A systematic review of creativity in tourism and hospitality

ABSTRACT

Employee creativity has become an essential concept in tourism and hospitality literature in the last two decades. Nevertheless, empirical evidence on creativity has developed into a fragmented area of research with a variety of definitions and conceptual lenses. The current study suggests that this discrepancy of extant research impedes theoretical and empirical advancement. This study systematically reviews studies in the tourism and hospitality field to strengthen future work on employee creativity. The study results show that leadership is the most powerful predating and moderating factor in employee creativity. The results also show that positive organizational culture and climate factors greatly influence employee creativity. Finally, this study proposes a combined framework of creative qualities, which can be used as a managerial tool in tourism and hospitality, and other similar service-oriented industries.

KEYWORDS:

• Creativity
• employee creativity
• tourism and hospitality
• service industries
• systematic review

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).