It is challenging for enterprises that lack innovation and creativity to survive successfully in the market. Employee top role performance is not always sufficient to gain a competitive advantage, in which innovative behaviors and creativity can be counted as necessary ingredients to build. This study proposed and tested employee innovative behaviors (IB) and creativity as mediator and moderator, respectively, of the impact of high-performance work practices (HPWPs) on sustainable competitive advantage (CA). The resource-based view and job demands resources model provided the theoretical underpinnings for the developed hypotheses that were tested using a sample of 323 customer-contact employees of 4- and 5-star hotels. The results indicated that HPWP indirectly predicted CA via IB. Also, creativity moderated the impact of HPWPs on innovative behaviors positively and on competitive advantage negatively. Employee innovative behaviors can generate substantial returns to service organizations competing with quasi-homogeneous end-products. The relevant theoretical and practical implications are further discussed. The scope of the study calls for caution in the generalizability of the overall findings. The research acknowledges the need to extend the findings by explicitly accounting for national cultural profiles. This study fills the dearth of research in service innovation in the hotel industry by testing the mediating effect of IB on the HPWPs CA nexus and reveals the moderating role that employee creative traits have in these relationships.

Although education tourism has over the years enjoyed great attention by scholars largely because of its impact in shaping both the economic and political landscape of nations, an ample number of such studies have focused on the impact of the host community on the adaptation and survival of the sojourning foreign students or education tourists. There has been significant research into student's acculturation, mobility, and the likes, but research on the reverse impact of sociocultural interaction of these education tourists on their host communities is scarce. North Cyprus, a small island state with economic dependence on education, is a thriving host community for a substantial number of an education tourist. This study explores the influence of internationalization of education on the food consumption habit of indigenes of their host community. Data generated from a focus group of North Cyprus indigenes were used to examine how the influx of educational tourists have altered and shaped their eating behavior and culture. Current study contributes to both literature and tourism sectors by showcasing the importance of cultural transfer of education tourism.