Segmentation of Hotel Employees by Occupational Stress and Differences in Demographic Characteristics

Abstract

The purposes of this study were: to investigate the types of occupational stress that exist in the hotel industry; to explore whether or not hotel employees can be grouped into distinct sub-segments based on the types of occupational stress experienced; and to identify whether or not statistical differences exist among the sub-segments based on demographic characteristics. First, using principal component factor analysis, the 23 occupational stress items were divided into six factors. Second, after conducting K-means cluster analysis based on six occupational stress factor scores, four groups were identified and defined as “sufferers from conflict with job responsibility”, “sufferers from organizational conflict”, “sufferers from problems related to home life” and “sufferers from companies' work and pay practices”. Finally, the result of Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detection method analysis indicated that there were statistically significant differences among the four groups in terms of age, gender, marital status, years of employment and department. The results of this study have significant implications in the management of hotel employees who suffer from occupational stress.