Hotel employees’ occupational stigma narratives: perceived attributes, formation paths and destigmatization mechanisms

Abstract

Purpose Hotel employees’ occupational stigma is often overlooked. Exploration of hotel employees’ occupational stigma representations, perception pathways and destigmatization provides an empirical basis for positive organizational behavior and psychology in the hotel industry. Therefore, this study aims to better understand the mechanism underlying inherent of occupational stigma. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a five-factor narrative analysis involving stigma narrative interviews with a purposed sampling of hotel employees (n = 18). Based on occupational stigma and resource conservation theories, this study designed a five-factor narrative analysis structure chart as the basis for data analysis. Findings Findings indicate the existence of four quadrants of perceived occupational stigma attribute distribution, two paths of perceived occupational stigma formation and a more systematic occupational destigmatization mechanism path. Research limitations/implications The occupational destigmatization path and countermeasures proposed in this study can resolve talent drain and eliminate stereotyping in the hotel industry, which promote the industry’s rapid recovery and sustainable healthy development, providing the practical management guidelines for public communication via social media, and offer practical significance for existing hotel human resource management in modules such as organizational culture and training. Originality/value This study broadens investigations of occupational stigma in a single, static context and explains the relationship between hotel employees’ stigma perceptions and destigmatization paths. Further, the mechanism of emotional energy distribution on spatial stigma was identified. These results have practical implications for organizational culture, training and employee care in hotel human resource management.

Do employees’ perceptions of diversity management enhance firm’s financial performance: the moderating role of board members’ diversity level

“…Our results imply that, whether employees are based on specific groups and backgrounds or not, employees are mindful of how the company’s policies and practices address workplace diversity and inclusion issues. This finding is congruent with previous studies that say diversity management should be beneficial to all employees who consist of main internal stakeholders (Madera, 2018; Russen and Dawson, 2023; Xiang et al , 2022). Furthermore, corresponding with prior studies based on the service–profit chain theory, our results imply when employees perceive the company’s policies and practices as appropriate to all of them, they recognize the quality of diverse and inclusive work environments and contribute to organizational financial performance in the diversity context (Hubbard, 2007; Huertas-Valdivia et al , 2022).…”

“…Accordingly, their implications mainly highlighted the adverse effects of bias and discrimination against certain groups, such as minorities. However, diversity policies and practices influence the entire employees’ perceptions and attitudes toward the company, regardless of certain groups, such as age, gender or cultural background (Nishii et al , 2018; Xiang et al , 2022). From the entire employees’ perspective, the current study emphasizes the unbiased and even application of diversity management to facilitate the service–profit chain in the organization.…”

The effect of illegitimate tasks on hospitality employees’ service performance: a conservation of resources perspective

“…Employees with high thriving at work feel that their current experiences are motivating and supportive of personal development and growth (Kleine et al , 2019), experience a greater number positive feelings and invest more time and energy in their work. Indeed, thriving at work is associated with health and well-being, positive job attitudes, high job performance (Goh et al , 2022) and extra-role behaviors (Xu et al , 2022).…”

“…However, because illegitimate tasks generate painful experiences (such as negative emotions and psychological distress), frontline hospitality employees who face these tasks may be unwilling to engage in high-quality customer service, leading to poor service outcomes. Although illegitimate tasks have received growing research attention in psychology and management, there is a need to better understand the effects of illegitimate tasks in hospitality environments, where employees may be more used to highly dynamic roles that shift as customer needs arise and change, but where some tasks are also seen as stigmatizing and may be more likely to be viewed as illegitimate by those not "traditionally" assigned to perform them (Xiang et al, 2022). This omission is unfortunate because illegitimate tasks are a pervasive phenomenon in a variety of hospitality organizations (Ahmed et al, 2018;Apostel et al, 2017).…”

Keeping warm: racial disparities of warmth judgments in the service industry

“…Since the negative outcomes of emotional regulation spilled over from service failures to service interactions, and these outcomes compound and employees reported experiencing more emotional exhaustion as a result, organizations and managers can take steps to mitigate racial disparity in the service industry. For instance, organizations can promote diverse work climates to help support employee inclusion and dispel occupational-racial stereotypes of employees and improve employee satisfaction (Jolly and Self, 2020; Xiang et al , 2022; Zhou et al , 2022). In addition, organizations should provide emotional support to employees who are Asian (Jolly et al , 2021) by facilitating the development of high-quality relationships with coworkers and supervisors, to both lower the demands of stereotype-job misfit and provide employees the resources necessary to cope with these issues when encountered.…”