Human and other critical factors in organizational learning in the hotel industry: A contingency approach

Abstract

Personas y otros factores críticos en el aprendizaje organizativo en la industria hotelera: un enfoque de contingencias María del Mar Alonso-Almeida AbstractOrganizational learning is instrumental to successful adaptation to today's changing environment. Research on the subject in the context of the hotel industry is scant, however. The present study surveyed 147 Spanish hotels to determine the extent to which they drew from internal and external drivers and cultural and technological enablers and the level of organizational learning attained. These hotels were also characterized by the contingency factors most relevant to the industry and, based on the results, grouped into four clearly distinct clusters. An analysis of the groupings confirmed statistically significant inter-cluster differences. The empirical evidence gathered suggests that while all the hotel establishments studied stressed organizational learning, individual features determined differences in how successfully it is implemented. The inter-cluster differences identified suggest that the valuation of organizational learning varies with hotel type and, therefore, different organizational learning strategies must be implemented to attain higher performance.Keywords: Organizational learning, contingency factors, learning enablers, internal drivers, external. ResumenEn la actualidad, el aprendizaje organizativo es clave para adaptarse con éxito al entorno cambiante. Sin embargo, la investigación previa de este tema aplicado a la industria hotelera es escasa. Por ello, este estudio busca identificar el alcance de los factores conductores de adquisición de conocimiento, tanto internos como externos; analizar la adopción de facilitadores culturales y tecnológicos, y determinar el nivel de aprendizaje organizativo alcanzado por 147 establecimientos hoteleros ubicados en España. Además, este trabajo caracteriza los establecimientos hoteleros atendiendo a los factores de contingencia más relevantes en el sector. Sobre la base de estos factores, se desarrolló un análisis cluster para identificar la existencia de distintos grupos, resultando cuatro grupos claramente diferenciados, estudiándose las diferentes características de cada uno de ellos. Los resultados son relevantes ya que proporcionan evidencia empírica de que, aunque todos los establecimientos hoteleros estudiados potencian el aprendizaje organizativo, sus características propias sugieren diferencias en su grado de desarrollo y, por tanto, en su efectividad.Palabras clave: Aprendizaje organizativo, factores de contingencia, potenciadores del aprendizaje, factores conductores internos, factores conductores externos.

Organizational Learning in the Hotel Industry: an eclectic instrument of measurement

“…It was also found that the size would affect the OL process and that the smaller the hotel, the greater the efficiency of the OL process. These two results are contrary to those found by the studies of Alonso-Almeida et al (2016). Despite the larger hotels having greater availability of resources, which assists in the distribution of information, they can also be more bureaucratic and less flexible, which could hamper the process of developing new knowledge and changes.…”

“…Given the second objective, to compare means of the dimensions that make up OL in different population groups, the function performed in the hotel, and characteristics related to the category and size of hotels were selected, because they were considered relevant in previous studies (Alonso-Almeida et al, 2016). The results show that that managers and employees have a reasonable level of OL (mean values between 4 and 5).…”

“…The way the information reaches the professionals and how they transform it into knowledge, and how this knowledge is institutionalized, it is more efficient for managers than employees. This difference may be related to two factors, the first being the fact that opinions of the managers may not necessarily be wholly objective, taking into account their knowledge as was pointed out by Alonso-Almeida et al (2016), obtaining better results. The second is probably related to the characteristics of the industry, especially the high turnover of employees and limited development opportunities (Fraj et al, 2015).…”

“…From now on, the validated tool can assist managers of the hotel industry to understand the dimensions that involve the process of OL, from knowledge creation to distribution by the organization, and identify dimensions that need special attention in order to improve them. Additionally, previous studies only addressed the vision of senior managers (Tajeddini, 2011;Fraj et al, 2015;Alonso-Almeida et al, 2016), which is considered a limitation because, although these executives are considered as reliable sources information, their opinions may not necessarily be completely objective (Alonso-Almeida et al, 2016). Studies that show the view of the front office employees, responsible for delivering the main product of this industry, are needed to see how OL actually occurs in this context.…”

Hotel typology based on information technology competency

“…Neste sentido, as TI devem ser priorizadas de acordo com o posicionamento do hotel e as necessidades e expectativas dos clientes [19]. Fatores como categoria, afiliação a algum grupo hoteleiro, tamanho, posicionamento quanto ao tipo de cliente são considerados fatores contingenciais, ou seja, características distintivas que cada empresa possui que podem afetar a estrutura, o comportamento organizacional e os resultados [20]. Alguns autores [21] [20] analisaram os fatores contingenciais mais relevantes para o comportamento organizacional no setor da hotelaria.…”