Purpose Managers of independent hotels need to maximise organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) among employees to gain sufficient competitive advantage in an increasingly competitive environment, so it is important to understand what affects it. To achieve this, the purpose of this paper is to test if servant leadership, OCB and other related constructs have the same relationships between them in two contrasting parts of the world. Design/methodology/approach Survey data were gathered from managers of independent hotels in Spain (451) and Iran (429). Spain was selected because it is a developed country that is a leading destination for tourists. Iran was chosen as a contrast, as it is a developing country with a growing tourist industry. Findings The findings show that Spain and Iran demonstrate different patterns of relationships in the selected variables, suggesting that Iranians trust their leaders more than the organisational systems, whereas the Spanish trust organisational systems more than their leaders. These results are consistent with Spanish culture having higher individualism than Iranian culture. They are also consistent with Iranian culture prioritising traditional values, such as personal loyalty to managers, and Spanish culture prioritising modern values, such as impersonal rules and objective processes. Research limitations/implications This study suggests that leadership and justice affect OCB in different ways where modern values prevail compared to where traditional values prevail. It suggests that managers of independent hotels in Iran should follow the example of Spanish hotel managers by adopting more objective and fair procedures while showing that inward investors and expatriate managers in Iran should be aware of the importance of personal leadership style. Further research is needed in different countries and regions to improve the generalisability of our findings. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature on the application of the servant leadership construct, which was developed in the West, to other regional contexts. It also adds to the literature of independent hotels, which is an important yet under-researched part of the hospitality industry.

Purpose The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how young female customers establish psychological relationships with small- to medium-scale retail stores over time forming purchase intentions, actual purchase patterns and repurchase behaviour. Role of various customer typologies was also considered. Design/methodology/approach A case study approach was implemented to collect and analyse data, where data was collected from 20 young female customers and ten clothing retailers using purposive sampling via semi-structured interviews. Interviews with customers were conducted in a place of their choice such as in a coffee shop, whereas data from retailers were collected in the retail stores. Both online and offline retail patronage was considered to incorporate the growing tendency towards online shopping. Results were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings This study managed to reveal a number of interesting findings on how female customers form and develop psychological relationships with clothing retailers over time that ultimately builds customer loyalty. Customer behaviour in pre-purchase, purchase and re-purchase stages can significantly vary according to their individual perceptions, whereas they have a few favourite clothing brands that they frequently shop for. Preference for online shopping was found to be minimal, most of them enjoying in store experiences. Further, word of mouth and unique designs emerged as key contributors in establishing retail brand loyalty. Practical implications This paper provides better insights for clothing retailers and industry practitioners in understanding how customer perceptions affect clothing purchase decisions. Originality/value This paper contributes to the retail literature by emphasizing on various elements that should be amalgamated through proper synthesis to serve customers. The research is unique as it analyses customer behaviour using a recreational activity model as opposed to marketing models to demonstrate how customers develop relationships with retail brands overtime.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that managers in independent hotels can influence to improve organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) by examining the relationship between leadership style and OCB through newly developed balanced organisational culture and trust variables. Unlike most studies, which have been on chain hotels, this study investigates these relationships in independent hotels in Iran. Additionally, organisational size was also included in the study. Design/methodology/approach Using information from Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism, 160 independent hotels were identified and approached. A survey was assembled using well-known instruments. In total, 392 usable questionnaires out of 1,150 distributed were collected from employees and analysed using structural equation modelling. Findings Contrary to previous studies, it was found that in this context, neither transformational nor transactional leadership affects trust directly but only through balanced organisational culture, and only transactional leadership had a direct relationship with OCB. Also, organisational size had a moderating effect on the relationship between trust and OCB. Originality/value The authors add to the theoretical literature dealing with the different behaviour of constructs developed in a Western context in other contexts and suggests that hotel managers in a collectivist culture, like Iran, who want to build OCB can do so by creating organisational culture conditions (Balanced Organisational Culture) that foster trust between managers and their subordinates.

Purpose Despite its significance, national culture is often underrepresented in the hospitality industry. Implementing tools such as the global leadership and organizational behaviour effectiveness (GLOBE), whilst valuable to a considerable extent, might induce false assumptions about the universality of managerial practices for hotels through purposefully ignoring the in-group variations within each cultural cluster. Because employees’ perceptions are deeply rooted in context-specific value systems, this study aims to challenge the tendency to adopt a globalized approach to leadership and management through investigating potential variations in employees’ perceptions in two countries in the south Asian cluster of the GLOBE. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected by using hard-copy and online convenience-sampling techniques from a sample of hotel employees and managers in Iran (392) and India (421). Structural equation modelling using AMOS 22 was adopted to test the hypotheses. Findings Both similarities and differences were observed between the Iranian and Indian contexts. The similarities confirm that GLOBE is correct to place them in the same regional cluster but the differences which relate to perceptions of organizational justice are also revealing. Whilst procedural justice affects organizational factors that influence employee motivation with the Iranian sample, distributive justice has no effect, whereas with the Indian sample these results were the other way around. Practical implications For scholars and practitioners, the authors show that organizational theories and concepts cannot necessarily be transferred from a Western context to other parts of the world without making adjustments for national culture and generalizations cannot even be made within regions of similar culture. For example, this study shows that in Iran organizational justice is perceived differently from how it is perceived in India. Originality/value This study extends the literature about the effect of national culture on the hotel employees’ cognitions and behaviours by shedding light on the divergence between countries within the same regional cluster in the GLOBE classification.

Because of an increasingly competitive environment managers of independent hotels need to enhance organizational effectiveness. Therefore, it is crucial to understand what factors affect effectiveness. To help achieve this, our study tests if transformational, transactional and laissezfaire leadership-styles, could indirectly influence organizational effectiveness through market and adhocracy organizational culture. Iran was chosen because it is a developing country with a growing tourist industry that has been under much restriction since the revolution. Survey data were gathered from managers of independent hotels in Iran and 340 questionnaires were returned out of 1050 distributed and examined using structural equation modelling. Our findings show that the transformational leadership-style has an indirect relationship with organizational effectiveness through the market and adhocracy culture types. However, transactional leadership has an indirect relationship with organizational effectiveness only through the market-culture type and laissezfaire only through the adhocracy-culture type. This paper adds to the body of literature on the application of the full range leadership theory, which was developed in the West, to other regional contexts as well as a fresh look into the influence of these leadership styles on other factors including organizational culture and organizational effectiveness. It also adds to the literature of independent hotels, which are an important yet under-researched part of the hospitality industry.