Purpose Despite the growing scholarly interest in service innovation and its associated benefits for organizations, research into the barriers to developing new services remains scant. In addition, most of these studies have been mainly conducted at the firm level, failing to incorporate macro forces in the industry. To fill this gap, this study aims to investigate major industry trends as well as organizational attributes that affect organizations’ capability in designing innovative services. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach was used. In all, 21 semi-structured interviews with senior executives in different banks were conducted to collect data. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis. Findings The results of this study suggest that privatization, technological shortcomings, legislative inefficiencies and deposit orientation instead of market orientation were major industry trends that affect service innovation. Furthermore, ambiguity in knowledge management regimes, silo mentality and the absence of a collaborative organizational culture, growing need to focus on human capital and risk aversion were the main organizational attributes that should be addressed for effective service innovation. Practical implications Service innovation is a strategic asset for organizations. To effectively leverage the benefits, managers should have an end-to-end approach toward the subject. The findings of this study would inform managers of different obstacles in the development of new services from an organizational and industry-wide perspective. Based on the outputs of the interviews and a thorough review of the literature, managerial implications are presented. Originality/value This study is one of the few studies that explores service innovation challenges at both macro and micro levels of analysis, providing a more holistic view of the phenomenon in the context of service organizations.

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.

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