The structural relationships between service orientation, mediators, and business performance in Korean hotel firms

This study analyzes the mediating roles of service image, job satisfaction and organizational commitment regarding the relationship between service orientation and business performance. In order to analyze the data collected from 596 respondents in 184 hotels, the structural model was analyzed with Lisrel 8, while it was discovered that service orientation was defined as customer focus, employees empowerment, service leadership, service rewards/incentives, service training/technology, service prevention, and service standards communication. The empirical results and implications are as follows. First, service image has a significant mediating role in the relationship between service orientation and business performance. Second, job satisfaction has a significant mediating role in the relationship between service orientation and business performance. If customer‐contact service employees perceive a hotel to have high service orientation, they will have greater job satisfaction, and the greater the job satisfaction of the employees, the greater the business performance. This brings us to the managerial implications of this research. Therefore, hotel firms must take a greater interest in their internal marketing methods to improve job satisfaction and service image.

Key words:

• Service orientation
• job satisfaction
• organizational commitment
• service image
• business performance