In Buddha, we serve better? The effect of formalization and religious belief on the service quality of tourism practitioners in Laos

ABSTRACT

Previous literature in Western context suggested formalization of a service company has a strong tie with its service quality; however, how cultural factors affect the mechanism remains unclear. The current research is aimed to investigate how formalization and religious belief affect the service quality of tourism practitioners. A total of 252 valid responses were collected from a survey distributed to tourism practitioners in Laos. The results revealed, formalization was positively related to service quality via work engagement, while lowering the level of religious belief would enhance the relationship between formalization and work engagement. These findings shed light on how Buddhist countries improve the quality of tourism.

KEYWORDS:

• Service quality
• religious belief
• formalization
• work engagement
• tourism practitioners
• Laos

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Science Planning Program of Chongqing, P.R. China [grant number 2020BS71].

Notes on contributors

Boyang Zheng

Boyang Zheng received his PhD at Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University. His current research area is organizational behavior and human resource management (OBHRM) for professionals.

Guiping Sun

Guiping Sun received his PhD at College of Education, Zhejiang University. He currently works as an Associate Professor in Sichuan International Studies University. His research area is occupational education and education management.