Revisiting the relationship between formal planning process and planning effectiveness

Abstract

Purpose-The purpose of this study is to address a timely research question by clarifying whether formal planning is a worthy approach for hotels. In so doing, the authors developed a theoretical model that extends prior research by exploring how the formal planning process influences organizational capabilities and decisionmaking style. The model also examines the impact of the three identified factors on planning effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach-Data were collected from 175 hotels located in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar and hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). Findings-The study concludes that the practice of formal planning in the tourism sector does matter and both organizational capabilities and decision-making style are important factors in predicting planning effectiveness. Research limitations/implications-Generalizations to organizations operating in other sectors, such as manufacturing or government sectors, should be drawn cautiously. Practical implications-Taking into account oil price volatility and serious political crises in the region, this study provides several insights to hotel managers into how the formal planning process can influence planning effectiveness. Originality/value-The findings enrich the debate on the role of formal planning in the tourism sector, which has been relatively devoid of similar studies.

Bridging the Generational Gap in the Hospitality Industry: Reverse Mentoring—An Innovative Talent Management Practice for Present and Future Generations of Employees

“…Thus, most of the answers are related to creating the right environment, virtual or not, for groups of employees to interact and exchange ideas and knowledge in an informal and open way: events and other activities, shared spaces, volunteer activities, interaction platforms, sharing ideas, personal discussions. The responses of the participants to these two questions validate the qualitative evolution of talent management in the direction of stating that it is the responsibility of companies to activate talents (gifts) into their employees through the creation of the most appropriate, open, informal, and friendly work environments, spaces and cultures [5,9,11,15,41,49,50,56,58,59,61,62,69,74,86,[115][116][117][118]. Taking into consideration that the practice of reverse mentoring is based on knowledge transfer from mentor to mentee or between them, questions Q7 and Q9 had the same purpose-to identify ideas of content knowledge that can be transferred through reverse mentoring.…”

“…The Millennial generation of employees was shaped by the Internet and the World Wide Web [34]. They expect communication style at work to be open and unconventional [48][49][50]. Also, another key consequence of them being digital natives is related to speed-Millennials need speed in everything, they crave for immediacy.…”

“…Hospitality companies are traditionally composed of hierarchical structures and therefore talent management approaches have been mostly exclusive, referring to talent as to a small group of highly competitive employees [1]. However, in the new context, with the Millennial employees who are rules and hierarchy challengers/breakers [24,57,58], there is need for a change of direction in talent management approach in hospitality companies as well, towards a more inclusive, open, informal, flexible and collaborative approach [49]. Hospitality industry is also traditionally characterized by high turnover and dropout rates and high disengagement of employees, mainly because of several characteristics of hospitality work, such as low-paying, seasonal jobs, repetitive work, odd working hours, physically and emotionally demanding work etc.…”

The Impact of Business Development, Strategic Planning, Business Outsourcing, and Organizational Change towards the Use of Technology among SME’S in Saudi Arabia

“…Managers will implement it as an action plan (Kitsios et al, 2019) for controlling the firm's long-range objectives approaches were used to carry out a preliminary evaluation of alternative strategies (Gkliatis & Koufopoulos, 2013). SMEs to survive in a dynamic environment, need to develop a strategic plan by overviewing the situation of the environment situation, with three actions; identifying, developing, and implementing (Jazabkowski and Balogun, 2009;Elbanna and Elsharnouby, 2018). The strategic plan includes short term strategy, long term strategy, analysis, and operation planning.…”

Relevance of Strategic Planning Process, Organizational Ambidexterity Organizational Capabilities and Decision-Making Style Hotels Performance

“…According to Phillips & Moutinho, 2014 the tourism setting is prone to changes, which renders it hard to execute strategic planning (p. 110). Regarding the shifting environment, this is not restricted to tourism, and the majority of firms operate in such conditions, thus giving a rational reason for tourism firms to implement business or strategic planning to assist managers to foresee and proactively respond to regular shifts in the environment (Elbanna & Elsharnouby, 2018, p. 1017.…”