The Roles Of Supportive Management On Service Recovery Performance Among Hotel Employees

Abstract

Service recovery performance is highly significant in the hotel sector as it ensures customers’ satisfaction and loyalty. Long and inconsistent working hours and schedules, along with strenuous tasks, are the norm for jobs in the hotel sector and these challenging traits can greatly impact the job performance of hotel employees. Hence it is fundamental to identify the factors affecting their performance of service recovery. The number of studies on the role of supportive management towards service recovery performance in developing country is also very small. Hence, the purpose of the current study is to investigate the role of supportive management on service recovery performance, as seen amongst 3-star recovery hotels situated in the northern region of Peninsular Malaysia. The data will be collected from a total of 104 hotel employees across northern Malaysia and evaluated using structural equation modelling-partial least square (SEM-PLS) approach. The factor outlined in this paper are analyzed under the theoretical framework of equity theory. This framework is suitable for this study as it helps researchers to gain understanding on how supportive management influences the service recovery performance in hotel sector. This study aims to examine the effect from individual perspective in order to gain comprehensive picture of the factor that could influence service recovery performance in hotel sector.

Keywords: Supportive managementservice recovery performance

Introduction

Malaysia tourism industry is recognized as one of the biggest contributors to the national Gross Domestic Product in 2018 amounting to 14.9% and it is expected to continuously grow in 2028 at a growing rate of 3.8%. The fastest growing sector of the tourism industry now is the hotel sector and has witnessed a tremendous boom in recent years. In 2018, Malaysia received RM84.1 billion in the hotel sector and expected to show an annual growth 10.6% by 2023. Generally, the hotel supply from 2017 to 2018 increases from 4512 hotels to 4750 (MyTourismData, 2019). With the growth in the number of hotels, the market share becomes remarkably competitive and demanding for a quality service to be provided to the hotel customers. The competitiveness of hotels depends on the quality of its service delivery because hotel customers demand a high standard of quality service. Maintaining the quality service is often difficult as it requires a high interaction between the customers and the service employees (Lewis & McCann, 2004), which at the same time requires a high demand from the customer itself (Norhamizan et al., 2018).

The role of the employees is crucial when rendering the service to the customer especially when dealing with aggrieved customer. Hotels in Malaysia are reportedly suffering from service failure due to the intense competition in the hotel sector. This is due to the popularity of alternative accommodations such as homestay, guest house and many more; plus the declining number of tourists arrival to Malaysia (Annuar, 2019), and complaints or negative feedback by customers as its service falls below customers’ expectations (Cheema et al., 2015). These are the reasons of why tourists (customers) do not opt for hotels when travelling and this is supported by the fact that the average length of stay in hotel has decreased from 5.9 nights in 2016 to 5.7 nights in 2017 (Teo & Chee, 2018). Worst of all, these issues have resulted in the shutdown of some hotels in Malaysia (Junita Mat Rasid & Halid, 2019). Therefore, hotel sector has to instil an effective service recovery handling which can help to return a dissatisfied customer to a satisfied customer after the service failure occurs (Yavas et al., 2004). An effective service recovery effort by identifying the factors that help to improve the performance of the employees seems to be essential.

There is a lack of research that has been done in hotel sector area in Malaysia with only two studies were discovered to have been carried out (e.g. Masdek et al., 2011; Norhamizan et al., 2018) despite many studies conducted in developed countries. Therefore, this paper aims to fill the research gap by examine the relationship between supportive management towards the service recovery performance among the employees of three-star hotels in the northern region of Peninsular Malaysia.

Problem Statement

The hotel sector is among the largest contribution towards tourism industry throughout the world. The competition among the hotel sector is getting intense as the triggering popularity of alternative accommodation such as Airbnb, homestay, guest house and many more (Rasid, 2019). Also, complaints or negative feedback received by hotel due to unfulfilled customers’ needs and wants or called as service failure still exist (Cheema et al., 2015). As a result, these issues has resulted on the shutdown of some hotels in Malaysia (Junita Mat Rasid & Halid, 2019).

However, service failures are inevitable. Customer experienced service failure regularly mainly due to failure on delivering services by hotel employees and leads to arising complaints from customer dissatisfaction (Cheng et al., 2018). A service failure would then require the need of recovery to move the complaining customer from a state of dissatisfaction to a state of satisfaction (Masoud & Hmeidan, 2013). Thus, the importance of managing and maintaining service performance has never been greater; striving for zero defects, and issues of hotel performance are at the center of management’s attention. Hotel sector are expected to continue to be a major source of key driver to the development of tourism industry in Malaysia (Zainol, 2012). While being one of the world's central tourist destinations, service quality problems in Malaysian hotels have been motivated by the increased tourists’ receipt in addition to the continued commitment to excellent service. The aforementioned fact indicates that the need of service recovery performance is crucial for Malaysian hotel. According to Cheng et al. (2018), companies risk losing their clients due to their inability to meet customers' satisfaction without an adequate and well-structured service restoration plan for managing the service failure.

Business performance will be a success and may recover by having supportive management (Masoud & Hmeidan, 2013). With more encouragement from the management, staff can increase their sense of duty to reciprocate. The support from management specifically gives the staff a feeling of engagement and contribution, besides helping to encourage creative ideas, explore new possibilities and change their operation without sacrificing productivity (Abdussalaam et al., 2019). This suggests that once the management gave their support to the staff who are mostly viewed as members of the organizations; they are apt to repay the rewards to their bosses and superiors by working harder, doing better at work, or taking more effort to meet the needs and interests of the clients.

Research Questions

Therefore, the research questions for this paper are as below:

• What factor affect the service recovery performance among hotel employees?

Purpose of the Study

This conceptual paper aims to investigate the relationship between supportive management and service recovery performance in hotel sector through a quantitative research analysis approach.

Research Methods

A systematic review regarding factor of supportive management and service recovery performance have been performed by the author through secondary data. Literature review helped to identify the concept of supportive management and service recovery performance. Then, the studies were extensively examined to establish the propositions of this research framework. To retrieve the literatures, multiple keywords were inserted to identify the relevant articles such as supportive management and service recovery performance. Various depended journals and database of the peer-reviewed literature were searched to acquire the relevant literature for this study; for instance, Google Scholar, emerald sight, and ScienceDirect. Later, the abstracts of these past studies were reviewed, and more literature have been acquired through references from these articles.

Findings

Supportive Management

Supportive management has been defined as concern and support by management for employee’s work (Eisenberger et al., 2001; Masoud & Hmeidan, 2013). In the supportive management of an organization, managers and supervisors sincerely recognize and appreciate hard work and are willing to correct their employees, but beyond that they are dedicated to cultivating growth. It has been proven that somehow supportive management is connected to various work-related attitudes and results. Particularly, when the employees have a perception that the institution pays particular attention towards the employees, this positively connects to their work attendance, job satisfaction, trust in management, and individual performance (Hartline et al., 2000; Masoud & Hmeidan, 2013). In addition, support from management can encourage the involvement of employee and reassure them to apply their know-how and skills to come up with improvement methods in some job aspects that require improvements (Abdussalaam et al., 2019). According to Masoud and Hmeidan (2013) supportive management is perceived as meaningful to organizations in regard with success which will lead to successful business performance.

A Study by Masoud and Hmeidan (2013) upon 330 four and five-star hotel frontline employees in Jordan found that supportive management was significantly related to the service recovery performance. Meanwhile, Ashill et al. (2008) conducted a study among 160 frontline employees in New Zealand public service industry also resulted in a similar finding.

Management support factor that influence the service recovery performance of employees have been studied by many researchers (Ashill et al., 2008; Masoud & Hmeidan, 2013; Pai & Yeh, 2017). Masoud and Hmeidan (2013) conducted a study to find the effect of perceived work environment on frontline employee’s service recovery performance. The study incorporates variables such as training, empowerment, motivation, supportive management, and service technology. Using data collected from 330 respondents via questionnaire, the findings show that training, empowerment, motivation, supportive management and service technology significantly predict frontline employee’s service recovery performance. Building on the work of Pai and Yeh (2017) investigated the effect of frontline employee efforts in service recovery performance. They incorporated constructs such as customer service training, empowerment, teamwork, rewards, and supportive management. Using 522 responses, they found that only employee empowerment, teamwork, supportive management and reward could enhance service recovery performance to promote customer satisfaction. In this degree, supportive management will be more suitable to be adopted in the hotel sector. The research framework that link the supportive management and service recovery performance is presented in Figure 1 .

See Full Size >

P1: Supportive management has a positive relationship with service recovery performance.

Conclusion

In this conceptual paper, the problem statement, research questions, purpose of the study, significance of the research, research methodology, literature review and research framework are discussed. Supportive management are also identified to examine the effect toward service recovery performance.

References

• Abdussalaam, I. I., Majid, A., Jibrin-Bida, M., & Joarder, M. (2019). Moderating Effect of Management Support on the Relationship Between HR Practices and Employee Performance in Nigeria. Global Business Review, 0972150918811487.
• Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 267-299). Academic Press.
• Annuar, S. S. (2019). Sektor pelancongan sumbang RM84.1 bilion, Berita Harian. https://www.bharian.com.my/berita/nasional/2019/02/535609/sektor-pelancongan-sumbang-rm841-bilion
• Ashill, N. J., Rod, M., & Carruthers, J. (2008). The effect of management commitment to service quality on frontline employees' job attitudes, turnover intentions and service recovery performance in a new public management context. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 16(5), 437-462.
• Blau, P. (1964). Exchange and Power in Social Life. Wiley.
• Blodgett, J. G., Hill, D. J., & Tax, S. S. (1997). The effects of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice in post complaint behavior. Journal of Retailing, 73(2), 185-210.
• Boshoff, C., & Allen, J. (2000). The influence of selected antecedents on frontline staff’s perceptions of service recovery performance. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 11(1), 63-90.
• Carr, C.L. (2007), The FAIRSERV model: consumer reactions to services based on a multidimensional evaluation of service fairness. Decision Sciences, 38(1), 107-130.
• Cheema, F. A., Shah, A. A., Phanwar, I., Aftab, F., & Zia, S. (2015). Do HR Practices Affect Service Quality of Frontline Staff? IBT Journal of Business Studies (JBS), 11(1).
• Cheng, B. L., Gan, C. C., Imrie, B. C., & Mansori, S. (2018). Service recovery, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty: evidence from Malaysia’s hotel industry. International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, 11(2), 187-203. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJQSS-09-2017-0081
• Cronpanzano, R. (1992). Justice in the Workplace: Approaching Fairness. Human Resource Management, L. Erlbaum Associates.
• Eisenberger, R., Armeli, S., Rexwinkel, B., Lynch, P. D., & Rhoades, L. (2001). Reciprocation of perceived organizational support. Journal of applied psychology, 86(1), 42.
• Greenberg, J. (1996). The Quest for Justice on The Job: Essays and Experiments. Sage Publications.
• Hartline, M. D., Maxham III, J. G., & McKee, D. O. (2000). Corridors of influence in the dissemination of customer-oriented strategy to customer contact service employees. Journal of Marketing, 64(2), 35-50.
• Junita Mat Rasid, Z. M. Y., & Halid, S. (2019). Airbnb jejas operasi hotel, Berita Harian. https://www.bharian.com.my/berita/nasional/2019/09/602604/airbnb-jejas-operasi-hotel
• Katzell, R. A. (1980). Work attitudes, motivation and performance. Professional Psychology, 11(3), 409-420.
• Kumar Piaralal, N., Mat, N., Kumar Piaralal, S., & Awais Bhatti, M. (2014). Human resource management factors and service recovery performance in Malaysian life insurance industry: Exploring the moderating effects of employment status. European Journal of Training and Development, 38(6), 524-552.
• Lewis, B. R., & McCann, P. (2004). Service failure and recovery: evidence from the hotel industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 16(1), 6-17.
• Luo, A., Guchait, P., Lee, L., & Madera, J. M. (2019). Transformational leadership and service recovery performance: The mediating effect of emotional labor and the influence of culture. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 77, 31-39.
• Masdek, N., Aziz, Y. A., & Awang, K. W. (2011). Impact of Selected Organizational Characteristics on Psychological and Behavioural Outcomes of Hotel Frontline Employees. Pertanika Journal of Social Science & Humanity, 19(2), 369-383.
• Masoud, E. Y., & Hmeidan, T. A. (2013). The Effect Of Perceived Work Environment On Frontline Employees’service Recovery Performance: The Case Of Four And Five Star Hotels In Jordan. European Scientific Journal, ESJ, 9(11).
• MyTourismData (2019). Hotel and Room Supply. http://mytourismdata.tourism.gov.my/
• Norhamizan, H., Issham, I., Mohd Salehuddin, M. Z., & Abdullah, D. (2018). The Influence of Empowerment, Rewards, and Training on Service Recovery Performance among Frontline Hotel Employees in Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 08(15).
• Ok, C., Back, K. J., & Shanklin, C. W. (2005). Modeling roles of service recovery strategy: a relationship focused view. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 29(4), 484-507.
• Pai, F.-Y., & Yeh, T.-M. (2017). The effect of Frontline Employee Efforts in Service Recovery Performance. International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning, 7(4), 264-271.
• Piaralal, S. K., Bhatti, M. A., Piaralal, N. K., & Juhari, A. S. (2016). Factors affecting service recovery performance and customer service employees: A study of Malaysian life insurance industry. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 65(7), 898-924.
• Rasid, J. M. (2019). Airbnb jejas operasi hotel Berita Harian. https://www.bharian.com.my/kolumnis/2019/09/602991/cari-penyelesaian-terbaik-isu-airbnb
• Smith, A. K., Bolton, R. N., & Wagner, J. (1999). A model of customer satisfaction with service encounters involving failure and recovery. Journal of Marketing Research, 34(3), 356-372.
• Tax, S. S., Brown, S. W., & Chandrashekaran, M. (1998). Customer evaluations of service complaint experiences: implications for relationship marketing. Journal of Marketing, 62(2), 60-76.
• Teo, J., & Chee, H. Y. (2018). In Focus: Malaysia - Reinvigorated Opportunities. https://www.hvs.com/article/8311-in-focus-malaysia-reinvigorated-optimism
• Walster, E., Traupmann, J., & Walster, G. W. (1978). Equity and extramarital sexuality. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 7(2), 127-142.
• Yavas, U., Karatepe, O. M., Babakus, E., & Avci, T. (2004). Customer complaints and organizational responses: a study of hotel guests in Northern Cyprus. Journal of Hospitality & Leisure Marketing, 11(2-3), 31-46.
• Zainol, N. A. (2012). Identifying Service Failures Among Resort Customers. Langkawi Island International Conference on Trade, Tourism and Management (ICTTM 2012), December 21-22, 2012 Bangkok (Thailand).