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DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributorSchool of Hotel and Tourism Managementen_US
dc.contributor.advisorCheung, Catherine (SHTM)-
dc.creatorLam, Chin Wah-
dc.identifier.urihttps://theses.lib.polyu.edu.hk/handle/200/9840-
dc.languageEnglishen_US
dc.publisherHong Kong Polytechnic University-
dc.rightsAll rights reserveden_US
dc.titleCultural intelligence in the hospitality industry : its influence on emotional labour and job satisfaction of frontline service employees in Hong Kongen_US
dcterms.abstractIn a highly complex and culturally diverse hospitality context, frontline service employees are expected to perform high level of emotional labour by demonstrating culturally acceptable emotional expressions and behaviours to culturally different guests, both verbal and non-verbal, in service interaction to attain guest satisfaction. Unarguably, cultural intelligence (CQ) and emotional labour are pivotal to both frontline service employees and hospitality organisations and they are predicted to be associated with job satisfaction. Nevertheless, no empirical study about CQ is hitherto conducted in the hospitality industry. The present study aims to investigate the influence of frontline hotel employees' CQ on their emotional labour and job satisfaction. The theoretical framework employs the construct of CQ, emotional labour and job satisfaction and attempts to examine the simultaneous structural relationship among these three constructs. Based on the theoretical framework, altogether 10 hypotheses are developed. This study adopts a quantitative research methodology. The target respondent was frontline hotel employees and questionnaire survey was conducted in both pilot study and the main survey using convenience sampling method. A total of 719 valid responses from 10 hotels in Hong Kong were collected and tested within the proposed structural model. The entire structural model demonstrates a good model fit with the data while highlighting the significant influence of CQ on emotional labour and job satisfaction. The results indicate that CQ has direct positive effect on emotive effort, expression of naturally felt emotions and job satisfaction but maintain a negative significant relationship with emotive dissonance. Significantly different from the majority of literatures regarding emotional labour, this study confirms expression of naturally felt emotions is the only emotional labour component that maintains a direct positive relationship with job satisfaction; simultaneously, emotive effort and emotive dissonance maintain a non-significant relationship with job satisfaction. Furthermore, both emotive dissonance and expression of naturally felt emotions are found to exert partial mediating effect on CQ-job satisfaction relationship. This empirical study is among the first to highlight the importance of CQ and its significant influence on emotional labour and job satisfaction as well as the positive significant relationship between expression of naturally felt emotions and job satisfaction in the hospitality industry. It deserves attention of academics to further examine CQ in future research and hospitality practitioners to nurture and develop employees' CQ in the organisation, manager, supervisor, and employee aspects, in the hope of evoking employees' expression of naturally felt emotions and properly respond to the highly interactive cross-cultural context in good faith.en_US
dcterms.extentix, 151 pages : illustrationsen_US
dcterms.isPartOfPolyU Electronic Thesesen_US
dcterms.issued2018en_US
dcterms.educationalLevelDHTMen_US
dcterms.educationalLevelAll Doctorateen_US
dcterms.LCSHHong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertationsen_US
dcterms.LCSHHotels -- China -- Hong Kong -- Employeesen_US
dcterms.LCSHHotels -- China -- Hong Kong -- Employees -- Job satisfactionen_US
dcterms.LCSHCultural intelligenceen_US
dcterms.LCSHEmotionsen_US
dcterms.accessRightsrestricted accessen_US

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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://theses.lib.polyu.edu.hk/handle/200/9840