US Hospitality Research Articles

Job satisfaction and employee turnover determinants in high contact services: Insights from Employees’Online reviews

We explore a special case of electronic word of mouth that of employees' online reviews to study the determinants of job satisfaction and employee turnover. We perform our analysis using a novel dataset of 297,933 employee online reviews from 11,975 US tourism and hospitality firms, taking advantage of both the review score and text. Leadership and cultural values are found to be better predictors of high employee satisfaction, while career progression is critical for employee turnover. One unit increase in the rating for career progression reduces the likelihood of an employee to leave a company by 14.87%. Additionally, we quantify the effect of job satisfaction on firm profitability, where one unit increase leads to an increase between 1.2 and 1.4 in ROA. We do not find evidence supporting the reverse relationship, that growth on firm profitability increases job satisfaction. The feedback to management in employee reviews provides specific managerial implications.

Translating emotional insights from hospitality employees’ comments

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to use the data analysis method of sentiment analysis to improve the understanding of a large data set of employee comments from an annual employee job satisfaction survey of a US hospitality organization.Design/methodology/approachSentiment analysis is used to examine the employee comments by identifying meaningful patterns, frequently used words and emotions. The statistical computing language, R, uses the sentiment analysis process to scan each employee survey comment, compare the words with the predefined word dictionary and classify the employee comments into the appropriate emotion category.FindingsEmployee responses written in English and in Spanish are compared with significant differences identified between the two groups, triggering further investigation of the Spanish comments. Sentiment analysis was then conducted on the Spanish comments comparing two groups, front-of-house vs back-of-house employees and employees with male supervisors vs female supervisors. Results from the analysis of employee comments written in Spanish point to higher scores for job sadness and anger. The negative comments referred to desires for improved healthcare, requests for increased wages and frustration with difficult supervisor relationships. The findings from this study add to the growing body of literature that has begun to focus on the unique work experiences of Latino employees in the USA.Originality/valueThis is the first study to examine a large unstructured English and Spanish text database from a hospitality organization’s employee job satisfaction surveys using sentiment analysis. Applying this big data analytics process to advance new insights into the human capital aspects of hospitality management is intriguing to many researchers. The results of this study demonstrate an issue that needs to be further investigated particularly considering the hospitality industry’s employee demographics.

The inhospitable vulnerability

研究目的本论文旨在提出几项有关酒店行业网络安全的问题, 并指出网络风险评估的重要性、脆弱性、以及能力, 本论文对酒店行业人如何减少网络攻击所带来的损害有着建设性意义。未来科研应该加强对网络威胁方面的研究工作。研究设计/方法/途径为了了解信息安全的缘由和影响, 本论文作者审阅了有关信息安全的文献, 并且借用隐私权咨询中心（Privacy Rights Clearinghouse）的数据库, 采集了自2006年以来美国酒店行业76起信息安全事件, 以进行分析研究。研究结果本论文发现自2006年起至2017年, 数据泄露事件发生频率在与日俱增。此现象表明网络犯罪在酒店行业已经成为越来越严重的问题。研究原创性/价值本论文是理论性文章, 其研究结果对风险评估中的网络安全问题有着启示作用, 此外, 本论文还重点提出了未来酒店管理研究方向, 应该着重研究数据泄露问题。关键词关键词 网络安全 、数据泄露事件 、风险评估 、信息技术 、酒店行业

Predicting hospitality financial distress with ensemble models: the case of US hotels, restaurants, and amusement and recreation

The importance of industry-specific characteristics in financial distress is widely acknowledged, but often overlooked by researchers studying the hospitality industry. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the key determinants of US hospitality firms’ financial distress between 1988 and 2010 using ensemble models. The data used in this study come from the Compustat database produced by Standard and Poor’s Institutional Market Services. The data were collected from three hospitality-related segments, 5812 eating Places, 7011 hotels and motels, 7990 amusement and recreation services not elsewhere classified according to Standard Industrial Classification. In the restaurant-stacking model, debt-to-equity ratio, growth in owners’ equity, net profit margin, and stock-price trend were chosen as financial distress predictors. In the hotel stacking model, debt-to-equity ratio, stock-price trend, and account receivable turnover were selected as financial distress predictors. In the amusement and recreation-stacking model, debt-to-equity ratio, growth in owners’ equity, net profit margin, and management practice were defined as significant financial distress predictors. Although many researchers have stressed that an ensemble method, which combines the characteristics and advantages of particular models, may improve the performance or interpretability of predictive methods, few hospitality financial distress prediction studies employed ensemble methods. This study demonstrates its originality in this perspective.

Stock Liquidity and CEO Compensation in the US Hospitality Industry

This paper examines the effect of stock liquidity on CEO compensation in the US hospitality industry. By using a panel data sample of 50 US publicly traded hospitality companies from 1993 to 2014, the study finds that US hospitality companies with a high stock liquidity tend to have a higher proportion of equity-based CEO compensation schemes and a lower proportion of cash-based compensation. This study provides the board of directors with useful insights to alleviate agency problem and improve corporate governance efficiency.

Stressor effects of negative online reviews on anger and burnout in the restaurant industry

PurposeOwners, managers and employees may be criticized personally and professionally by consumers in online reviews, and may suffer emotional and burnout consequences. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of customer-generated negative online reviews on hospitality employees.Design/methodology/approachThis research analyzed the effects of traditional face-to-face customer-related social stressors, as well as a newly added negative online review (NOR) stressor, on anger and burnout in a sample of 418 US hospitality workers.FindingsStructural equation modeling revealed that, after taking into account the contribution of customer-related social stressors, receipt of NORs predicts anger and anger mediates the relationships between NOR-receipt and two indices of burnout.Practical implicationsThis research extends our understanding of social stressors that apply to workers in the hospitality industry. It offers strategies for managing the threats and optimizing the opportunities, provided by negative online reviews.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first studies that provide evidence of the personal impact of NORs on hospitality industry employees, thereby extending our understanding of social stressors that apply to workers in this industry.

Examining the determinants of long-term debt in the US restaurant industry

PurposeThis paper aims to find alternative explanations for the use of long-term debt in the US restaurant industry from a behavioral perspective. The three-fold purpose of the present study is to examine the impact of CEO overconfidence on the use of long-term debt; explore how CEO overconfidence moderates the relationship between growth opportunities and long-term debt; and analyze the moderating role of CEO overconfidence based on cash flow levels in the context of the restaurant industry.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of publicly traded US restaurant firms between 1992 and 2015, this study used generalized methods of moments with instrumental variable technique to analyze the panel data.FindingsThe findings of this study highlight the importance of considering behavioral traits of CEOs, such as overconfidence to better understand the US restaurant firms’ financing behaviors. This study found that overconfident CEOs tend to use more long-term debt when firms have greater growth opportunities and low cash flow.Practical implicationsGiven that psychological and behavioral features of CEOs are critical in understanding the variations in corporate financing decisions and capital structure, shareholders and boards of directors of growth-seeking restaurant firms should incorporate the behavioral aspects of overconfident CEOs in the design of long-term debt contracts to mitigate liquidation risk while developing compensation practices that encourage overconfident CEOs to finance growth.Originality/valueDespite its heavy reliance on long-term debt in the US hospitality industry, prior studies provided mixed findings for the determinants of long-term debt. This study makes a contribution to the literature by offering alternative approaches to examining long-term debt decisions among US restaurant firms.

Underlying factors of ups and downs in financial leverage overtime

We present new stylized facts on the underlying reasons of US hospitality and tourism firms’ fluctuating levels of financial leverage during the period 1990–2015 using comprehensive micro- and macro-level accounting data overtime. To characterize this puzzling phenomenon, we quantified firm-specific and macroeconomic parameters and a diverse set of leverage proxies at various time frames with various structures. We further took account of the recent economic upheaval in our analyses so that we can compare firms’ leverage behavior as “before” and “after” the major economic turmoil in 2007–2009 periods. The primary themes of our arguments were that firm-specific leverage factors significantly influenced short-term leverage, while long-term leverage was mostly determined by macroeconomic indicators. Beyond that, book leverage was more favorable across firms than market leverage. Last, hospitality and tourism firms substantially extended their borrowing capacities, aggressively grew their leverage ratios, and dramatically increased collateral values leading to lower cost of borrowing due to relaxed lending standards in the aftermath of the recent upheaval. Our article complements previous work by examining whether leverage factors demonstrate discrepancies from the prior findings and by proposing rigorous industry-specific outlook and solution for the financial leverage literature.

Social comparisons and organizational support: Implications for commitment and retention

Organizational support theory (OST) suggests that employees develop a general perception of the extent to which the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being (perceived organizational support – POS), and respond to that support through attitudes and behaviors that are beneficial toward the organization. Although OST emphasizes both social exchange and self-enhancement processes, most accounts of POS’s effects are rooted in social exchange. For example, POS’s linkages with commitment and retention have been explained as an exchange of support for positive attitudes and continued employment. This research sheds light on self-enhancement’s less-understood role in fostering these reactions by demonstrating the influence of social comparison effects. Drawing on a sample of 342 employees nested in 82 work-units of a US hospitality company, our analysis demonstrates that favorable POS comparisons with peers in one’s work-unit are positively associated with commitment and retention, whereas unfavorable comparisons are negatively related. Results also show that comparisons taking place in less-supported work-units have stronger impact than comparisons made in those with better support. Our findings extend OST by revealing the importance of social comparisons in engendering responses to organizational support, and in so doing potentially explicate the differential ways social exchange and self-enhancement operate with regard to POS.

Give and you shall receive: investing in the careers of women professionals

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore what organizations can do to facilitate the retention and advancement of women professionals into top leadership positions. A social exchange framework is applied to examine ways organizations can signal support for and investment in the careers of women professionals, and ultimately the long-term work relationship. Design/methodology/approach – This paper employed a qualitative methodology; specifically, semi-structured interviews with 20 women executives, in primarily the US hospitality industry, were conducted. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and content analyzed. Findings – Organizations are likely to strengthen the retention of their female professionals if they signal support through purposeful, long-term career development that provides a sightline to the top, and ultimately creates more female role models in senior-level positions. Organizations can also signal support through offering autonomy over how work is completed, and designing infrastructures of support to sustain professionals during mid-career stages. Findings are used to present a work-exchange model of career development. Research limitations/implications – This research is an exploratory study that is limited in its scope and generalizability. Practical implications – The proposed work-exchange model can be used to comprehensively structures initiatives that would signal organizational support to – and long-term investment in – female professionals and enable them to develop their career paths within their organizations. Originality/value – Through offering a work-exchange model of career development, this paper identifies components of organizational support from a careers perspective, and highlights the factors that could potentially contribute to long-term growth and retention of women professionals.

Customer acceptance of cashless payment systems in the hospitality industry

Purpose The purpose of this study is to propose and test an extended version of technology acceptance model (TAM) to examine consumers’ acceptance of radio frequency identification (RFID) cashless payment systems in the hospitality industry. Design/methodology/approach A comprehensive structural model was developed by adding two additional constructs to original TAM, namely, self-efficacy and perceived risk. A self-administered online questionnaire was used to collect the data of the study from 305 respondents in the USA. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to validate the measurement model and structural equation modeling analysis was performed to test the proposed model. Findings Study results indicated that self-efficacy was significantly related to perceived ease of use. In addition, perceived risk significantly negatively influenced perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Study results further illustrated that perceived ease of use had a significant impact on perceived usefulness and both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness were significantly associated with intention to use. Practical implications Study findings provide significant practical implications for US hospitality operators and technology vendors for identifying factors affecting users’ acceptance of RFID cashless payment systems in the hospitality industry. Originality/value By extending TAM, this study is one of the first studies to investigate RFID cashless payment system acceptance in the hospitality industry.

The relationship between workplace spirituality and hospitality supervisors’ work attitudes

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which workplace spirituality (WPS) is related to hospitality supervisors’ organizational commitment (OC) and intention to quit (ITQ), examined through the lens of self-determination theory (SDT).Design/methodology/approachBased on survey data collected from 190 supervisors employed by a large US hospitality organization, the relationships were examined using confirmatory factor analysis, second-order factor analysis and structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results of this study suggest that three dimensions of WPS (i.e. meaning and purpose in their work, sense of community and alignment with organizational values) are positively related to OC and negatively related to ITQ. Moreover, these supervisors’ OC fully mediates the negative relationship of WPS to ITQ.Research limitations/implicationsThis study tests the validity and reliability of three WPS dimensions in the hospitality environment. It also provides a theoretical perspective through SDT for explaining how WPS impacts employee work attitudes, which can be used to guide future studies.Practical implicationsHospitality organizations can benefit from the insights of this research into how WPS can increase the commitment and retention of supervisors, who in turn positively impact front-line workers and customer service quality delivery.Originality/valueThis study provides additional implications for SDT and offers new insights into the emerging field of WPS scholarship. While other studies have tested relationships related to involving these WPS variables, a scarcity of research has been offered in hospitality or with a theory-based explanation of these relationships.

Examining the characteristics and managerial challenges of professional services: An empirical study of management consultancy in the travel, tourism, and hospitality sector

This paper finds that OM's ‘one-size-fits-all’ characterization of professional services, namely high levels of customer engagement, extensive customization, knowledge intensity, and low levels of capital intensity, does not hold when carrying out a ‘deep dive’ (to the best of our knowledge, a first in this area of OM) into consultancy in the US travel, tourism, and hospitality sector. We analyse mixed-method data (semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and a best–worst choice experimental survey) and observe that consultancy can actually be quite remote and passive and that any periods of face-to-face ‘engagement’ will typically be time limited and focused on specific project phases. Moreover, and further confirming the value of a study that allowed us to investigate professional service operations in a specific market context, our data suggest this may often be at the behest of the client. The significant variation observed in levels of customization we interpret as confirming Maister's (1993) notion of a portfolio of brains, grey hair, and procedural work. We also observed relatively high levels of capital intensity; reflecting perhaps the vintage of most OM characterizations and the dramatic ICT-related changes that have occurred in all business operations in the last 20 years. The work also demonstrates the necessity of a more contingent perspective on PSOM. We assess the impact of both firm (scale, specialization) and individual level (leverage) characteristics to demonstrate significant variation within what might be expected to be a relatively homogenous group of professional service operations. For example, investigating the effects of specialization (via a typology of consulting operations: super-specialists, generalists, deep knowledge traders, deep market knowledge traders) revealed that relative degree of interaction may be dependent upon degree of expertise, such that it was the super-specialists in our sample that spent less time with clients and the more generalist firms who were complementing their limited expert status with high levels of interaction (networking, etc.).

Asymmetric Effects of Monetary Policy Changes on Hospitality Stock Performance

The literature has documented a significant effect of monetary policy changes on hospitality stock returns. Extending the current hospitality literature, this paper tests asymmetric effects of Federal Reserve (Fed) monetary policy changes on long-term US hospitality index returns (HIRs) in bull and bear markets. Monetary policy changes are measured by directional changes in the discount rate ( dr) and in the federal funds rate ( ffr). This study uses a Markov regime-switching model of stock returns to identify bull and bear stock market conditions. The test results bring new evidence to the hospitality literature. The significant effects of both dr and ffr on all five HIRs exist only in bear markets over the 36-year period from January 1973 to May 2008. In addition, after controlling for all three different macroeconomic conditions, asymmetry in the impact of both dr and ffr remains robust in bear markets, but not in business cycle contractions or under tight credit market conditions. The findings support the credit channel of monetary policy transmission mechanism by showing that characteristics of hospitality sectors interact with stock market conditions to determine the impact of Fed policy changes on HIRs.

The Liquidity Crisis: Evidence from the US Hospitality Industry

This study examines the stock performance of firms in the hospitality industry from 2000 to 2010, focusing on the sector's performance surrounding the liquidity crisis of 2008. In addition, the authors investigate the impact of the liquidity crisis on the firms' capital structure. They find that the sector performed well compared to Standard & Poor's S&P 500 index over the entire period but most notably during expansion sub-periods, and that the restaurant subsector performed better than the casino or hotel sub-sectors during the crisis. They further find that capital-intensive hospitality firms responded to the liquidity crisis by increasing their financial leverage and depleting their cash holdings.

The Impact of Demand and Supply Shocks on US Hospitality Index Returns

In analysing the impact of demand and supply shocks on US hospitality index returns, this study tests whether these shocks can explain the index returns of five hospitality sectors: airlines, gambling, hotels, restaurants, and travel and leisure, and, if so, whether they have a different influence on hospitality index returns and market returns. The empirical test results show that both demand and supply shocks do affect US hospitality index returns and that the significant effects of both shocks vary across sectors. This paper identifies the critical role of changes in the corporate tax rate (demand shock and fiscal policy variable), the oil price growth rate (supply shock) and the labour wage growth rate (supply shock) in affecting hospitality index returns. Consistent with previous studies, the author finds that monetary policy (demand shock) still has a strong influence on hospitality index returns. However, hospitality index returns are not significantly related to the fiscal policy variable of changes in budget deficits. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results and their managerial implications for the guidance of hospitality business managers and investors interested in hospitality sectors.

Sources of meaningfulness in the workplace: a study in the US hospitality sector

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the sources of meaningfulness at the workplace, according to the perceptions of hospitality employees from different national cultures in one US‐based hotel, based on Dimitrov's empirical study about the features of the humane organization.

State dependence in the influence of monetary policy regime shifts on hospitality index returns

Previous research studies reveal that changes in monetary policy can significantly affect hospitality stock returns. This paper makes another contribution by showing that the impact of shifts in the Fed monetary policy regime on US hospitality index returns varies to a great extent in the different stages of business cycle and under different credit market conditions. Shifts in the Fed monetary policy regime are measured by directional changes in the discount rate (DR) and directional changes in the federal funds rate (FFR). In particular, the significant influence of monetary policy regime shifts on hospitality index returns depends on the state of economy. The significant influence of DR exists only during periods of business cycle contraction. In addition, although US hospitality index returns respond significantly to FFR under both business cycle expansion and contraction, the size of the response is substantially larger and more statistically significant during periods of business cycle contraction. Finally, the impact of both DR and FFR on hospitality index returns depends on the credit market conditions, especially when the credit market is tight.

The real estate risk of hospitality firms: Examining stock-return sensitivity to property values

The value of a hospitality firm is often believed to be dependent on the market price of the properties they own. However, the core business of a hospitality firm is the production of products and services. Since the real estate assets are depreciated throughout their useful life, short-term covariance of firm value with real estate prices seems implausible. Using a two-factor model, the current study examined the real estate exposure of US hospitality firms through daily stock return data from 2005 to 2009. Results indicate that the majority (88%) of the hospitality firms were exposed to real estate risk at some point during the sample period, while the second-stage analysis of real estate betas suggests that exposure is conditional on the financial status of the hospitality firm. Implications and suggestions for future research are presented with the findings of the study.

An examination of the curvilinear relationship between capital intensity and firm performance for publicly traded US hotels and restaurants

PurposeThis study sets out to examine the potential curvilinear relationship between capital intensity and firm value for the US hospitality industry, specifically including publicly traded US hotels and restaurants, during the period 1990‐2008.Design/methodology/approachThis study performs a pooled regression analysis to examine the proposed relationship. The sampled companies are from the period 1990‐2008, consisting of 281 and 1,406 observations for the hotel and restaurant industries, respectively. The study additionally performs the analysis for the 1990s and the 2000s separately for a comparison purpose.FindingsThe findings support the U‐shaped relationship between capital intensity and firm performance during the 2000s for both hotels and restaurants, while no relationship exists during the 1990s.Research limitations/implicationsWhile the results may not be generalizable to private or non‐US hotels and restaurants, the findings should provide hotel and restaurant executives and managers with valuable information for developing their strategies with regard to the capital intensity level.Originality/valueBased on the two perspectives regarding capital intensity's impact on a firm (i.e. positive and negative), a possible proposal suggests that the relationship between capital intensity and a firm's value may not be linear, but possibly curvilinear. Considering the importance of capital intensity in the hospitality industry, examinations of the issue would be beneficial for the hospitality industry.