The relationship between leadership and job satisfaction has attracted considerable scientific interest, especially in relation to the quality of tourism businesses. This study investigated this relationship within the framework of authentic leadership. The study also explored differences between outsourced workers and internal hotel employees in terms of the influence of authentic leadership on job satisfaction. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) offered valuable new insight. This study was based on a sample of 58 heads of department of four/five star hotels in the Canary Islands, Spain. The results suggest that high levels of leadership in the four subscales of authentic leadership (balanced processing, relational transparency, self-awareness, and internalized moral perspective) are sufficient to increase job satisfaction. The same outcome is achieved with high levels of balanced processing, even though it is accompanied by low transparency and low levels of internalized moral perspective. There are no major differences between outsourced workers and internal employees, except in terms of the importance of self-awareness. These results can help hotel managers reflect upon leadership and can provide new approaches for scientific research in this area.
Leadership provides a strategy to deal with intense competition and high customer expectations in the hotel industry. This paper analyses the ability of managers’ transformational and authentic leadership to predict customer satisfaction. A sample of 18,944 customers and managers of eight hotels in the Canary Islands was used for the analysis. The data were collected using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire-6s, the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire and ReviewPro management software. The data were analysed to confirm the ability of transformational and authentic leadership to predict overall customer satisfaction. The results indicate that the transformational subscales of idealised influence and intellectual stimulation and the authentic subscales of relational transparency and balanced processing predict overall customer satisfaction. However, there are discrepancies between the results for self-managed service departments and outsourced service departments. This study provides a novel approach to scientific research, building upon previous studies of the effectiveness of both types of leadership, especially in relation to their impact on guest satisfaction and differences between departments. The evidence provides insight into the leadership qualities that increase customer satisfaction, which is essential in the hotel industry.
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