 1992). A plethora of research studies have concentrated on organizational change process within the management and business fields (Chiang, 2010; Van De Ven and Poole, 1995). These studies have utilized different approaches to conceptualize this process. For instance, in their seminal piece, Mintzberg and Westley (1992) proposed that organizational change can happen in different levels ranging from the broadest or most abstract to the narrowest or most specific levels. Thus, revising the core values of a company and replacing employees’ laptops would be examples of the broadest and narrowest levels of changes, respectively. The authors further claimed that the scope of change will increase, and its speed will decrease, as the level of transformation gets broader. Furthermore, Van 2
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management factors such as coaching and empowerment are critical components of a successful organizational change process. Therefore, this study specifically focuses on employees’ attitudes towards management factors during such a process. The present study is supported by the Social Exchange Theory (SET). Ap (1992) considered the SET to be a general sociological theory that aims to examine the exchange of resources between individuals in social interactions. Cropanzano and Mitchell (2005) identified these resources as information, money, love, services, goods, and status. According to the SET, after an assessment of benefits and costs related to an exchange activity, individuals participate in a social interaction to enhance benefits and decrease costs (Blau, 1964; Nunkoo and Ramkissoon, 2012). Cropanzano and Mitchell (2005) explicitly stated that the SET is one of the most influential theoretical models for understanding workplace behavior. Multiple management researchers have employed the SET to understand attitudes of employees towards organizational change. For instance, Shin et al. (2012) found that employees’ commitment to organizational change and their behaviors during the process are outcomes of a continuous exchange relationship between employees and the organization. As another example, Neves and Caetano (2006), who utilized the SET to examine the role of organizational trust in the implementation of culture change, reported that trust in supervisors is a central variable to understand the outcomes of the process for employees. Based on the previous discussion, the authors of this study propose that if hotel employees perceive more benefits than costs from the exchanges during the organizational change process, their attitudes towards management factors will be positive. These positive attitudes will also trigger positive behaviors such as job satisfaction and recommendation. Ferguson and Cheyne (1995) explicitly stated that negative attitudes towards organizational change will lower the job satisfaction of employees, which supports our previous claim. Furthermore, Yousef (2000) investigated if job satisfaction directly impacts attitudes toward organizational change, and the study findings illustrated direct and indirect influences. Generating successful incentive programs can increase job satisfaction and, in turn, lower employees’ resistance to organizational change (Yousef, 2000). Similarly, based on his review of the literature, Giauque (2015) stressed that reforms happening in a company may influence job satisfaction and employee performance. Based on the previous discussion, we believe the successful implementation of management factors during organizational change such as coaching, empowerment, and the customer orientation of hotel employees will increase job satisfaction and recommendation. Accordingly, the following research hypotheses were tested:
Similar to coaching, empowerment is a critical component of a successful organizational change. Empowerment can be described as the process of increasing the self-efficacy levels of employees through organizational practices and techniques in order to distinguish and eliminate the conditions enhancing powerlessness (Conger and Kanungo, 1988). More specifically, empowerment is a process that involves a redistribution of decision-making power to those employees who do not have it (Cunningham et al., 1996). Kruja et al. (2016) investigated the effects of organizational (e.g., leadership) and individual antecedents (e.g., gender) on employee empowerment in the hospitality industry and concluded that a foundational change in the organizational culture is needed to empower employees to improve their performance. Similarly, Erstad (1997) considered empowerment as a change strategy with the goal of enhancing the ability of both organizations and individuals to act. Empowering employees during a time of organizational change can increase their acceptance of change (Chiang, 2010). A management factor that is significantly associated with empowerment is customer orientation, which is defined as the collection of beliefs that puts the needs of the customers first without ignoring the needs of the other stakeholders such as managers for long term profitability (Deshpande et al., 1993). Furthermore, Brown et al. (2002) proposed that, within the service context, two main components form the customer orientation concept: employees’ confidence in their capability to meet customer needs and their natural enjoyment in serving customers. In addition, Ro and Chen (2011) examined the influence of customer orientation and organizational factors on perceived empowerment and found that having customer-oriented employees is one of the strategies to develop empowerment culture in hospitality organizations. Furthermore, Brymer (1991) stated that empowerment will result in a more flattened organizational chart in which the responsibility of guest service will be shared among managers and employees, which will improve customer orientation. Due to this significant association between empowerment and focus on customer needs, we propose that customer orientation is also a critical management factor for culture change. We know that customer orientation would be traditionally considered either an antecedent or outcome of employees’ attitudes towards management factors; rather than a dimension of it. However, customer orientation is being measured as a critical management factor in the present study. Deshpande et al. (1993) explicitly stated that customer orientation is a component of foundational corporate culture. In addition, Okumus and Hemmington (1998a) considered customers as a source of possible resistance to organizational change in hotels. Thus, we believe that formulation and implementation of a customer orientation approach by the management can lead to a successful transformation process in hospitality companies.
H1. The attitudes towards management factors positively relate to job satisfaction. H2. The attitudes towards management factors positively relate to job recommendation.
2.3. Social exchange theory and hypotheses development As suggested by Shin et al. (2012), management researchers have stressed that the success of all organizational change efforts such as management factors is dependent on the attitudes of employees. Also important is the emotional aspect of organizational change, which results in additional challenges for organizational leaders and change implementers. Organizational change increases uncertainty and provokes strong emotional responses among employees that are often negative, such as anger, anxiety, and fear (Wittig, 2012). In hospitality research, Chiang (2010) even hypothesized that attitudes towards organizational change are positively associated with perceived organizational change. Based on the study findings, Chiang supported this hypothesis. Similarly, Okumus and Hemmington (1998a) considered employees as a possible source of resistance to organizational change in hotels. In this study, we also concentrate on the attitudes of employees during times of organizational change. Based on our synthesis of the previously discussed studies in the literature review, it is notable that
3. Methodology 3.1. Sample The participants were employees of a world-wide hospitality company with 744 hotels located across the globe. The sample population was adults over the age of 18 with job positions in the areas of front desk, custodial, housekeeping, management, and supervisory work groups at a hospitality organization. The participants were employed during the implementation of a new training program as a management factor that was part of an organizational change process. This particular organizational change had the goal of rearranging critical components of the hospitality company including its vision and overall structure. The implemented training program was face to face, on property, during work hours, and paid. Moreover, the training program was 3
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4. Research findings
designed for on-property managers, supervisors, housekeeping, custodial, and front desk employees. Once the training program was implemented, the participants were asked to complete an online survey while at work. The study survey examined employees’ attitudes towards management factors at the end of the implemented training program. The attitudes of employees are formed gradually depending on elements such as mission, vision, job descriptions, and goals of an organization (Daniela et al., 2013). Therefore, we believe that investigation of these attitudes will also reveal attitudes towards the management factors during the culture shifts (e.g., new tasks, new equipment) that occurred gradually during the training program. A non-probability convenience sampling was utilized for data collection. This process resulted in a high usability percentage: out of 2210 surveys distributed, 1954 were returned. One thousand eight hundred and seven of these returned surveys were valid for data analysis, with a response rate of 82 %. Regarding the demographic characteristics of the obtained sample, respondents fell into the following age categories: 31–50 (47.3 %), 51–65 (25.7 %), 21–30 (17 %), 66–78 (2.6 %), and 18–20 (1.5 %). Moreover, the majority was female (64 %). The work locations of the study participants were in different regions in the United States; 56 % of the participants were from the Northeast, 16 % from the Northwest, 9 % from the Southeast, 8 % from the Southwest, and 11 % were from outside of the United States. The obtained sample had 353 front desk, 284 custodial, 572 housekeeping, 212 management, and 250 supervisory employees. Such distribution is representative of workgroups of a traditional hotel organization. For instance, housekeeping is known to be the department with the greatest number of employees (Walker, 2016). Therefore, this outcome increases the representativeness of our obtained sample.
4.1. Factor analysis of attitudes towards management scale A factor analysis was performed on the 20-item attitudes towards management scale in order to identify its dimensions. Initially, an item analysis was conducted to evaluate the item level distributions. More specifically, obtained standard deviation values were less than 1.6. Regarding skewness, the maximum value was absolute 2.7 and the majority had less than absolute 2. Moreover, all items had kurtosis values of less than absolute 4, except 3 items. The highest observed kurtosis value was 7.5 among these 3 items.1 The scale also had a significantly high reliability (α = 0.89). Last but not least, many researchers have indicated that the ideal size for proper factor analysis is 5–10 subjects per variable or item (e.g., Comrey and Lee, 2013; Gorsuch, 1983). Thus, based on our study sample and above findings, it is confirmed that the attitudes towards management scale is appropriate for factor analysis. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) extraction method with Varimax rotation was utilized (KMO value = 0.94). As an orthogonal rotation technique, Varimax boosts the variance of factor loadings (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2001). One item was removed due to a cross loading issue. The number of extracted factors was chosen based on the eigenvalue greater than one rule and the scree plot technique. Four factors were extracted with the Cronbach’s alpha values ranging from 0.67 to 0.89 (Table 1). These factors explained 60 % of the variance in the data. Based on the related hospitality literature and the authors’ industry experience, the factors were labeled as (1) Overall Management, (2) Coaching, (3) Customer Orientation, and (4) Empowerment. Furthermore, a Harman’s single-factor test was conducted to determine whether the common method bias was an issue or not. Accordingly, the explained variance was 37 %. Since this amount of explained variance was below 50 %, it was concluded that the common method bias is likely not a serious concern.
3.2. Instrument The survey was constructed by first seeking the advice of experts in the industry. These experts, at the level of director and above, helped the researchers with building the primary overarching questions that were in the survey. Then, the survey was generated based on researching previous related scale developments (e.g., Dawson et al., 2011; Tepeci and Bartlett, 2002) and the feedback obtained from the industry experts. For example, the Hospitality Culture Scale developed by Dawson et al. (2011) included factors such as management principles and customer relationships. Additionally, the perceived organizational culture dimensions scale of Tepeci and Bartlett (2002) included factors such as employee development and valuing customers. The researchers then fine-tuned the survey questions, presented them to the industry experts, and collaborated on a final set of questions. A pilot study was conducted with a sample of 22 employees across 5 hotels. In addition, the survey was sent to hospitality graduate students to examine it for face validity and readability. Once the pilot survey was returned, the panel of industry experts and researchers used the results to collaborate on one final set of questions to complete the survey development, which included a 20-item attitudes towards management scale. We employed a five-point Likert scale for the scale items (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree), which was designed to evaluate the attitudes of employees towards management factors during the culture shifts that occurred through the training program. The survey also included items evaluating the job satisfaction and recommendation of employees, as well as identifying their demographic information and work groups. More specifically, job satisfaction and job recommendation were included as dependent variables, and were assessed with the following items in the survey, respectively: “I am satisfied with my position at the hotel,” and “I would recommend working at my hotel to a friend.” Analyses included factor and multiple regression statistical techniques.
4.2. Regression analysis on the predictive power of attitudes towards management Following the factor analysis, two separate multiple regression analyses were performed to determine the predictive power of the identified attitudes towards management factors in the job satisfaction and job recommendation dependent variables. The results demonstrated significant correlations for all the independent variables. More specifically, the Job Satisfaction model (F (4, 1691) = 364.097, P = 0.001) explained 46 % of the variance, and the Job Recommendation model (F (4, 1691) = 392.380, P = 0.001) explained 48 % of the variance in the dependent variables (Tables 2 and 3). Tolerance and VIF values indicated no multicollinearity problems for the models. Based on these findings, the research hypotheses of the study were successfully accepted. 5. Conclusions and implications The first purpose of the present study was to investigate the underlying dimensions of employees’ attitudes towards management factors during a time of organizational change with a focus on culture shift. A 19-item scale was developed and tested to aid in the collection of data. Overall management, coaching, customer orientation, and empowerment were the dimensions successfully identified based on study findings. The first dimension, overall management, was 1 Tabachnick and Fidell (2001) explicitly stated that standard errors for both skewness and kurtosis minimize as the sample size increases. Taking into account the assumptions of the Central Limit Theorem and large sample size of the current study, scale items were considered normally distributed.
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H.A. Atadil and A.J. Green
Table 1 Factor Analysis of Attitudes towards Management.
Factor 1. Overall Management 1. I have a good working relationship with my fellow work associates. 2. I feel enabled to learn more and excel in my current position. 3. My position includes clearly defined long term goals and expectations. 4. My job makes good use of my skills. 5. When I was hired, I was given a clear explanation of why the guest is important to the hotel. 6. I feel well informed about changes in policies that affect my job. 7. I have a clear understanding of the expectations of my position. 8. My work gives me a feeling of personal accomplishment. 9. I have the tools and support to effectively accomplish my daily assignments/tasks. 10. My annual review provides me with useful information about my performance. Factor 2. Coaching 11. I feel comfortable asking my supervisor for feedback. 12. I know that if I make a decision about an upset guest my supervisor will back up the decision. 13. I feel comfortable asking my supervisor about matters that have to do with revenue and sales. 14. My supervisor often gives me verbal feedback on my performance. Factor 3. Customer Orientation 15. I take ownership of any needs of our guests. 16. I anticipate the needs of our guests. 17. I understand that an unhappy guest may not return to the hotel and how that impacts the hotel. Factor 4. Empowerment 18. I have to wait until my supervisor gives me directions when dealing with a complaint from our guest. 19. I have to ask my supervisor for permission when making decisions to satisfy an upset guest.
Factor Loading
Meana
Eigenvalue
Explained Variance (%)
αb
.61 .59 .75 .77 .50 .61 .68 .73 .66 .63
4.53 4.23 4.21 4.34 4.44 3.95 4.48 4.34 4.26 4.27
7.48
39.38
.89
.71 .72 .76 .60
4.30 4.12 3.98 4.14
1.70
8.95
.81
.68 .68 .75
4.61 4.56 4.65
1.21
6.40
.67
.90 .89
2.70 2.97
1.01
5.31
.76
Note: KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) measure of sampling adequacy = .94. n = 1696. Cut-off value: 0.40. a On a scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. b Cronbach’s Alpha value. Table 2 Multiple Regression Model for Job Satisfaction. Independent Variable
Standardized Coefficient Beta
t-Value
p
Unstandardized Coefficient Beta
Standard Error
Tolerance
VIF
Overall Management Coaching Customer Orientation Empowerment
0.621 0.249 0.071 0.099
34.845 13.984 3.975 5.555
0.001* 0.001* 0.001* 0.001*
0.734 0.294 0.084 0.117
0.021 0.021 0.021 0.021
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
Note. Dependent variable = I am satisfied with my position at the hotel. Overall model: F (4, 1691) = 364.097, P = 0.001, R2 = 0.463, Adjusted R2 = 0.461. * Significant at .05 (α) level. Table 3 Multiple Regression Model for Job Recommendation. Independent Variable
Standardized Coefficient Beta
t-Value
p
Unstandardized Coefficient Beta
Standard Error
Tolerance
VIF
Overall Management Coaching Customer Orientation Empowerment
0.616 0.307 0.076 0.037
35.188 17.553 4.333 2.107
0.001* 0.001* 0.001* 0.035*
0.709 0.354 0.087 0.042
0.020 0.020 0.020 0.020
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
Note. Dependent variable = I would recommend working at my hotel to a friend. Overall model: F (4, 1691) = 392.380, P = 0.001, R2 = 0.481, Adjusted R2 = 0.480. * Significant at .05 (α) level.
emphasized that culture change requires a new management approach. Thus, understanding the overall attitudes of employees to this new management approach is important for the success of culture change. Moreover, multiple researchers also stressed that coaching is a critical requirement for the success of the organizational change process (e.g., Gilley et al., 2009; Miller, 1998). According to our findings, customer orientation and empowerment were perceived to have relatively lower levels of positive relationships with job satisfaction and recommendation. However, these relationships were still statistically and significantly supporting the claims of the previous research on the relationships among empowerment, customer orientation, and organizational change (e.g., Chiang, 2010; Okumus and Hemmington, 1998a).
comprised of items associated with different sub-dimensions such as communication, feedback, and teamwork. Even though our scale was named “attitudes towards management,” it can also be described as an organizational culture scale within the context of culture shift. We evaluated the relationships of the identified dimensions of the attitudes towards management with job satisfaction and job recommendation to achieve our second purpose. Accordingly, two separate multiple regression models were tested. In both models, overall management and coaching received the highest coefficient beta values indicating the relative importance, or predictive power, of these independent variables in explaining job satisfaction and recommendation. Based on the obtained findings, employees’ attitudes towards overall management and coaching positively relate to job satisfaction and recommendation during culture shifts. Katz and Miller (1996) also 5
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supervisors for feedback” items received the highest levels of agreement under these management factors. Okumus and Hemmington (1998a) reported that teamwork was an important strategy in the organizational change process of hotel companies. Since the critical aspects of the company such as structure, procedures, and actions are significantly impacted by organizational change, employees will require continuous feedback during this process. All of the other items of these two factors also received high agreement scores from the study participants. These items should be considered in order to effectively implement an organizational change process by hotel organizations. Our findings also indicate that customer orientation and empowerment are management factors that have significant but lower levels of relationships with the job satisfaction and recommendation behaviors of employees. Even though the literature suggested these factors would have greater influence, our findings provided different results. As discussed earlier, due to its significant changes in essential aspects of an organization such as leadership, policies, and goals, the organizational change process is likely to trigger negative emotional responses such as stress and uncertainty (Wittig, 2012). Such reactions might cause employees to be more focused on their own needs and wants rather than on those of customers. Similarly, these emotional responses might negatively affect the attitudes towards empowerment. The leading managers of the organizational change process should consider the associations among emotional responses, customer orientation, and empowerment in the implementation of this critical transition process.
5.1. Theoretical implications Academic researchers have stated that there is a need for scale development studies on organizational culture within the hospitality industry (e.g., Bavik, 2016; Tepeci and Bartlett, 2002; Tepeci, 2005). The current study makes a theoretical contribution to the body of hospitality knowledge via the proposed attitudes towards management scale within the culture shift context. Among the previously developed organizational culture scales, Bavik (2016) reported nine factors, whereas Tepeci and Bartlett (2002) identified eight factors. Considering the findings of the previous research as well as this study, we can claim the construct of organizational culture (or management factors) illustrates an unstable factor formation. One explanation for this outcome could be the context of the study, such as organizational change, in which the management factors are being examined. Two research hypotheses based on the principles of the SET were developed. According to our findings, both of these hypotheses received support. Therefore, we can state that attitudes towards management factors positively relate to job satisfaction and job recommendation during culture shifts. This outcome validates the efficacy of the SET in predicting and explaining the attitudes of employees towards management factors during the organizational change process within the hospitality research context, and also supports the previous related management research that employed the SET (e.g., Neves and Caetano, 2006). Based on our findings, we conclude that effective execution of management factors such as coaching, empowerment, and customer orientation during culture shifts will provide more benefits to hospitality employees. Thereafter, employees will have positive associations with these shifts, which will lead them to have higher levels of job satisfaction and recommendation in these critical transition periods. Additionally, this study makes a contribution to the conceptualization of the customer orientation by identifying it as a dimension of employees’ attitudes towards management factors. Customer orientation should be considered an important management practice for the organizational change process. Grissemann et al. (2013) also found a significant association between customer orientation and innovativeness of hotels such as an organizational culture of willing to accept new ideas and services. Finally, the current study introduces and conceptualizes the culture shift term within the hospitality industry context.
5.3. Limitations and future research There were limitations to this research study, and it is suggested that future researchers should consider the following discussion. One of the limitations was the collection of the data at the end of the implemented training program. Conducting not only a post-test but also a pre-test would provide more insights regarding the attitudes of employees towards management factors during culture shifts. Additionally, social desirability bias could be another limitation of our study. Participants were asked to complete an online survey while at work, which might have put some pressure on them. Future research can enable study participants to complete the study survey out of their work environment to decrease the possibility of such pressure. As stressed in this paper, future research should focus more on the culture shift concept as there are literature and research gaps for this research area. There is an opportunity to implement a follow-up study and build on the literature of Tepeci and Bartlett (2002); Dawson et al. (2011), and Fernandes et al. (2018) to create a stronger instrument to identify specific items related to the employees’ attitudes and behaviors during culture shifts. Also, future studies could explore the research on a longitudinal design and take into account the current economy, human resources trends, and the process of planned organizational change. This study looked at the employees over a specific time frame, during a specific initiative, in a specific brand within the hospitality industry. It would benefit the body of research to look at global organizations throughout time and track the data output over time. This would allow for current trends to also be incorporated into the study. In addition, it is highly recommended in the longitudinal study to incorporate qualitative methods such as interviewing for a richer data set. Finally, aligning this study with hospitality organization outcomes that measure service levels, quality, and revenue would make this topic interesting to share with hospitality leadership. At this time in scholarly research surrounding organizational change, it would be good to focus on specific questions that will help the hospitality industry understand their transitional process and tie those items to important business outputs at the corporate level and the individual unit level. Hospitality organization outcome factors such as service level, and culture shift variables such as management factors could also be examined through structural equation modeling techniques. Additionally, future
5.2. Practical implications The findings of the current study also enable the development of practical applications for the hospitality industry. Hoteliers should satisfy the needs and wants of their employees experiencing culture shifts to successfully manage the organizational change process. In order to do this, hoteliers should understand the attitudes of employees towards management factors during organizational change. “Having a clear understanding of the expectations of my position” and “having a clear explanation of why the guest is important to the hotel” were the overall management items with the second and third highest agreement scores, respectively. Thus, we recommend that hotel managers and other change implementers should be very clear when communicating with their employees, as clarity can be considered one of the needs of employees during a transformation. Furthermore, “my job makes good use of my skills” and “my work gives me a feeling of personal accomplishment” were the following overall management items with the highest agreement scores. Therefore, we suggest change implementers take employees’ skills and personal achievements into full consideration when managing an organizational change. Moreover, hotel organizations undergoing an organizational change process should pay close attention to the overall management and coaching, as these management factors positively relate to job satisfaction and recommendation. The “having a good working relationship with fellow work associates” and “feeling comfortable asking 6
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researchers in this area should assess the discriminant validity of their developed scale. Endogeneity bias could be another limitation since no demographic controls were included in the regression models. Future research should generate such regression models and test them via hierarchical regressions.
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