Abstract
Abstract : The concept of employee organisational commitment (OC) has emerged recently in hospitality management literature, especially in explaining service quality behaviour as a counterpart of the process of employee behavioural intentions. Employee OC often plays a dominant role as one of the main factors influencing employment relationships in the employee/employer and customer dyad. This fundamental employee/employer relationship and its animating factors are often overlooked in the global hospitality literature. In the context of South Africa, it is not yet conclusive as to which factors mostly influence frontline managers’ OC, and the interface between frontline employees and the customer, and these factors’ influence on workplace commitment and performance behaviour. Drawing on the literature, this study strived to explore the spectrum of frontline managers’ commitment by explicitly examining five broad factors influencing both, frontline managers’ commitment to, and service quality performance in a hospitality organisation, and integrating the identified factors (human resources management practices, supervisor support, job satisfaction, and internal service quality) into a comprehensive research model. The central research question of this study was “How can the influence of HRM practices, Ubuntu style of management, and individual factors contribute to frontline managers’ OC in order to improve and promote service quality culture, thereby extending the national tourism service excellence strategic framework in the context of South African tourist hotel accommodation sub-sector?” The literature review reveals an extensive body of work that addresses OC in general, but with little emphasis on the South African hospitality sector. Moreover, evidence of the impact of OC on service quality and its link with Ubuntu values and internal service quality in the hospitality sector is limited. The literature review indicated that researchers have invested much effort in looking at the OC perspective externally, but have overlooked the impact of such effort on the internal customer. Thus, a great deal depends, not only upon the quality of the relationship between the employee and the supervisor, but also upon the impact that this has on the internal customer (value serving departments). Theoretical foundations drawn from the economics, organisational behaviour, and mainstream management encompassing need satisfaction, motivational theories, behavioural intentions and cultural dimensions’ frameworks, helped with the design of P a g e | ix the basic research framework used in the quantitative research stage of this study. In order to explore the issue that this study addresses, a multidisciplinary approach was adopted towards exploring the role of monetary and non-monetary work encironment characteristics including the influence of Ubuntu in determining frontline managers’ OC in the South African hotel accommodation sector. Method triangulation was used to collect primary data from frontline managers first to establish the extent to which Ubuntu values and internal service quality influence their OC and service quality performance. Moreover, the study tries to gain additional insights into the phenomena of Ubuntu and the commitment building process, through exploratory interviews. Data was also collected from academics to explore their perception of Ubuntu influence on OC. Additionally, a new multidimensional scale of the Ubuntu concept was developed and validated by a process of consensus building using the Delphi method. These interviews added rich insights into this study and further verified the development of knowledge in the area of Ubuntu and the commitment building process of the employee/employer relationship. The qualitative findings supported most of the conceptual links in the study’s research model and lent support to most of the hypothesised relationships in the complementary research model. The primary data for the quantitative stage were collected from a sample of frontline managers for empirical verification of the proposed research models using Exploratory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modelling. The proposed complementary model with minor modifications fitted better with the data and explained 75 per cent of the total variance of the frontline managers’ OC. Further analysis showed that 12 of 18 hypotheses were supported by empirical results including five direct paths as antecedents of frontline managers’ OC, and OC and internal service quality as antecedents of frontline managers’ service quality performance. The mediating role of Ubuntu, facilitated by managers’ compassion and collectivism in the model was also supported. In conclusion, the combined findings of this programme of research extend not only to the national tourism service excellence framework, but also to the application of the underpinned theories and their tenets in explaining supervisor/employee supportive atmosphere, and commitment relationship, thus contributing to the body of knowledge.
D.Phil. (Tourism and Hospitality)