Market turbulence and service innovation in hospitality: examining the underlying mechanisms of employee and organizational resilience

ABSTRACT

With changing customer demand, fierce market competition, and uncertainties, service organizations are facing dynamic or even highly turbulent environments. Fostering employees’ ability to innovate is an effective business strategy that can enable firms to overcome market turbulence and cope with these challenges. Drawing on resilience theory, this study examines (1) the mediating effect of employee resilience on the relationship between market turbulence and service innovation, and (2) whether such mediating process was moderated by organizational readiness for change. Data were collected from employees in the hospitality industry in a developing country, Ethiopia, and the results indicated that employee resilience partially mediates the relationship between market turbulence and service innovation. Moreover, the indirect link was stronger for hotels with higher readiness for change than for those with lower readiness for change. Implications for managers and directions for further research are also discussed.

摘要

隨著客戶需求的變化，激烈的市場競爭以及市場不確定性，以服務為主的企業正面臨不斷變化甚至是高度動盪的環境。培養員工的創新能力是企業克服市場動盪並彈性應對這些挑戰的一項深遠的商業戰略。本研究基於彈性理論，旨在研究1）員工應對能力是否能在市場動盪與服務創新之間的關係充當中介作用，並且 2）這種中介過程是否受到組織的彈性應對變革的能力得到調解和緩衝。本研究的數據是從發展中國家（埃塞俄比亞）在酒店業工作的員工那裡收集，結果表明，員工的應變能力在市場動盪與服務創新之間的關係充當部分中介的作用。此外，處於動盪市場環境下，那些具有較高彈性應對市場改變的酒店，其服務創新能力比那些低或不願改變的酒店要強而且更有效率。最後本研究還討論以上結果對企業管理人員的啟示和提供將來的研究方向。

KEYWORDS:

• Service innovation
• market turbulence
• employee resilience
• organizational readiness
• hotels

關鍵字:

• 服務創新
• 市場動盪
• 員工應對能力
• 組織彈性
• 酒店

Disclosure statement

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

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the Institute of International Business and Governance, established with the substantial support of a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (UGC/IDS16/17), for its support.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.