Purpose
– The main purpose of this study is to explore the influence of self-esteem and role stress on job performance in the hotel businesses. Moreover, the research aims to discover which role stress factors, i.e. role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload, have the most detrimental effect on an employee’s role stress in the hotel businesses.
Design/methodology/approach
– To achieve the above aim, four sets of hypotheses were proposed: the first looked into the effect of role stress, which consists of role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload on job performance, and the second focused on the effect of employees’ self-esteem on job performance. A questionnaire was used and participants were drawn from 227 hotel employees in Kusadasi, Turkey. To empirically test these hypotheses, structural equation modeling was implemented.
Findings
– The outcome of the study indicated three patterns: role ambiguity and role conflict are negatively associated with job performance; role overload and self-esteem are positively associated with job performance; and role ambiguity creates more role stress than role conflict or overload.
Practical implications
– The research findings suggest that some practical methodology should be introduced to improve employees’ job performance and diminish role stress. For instance, hotel managers should decrease role ambiguity and conflict, employ personnel with high self-esteem and prioritize reducing role overload rather than reducing role ambiguity or role conflict.
Originality/value
– The research findings suggest that both role stress and self-esteem are important factors influencing job performance in hotel management. This paper aims to identify some important steps to increase job performance. Thus, our study should prove to be of great value to those in hotel management.