scholarly journals Environmentally-friendly practices in hotels

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Mbasera ◽  
Engelina Du Plessis ◽  
Melville Saayman ◽  
Martinette Kruger

Orientation: There has been a growing concern for a ‘green’ hotel in the view of customers as they experience an increased awareness of environmental damage and excessive consumption of goods, energy and water.Research purpose: To determine the environmentally-friendly practices in hotels in Zimbabwe and South Africa and establish the contribution that hotels are making towards mitigation of the negative environmental effects.Motivation for the study: Currently, the world is facing environmental issues, which include global climate change, ozone depletion, pollution, high consumption of resources and increasing amounts of solid waste. Hotels, as part of the tourism industry, exert a significant impact on the environment. While the extent and range of the impact that hotels exert on the environment suggest an urgent need to address this problem, the question that arises is whether hoteliers appreciate the need for environmentally-friendly initiatives in their establishments.Research design, approach and method: A qualitative research was carried out in eight hotels that employ the strategy of the case study in the aforementioned countries. Main findings: Currently, no policies for green management exist, although some hotels do engage in some environmentally-friendly practices. Some hotel managers do not implement green management initiatives to mitigate the environmental problems emanating from their hotel operations.Practical and/or managerial implications: This indicates that a gap exists between managers’ awareness of appropriate environmentally-friendly practices for hotels, implying a need for training and increased awareness of green management.Contribution and/or value-add: The results could guide managers in the implementation of environmentally-friendly practices in an effort to mitigate environmental problems facing the present generation.

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ketan S. Ramhit

Orientation: Literature shows that job description and career prospect are connected to job satisfaction and it is seen that, in Mauritius, job description and career prospect impact job satisfaction.Research purpose: The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between job description, career prospect and job satisfaction in Mauritius.Motivation for the study: It has been noticed that employees are dissatisfied when they perform duties outside their job description and also when they see that they do not have a good career prospect. Despite the existence of several researches, limited research exists in the Mauritian context. The outcome will provide significant relevance to existing knowledge.Research approach/design and method: A quantitative approach was adopted and a survey was conducted in a multinational company in Mauritius. A sample of 132 employees was chosen.Main findings: This research unravelled significant negative relationships between job description, career prospect and job satisfaction. The results revealed that, when duties are not well described or when duties are not in line with current responsibilities, the employees are dissatisfied. Similarly, the greater the chances that employees are not given the opportunity to get promoted, the more they are dissatisfied.Practical/managerial implications: Human resource practitioners, managers and team leaders need to recognise that employee’s moods influence the work pattern in the organisation and a clear job description and an appropriate career plan should exist.Contribution/value-add: Literature on the relationship between job description, career prospect and job satisfaction in the context of Mauritius is almost inexistent. This study will add to existing knowledge.


Author(s):  
Martin Nielsen ◽  
Karen K. Zethsen

Hotel bookings are increasingly made online, and many travellers rely on eWOM in the form of peer hotel reviews. These reviews potentially contain information of great relevance to the tourism industry and offer a unique and ever-expanding corpus of unsolicited data. If this data is investigated systematically, it may provide insights that would enable hotel managers to be proactive in their marketing. The present study focuses on the under-researched area of the potential impact of nationality on the reviews. Using a corpus of authentic American and German hotel reviews and the qualitative, phenomenologically-inspired method of Systematic Text Condensation, this study investigates the impact of national culture on review comments in order to establish whether nationality makes a difference for the themes and attitudes expressed. The data indicate that Americans are more likely to focus on old-world charm, romance, physical comfort, personal service/relations and problem-solving than Germans are. The overall results of this qualitative study allow us to conclude that there are indeed differences between the German and the American reviews to a degree that is worth pursuing in future mixed-methods research and that may have practice implications for hotel managers.


2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Masefako A. Gumani ◽  
Mattheus E. Fourie ◽  
Martin J. Terre Blanche

Orientation: Identification of the inner coping strategies used by South African Police Service (SAPS) officers who do operational work is something the SAPS should consider to ensure the officers’ management of trauma and efficiency at work.Research purpose: The objective of this study was to describe inner coping strategies used by officers in the Vhembe district (South Africa) to reconstruct stressful and traumatic experiences at work.Motivation for the study: Most studies on coping amongst SAPS officers focus on organisational stress and not on the impact of the officers’ operational work.Research design, approach and method: An exploratory design was used and 20 SAPS officers were selected through purposive sampling. In-depth face-to-face and telephone interviews, as well as diaries were used to collect data, which were analysed using content thematic data analysis.Main findings: The results showed that the main categories of coping strategies that led to management of the impact of operational work amongst the selected sample were centred around problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies, with some use of reappraisal and minimal use of avoidance. Considering the context of the officers’ work, the list of dimensions of inner coping strategies amongst SAPS officers should be extended.Practical/managerial implications: Intervention programmes designed for the SAPS, including critical incident stress debriefing, should take the operational officers’ inner strategies into account to improve the management of the impact of their work.Contribution/value-add: This study contributes to the body of knowledge on the inner coping strategies amongst SAPS officers, with special reference to operational work in a specific setting.


2021 ◽  
pp. 004728752110545
Author(s):  
Albert N. Kimbu ◽  
Issahaku Adam ◽  
Frederick Dayour ◽  
Anna de Jong

Drawing on social and psychological well-being literature underpinned by the concept of resilience, this study examines the impact of COVID-19 induced redundancy on the socio-psychological well-being of redundant employees (laid-off or working reduced hours), and its effect on their commitment to work and support recovery in the tourism industry. Utilizing a quantitative-dominant mixed methods design, 457 questionnaires were administered, and 15 interviews conducted with redundant employees in Ghana between May and August 2020. Results from a binary logistic regression analysis of the survey data supported by qualitative interview analysis indicate that marital status, education, status of dependents, and the types of tourism businesses employed in, significantly influenced psychological well-being while marital status, age, education, and rank in the organization influenced the social well-being of respondents. Meanwhile, psychological well-being significantly influenced future work commitment in the industry. Managerial implications for supporting employee resilience, well-being, and future recovery strategies are critically examined.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nhamo Mashavira ◽  
Crispen Chipunza ◽  
Dennis Y. Dzansi

Orientation: Regardless of the contribution done by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in modern economies, and the critical role managerial interpersonal competencies play in sustaining these enterprises, no known comparative study has been conducted in SMEs in developing economies.Research purpose: This study purposed to establish the impact of managerial interpersonal competencies on SME performance as measured by innovation and return on investment (ROI) in both family-owned SMEs (FOSMEs) and non-family-owned SMEs (NFOSMEs) in Zimbabwe and South Africa.Motivations for the study: Efforts at understanding managerial competencies and firm performance among SMEs have taken a holistic approach, using all known managerial competencies; yet, recently, there is acknowledgement that interpersonal competencies are more effective in business sustainability than other competencies. With this observation, the need to extent this finding in other contexts among FOSMEs and NFOSMEs in developing countries becomes apparent.Research approach/design and method: The study whose design was a descriptive comparative case study adopted a quantitative approach.Main findings: The study found a positive and significant relationship between managerial interpersonal competencies and firm performance as measured by innovation and ROI in FOSMEs in both countries.Practical/managerial implications: NFOSMEs may need to focus their training on interpersonal competencies for managers in order to be sustainable. For FOSMEs, continuous enhancement of managerial interpersonal competencies is important as it promotes innovation and business sustainability.Contribution/value-add: The study helps fill the lacuna between research and practice with respect to managerial interpersonal competencies in FOSMEs and NFOSMEs in the two countries.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette A.J. Venter ◽  
Tessie H.H. Herbst ◽  
Chux G. Iwu

Orientation: The rapid economic developments of the last decade have been driven by the impact of revolutionary developments in information and communication technologies. These technological developments have irreversibly and significantly affected the role of an administrative professional with regard to assimilation, processing and utilisation of information.Research purpose: This study investigates the impact of global and national key drivers of change and transformation on the skills requirements of administrative professionals with the aim of developing a future-focused success profile to enable them to be effective in the new world of work.Motivation for the study: The study is motivated by the personal experience of one of the researchers, and her observation of the impact of technological advances and the necessity for administrative professionals to integrate new skills, knowledge and attitudes into the new world of work.Research approach/design and method: This study followed a mixed methods approach, using both pragmatist and constructivist paradigms. The pragmatist approach provides meaning through the natural work environment of an administrative professional, whilst a constructivist approach is followed to compile a whole-brain success profile. From a sample of 354, a total of 219 responses were received, which represent a response rate of 62%. Data were collected through a visual analogue scale-type questionnaire.Main findings: The findings reveal that the skill requirements for the future success of an administrative professional involve proficiency to function from all quadrants of the whole-brain model.Practical/managerial implications: The curricula of undergraduate qualifications should be adapted to allow for shorter credit-bearing skill modules in line with the latest trends in technology, because the profession of administrative professionals is mainly skill-based. In addition, owing to the focus of the study on the new world of work, the findings could be related to most occupations.Contribution or value-add: This study contributes to the construction of a future-focused whole-brain model, according to the functional skills, essential skills and emerging skills required for optimal effectiveness of administrative professionals in the future-focused world of work.


Author(s):  
Sibangilizwe Ncube ◽  
Mark H.R. Bussin ◽  
Lukas De Swardt

Orientation: Return on the investment in variable pay programmes remains controversial because their cost versus contribution cannot be empirically justified. Research purpose: This study validates the findings of the model developed by De Swardt on the factors related to successful variable pay programmes.Motivation for the study: Many organisations blindly implement variable pay programmes without any means to assess the impact these programmes have on the company’s performance. This study was necessary to validate the findings of an existing instrument that validates the contribution of variable pay schemes.Research design, approach and method: The study was conducted using quantitative research. A total of 300 completed questionnaires from a non-purposive sample of 3000 participants in schemes across all South African industries were returned and analysed.Main findings: Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, it was found that the validation instrument developed by De Swardt is still largely valid in evaluating variable pay schemes. The differences between the study and the model were reported.Practical/managerial implications: The study confirmed the robustness of an existing model that enables practitioners to empirically validate the use of variable pay plans. This model assists in the design and implementation of variable pay programmes that meet critical success factors.Contribution/value-add: The study contributed to the development of a measurement instrument that will assess whether a variable pay plan contributes to an organisation’s success.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger M. Elliott

Orientation: Social entrepreneurship has been advocated as a way of overcoming poverty but many of the studies purporting to explain the intention to become a social entrepreneur have resulted in inconsistent and inconclusive results.Research purpose: The purpose of this article was to examine the moderating influence of gender, family entrepreneurial background and culture (operationalised in this study as individualism or collectivism) on the antecedents to the formation of an intention to become a social entrepreneur in respect of financially disadvantaged students.Motivation for the study: Educational institutions in Africa have not implemented programmes to encourage students to become social entrepreneurs.Research design, approach and method: A questionnaire survey was conducted using a convenience sampling method in which a sample of 200 students was selected from a South African university. The data were analysed using hierarchical regression analysis.Main findings: Results provide strong support for the proposition that students’ gender and culture moderate the impact of the antecedents identified in this study (being close to the social problem and innovative) on the intention to become a social entrepreneur.Practical/managerial implications: There needs to be more collaboration and dialogue within and across all South African universities so that all educational programmes can be developed that embrace the challenges face by contemporary South African society.Contribution/value-add: This article demonstrates that current intention-based models are not adequate to explain the intention to become a social entrepreneur as they exclude extraneous personal and environmental factors.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 156
Author(s):  
Adhi Putra Satria

This study aims to analyze the impact of industrialization in Indonesia on environmental quality. The method used in this study was an empirical juridical method. This study employed both primary data obtained from field research and secondary data taken from library research. The results found that industrialization has a significant impact on the deterioration in the quality of environment as current technological developments are focused on efforts to exploit nature by emphasizing human domination on environment. This can be proven by various kinds of environmental damage and degradation in Indonesia caused by industrial activities. In brief, environmental problems caused by industrialization include air pollution, water quality and availability, and land quantity and quality. Hence, it is necessary to create new breakthroughs that can overcome environmental problems in this industrial period. One of the ways that can be applied is by realizing environmental-based industrial activities. Yet, this effort is still facing various obstacles, especially in terms of the lack of knowledge and human resources owned by business actors in implementing an environmental-based industry.Keywords : Industrialization, Environmental-based Industry, Environmental Damage.�Perlindungan Kualitas Lingkungan Hidup di Masa Industrialisasi untuk Mewujudkan Industrialisasi Berwawasan LingkunganAbstrak : Tujuan penelitian ini untuk menganalisis serta mengkaji bagaimana pengaruh dari adanya industrialisasi di Indonesia terhadap kualitas lingkungan hidup. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah yuridis empiris, dimana data yang dipakai dalam penulisan artikel ini bersumber dari data primer yaitu data yang diambil langsung dari lapangan dan data sekunder yaitu data yang diambil dari studi kepustakaan. Hasil penelitian menemukan bahwa industrialisasi pada masa sekarang memiliki dampak yang signifikan terhadap penurunan kualitas lingkungan hidup, pengembangan teknologi saat ini telah difokuskan pada upaya untuk mengekspolritasi alam sekaligus mempertegas dominasi manusia terhadap lingkungan. Hal tersebut dapat dibuktikan dengan berbagai macam kerusakan dan penurunan kualitas lingkungan hidup di Indonesia yang diakibatkan oleh aktifitas kegiatan industri. Simpulan, bahwa permasalahan lingkungan yang diakibatkan oleh karena faktor industrialisasi, yaitu berupa permasalahan lingkungan dibidang udara, ketersediaan air hingga kuantitas dan kualitas tanah. Sehingga perlu adanya terobosan-terobosan baru yang dapat mengatasi permasalahan lingkungan dimasa industri ini, langkah-langkah yang dapat dipakai yaitu dengan mewacanakan kegiatan industri yang ramah lingkungan, namun wacana tersebut masih mengalami berbagai kendala, terutama dalam segi minimnya pengetahuan dan sumber daya yang dimiliki oleh para pelaku usaha dalam melaksanakan sebuah industri yang berwawasan ramah lingkungan.Kata Kunci : Industrialisasi, Industri Ramah Lingkungan, Kerusakan Lingkungan.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pisi Bethania Titalessy

The problem of climate change is increasingly global and results in environmental damage due to the use of fossil energy in human activities. An increasing population will make energy consumption increase and can make things worse. Therefore, it is necessary to replace old energy with alternative energy that is more environmentally friendly and makes productivity effective and efficient. Renewable energy is pointed out as an alternative energy source that is environmentally friendly and the process is sustainable because it is always available in nature. Renewable energy is expected to increase the country's national income. This study aims to analyze the impact of renewable energy on economic growth in the Asia Pacific region as a whole. By using data from 2000-2015, panel data analysis in this study shows that Renewable Energy Consumption (REC) has a negative and significant relationship to economic growth, while renewable energy and combustible waste (CRW) has a significant and positive effect on economic growth.


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