Employee engagement, its antecedents and effects on business performance in hospitality industry: a multilevel analysis

Abstract

Purpose Employee engagement serves as a critical strategy for tourism and hospitality organizations to support their employees and fight adversity. This study aims to investigate the antecedents and effects of employee engagement and examine innovative behavior as a linchpin mechanism for the relationship between organizational engagement culture and organizational performance. Design/methodology/approach This study analyzed the antecedents and effects of employee engagement through a hierarchical linear model that considers both organizational- and individual-level factors. The data was collected through a questionnaire survey from employees of 39 hotels in Guangzhou, China. Findings The results confirmed the significant positive effect of organizational empowerment, leadership and collaboration atmosphere on employment engagement. An individual’s perception of rewards and recognition, distributive justice and procedural justice significantly affected employee engagement. It was also confirmed that employee engagement ultimately improved performance outcomes at the individual and organizational levels. Additionally, the mediation effect of organizational innovation culture on the relationship between organizational employee engagement and organizational performance was confirmed. Practical implications Organizations can improve their performance by enhancing employee engagement, which in turn, can be encouraged by empowering leadership and organizational collaboration culture. Organizations can also improve their performance by providing rewards and recognition appreciated by employees and ensuring justice to them. Originality/value This research contributes to the literature on employee engagement in the hospitality industry by demonstrating how organizational performance can be improved through employee engagement using a multilevel model. The findings highlight that organizations with engaged employees are more likely to achieve an innovative culture, which in turn, leads to organizational success. This study also confirmed that empowerment, leadership and collaboration culture help improve organizational performance in the hospitality industry.

Unfair rewards, poorly performing organizations and perceptions of deservingness as explanations of diminished job performance

“…But as explicated in the Results section, we find partial mediation by organizational underperformance beliefs, so other factors likely inform this translation too, including previously studied mediators such as engagement and trust (Colquitt et al. , 2012; Liu et al. , 2022) or alternative mediators such as organizational disidentification (De Clercq, 2022b) or work withdrawal (Wang and Yi, 2012).…”

“…, 2013). Extant research also pinpoints a negative link between distributive injustice and job performance (Arab and Atan, 2018; Nasurdin and Khuan, 2011), which appears mediated by employees’ general self-efficacy (Abuelhassan and AlGassim, 2022) and engagement (Liu et al. , 2022) or else sequentially mediated by trust, normative commitment and uncertainty (Colquitt et al.…”

A review of multilevel analysis in hospitality management

“…Although multilevel issues have received greater attention among researchers in the recent decade, it was not until 2017 that hospitality management researchers began to increase their application of the multilevel approach to answer research questions. Despite the fact that multilevel research in hospitality management is thriving (Khan et al , 2021; Liu et al , 2022; Mo et al , 2021; Mölk et al , 2022; Yang et al , 2022), this review clearly shows that the knowledge has been misapplied and the technique has been misused in some cases. Moreover, many complex and intriguing research questions involving multilevel issue still await future empirical investigation.…”

A bibliometric analysis of work engagement in the hospitality and tourism industry

“…Since 2019, COVID-19, in particular, has caused an unprecedented crisis in the global HTI. Employees in the HTI suffered from a sense of uncertainty and isolation, and their engagement and preparation were reduced (Liu et al , 2022). Employee engagement in deluxe hotels was negatively impacted by perceptions of job insecurity (Jung et al , 2021).…”

“…In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in research into the structure of work engagement in the HTI, however, it is an under-explored area (Liu et al , 2022). Given the importance of engaged employees in the HTI, experts and scholars interested in this field must understand its current status and propose future research directions.…”