Role Stress and Turnover Intention of Front-Line Hotel Employees: The Roles of Burnout and Service Climate

Abstract

High turnover rate represents one of the most significant challenges the hotel industry faces. High turnover rates mean labor shortages, resulting in high costs of recruiting, staffing and training. Turnover also has a negative impact on service quality. Scholars continue to search for the root causes of turnover and propose solutions. To further understand employees' turnover intention, this study reveals the role of stress on hotel front-line employees' turnover intention through the mediation of burnout. Moreover, the study examines the moderating effect of service climate on the underlying mechanism that links role stress with turnover intention. Using a sample of 583 questionnaires from front-line hotel employees in South China, this study reveals that role stress as a four-dimensional construct (i.e., conflict, ambiguity, qualitative overload and quantitative overload) has a statistically significant impact on burnout, which leads to turnover intention. Burnout completely mediates the relationship between role stress and turnover intention, that is, employees under role stress do not resign immediately unless they experience high levels of burnout. In addition, service climate moderates the influence of role stress on burnout, suggesting a moderated mediation relationship. The study contributes to the organizational management literature by confirming the four dimensions of role stress and demonstrating how role stress impacts employees' turnover intention. Furthermore, the critical effect of service climate is further investigated. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed based on the findings. the study also investigates the moderating effect of service climate on role stress (challenge-hindrance stressors) and burnout.

Emotional exhaustion and its consequences for hotel service quality: the critical role of workload and supervisor support

“…Faulkner and Patiar (1997) found "too much work" to be a common stressor for hotel operational staff, and Hwang et al (2014) identified problems related to "too much work" and "working long hours" as one of the critical aspects of work stress among hotel employees. Thus, unsurprisingly, employees who face work overload may be more likely to experience emotional exhaustion (Wen et al, 2020), which is also confirmed in empirical findings of previous studies. For example, Essawy (2016) in his study among employees of Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs) confirmed a positive association between overloaded employees and their emotional exhaustion.…”

“…Having in mind the findings of this study, hotel management should also regularly check their frontline employees' level of job stress to protect them from experiencing emotional exhaustion and its negative consequences. Thus, if the job stress reaches a certain threshold, managers should take adequate actions, such as, for example, allowing employees to take time off to recharge (H-M. Choi et al, 2019;B. Wen et al, 2020).…”

“…According to the literature, quantitative work overload is an important determinant of emotional exhaustion (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993), as "giving too much too long" is energydepleting (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004, p. 297). The hotel industry belongs to those with a heavy workload (Haldorai et al, 2019;Wen et al, 2020). It is proven that hotel employees who perceive their workload as high are likely to experience work stress, particularly when the job demands do not match the employees' capacity to handle them (Sampson & Akyeampong, 2014).…”

“…There are many empirical findings in hospitality confirming that job stress may be a reason for employees' increased intention to leave (e.g., Fong et al, 2018;Gök et al, 2017;Huang et al, 2018). According to the COR theory, employees are willing to leave the organization to retain their scarce and limited resources; thus, for those who experience emotional exhaustion (Karatepe & Uludag, 2007), turnover may be a final solution to minimize the threats to resource loss (Walsh, 2011) and to achieve a better balance (Wen et al, 2020). Understandably, employees with high emotional exhaustion will not try to keep their jobs (Prajogo, 2019).…”

“…It is worth underlining that although the hospitality industry is among the most stressful work environments (e.g., Kim et al, 2007;O'Neill & Xiao, 2010), the hotel industry, as a highly interactive service industry (Li et al, 2020), is particularly prone to stress (Bora, 2017), and yet it has drawn little attention from researchers (B. Wen et al, 2020). There are relatively few empirical studies that have investigated the issue of work stress in the hotel context (Hwang et al, 2014;McNamara et al, 2011), making this topic still not fully understood (Sampson & Akyeampong, 2014) and explored, thus deserving further research (Chiang et al, 2010).…”