A network analysis of cross-occupational skill transferability for the hospitality industry

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Yan Huang ◽  
Tyler Fisher ◽  
Huiling Ding ◽  
Zhishan Guo

Purpose This paper aims to examine transferable skills and viable career transition pathways for hospitality and tourism workers. Future career prospects are discussed, along with the importance of reskilling for low-wage hospitality workers. Design/methodology/approach A network analysis is conducted to model skill relationships between the hospitality industry and other industries such as health-care and information technology. Multiple data are used in the analysis, including data from the US Department of Labor Occupational Information Network (O*NET), wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and job computerization data (Frey and Osborne, 2017). Findings Although hospitality workers have lower than average skills scores when compared to workers from other career clusters included in the analysis, they possess essential soft skills that are valuable in other industries. Therefore, improving hospitality workers’ existing soft skills may help them enhance their cross-sector mobility, which may allow them to obtain jobs with a lower likelihood of computerization. Practical implications The findings shed light on workforce development theories and practice in the hospitality industry by quantitatively analyzing cross-sector skill correlations. Sharpening transferable soft skills will be essential to enhancing hospitality workers’ career development opportunities. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that specifically examines the skill taxonomy for the hospitality industry and identifies its connection with other in-demand career clusters.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjana Singh ◽  
Prashnati Jaykumar

Purpose Tourism and hospitality is one of the fastest growing segments of the services industry in India, and there is tremendous need and opportunity for young, educated and qualified professionals. Academics and employers agree that there is an increasing gap between the soft skills that companies expect from their entry-level employees and the skills that these young people possess. To bridge this gap, industry leaders and researchers indicate the need for more soft skills training. The purpose of this paper is to identify soft skills competencies that are required for a diverse group of entry-level employees and then to identify gaps by exploring the hospitality programme and internships. Design/methodology/approach The research is analytical in nature and draws on a literature review and a questionnaire as a survey tool for stakeholders. The research had separate questionnaires for employers, students and faculty members of the Vedatya Institute, educator for the service industry. The research is focused on entry-level employees – students who had graduated from Vedatya Institute in the past five years. The employers are primarily general managers and human resource managers of five-star hotels who have recruited and been part of campus interviews. Findings The research analysed soft or employability skills for the hospitality industry, and it provided valuable insights from employers and perceptions of graduates in attainment of those skills during their degree programme. The study highlighted the significant role of internship in developing soft skills. Practical implications The paper recommends practical solutions for educators and organizations that can be applied. The research synthesized current thinking on required soft skills for young entry-level employees and explores the soft skills gap in the context of a growing soft skills training market with recommendation for stakeholders. Originality/value The research sought to address the real life problem impacting the hospitality industry in India using inputs from the literature, graduates and employers.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Reimara Valk ◽  
Lina Yousif

Purpose This paper aims to explore the motivation and job satisfaction of employees in the hospitality industry in Dubai, using Herzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative research encompassed 20 interviews with employees at four different job levels from a 4-star hotel in Dubai, selected through purposive and quota sampling. Findings Findings show that achievement, recognition and responsibility are essential motivators. However, these were sources of dissatisfaction amongst employees from the lower job levels. Leader quality is crucial to hygiene. Moreover, it is a key motivator and a powerful source of job satisfaction. Research limitations/implications This cross-sectional study entailed a small sample size of 20 employees from one hotel in Dubai. Therefore, the only generalisation to theory is permitted and not to a broader population, such as hospitality workers from other hotels in Dubai or any of the other six United Arab Emirates. Practical implications The two specific human resource programmes and practices presented in this paper can exert a positive influence on employees’ motivation and job satisfaction. This, in turn, will bring the hotel in a strong position to compete for motivated and competent human capital to deliver high quality guest services to gain a competitive advantage in the hospitality industry in Dubai. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature first, by identifying the type of motivation of the hotel’s employees as follows: “prosocial motivation”, evoked by satisfaction with motivators and hygienes. Second, by presenting a “Satisfier and Hygiene model for Prosocial Motivation and Job Satisfaction”, illustrating the reciprocal relation between prosocial motivation and job satisfaction.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 504-510
Author(s):  
Gunjan M. Sanjeev ◽  
Richard Teare

Purpose The paper aims to profile the theme issue of Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes titled “How is the need for innovation being addressed by the Indian hospitality industry?” with reference to the experiences of the theme editor, contributors from the industry and academia and the theme issue outcomes. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses structured questions to enable the theme editor to reflect on the rationale for their theme issue question, the starting-point, the selection of the writing team and material and the editorial process. Findings It highlights recent innovations that have taken place in the Indian hospitality industry especially in the areas of customer service, cost competitiveness, culinary management, revenue management and technology. Practical implications As hotel sector investment in India intensifies, this theme issue will be of interest to hoteliers, policy makers, analysts and others interested in the role that innovation can play in helping to facilitate differentiation between competing hotel products and services. Originality/value There is limited literature available on industry innovations in the Indian context. All the papers in this theme issue were written after several cycles of interaction between academics and practitioners and so they incorporate real–time, relevant and contemporary data.


Author(s):  
Bezaleel Joy Murchante Danay ◽  
Zephaniah Dela Cruz Danay ◽  
Cherry Colesio Escarilla ◽  
Jimmy Bernabe Maming

The Covid-19 pandemic brought massive devastations to the different levels of society. The World Travel and Tourism Council had recently warned that Covid-19 pandemic could lead to a cut of 50 million jobs worldwide in the travel and tourism industry. A study conducted by Oxford reveals that Asia will be vilest to be affected by the pandemic and it would take time to recover its economy (Dogra, 2020). This means a wider and greater impacts to the different industries including the tourism sector. The study aims to explore the coping mechanisms of hospitality industry workers in Boracay Island during the Covid-19 pandemic particularly on their experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic and to determine the coping mechanisms of hospitality workers in Boracay Island being affected by the pandemic. The case study method through a qualitative analysis using Robert Yin's approach in the data analysis procedure to explore the data from the experiences of the key informants from the hospitality industry was used. Themes came out from the construct of the key informants like (1) hospitality industry workers experienced mental health, social, and economic issues, (2) The pandemic opens new opportunities and ways to cope with its effects. The output of this research is the proposed Danay, Danay, Escarilla, and Maming Model for Coping Mechanisms of Hospitality Industry workers during the Covid-19 Pandemic.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi-An Chen ◽  
Chun Liang Chen

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore how creative-cultural hotels can achieve sustainable service design through the development of a holistic conceptual framework. Design/methodology/approach The authors created this framework using a qualitative exploratory multi-case study of four creative-cultural hotels in Taiwan. The framework comprises strategic, organizational and interface levels to describe the design process and implementation of service offerings that co-create value within a multifaceted network of actors. Findings The findings of this study show that incorporating local arts and culture into sustainable service design can generate unique value and experiences for customers. From the perspective of sustainable development, these hotels seek to add value by using local creative and cultural resources to ensure that they have a sound commercial base from which to showcase their cultural features. As such, this study recommends that the hotel industry shift its focus to a paradigm that provides a strategic and sustainability-framed vision to create value for society while protecting local natural and cultural resources. Originality/value This multilevel model reframes the development of customer value constellations through a holistic understanding of user experience, eco-design practice, service encounters aligned with user touchpoints and front-line employee capabilities. To integrate the perspectives of both service providers and their customers, the proposed model embeds these stakeholders within a single model through the vehicle of local value co-creation. This holistic framework can assist in designing sustainable service within the hospitality industry to deliver better services and customer experiences. The findings provide an illustration of how the proposed multilevel sustainable-development-oriented service design framework can serve as a useful tool in guiding hotels toward corporate sustainability.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate whether hard-skills trainers and soft-skills trainers have different perspectives regarding the instructional skills and knowledge they require. Design/methodology/approach From the previous training literature the authors used 14 items covering relevant instructional knowledge and skills in a questionnaire which was applied online. Following an exploratory factor analysis a one-way multivariate analysis of variance [MANOVA] was conducted with the training content being the independent variable and the training requirements being the dependent variables. Findings Soft-skills trainers and hard-skills trainers differed in the variety of instructional methods and in their emphasis on interpersonal relations and interactions, group management and communication. Those trainers with train-the-trainer certificates did not differ significantly from those who did not have them. Trainers with a university degree in educational science/psychology were more likely to teach soft skills than hard skills but did not agree more with the relevance of instructional skills and knowledge than those without such a degree. Research limitations/implications The authors note that the results reflect the subjective perceptions of instructional requirements by trainers rather than objective requirements which would need to be tested by other means. Practical implications This study has a range of practical implications including the importance of skill and knowledge content and that of the trainers' perceptions in determining the extent to which what is learned is transferred into day-to-day work. Originality/value Previous literature has given little attention to the content of training and it has been unclear how this might affect learning and its transfer.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nandun Madhusanka Hewa Welege ◽  
Wei Pan ◽  
Mohan Kumaraswamy

PurposeApplications of social network analysis (SNA) are evidently popular amongst scholars for mapping stakeholder and other relational networks in improving the sustainability of construction activities and the resulting built environment. Nevertheless, the literature reveals a lack of thorough understanding of optimal SNA applications in this field. Therefore, this paper aims to convey a comprehensive critical review of past applications of SNA in this field.Design/methodology/approach95 relevant journal papers were initially identified from the “Web of Science” database and a bibliometric analysis was carried out using the “VOS Viewer” software. The subsequent in-depth review of the SNA methods, focussed on 24 specifically relevant papers selected from these aforesaid 95 papers.FindingsA significant growth of publications in this field was identified after 2014, especially related to topics on stakeholder management. “Journal of Cleaner Production”, “International Journal of Project Management” and “Sustainability” were identified as the most productive sources in this field, with the majority of publications from China. Interviews and questionnaires were the popular data collection methods while SNA “Centrality” measures were utilised in over 70% of the studies. Furthermore, potential areas were noted, to improve the mapping and thereby provide useful information to managers who could influence relevant networks and consequentially better sustainability outcomes, including those enhanced by collaborative networks.Originality/valueCloser collaboration has been found to help enhance sustainability in construction and built environment, hence attracting research interest amongst scholars on how best to enable this. SNA is established as a significant methodological approach to analysing interrelationships and collaborative potential in general. In a pioneering application here, this paper initiates the drawing together of findings from relevant literature to provide useful insights for future researchers to comprehensively identify, compare and contrast the applications of SNA techniques in construction and built environment management from a sustainability viewpoint.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Jones ◽  
Sandra Idrovo-Carlier ◽  
Alfredo J. Rodriguez

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify workforce skills that protect an occupation from elimination due to automation technology.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply a Gaussian process (GP) classifier, based on the level of non-automatable work activities in an occupation, to USA and Colombian occupational datasets.FindingsThe authors find that communication, interpersonal relationship management and decision-making skills are most important in occupations that are resistant to automation.Research limitations/implicationsThe results are based on work activities data from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database developed for the USA labor market. This dataset does not capture significant differences in work activities, where they exist, for the same occupation between the two countries. The findings are also limited to Colombia. Readers should be careful to extrapolate the findings outside of this geography.Originality/valueThe authors discover that automation is likely to be a global phenomenon that can only be slightly mitigated by cultural and political factors.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Siyu Hou ◽  
Zhaoyang Guo ◽  
Chuangneng Cai ◽  
Xiaobo Jiao

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of firm performance on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its possible moderating effect. Despite the significance of CSR, there remains an extensive debate about how it is affected by firm performance. Design/methodology/approach The conceptual model is mainly built on goal-setting theory. Based on archival data from multiple data sets on 1,650 companies, collected from 2010 to 2017, the hypotheses are tested using the two-stage instrumental variable regression method. Findings There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between firm performance and CSR that first increases and then decreases. In addition, considering the boundary conditions, state ownership makes the inverted U-shaped curve steeper, while high executive wage concentration makes the inverted U-shaped curve flatter. Research limitations/implications This study harmonizes the traditional contradictory findings of the influence of firm performance on CSR, that is, it supports a positive, negative or neutral relationship between the two. Originality/value This research provides a necessary structure for the CSR literature. By delving deeply into the relationship between firm performance and CSR, it enables scholars to better address the critical management question of whether earning more will lead to doing good.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Edward Phillips ◽  
Hannah Tarver

Purpose This study furthers metadata quality research by providing complementary network-based metrics and insights to analyze metadata records and identify areas for improvement. Design/methodology/approach Metadata record graphs apply network analysis to metadata field values; this study evaluates the interconnectedness of subjects within each Hub aggregated into the Digital Public Library of America. It also reviews the effects of NACO normalization – simulating revision of values for consistency – and breaking up pre-coordinated subject headings – to simulate applying the Faceted Application of Subject Terminology to Library of Congress Subject Headings. Findings Network statistics complement count- or value-based metrics by providing context related to the number of records a user might actually find starting from one item and moving to others via shared subject values. Additionally, connectivity increases through the normalization of values to correct or adjust for formatting differences or by breaking pre-coordinated subject strings into separate topics. Research limitations/implications This analysis focuses on exact-string matches, which is the lowest-common denominator for searching, although many search engines and digital library indexes may use less stringent matching methods. In terms of practical implications for evaluating or improving subjects in metadata, the normalization components demonstrate where resources may be most effectively allocated for these activities (depending on a collection). Originality/value Although the individual components of this research are not particularly novel, network analysis has not generally been applied to metadata analysis. This research furthers previous studies related to metadata quality analysis of aggregations and digital collections in general.


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