TY - JOUR
T1 - The Elicitation of Frontline, Customer-Contact, Hotel Employee Innovative Behavior
T2 - Illuminating the Central Roles of Readiness for Change and Absorptive Capacity
AU - Chang, Song
AU - Way, Sean A.
AU - Cheng, Derek H. K.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, or publication of this article: This research was supported by Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (No. HKBU 490313).
Publisher copyright:
© The Author(s) 2017.
PY - 2018/8
Y1 - 2018/8
N2 - Although service innovations have been recognized to be important for the long-term strategic success of hospitality firms, to date, the elicitation of innovative behavior has received little attention in the extant hospitality research literature. In the current study, we used a matched set of responses from 294 frontline, customer-contact, hotel employees and their direct supervisors to address this lack. Consistent with extant human resource management (HRM) studies that have advocated the agent-centered perspective, this study’s results illuminate a causal chain through which employee self-reported (Time 1, Source 1) perceived high-investment human resource practices (HIHRP) augments individual frontline, customer-contact, hotel employee supervisor-rated (Time 2, Source 2) innovative behavior. This study contributes to the extant hospitality and HRM research literatures by elucidating individual hotel employee self-reported perceived HIHRP as a key proximal determinant and individual hotel employee supervisor-rated innovative behavior as a key proximal consequence of two positive organizationally relevant individual-level psychological outcomes: that is, frontline, customer-contact, hotel employee self-reported readiness for change and absorptive capacity. Findings, implications, and limitations as well as avenues for future research are discussed.
AB - Although service innovations have been recognized to be important for the long-term strategic success of hospitality firms, to date, the elicitation of innovative behavior has received little attention in the extant hospitality research literature. In the current study, we used a matched set of responses from 294 frontline, customer-contact, hotel employees and their direct supervisors to address this lack. Consistent with extant human resource management (HRM) studies that have advocated the agent-centered perspective, this study’s results illuminate a causal chain through which employee self-reported (Time 1, Source 1) perceived high-investment human resource practices (HIHRP) augments individual frontline, customer-contact, hotel employee supervisor-rated (Time 2, Source 2) innovative behavior. This study contributes to the extant hospitality and HRM research literatures by elucidating individual hotel employee self-reported perceived HIHRP as a key proximal determinant and individual hotel employee supervisor-rated innovative behavior as a key proximal consequence of two positive organizationally relevant individual-level psychological outcomes: that is, frontline, customer-contact, hotel employee self-reported readiness for change and absorptive capacity. Findings, implications, and limitations as well as avenues for future research are discussed.
KW - innovative behavior
KW - perceived high-investment human resource practices
KW - readiness for change: absorptive capacity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85042136235&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1938965517734940
DO - 10.1177/1938965517734940
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85042136235
SN - 1938-9655
VL - 59
SP - 228
EP - 238
JO - Cornell Hospitality Quarterly
JF - Cornell Hospitality Quarterly
IS - 3
ER -