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Measuring tourism and hospitality employee workplace perceptions
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Hospitality Management 24 (2005) 75–90
Measuring tourism and hospitality employee workplace perceptions Mark L. Manninga, Michael Davidsonb,*, Rana L. Manningc b
a Graduate College of Management, Southern Cross University, Australia The Lester E. Kabacoff School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Administration, University of New Orleans, 200 Business Building, Lakefront, LA 70148, USA c Southern Cross Institute of Action Research, Australia
Abstract Employee workplace perceptions may be represented by organizational climate. This paper presents a shortened (35-item) version of the Tourism and Hospitality Organizational Climate Scale (THOCS). Subscales of the new instrument (labeled THOCS-R) demonstrated levels of reliability that ranged from acceptable to high. A multiple regression revealed the 7 dimensions of organizational climate to explain 13.7% of variation in employee turnover intentions and 44.22% of variation in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction. Confirmatory factor analysis did not support the notion that the THOCS-R measures 7 underlying dimensions, however, a re-specification of the model provided support for the notion that the new instrument measures 4 dimensions of the original THOCS. These four dimensions, Leader facilitation and support, Professional and organizational esprit, Conflict and ambiguity, and Workgroup cooperation, friendliness, and warmth, were found to explain 9.18% of variation in employee turnover intentions and 43.70% of variation in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Organizational climate; Tourism and hospitality; Workplace perceptions; Confirmatory factor analysis; Scale development
1. Introduction The notion of organizational climate emerged from Lewin’s (1951) field theory. Lewin suggested that an individual’s behavior resulted as interplay between the *Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-504-280-7192; fax: +1-504-280-3189. E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Davidson). 0278-4319/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2004.05.001
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characteristics of the person (i.e. that a person’s abilities, personality traits, etc.) and the psychological environment of the person (i.e. the way the individual perceives their surrounding environment). One type of description of the psychological environment in the workplace has been termed ‘‘organizational climate’’. The impact of organizational climate has been seen as a critical factor across a broad range of industries both in terms of implementing change and the delivery of quality products. For service industries, such as tourism and hospitality, the organizational climate within which employees work may be of even greater importance (Davidson et al., 2002). Davidson et al. (2002) argued that the employee in these industries often represents the interface between organization and customer and, therefore, affords management little capacity to directly test their product prior to its presentation to the customer—as production and consumption are instantaneous. Management, however, does possess the capacity to measure the degree to which the organizational climate potentially supports, or subtracts from, the delivery of quality service by the employees. An instrument specifically designed to measure organizational climate in the Tourism and Hospitality industry was developed and presented by Davidson et al. (2001)—the 70-item Tourism and Hospitality Organizational Climate Scale (THOCS). Using the THOCS Davidson et al. (2002) demonstrated that variation in organizational climate significantly explained variation in the financial performance of four to five star hotels via its affect on customer satisfaction. Given the demonstration of the relationship between the THOCS and hotel financial performance, the application of such an instrument provides management with the ability to measure the key determinants of service quality, thus allowing management to identify opportunities for improvements and the ability to monitor the outcome of interventions. The purpose of this paper is to present the psychometric properties of a shortened, and therefore more conveniently applied, version of the THOCS. The statistical relationships between measures from this new scale and both employee perceptions of customer satisfaction, and employee turnover intentions, will then be presented.
2. Brief literature review Lewin et al. (1939) were the first researchers to experimentally demonstrate that the social environment can be changed by systematically varying the behavior of people in groups. Since this finding, many instruments have been developed in an attempt to measure the social environment of the workplace. These organizational climate instruments most often produce measures on a range of dimensions, and these dimensions are seen to be, at least to some degree, independent components of organizational climate. Whilst many agree with the importance of organizational climate and its impact, there is little agreement across studies as to the number and name of dimensions that make up organizational climate. These differences are partly explained by differences across industries in which each instrument was
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developed, and by the goals of each individual study (Schneider, 1975). Given the differences across various industries, it is critically important that an organizational climate measure be developed from samples of respondents who are representative of the industry to which it will be applied. The Psychological Climate Questionnaire (PCQ) developed by Jones and James (1979) was described by Ryder and Southey (1990) as the most adequate approach, psychometrically, to date. Jones and James conducted an extensive review of the literature, which resulted in the identification of 35 possible concepts relating to organizational climate (Table 1). These comprised; 11 concepts related to job and role characteristics, 8 to leadership characteristics, 4 to work-group characteristics, and 12 to subsystem and organizational level characteristics. These a priori concepts were used to generate a 145-item questionnaire that was administered to a sample of 4315 Navy personnel and principal components analysis (PCA) extracted six dimensions (factors). They labeled these factors ‘‘Conflict and ambiguity’’, ‘‘Job challenge, importance, and variety’’, ‘‘Leader facilitation and support’’, ‘‘Workgroup cooperation, friendliness, and warmth’’, ‘‘Professional and organizational esprit’’, and ‘‘Job standards’’. Davidson et al. (2001) also used Jones and James PCQ as the basis for the development of an instrument specifically designed for the measurement of organizational climate within the Tourism and Hospitality industry. They incorporated all of the modifications introduced by Ryder and Southey and further modifications were implemented in response to advice provided by an expert panel comprising six tourism and hospitality senior executives. After direct consultation with one of the originators of the PCQ (Professor James of the University of Tennessee, personal communication), it was agreed to use a shortened version of the instrument comprising 70 items (2 items representing each of the 35 a priori concepts) rather than the 145 items in the original PCQ. These 70 items were presented to 1401 employees from 14 four and five-star hotels and analyzed via PCA which identified seven underlying dimensions of organizational climate for this sample: Leader facilitation and support, Professional and organizational esprit, Conflict and ambiguity, Regulations, organization and pressure, Job variety, challenge and autonomy, Workgroup co-operation, friendliness and warmth, and Job standards (Davidson et al., 2001).
3. Organizational climate and performance in tourism and hospitality Organizational climate has been linked with a range of organizational performance measures across a broad range of industries including productivity (Fredriksen, 1968, as cited in James and Jones, 1974); organizational income (Scheflen, as cited in Pritchard and Karasick, 1973); service quality (Schneider and Bowen, 1985; Francese, 1993); and turnover intentions (Parkington and Schneider, 1979). Despite the hotel industry representing what Olsen (1996) describes as the largest employment sector in the world’s largest industry: tourism, there has been little
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Table 1 The 35 ‘a priori’ concepts of Jones and James (1979) Job and role characteristics Role ambiguity Role conflict Job autonomy Job variety Job importance Job feedback Job challenge Job pressure Efficiency of job design Job standards Opportunities to deal with others Leadership characteristics Support Goal emphasis Work facilitation Interaction facilitation Planning and coordination Upward interaction Confidence and trust—UP Confidence and trust—DOWN Work-group characteristics Workgroup cooperation Reputation for effectiveness Workgroup esprit de corps Workgroup friendliness and warmth Sub-system and organizational level characteristics Openness of expression Organizational communication—DOWN Interdepartmental cooperation Conflict of organizational goals and objectives Ambiguity of organizational structure Consistent application of organizational policies Organizational esprit de corps Professional esprit de corps Planning and effectiveness Fairness and objectivity of the reward process Opportunity for growth and advancement Awareness of employee’s needs and problems
empirical investigation conducted within the industry to examine the relationship between organizational climate and organizational performance. Davidson et al. (2002) described the relationships between the responses of 1401 employees to the THOCS, employee perceptions of customer satisfaction, and revenue per available room (RevPAR) of 14 four to five-star hotels. The
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use of employee perceptions of customer satisfaction rather than the direct measures taken from the customers were chosen for a number of reasons. First, a measure of customer satisfaction could be collected at the same time as the measures of organizational climate, thus making it a less time consuming approach. Second, using this approach allowed for the collection of a matched set of variables for organizational climate and customer satisfaction so that correlations could be conducted directly for each case in the sample. Further, anyone who has delivered a service directly to a customer will believe they are in a reasonable position to know the level of satisfaction perceived by their customer, and a congruence between the employee’s perception of the customer’s satisfaction with the service provided and the customer’s own perception of the service has been empirically verified. Schneider et al. (1980) reported a correlation between employee perception of customer satisfaction and satisfaction reported by the customers themselves to be in the order of 0.67. This association between employee perception of customer satisfaction and customer self-reports of satisfaction was also replicated by Schneider and Bowen (1985) who found a correlation of 0.63. In 2002, Davidson et al. found the seven organizational climate dimensions of the THOCS to explain 30% of the variation in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction between hotels, and employee perceptions of customer satisfaction to, in turn, explain 23% of the variation in RevPAR. They concluded that even if employee perceptions of customer satisfaction did not provide a valid measure of customer satisfaction but were really only the result of employees in better organizational climates rating customer satisfaction more highly, then one would still conclude that 23% of the variation in RevPAR between hotels in their study was the result of variation in organizational climate.
4. Research background Given the results reported by Davidson et al. (2002) using the 70-item THOCS, further investigation was undertaken to evaluate whether a shorter version of the THOCS could be used to measure the seven dimensions of organizational climate that are relevant to the tourism and hospitality industry. A revised 35-item version of the THOCS, labeled THOCS-R was developed. The THOCS-R comprises the 5 items that load on each of the seven dimensions of the original THOCS. The advantages of a shorter scale include the reduction in time required for employees to complete the scale and the reduction in costs associated with printing, distribution and data analysis. The psychometric properties are presented below for each of the 7 sub-scales of the THOCS-R when presented to 432 employees in a tourism organization. The results of a confirmatory factor analysis evaluates the scale’s consistency in measurement of climate dimensions when compared to the original 70-item instrument. In addition, the dimensions and their relationship to employee turnover intentions and employee perceptions of customer satisfaction are also presented.
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5. Methodology 5.1. The organization Participants for this study were employees of a single tourism organization. The organization has been identified as a leader in its field and has won many industry awards for excellence. The organization is part of a large Australian company that has a number of major tourism and leisure assets throughout the country. The potential sample comprised 600 employees. Four hundred and forty one questionnaires were returned, and of these 432 were complete enough to be included in the analyses presented here. This represents an approximate return rate of 73.5%. 5.2. Data collection All measures were gathered via a single questionnaire that was distributed to all employees. The questionnaire included the THOCS-R comprising 35 items asking employees about their work environment. Thirty-four of these items were originally presented in the 70 item THOCS described previously by Davidson et al. (2001). Thirty items were chosen on the criterion that they represented the five items with the largest primary factor loadings on the THOCS organizational climate dimensions of: Leader facilitation and support, Professional and organizational esprit, Conflict and ambiguity, Regulations, organization and pressure, Job variety, challenge and autonomy, Workgroup co-operation, friendliness and warmth. Davidson et al. (2001) described only 4 items of the THOCS to have primary loadings on the climate dimension Job standards. These 4 items were also included in the THOCS-R and an additional item, which attempted to measure Job standards (via the Jones and James a priori concept of job challenge) was also generated and included in the THOCS-R. Also included in the questionnaire was a single item that attempted to measure employee perceptions of customer satisfaction. This item states ‘‘Guests are satisfied by the overall service and experience we provide.’’ Employees were required to respond on a 5 point Likert-type scale with options ranging from ‘‘strongly disagree’’ to ‘‘strongly agree’’. Another item was also included which attempted to measure employee turnover intention. The item asks, ‘‘How likely are you to leave within the next twelve months?’’ and employees were asked to rate their likelihood of leaving the organization, on a 5 point Likert-type scale with options ranging from ‘‘very unlikely’’ to ‘‘extremely likely’’. 5.3. Process All questionnaires were distributed to employees in January 2003. A short covering letter requested employees to anonymously return questionnaires in a sealed envelope to a locked box at the human resources office. Employees were requested to do this within one week of receipt of the questionnaire. Employees were provided with a small incentive to participate. Return of the questionnaire was
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necessary for the employee to receive annual cards that provided discounted entry for family and friends to the tourism attraction. Although one might be tempted to argue that the provision of discount cards impacts on the ability to draw any conclusions regarding willingness to participate, employees needed only to hand in a sealed envelope with a blank questionnaire to receive their reward. Of the 441 envelopes returned only three contained a blank survey. Of the remaining six incomplete questionnaires, a few showed that the employee lost interest part way through, and a number were incomplete simply as a function of the employee missing a page of the questionnaire. Overall this pattern of response shows a general willingness of employees to participate in the process.
6. Results 6.1. Reliability Following the procedures described by Davidson et al. (2002), for each participant, a Global Measure of Organizational Climate was established by taking the arithmetic mean across the 35 items of the THOCS-R. This Global Measure of Organizational Climate was found to have a high level of reliability with a coefficient (Chronbach) alpha of 0.93. Following a similar procedure, a composite score for each of the 7 dimensions of organizational climate, described by Davidson et al. (2001), was calculated for each employee by taking the arithmetic mean across the 5 questionnaire items with a principal loading on the respective dimension. This procedure produced subscales with levels of reliability that ranged from acceptable to high. A high level of reliability was displayed for the subscale Leader facilitation and support (a ¼ 0:94), moderate levels of reliability were found for the subscales Workgroup cooperation, friendliness, and warmth (a ¼ 0:82), Job standards (a ¼ 0:82), and Professional and organizational esprit (a ¼ 0:85). Acceptable levels of reliability were displayed for the subscales Job variety, challenge, and autonomy (a ¼ 0:79), Conflict and ambiguity (a ¼ 0:78), and Regulations, organization, and pressure (a ¼ 0:74). These levels of reliability are reflected in the internal consistency of the subscales as estimated by the item-total correlations for each item with their respective subscales (Table 2). 6.2. Employee turnover intentions and perceptions of customer satisfaction The relationship between employee turnover intention and organizational climate, as indexed by the THOCS-R, was investigated in two ways. First, the Pearson product-moment correlation was calculated between employee turnover intentions and the Global Organizational Climate Score of the THOCS-R. A significant negative relationship was found between the two measures (r ¼ 0:32; Po0:0005). This analysis showed that 10.25% of variation in employee turnover intention was explained by the Global Measure of Organizational Climate. Second, a standard multiple linear-regression was then conducted with the seven organizational climate
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Table 2 Item-total correlations for the 7 climate dimensions Component loading Davidson et al. (2002) Dimension 1: Leader facilitation and support Planning & coordination Support Support Work facilitation Goal emphasis
Item-total correlation
0.94 0.79 0.76 0.75 0.74 0.68
0.87 0.89 0.91 0.88 0.91
Dimension 2: Professional and organizational esprit Planning & effectiveness Opportunity for growth & advancement Ambiguity of organizational structure Professional esprit de corps Ambiguity of organizational structure
0.69 0.66
0.73 0.79
0.65 0.62 0.61
0.84 0.79 0.79
Dimension 3: Conflict and ambiguity Efficiency of job design Role conflict Role ambiguity Efficiency of job design Organizational communication: Down
0.60 0.57 0.56 0.54 0.54
0.72 0.68 0.78 0.69 0.78
Dimension 4: Regulations, organization, and pressure Role conflict Planning & coordination Conflict of organizational goals and objectives Conflict of organizational goals and objectives Openness of expression Dimension 5: Job variety, challenge, and autonomy Job variety Job variety Opportunities for growth and advancement Job challenge Workgroup esprit de corps Dimension 6: Workgroup cooperation, friendliness, and warmth Workgroup friendliness & warmth Workgroup friendliness & warmth Workgroup cooperation
Coefficient alpha
0.85
0.78
0.74 0.66 0.66 0.65
0.67 0.70 0.75
0.59
0.69
0.56
0.70 0.79
0.77 0.76 0.54
0.76 0.81 0.85
0.46 0.44
0.72 0.59 0.82
0.69 0.64 0.55
0.82 0.80 0.81
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Table 2 (continued)
Workgroup cooperation Workgroup esprit de corps Dimension 7: Job standards Job challenge Job standards Job standards Job importance Job challenge
Component loading Davidson et al. (2002)
Item-total correlation
0.54 0.50
0.68 0.75
0.71 0.69 0.66 0.46 N/A
0.83 0.75 0.77 0.65 0.81
Coefficient alpha
0.82
Note: Each item is represented by the a priori concept it was intended to measure. Also included are the component loadings for each item when presented in the 72 item version of the scale by Davidson et al. (2001).
subscales of the THOCS-R entered as the independent variables and employee turnover intention as the dependent variable. The multiple correlation coefficient (R ¼ 0:37) was found to be significantly different from zero, F ð7; 424Þ ¼ 9:59; Po0:0005: The analysis showed that 13.7% of variation in employee turnover intentions was explained by the 7 dimensions of organizational climate. Significant unique contributions of prediction were found for Conflict and ambiguity, sr2i =0.12, t ¼ 2:62; Po0:01; Regulations, organization, and pressure, sr2i =0.15, t ¼ 3:30; Po0:005; and Job standards, sr2i =0.14, t ¼ 3:19; Po0:005 (Table 3). Similarly a set of analyses was conducted to establish the relationship between employee perception of customer satisfaction and organizational climate, as indexed by the THOCS-R. First, the Pearson product-moment correlation was calculated between employee perception of customer satisfaction and the Global Organizational Climate Score of the THOCS-R. A significant positive relationship was found between the two measures (r ¼ 0:53; Po0:0005). This analysis indicated that 28.52% of the variation in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction was explained by the Global Measure of Organizational Climate. Second, a standard multiple linear-regression was conducted with the seven organizational climate subscales of the THOCS-R entered as the independent variables and employee rating of customer satisfaction as the dependent variable. The multiple correlation coefficient (R ¼ 0:67) was found to be significantly different from zero, F ð7; 424Þ ¼ 47:91; Po0:0005: The analysis found 44.22% of the variation in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction to be accounted for by the 7 dimensions of organizational climate. Both Professional and organizational esprit, sr2i =0.36, t ¼ 9:78; Po0:0005; and Conflict and ambiguity, sr2i =0.10, t ¼ 2:62; Po0:01; were found to provide a significant unique contribution to the prediction of employee perception of customer satisfaction (Table 4). 6.3. Confirmatory factor analysis Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to evaluate the notion that the relationship between latent organizational climate dimensions previously described
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Constant Leader facilitation and support Professional and organizational esprit Conflict and ambiguity Regulations, organization, and pressure Job variety, challenge, and autonomy Workgroup cooperation, friendliness, and warmth Job standards
Unstandardized coefficients
Standardized beta
t
Sig.
Part correlation
B
SE
5.144 0.022 0.013 0.205 0.183 0.046 0.087
0.401 0.051 0.074 0.078 0.055 0.068 0.063
0.026 0.011 0.185 0.167 0.043 0.081
12.828 0.425 0.169 2.618 3.299 0.682 1.378
0.000 0.671 0.866 0.009 0.001 0.496 0.169
0.019 0.008 0.118 0.149 0.031 0.062
0.207
0.065
0.167
3.185
0.002
0.144
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Table 3 Regression results using the 7 dimensions of organizational climate to predict employee turnover intention
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Table 4 Regression results using the 7 dimensions of organizational climate to predict employee perception of customer satisfaction Subscale
Unstandardized coefficients B
Constant 1.411 Leader facilitation and 0.038 support Professional and 0.552 organizational esprit Conflict and ambiguity 0.156 Regulations, organization, 0.022 and pressure Job variety, challenge, and 0.043 autonomy Workgroup cooperation, 0.011 friendliness, and warmth Job standards 0.062
Standardized beta
t
Sig.
Part correlation
SE 0.305 0.039
0.047
4.618 0.972
0.000 0.331
0.035
0.056
0.528
9.780
0.000
0.355
0.060 0.042
0.149 0.021
2.615 0.513
0.009 0.608
0.095 0.019
0.052
0.043
0.838
0.403
0.030
0.048
0.011
0.227
0.820
0.008
0.050
0.053
1.261
0.208
0.046
by Davidson et al. (2001) for the 70 item THOCS, could parsimoniously explain the underlying relationships of the shorter 35 item THOCS-R. In exploratory techniques, structure arises from the data and represents the most parsimonious description of the relationship between observed and hypothetical latent variables for that particular sample (Byrne, 2001, p. 6). CFA, however, requires the investigator to first propose a structure of the relationship between observed and latent variables, and the analysis then consists of an evaluation of the degree to which that hypothetical structure is supported by the empirical data. A priori specification of the model here proposes that items previously described by Davidson et al. (2001) to load on specific dimensions of organizational climate for the THOCS, will again load on the same underlying latent variables for the THOCS-R. This structural model is illustrated in Fig. 1. CFA of the factor structure illustrated in Fig. 1 was performed via AMOS 4.01 (Arbuckle, 1999). Maximum likelihood estimation was employed to estimate all models. The independence model that tests the hypothesis that all variables are uncorrelated was easily rejected, w2 (595, N=432)=8459.17, Po0:0005: Poor support was found for the hypothesized seven factor model, w2 (539, N=432)=1654.48, Po0:0005: Model fit indices GFI=0.81, AGFI=0.78, NFI=0.80, CFI=0.86, RMSEA=0.069, all fall short of what is considered to represent an acceptable fit of a model (Bentler and Bonnet, 1980). Following the procedures described by Byrne (2001, p. 104) the modification indices were examined in an attempt to identify the presence of factor cross-loadings, and it was considered appropriate to re-specify the model. Given the nature of the study at hand, and the patterns of modification indices, it was considered not
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to be appropriate to attempt to determine whether there existed a subset of items which would support the notion of 7 organizational climate dimensions, but rather, whether there existed a subset of organizational climate dimensions which can be considered to have been replicated by the THOCS-R with respect to this sample. On the basis of modification indices, a four-factor model (Fig. 2) was evaluated. Despite the analysis finding a significant chi-square, w2 (164, N=432)=435.897, Po0:0005; model fit indices GFI=0.91, AGFI=0.88, NFI=0.91, CFI=0.94, RMSEA=0.062, indicate a good fit of the data to the revised model (Bentler and Bonnet, 1980). A chi-square difference test indicated significant improvement in the four factor model over the originally hypothesized seven factor model w2diff (375, N=400)=1218.583, Po0:0005:
6.4. The four-factor model of employee turnover intentions and perceptions of customer satisfaction To evaluate the relationship between employee turnover intentions and these four dimensions of organizational climate (Leader facilitation and support, Professional and organizational esprit, Conflict and ambiguity, Workgroup cooperation, friendliness, and warmth) a standard multiple linear regression was conducted with the four organizational climate subscales of the modified model of the THOCS-R entered as the independent variables and employee rating of turnover intention as the dependent variable. The multiple correlation coefficient (R ¼ 0:30) was found to be significantly different from zero, F(4,427)=10.79, Po0:0005: This analysis indicated that 9.18% of the variation in employee turnover intentions was explained by these 4 dimensions of organizational climate. Significant unique contribution to prediction was found for the dimension Conflict and ambiguity, sr2i =0.15, t ¼ 3:35; Po0:005: A similar analysis was conducted to establish the relationship between employee perception of customer satisfaction and the four dimensions of organizational climate. A standard multiple linear-regression was conducted with the four organizational climate subscales of the THOCS-R entered as the independent variables and employee rating of customer satisfaction as the dependent variable. The multiple correlation coefficient (R ¼ 0:66) was found to be significantly different from zero, F ð4; 427Þ ¼ 82:79; Po0:0005: This analysis indicated that 43.70% of variation in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction was accounted for by the 4 dimensions of organizational climate. Both the dimension Professional and organizational esprit, sr2i =0.38, t ¼ 10:51; Po0:0005; and the dimension Conflict and ambiguity, sr2i =0.11, t ¼ 2:92; Po0:005; were found to provide a significant unique contribution to the prediction of employee perception of customer satisfaction. This result represents an almost identical outcome in terms of variance in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction explained by organizational climate when all 7 climate dimensions were included in the analysis.
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Fig. 1. Hypothesized 7 factor model for the THOCS-R (Model 1).
7. Summary and conclusions Moran and Volkwein (1992) described organizational climate to be a relatively enduring characteristic that distinguishes one organization from other organizations.
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Fig. 2. Hypothesized 4 factor model for the THOCS-R (Model 2).
It embodies members’ collective perceptions of a number of underlying factors including trust, autonomy and support. Organizational climate is produced through member interaction, and acts as a source of influence for shaping behaviors of individuals within the organization. By evaluating an organization’s climate with a survey instrument, we are able to provide a snapshot of the ‘here and now’ environment at a particular point in time. Across a range of industries, many studies have suggested that organizational climate is a critical factor in terms of planning and implementing change, and the delivery of quality products. Within this context, some have argued that organizational climate is of particular importance in service industries. The rationale for this position is that in service industries, such as tourism and hospitality, the employee represents the interface between the organization and the customer, leaving management little or no ability to test their product’s quality prior to delivery. The measurement of organizational climate does, however, provide management in industries such as tourism and hospitality with the capacity to measure the degree to which the environment supports the delivery of quality service by the employees. Despite this, there has been little research within the Tourism and Hospitality industry with regards to both the measurement, and affect, of organizational climate on organizational outcomes. Davidson et al. (2001) provided research suggesting that within the tourism and hospitality industry organizational climate may be described in terms of seven underlying dimensions measured by the THOCS. Davidson et al. (2002) further demonstrated that these seven dimensions
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explained a significant proportion of variation in the financial performance between four and five star hotels. This paper presents the psychometric properties of the THOCS-R, a shortened version of the THOCS, originally presented by Davidson et al. (2001). The full-scale reliability of the THOCS-R was found to be quite high (a ¼ 0:93), and the sub-scales of the THOCS-R were all found to have reliabilities ranging from acceptable to high. The sub-scale with the highest reliability was that of Leader facilitation and support (a ¼ 0:94). The THOCS-R was also found to be significantly related to a number of other measures of organizational performance. Davidson et al. (2002) previously reported the seven dimensions of organizational climate, as indexed by the 70-item THOCS, to explain 30% of the variation in employee perception of customer satisfaction, which in turn was found to explain 23% of the variation in financial performance (RevPAR) between 14 four and five star hotels. The THOCS-R, for the sample here, was also found to explain a significant proportion (44.22%) of the variation in employee perceptions of satisfaction. Parkington and Schneider (1979) using a different measure of organizational climate reported that an organization’s climate was a significant predictor of turnover intentions. The THOCS-R was also found to explain a significant proportion (13.7%) in the variation of employee turnover intentions for our sample. These results provide strong evidence that the THOCS-R provides management within the tourism and hospitality industry with a useful instrument for measuring critical characteristics of the workplace environment that have an impact on important organizational outcomes. Further, the THOCS-R will allow management to plan and monitor interventions over time and across a number of key dimensions. Confirmatory factor analysis, followed by model re-specification, failed to support the premise that the THOCS-R measures the same seven dimensions as the original THOCS. Re-specification of the structural model from seven to a sub-set of four dimensions was found to display a good fit for the data collected from this sample. Naturally one needs to ask whether this should be interpreted as indicating a failure to support the premise that the THOCS-R measures three of the dimensions originally ascribed to the THOCS, or whether this should be seen as indicating that, at this point, support has been found for the notion that the THOCS-R measures four of the original seven dimensions. When considering this issue we need to keep in mind that factor structure of a covariance matrix is a product of both the items of the survey instrument and the particular sample from which the responses were gathered. Sources of variance within the covariance matrix of the original study by Davidson et al. (2001) describing the THOCS can be considered to comprise (a) variation due to individual respondent characteristics, (b) variation due to the local work environment (within organization variance), and (c) variation due to organization-wide characteristics (between organization variance), and measurement error. In this study the THOCS-R was used within a single large organization, not across a number of different organizations. Therefore, any organizational climate dimensions which serve to explain large proportions of variance between organizations would not explain large proportions of variance within the single
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organization of this study. We would argue that despite the fact that this study was conducted within a single organization, the pattern of results support the premise that four of the dimensions originally described for the THOCS can be reliably measured by the THOCS-R. Further research across organizations would serve to answer the question as to whether the remaining three dimensions can be reliably measured using the THOCS-R.
Acknowledgements We would like to thank L.B. for her contribution to this study.
References Arbuckle, J.L., 1999. AMOS 4.01, Small Waters Corp. 1507 E. 53rd St.- #452, Chicago, Ill, 60615, USA. Byrne, B.M., 2001. Structural equation modeling with AMOS: Basic concepts, applications, and programming. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., Mahwah, N.J. Bentler, P.M., Bonnet, D.G., 1980. Significance tests and goodness of fit in the analysis of covariance structures. Psychological Bulletin 88, 588–606. Davidson, M.C.G., Manning, M.L., Timo, N., Ryder, P.A., 2001. The dimensions of organizational climate in four and five star Australian hotels. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research 25 (4), 444–461. Davidson, M., Manning, M.L., Brosnan, P., Timo, N., 2002. Organizational climate, perceived customer satisfaction and revenue per available room in four and five star Australian hotels. Tourism Analysis 6 (2), 123–137. Francese, P., 1993. Breaking the rules: delivering responsive service. CHRIE Hospitality Research Journal 16 (2), 55–76. James, L.R., Jones, A.P., 1974. Organizational climate: a review of theory and research. Psychological Bulletin 81, 1096–1112. Jones, A.P., James, L.R., 1979. Psychological climate: dimensions and relationships of individual and aggregated work environment perceptions. Organizational Behaviour and Human Performance 23, 201–250. Lewin, K., 1951. Field theory in social science. Harper & Row, New York. Lewin, K., Lippit, R., White, R.K., 1939. Patterns of aggressive behaviour in experimentally created climates. Journal of Social Psychology 10, 271–299. Moran, E.T., Volkwein, J.F., 1992. The cultural approach to the formation of organizational climate. Human Relations 45, 19–47. Olsen, M., 1996. Into the new millennium: a white paper on the global hospitality industry. International Hotel Association, Paris. Parkington, J.P., Schneider, B., 1979. Some correlates of experienced job stress. A boundary role study. Academy of Management Journal 22, 270–281. Pritchard, R., Karasick, B., 1973. The effects of organizational climate on managerial job performance and job satisfaction. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 9, 126–146. Ryder, P.A., Southey, G.N., 1990. An exploratory study of the Jones and James organizational climate scales. Asia Pacific Human Resource Management 45–52. Schneider, B., 1975. Organisation climates—an essay. Personnel Psychology 28, 447–479. Schneider, B., Bowen, D.E., 1985. Employee and customer perceptions of service in banks replication and extension. Journal of Applied Psychology 70, 423–433. Schneider, B., Parkington, J.J., Buxton, V.M., 1980. Employee and customer perceptions of service in banks. Administrative Science Quarterly 25, 252–267.
Hospitality Management 24 (2005) 75–90
Measuring tourism and hospitality employee workplace perceptions Mark L. Manninga, Michael Davidsonb,*, Rana L. Manningc b
a Graduate College of Management, Southern Cross University, Australia The Lester E. Kabacoff School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Administration, University of New Orleans, 200 Business Building, Lakefront, LA 70148, USA c Southern Cross Institute of Action Research, Australia
Abstract Employee workplace perceptions may be represented by organizational climate. This paper presents a shortened (35-item) version of the Tourism and Hospitality Organizational Climate Scale (THOCS). Subscales of the new instrument (labeled THOCS-R) demonstrated levels of reliability that ranged from acceptable to high. A multiple regression revealed the 7 dimensions of organizational climate to explain 13.7% of variation in employee turnover intentions and 44.22% of variation in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction. Confirmatory factor analysis did not support the notion that the THOCS-R measures 7 underlying dimensions, however, a re-specification of the model provided support for the notion that the new instrument measures 4 dimensions of the original THOCS. These four dimensions, Leader facilitation and support, Professional and organizational esprit, Conflict and ambiguity, and Workgroup cooperation, friendliness, and warmth, were found to explain 9.18% of variation in employee turnover intentions and 43.70% of variation in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Organizational climate; Tourism and hospitality; Workplace perceptions; Confirmatory factor analysis; Scale development
1. Introduction The notion of organizational climate emerged from Lewin’s (1951) field theory. Lewin suggested that an individual’s behavior resulted as interplay between the *Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-504-280-7192; fax: +1-504-280-3189. E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Davidson). 0278-4319/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2004.05.001
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characteristics of the person (i.e. that a person’s abilities, personality traits, etc.) and the psychological environment of the person (i.e. the way the individual perceives their surrounding environment). One type of description of the psychological environment in the workplace has been termed ‘‘organizational climate’’. The impact of organizational climate has been seen as a critical factor across a broad range of industries both in terms of implementing change and the delivery of quality products. For service industries, such as tourism and hospitality, the organizational climate within which employees work may be of even greater importance (Davidson et al., 2002). Davidson et al. (2002) argued that the employee in these industries often represents the interface between organization and customer and, therefore, affords management little capacity to directly test their product prior to its presentation to the customer—as production and consumption are instantaneous. Management, however, does possess the capacity to measure the degree to which the organizational climate potentially supports, or subtracts from, the delivery of quality service by the employees. An instrument specifically designed to measure organizational climate in the Tourism and Hospitality industry was developed and presented by Davidson et al. (2001)—the 70-item Tourism and Hospitality Organizational Climate Scale (THOCS). Using the THOCS Davidson et al. (2002) demonstrated that variation in organizational climate significantly explained variation in the financial performance of four to five star hotels via its affect on customer satisfaction. Given the demonstration of the relationship between the THOCS and hotel financial performance, the application of such an instrument provides management with the ability to measure the key determinants of service quality, thus allowing management to identify opportunities for improvements and the ability to monitor the outcome of interventions. The purpose of this paper is to present the psychometric properties of a shortened, and therefore more conveniently applied, version of the THOCS. The statistical relationships between measures from this new scale and both employee perceptions of customer satisfaction, and employee turnover intentions, will then be presented.
2. Brief literature review Lewin et al. (1939) were the first researchers to experimentally demonstrate that the social environment can be changed by systematically varying the behavior of people in groups. Since this finding, many instruments have been developed in an attempt to measure the social environment of the workplace. These organizational climate instruments most often produce measures on a range of dimensions, and these dimensions are seen to be, at least to some degree, independent components of organizational climate. Whilst many agree with the importance of organizational climate and its impact, there is little agreement across studies as to the number and name of dimensions that make up organizational climate. These differences are partly explained by differences across industries in which each instrument was
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developed, and by the goals of each individual study (Schneider, 1975). Given the differences across various industries, it is critically important that an organizational climate measure be developed from samples of respondents who are representative of the industry to which it will be applied. The Psychological Climate Questionnaire (PCQ) developed by Jones and James (1979) was described by Ryder and Southey (1990) as the most adequate approach, psychometrically, to date. Jones and James conducted an extensive review of the literature, which resulted in the identification of 35 possible concepts relating to organizational climate (Table 1). These comprised; 11 concepts related to job and role characteristics, 8 to leadership characteristics, 4 to work-group characteristics, and 12 to subsystem and organizational level characteristics. These a priori concepts were used to generate a 145-item questionnaire that was administered to a sample of 4315 Navy personnel and principal components analysis (PCA) extracted six dimensions (factors). They labeled these factors ‘‘Conflict and ambiguity’’, ‘‘Job challenge, importance, and variety’’, ‘‘Leader facilitation and support’’, ‘‘Workgroup cooperation, friendliness, and warmth’’, ‘‘Professional and organizational esprit’’, and ‘‘Job standards’’. Davidson et al. (2001) also used Jones and James PCQ as the basis for the development of an instrument specifically designed for the measurement of organizational climate within the Tourism and Hospitality industry. They incorporated all of the modifications introduced by Ryder and Southey and further modifications were implemented in response to advice provided by an expert panel comprising six tourism and hospitality senior executives. After direct consultation with one of the originators of the PCQ (Professor James of the University of Tennessee, personal communication), it was agreed to use a shortened version of the instrument comprising 70 items (2 items representing each of the 35 a priori concepts) rather than the 145 items in the original PCQ. These 70 items were presented to 1401 employees from 14 four and five-star hotels and analyzed via PCA which identified seven underlying dimensions of organizational climate for this sample: Leader facilitation and support, Professional and organizational esprit, Conflict and ambiguity, Regulations, organization and pressure, Job variety, challenge and autonomy, Workgroup co-operation, friendliness and warmth, and Job standards (Davidson et al., 2001).
3. Organizational climate and performance in tourism and hospitality Organizational climate has been linked with a range of organizational performance measures across a broad range of industries including productivity (Fredriksen, 1968, as cited in James and Jones, 1974); organizational income (Scheflen, as cited in Pritchard and Karasick, 1973); service quality (Schneider and Bowen, 1985; Francese, 1993); and turnover intentions (Parkington and Schneider, 1979). Despite the hotel industry representing what Olsen (1996) describes as the largest employment sector in the world’s largest industry: tourism, there has been little
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Table 1 The 35 ‘a priori’ concepts of Jones and James (1979) Job and role characteristics Role ambiguity Role conflict Job autonomy Job variety Job importance Job feedback Job challenge Job pressure Efficiency of job design Job standards Opportunities to deal with others Leadership characteristics Support Goal emphasis Work facilitation Interaction facilitation Planning and coordination Upward interaction Confidence and trust—UP Confidence and trust—DOWN Work-group characteristics Workgroup cooperation Reputation for effectiveness Workgroup esprit de corps Workgroup friendliness and warmth Sub-system and organizational level characteristics Openness of expression Organizational communication—DOWN Interdepartmental cooperation Conflict of organizational goals and objectives Ambiguity of organizational structure Consistent application of organizational policies Organizational esprit de corps Professional esprit de corps Planning and effectiveness Fairness and objectivity of the reward process Opportunity for growth and advancement Awareness of employee’s needs and problems
empirical investigation conducted within the industry to examine the relationship between organizational climate and organizational performance. Davidson et al. (2002) described the relationships between the responses of 1401 employees to the THOCS, employee perceptions of customer satisfaction, and revenue per available room (RevPAR) of 14 four to five-star hotels. The
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use of employee perceptions of customer satisfaction rather than the direct measures taken from the customers were chosen for a number of reasons. First, a measure of customer satisfaction could be collected at the same time as the measures of organizational climate, thus making it a less time consuming approach. Second, using this approach allowed for the collection of a matched set of variables for organizational climate and customer satisfaction so that correlations could be conducted directly for each case in the sample. Further, anyone who has delivered a service directly to a customer will believe they are in a reasonable position to know the level of satisfaction perceived by their customer, and a congruence between the employee’s perception of the customer’s satisfaction with the service provided and the customer’s own perception of the service has been empirically verified. Schneider et al. (1980) reported a correlation between employee perception of customer satisfaction and satisfaction reported by the customers themselves to be in the order of 0.67. This association between employee perception of customer satisfaction and customer self-reports of satisfaction was also replicated by Schneider and Bowen (1985) who found a correlation of 0.63. In 2002, Davidson et al. found the seven organizational climate dimensions of the THOCS to explain 30% of the variation in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction between hotels, and employee perceptions of customer satisfaction to, in turn, explain 23% of the variation in RevPAR. They concluded that even if employee perceptions of customer satisfaction did not provide a valid measure of customer satisfaction but were really only the result of employees in better organizational climates rating customer satisfaction more highly, then one would still conclude that 23% of the variation in RevPAR between hotels in their study was the result of variation in organizational climate.
4. Research background Given the results reported by Davidson et al. (2002) using the 70-item THOCS, further investigation was undertaken to evaluate whether a shorter version of the THOCS could be used to measure the seven dimensions of organizational climate that are relevant to the tourism and hospitality industry. A revised 35-item version of the THOCS, labeled THOCS-R was developed. The THOCS-R comprises the 5 items that load on each of the seven dimensions of the original THOCS. The advantages of a shorter scale include the reduction in time required for employees to complete the scale and the reduction in costs associated with printing, distribution and data analysis. The psychometric properties are presented below for each of the 7 sub-scales of the THOCS-R when presented to 432 employees in a tourism organization. The results of a confirmatory factor analysis evaluates the scale’s consistency in measurement of climate dimensions when compared to the original 70-item instrument. In addition, the dimensions and their relationship to employee turnover intentions and employee perceptions of customer satisfaction are also presented.
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5. Methodology 5.1. The organization Participants for this study were employees of a single tourism organization. The organization has been identified as a leader in its field and has won many industry awards for excellence. The organization is part of a large Australian company that has a number of major tourism and leisure assets throughout the country. The potential sample comprised 600 employees. Four hundred and forty one questionnaires were returned, and of these 432 were complete enough to be included in the analyses presented here. This represents an approximate return rate of 73.5%. 5.2. Data collection All measures were gathered via a single questionnaire that was distributed to all employees. The questionnaire included the THOCS-R comprising 35 items asking employees about their work environment. Thirty-four of these items were originally presented in the 70 item THOCS described previously by Davidson et al. (2001). Thirty items were chosen on the criterion that they represented the five items with the largest primary factor loadings on the THOCS organizational climate dimensions of: Leader facilitation and support, Professional and organizational esprit, Conflict and ambiguity, Regulations, organization and pressure, Job variety, challenge and autonomy, Workgroup co-operation, friendliness and warmth. Davidson et al. (2001) described only 4 items of the THOCS to have primary loadings on the climate dimension Job standards. These 4 items were also included in the THOCS-R and an additional item, which attempted to measure Job standards (via the Jones and James a priori concept of job challenge) was also generated and included in the THOCS-R. Also included in the questionnaire was a single item that attempted to measure employee perceptions of customer satisfaction. This item states ‘‘Guests are satisfied by the overall service and experience we provide.’’ Employees were required to respond on a 5 point Likert-type scale with options ranging from ‘‘strongly disagree’’ to ‘‘strongly agree’’. Another item was also included which attempted to measure employee turnover intention. The item asks, ‘‘How likely are you to leave within the next twelve months?’’ and employees were asked to rate their likelihood of leaving the organization, on a 5 point Likert-type scale with options ranging from ‘‘very unlikely’’ to ‘‘extremely likely’’. 5.3. Process All questionnaires were distributed to employees in January 2003. A short covering letter requested employees to anonymously return questionnaires in a sealed envelope to a locked box at the human resources office. Employees were requested to do this within one week of receipt of the questionnaire. Employees were provided with a small incentive to participate. Return of the questionnaire was
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necessary for the employee to receive annual cards that provided discounted entry for family and friends to the tourism attraction. Although one might be tempted to argue that the provision of discount cards impacts on the ability to draw any conclusions regarding willingness to participate, employees needed only to hand in a sealed envelope with a blank questionnaire to receive their reward. Of the 441 envelopes returned only three contained a blank survey. Of the remaining six incomplete questionnaires, a few showed that the employee lost interest part way through, and a number were incomplete simply as a function of the employee missing a page of the questionnaire. Overall this pattern of response shows a general willingness of employees to participate in the process.
6. Results 6.1. Reliability Following the procedures described by Davidson et al. (2002), for each participant, a Global Measure of Organizational Climate was established by taking the arithmetic mean across the 35 items of the THOCS-R. This Global Measure of Organizational Climate was found to have a high level of reliability with a coefficient (Chronbach) alpha of 0.93. Following a similar procedure, a composite score for each of the 7 dimensions of organizational climate, described by Davidson et al. (2001), was calculated for each employee by taking the arithmetic mean across the 5 questionnaire items with a principal loading on the respective dimension. This procedure produced subscales with levels of reliability that ranged from acceptable to high. A high level of reliability was displayed for the subscale Leader facilitation and support (a ¼ 0:94), moderate levels of reliability were found for the subscales Workgroup cooperation, friendliness, and warmth (a ¼ 0:82), Job standards (a ¼ 0:82), and Professional and organizational esprit (a ¼ 0:85). Acceptable levels of reliability were displayed for the subscales Job variety, challenge, and autonomy (a ¼ 0:79), Conflict and ambiguity (a ¼ 0:78), and Regulations, organization, and pressure (a ¼ 0:74). These levels of reliability are reflected in the internal consistency of the subscales as estimated by the item-total correlations for each item with their respective subscales (Table 2). 6.2. Employee turnover intentions and perceptions of customer satisfaction The relationship between employee turnover intention and organizational climate, as indexed by the THOCS-R, was investigated in two ways. First, the Pearson product-moment correlation was calculated between employee turnover intentions and the Global Organizational Climate Score of the THOCS-R. A significant negative relationship was found between the two measures (r ¼ 0:32; Po0:0005). This analysis showed that 10.25% of variation in employee turnover intention was explained by the Global Measure of Organizational Climate. Second, a standard multiple linear-regression was then conducted with the seven organizational climate
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Table 2 Item-total correlations for the 7 climate dimensions Component loading Davidson et al. (2002) Dimension 1: Leader facilitation and support Planning & coordination Support Support Work facilitation Goal emphasis
Item-total correlation
0.94 0.79 0.76 0.75 0.74 0.68
0.87 0.89 0.91 0.88 0.91
Dimension 2: Professional and organizational esprit Planning & effectiveness Opportunity for growth & advancement Ambiguity of organizational structure Professional esprit de corps Ambiguity of organizational structure
0.69 0.66
0.73 0.79
0.65 0.62 0.61
0.84 0.79 0.79
Dimension 3: Conflict and ambiguity Efficiency of job design Role conflict Role ambiguity Efficiency of job design Organizational communication: Down
0.60 0.57 0.56 0.54 0.54
0.72 0.68 0.78 0.69 0.78
Dimension 4: Regulations, organization, and pressure Role conflict Planning & coordination Conflict of organizational goals and objectives Conflict of organizational goals and objectives Openness of expression Dimension 5: Job variety, challenge, and autonomy Job variety Job variety Opportunities for growth and advancement Job challenge Workgroup esprit de corps Dimension 6: Workgroup cooperation, friendliness, and warmth Workgroup friendliness & warmth Workgroup friendliness & warmth Workgroup cooperation
Coefficient alpha
0.85
0.78
0.74 0.66 0.66 0.65
0.67 0.70 0.75
0.59
0.69
0.56
0.70 0.79
0.77 0.76 0.54
0.76 0.81 0.85
0.46 0.44
0.72 0.59 0.82
0.69 0.64 0.55
0.82 0.80 0.81
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Table 2 (continued)
Workgroup cooperation Workgroup esprit de corps Dimension 7: Job standards Job challenge Job standards Job standards Job importance Job challenge
Component loading Davidson et al. (2002)
Item-total correlation
0.54 0.50
0.68 0.75
0.71 0.69 0.66 0.46 N/A
0.83 0.75 0.77 0.65 0.81
Coefficient alpha
0.82
Note: Each item is represented by the a priori concept it was intended to measure. Also included are the component loadings for each item when presented in the 72 item version of the scale by Davidson et al. (2001).
subscales of the THOCS-R entered as the independent variables and employee turnover intention as the dependent variable. The multiple correlation coefficient (R ¼ 0:37) was found to be significantly different from zero, F ð7; 424Þ ¼ 9:59; Po0:0005: The analysis showed that 13.7% of variation in employee turnover intentions was explained by the 7 dimensions of organizational climate. Significant unique contributions of prediction were found for Conflict and ambiguity, sr2i =0.12, t ¼ 2:62; Po0:01; Regulations, organization, and pressure, sr2i =0.15, t ¼ 3:30; Po0:005; and Job standards, sr2i =0.14, t ¼ 3:19; Po0:005 (Table 3). Similarly a set of analyses was conducted to establish the relationship between employee perception of customer satisfaction and organizational climate, as indexed by the THOCS-R. First, the Pearson product-moment correlation was calculated between employee perception of customer satisfaction and the Global Organizational Climate Score of the THOCS-R. A significant positive relationship was found between the two measures (r ¼ 0:53; Po0:0005). This analysis indicated that 28.52% of the variation in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction was explained by the Global Measure of Organizational Climate. Second, a standard multiple linear-regression was conducted with the seven organizational climate subscales of the THOCS-R entered as the independent variables and employee rating of customer satisfaction as the dependent variable. The multiple correlation coefficient (R ¼ 0:67) was found to be significantly different from zero, F ð7; 424Þ ¼ 47:91; Po0:0005: The analysis found 44.22% of the variation in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction to be accounted for by the 7 dimensions of organizational climate. Both Professional and organizational esprit, sr2i =0.36, t ¼ 9:78; Po0:0005; and Conflict and ambiguity, sr2i =0.10, t ¼ 2:62; Po0:01; were found to provide a significant unique contribution to the prediction of employee perception of customer satisfaction (Table 4). 6.3. Confirmatory factor analysis Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to evaluate the notion that the relationship between latent organizational climate dimensions previously described
84
Constant Leader facilitation and support Professional and organizational esprit Conflict and ambiguity Regulations, organization, and pressure Job variety, challenge, and autonomy Workgroup cooperation, friendliness, and warmth Job standards
Unstandardized coefficients
Standardized beta
t
Sig.
Part correlation
B
SE
5.144 0.022 0.013 0.205 0.183 0.046 0.087
0.401 0.051 0.074 0.078 0.055 0.068 0.063
0.026 0.011 0.185 0.167 0.043 0.081
12.828 0.425 0.169 2.618 3.299 0.682 1.378
0.000 0.671 0.866 0.009 0.001 0.496 0.169
0.019 0.008 0.118 0.149 0.031 0.062
0.207
0.065
0.167
3.185
0.002
0.144
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Table 3 Regression results using the 7 dimensions of organizational climate to predict employee turnover intention
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Table 4 Regression results using the 7 dimensions of organizational climate to predict employee perception of customer satisfaction Subscale
Unstandardized coefficients B
Constant 1.411 Leader facilitation and 0.038 support Professional and 0.552 organizational esprit Conflict and ambiguity 0.156 Regulations, organization, 0.022 and pressure Job variety, challenge, and 0.043 autonomy Workgroup cooperation, 0.011 friendliness, and warmth Job standards 0.062
Standardized beta
t
Sig.
Part correlation
SE 0.305 0.039
0.047
4.618 0.972
0.000 0.331
0.035
0.056
0.528
9.780
0.000
0.355
0.060 0.042
0.149 0.021
2.615 0.513
0.009 0.608
0.095 0.019
0.052
0.043
0.838
0.403
0.030
0.048
0.011
0.227
0.820
0.008
0.050
0.053
1.261
0.208
0.046
by Davidson et al. (2001) for the 70 item THOCS, could parsimoniously explain the underlying relationships of the shorter 35 item THOCS-R. In exploratory techniques, structure arises from the data and represents the most parsimonious description of the relationship between observed and hypothetical latent variables for that particular sample (Byrne, 2001, p. 6). CFA, however, requires the investigator to first propose a structure of the relationship between observed and latent variables, and the analysis then consists of an evaluation of the degree to which that hypothetical structure is supported by the empirical data. A priori specification of the model here proposes that items previously described by Davidson et al. (2001) to load on specific dimensions of organizational climate for the THOCS, will again load on the same underlying latent variables for the THOCS-R. This structural model is illustrated in Fig. 1. CFA of the factor structure illustrated in Fig. 1 was performed via AMOS 4.01 (Arbuckle, 1999). Maximum likelihood estimation was employed to estimate all models. The independence model that tests the hypothesis that all variables are uncorrelated was easily rejected, w2 (595, N=432)=8459.17, Po0:0005: Poor support was found for the hypothesized seven factor model, w2 (539, N=432)=1654.48, Po0:0005: Model fit indices GFI=0.81, AGFI=0.78, NFI=0.80, CFI=0.86, RMSEA=0.069, all fall short of what is considered to represent an acceptable fit of a model (Bentler and Bonnet, 1980). Following the procedures described by Byrne (2001, p. 104) the modification indices were examined in an attempt to identify the presence of factor cross-loadings, and it was considered appropriate to re-specify the model. Given the nature of the study at hand, and the patterns of modification indices, it was considered not
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to be appropriate to attempt to determine whether there existed a subset of items which would support the notion of 7 organizational climate dimensions, but rather, whether there existed a subset of organizational climate dimensions which can be considered to have been replicated by the THOCS-R with respect to this sample. On the basis of modification indices, a four-factor model (Fig. 2) was evaluated. Despite the analysis finding a significant chi-square, w2 (164, N=432)=435.897, Po0:0005; model fit indices GFI=0.91, AGFI=0.88, NFI=0.91, CFI=0.94, RMSEA=0.062, indicate a good fit of the data to the revised model (Bentler and Bonnet, 1980). A chi-square difference test indicated significant improvement in the four factor model over the originally hypothesized seven factor model w2diff (375, N=400)=1218.583, Po0:0005:
6.4. The four-factor model of employee turnover intentions and perceptions of customer satisfaction To evaluate the relationship between employee turnover intentions and these four dimensions of organizational climate (Leader facilitation and support, Professional and organizational esprit, Conflict and ambiguity, Workgroup cooperation, friendliness, and warmth) a standard multiple linear regression was conducted with the four organizational climate subscales of the modified model of the THOCS-R entered as the independent variables and employee rating of turnover intention as the dependent variable. The multiple correlation coefficient (R ¼ 0:30) was found to be significantly different from zero, F(4,427)=10.79, Po0:0005: This analysis indicated that 9.18% of the variation in employee turnover intentions was explained by these 4 dimensions of organizational climate. Significant unique contribution to prediction was found for the dimension Conflict and ambiguity, sr2i =0.15, t ¼ 3:35; Po0:005: A similar analysis was conducted to establish the relationship between employee perception of customer satisfaction and the four dimensions of organizational climate. A standard multiple linear-regression was conducted with the four organizational climate subscales of the THOCS-R entered as the independent variables and employee rating of customer satisfaction as the dependent variable. The multiple correlation coefficient (R ¼ 0:66) was found to be significantly different from zero, F ð4; 427Þ ¼ 82:79; Po0:0005: This analysis indicated that 43.70% of variation in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction was accounted for by the 4 dimensions of organizational climate. Both the dimension Professional and organizational esprit, sr2i =0.38, t ¼ 10:51; Po0:0005; and the dimension Conflict and ambiguity, sr2i =0.11, t ¼ 2:92; Po0:005; were found to provide a significant unique contribution to the prediction of employee perception of customer satisfaction. This result represents an almost identical outcome in terms of variance in employee perceptions of customer satisfaction explained by organizational climate when all 7 climate dimensions were included in the analysis.
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Fig. 1. Hypothesized 7 factor model for the THOCS-R (Model 1).
7. Summary and conclusions Moran and Volkwein (1992) described organizational climate to be a relatively enduring characteristic that distinguishes one organization from other organizations.
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Fig. 2. Hypothesized 4 factor model for the THOCS-R (Model 2).
It embodies members’ collective perceptions of a number of underlying factors including trust, autonomy and support. Organizational climate is produced through member interaction, and acts as a source of influence for shaping behaviors of individuals within the organization. By evaluating an organization’s climate with a survey instrument, we are able to provide a snapshot of the ‘here and now’ environment at a particular point in time. Across a range of industries, many studies have suggested that organizational climate is a critical factor in terms of planning and implementing change, and the delivery of quality products. Within this context, some have argued that organizational climate is of particular importance in service industries. The rationale for this position is that in service industries, such as tourism and hospitality, the employee represents the interface between the organization and the customer, leaving management little or no ability to test their product’s quality prior to delivery. The measurement of organizational climate does, however, provide management in industries such as tourism and hospitality with the capacity to measure the degree to which the environment supports the delivery of quality service by the employees. Despite this, there has been little research within the Tourism and Hospitality industry with regards to both the measurement, and affect, of organizational climate on organizational outcomes. Davidson et al. (2001) provided research suggesting that within the tourism and hospitality industry organizational climate may be described in terms of seven underlying dimensions measured by the THOCS. Davidson et al. (2002) further demonstrated that these seven dimensions
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explained a significant proportion of variation in the financial performance between four and five star hotels. This paper presents the psychometric properties of the THOCS-R, a shortened version of the THOCS, originally presented by Davidson et al. (2001). The full-scale reliability of the THOCS-R was found to be quite high (a ¼ 0:93), and the sub-scales of the THOCS-R were all found to have reliabilities ranging from acceptable to high. The sub-scale with the highest reliability was that of Leader facilitation and support (a ¼ 0:94). The THOCS-R was also found to be significantly related to a number of other measures of organizational performance. Davidson et al. (2002) previously reported the seven dimensions of organizational climate, as indexed by the 70-item THOCS, to explain 30% of the variation in employee perception of customer satisfaction, which in turn was found to explain 23% of the variation in financial performance (RevPAR) between 14 four and five star hotels. The THOCS-R, for the sample here, was also found to explain a significant proportion (44.22%) of the variation in employee perceptions of satisfaction. Parkington and Schneider (1979) using a different measure of organizational climate reported that an organization’s climate was a significant predictor of turnover intentions. The THOCS-R was also found to explain a significant proportion (13.7%) in the variation of employee turnover intentions for our sample. These results provide strong evidence that the THOCS-R provides management within the tourism and hospitality industry with a useful instrument for measuring critical characteristics of the workplace environment that have an impact on important organizational outcomes. Further, the THOCS-R will allow management to plan and monitor interventions over time and across a number of key dimensions. Confirmatory factor analysis, followed by model re-specification, failed to support the premise that the THOCS-R measures the same seven dimensions as the original THOCS. Re-specification of the structural model from seven to a sub-set of four dimensions was found to display a good fit for the data collected from this sample. Naturally one needs to ask whether this should be interpreted as indicating a failure to support the premise that the THOCS-R measures three of the dimensions originally ascribed to the THOCS, or whether this should be seen as indicating that, at this point, support has been found for the notion that the THOCS-R measures four of the original seven dimensions. When considering this issue we need to keep in mind that factor structure of a covariance matrix is a product of both the items of the survey instrument and the particular sample from which the responses were gathered. Sources of variance within the covariance matrix of the original study by Davidson et al. (2001) describing the THOCS can be considered to comprise (a) variation due to individual respondent characteristics, (b) variation due to the local work environment (within organization variance), and (c) variation due to organization-wide characteristics (between organization variance), and measurement error. In this study the THOCS-R was used within a single large organization, not across a number of different organizations. Therefore, any organizational climate dimensions which serve to explain large proportions of variance between organizations would not explain large proportions of variance within the single
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organization of this study. We would argue that despite the fact that this study was conducted within a single organization, the pattern of results support the premise that four of the dimensions originally described for the THOCS can be reliably measured by the THOCS-R. Further research across organizations would serve to answer the question as to whether the remaining three dimensions can be reliably measured using the THOCS-R.
Acknowledgements We would like to thank L.B. for her contribution to this study.
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