| Author: | Geremew, Yechale Mehiret |
| Title: | Redefining hospitality leadership with digital disruption events : digital transformative leadership for building resilient and digital organizational citizenry |
| Advisors: | Huang, Sabrina (SHTM) Hung, Kam (SHTM) |
| Degree: | Ph.D. |
| Year: | 2024 |
| Subject: | Hospitality industry Leadership Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | School of Hotel and Tourism Management |
| Pages: | xvii, 406 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Leadership is a complex and ever-evolving concept that has been defined and redefined over time, especially in this age of digital Darwinism. Digitalization acts as a primary catalyst and a double-edged sword that significantly shapes the future of hospitality leadership. It disrupts traditional leadership practices and presents opportunities to develop new leadership approaches and competencies tailored to navigate and thrive in the digital realm. Aligning the leadership approach and competencies with the resilience and digitally responsible behavior of hotels and their employees is critical for fostering a positive and adaptive organizational culture. Despite previous scholarships, there is still limited understanding of the dimensions of digitalization and contemporary leadership approaches and how to manage the relationships among digitalization, leadership, resilience, and digital responsible behavior in the industry. A three-phase research approach was employed to explore the relationship of digitalization and digital organizational citizenship behavior (DOCB). The investigation focused on the mediating role of resilience and digital transformative leadership (DTL) while considering socio-demographic profiles as moderator variables. It has five specific objectives: (1) to develop and validate a measurement scale for digitalization and DTL dimensionality in hotels, (2) to examine the relationships among digitalization, DTL, resilience, and DOCB, (3) to investigate the mediating effect of DTL and resilience, (4) to analyze the moderating effects of geographic market, employment level, gender, age, and salary, and (5) to investigate sufficient and necessary conditions of digitalization, DTL, resilience, and their dimensions that contribute to high level of DTL and DOCB. The study's research paradigm was based on the pragmatism philosophical framework, with a mixed approach and an exploratory sequential design. The unit of analysis was employees and supervisors employed in four-and five-star hotels in the US and China. In Study 1, 29 interviews were conducted with supervisors and above-level hoteliers. A thematic analysis was performed, resulting in the identification of five dimensions of digitalization (digital sustainability, self-reliance, innovation, interoperability, and personalization) and seven dimensions of DTL (digital advocacy, open-mindedness, continuous learning, digital communication, agility, digital empathy, and digital mindset). A pretest with 11 experts and a separate pilot test with China and the US samples were conducted. In Study 2, a quantitative analysis was performed using a sample of 827 online survey responses from employees and supervisors in both countries. A rigorous analysis was performed, and the measurement scale development and validation results confirmed the five digitalization and seven DTL dimensions. Accordingly, the direct, mediation, and moderation hypotheses were examined. Though there are differences in the strength of the relationships, all exogenous factors have a direct positive effect on the endogenous factors, implying that digitalization redefines DTL. Digitalization and DTL also build resilient and digital organizational citizenry. Similarly, DTL and resilience were found as complementary partial mediators in the relationship of digitalization and DOCB. The moderating findings revealed interesting variations across different socio-demographic factors. For example: (a) while the US market perceives an impact of DTL on organizational resilience, the China market does not; (b) supervisors recognize the influence of digitalization on organizational resilience but do not recognize the impact of DTL, while employees hold opposing perspectives; (c) females acknowledging the impact of digitalization but not DTL on organizational resilience, while males hold contrasting views; (d) digital immigrants and natives agree on the impact of digitalization on DTL, but only digital natives recognize the impact of DTL on DOCB; (e) employees with high salaries do not perceive the impact of DTL on organizational resilience, implying the power of non-monetary factors in the relationship. In Study 3, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and necessary conditions analysis (NCA) were performed to test the asymmetrical tenets. The outcome set scores for DTL and DOCB were consistently high in two or more configurations. Although sufficient configurations were not necessary antecedents for high scores of the outcome sets in kind, the NCA analysis revealed the various levels of necessary antecedents for DTL and DOCB. The study makes several theoretical contributions, including (1) providing a comprehensive definition of digitalization and DTL from the hotelier's perspective; (2) developing a reliable and valid measurement scale for assessing digitalization and DTL; (3) revealing the symmetrical and asymmetrical interrelationships among digitalization, DTL, resilience, and DOCB; and (4) offering new insights on social exchange, social learning, and leadership theories. The study also contributes methodologically by combining the symmetrical (PLS-SEM) and asymmetrical (fsQCA) analytical approaches and employing fsQCA and NCA to examine the kind and different level necessary antecedents of the outcome sets. Furthermore, the findings have practical implications for hoteliers and educators, urging them to integrate the concepts of digitalization, DTL, resilience, and DOCB into their human capital development processes and curriculum. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | open access |
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