Publication: Leadership and crisis management towards improvement of hotel performance:
Date
2021-01
Authors
Raed Hussam Mansour Alzoubi
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Abstract
The Jordanian hotel industry has been severely affected by socio-political tension in
the Middle East and the recent Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the situation. It is
undeniable that leaders play a vital role in helping hotels deal with difficult situations,
but nevertheless it is still unclear whether the deployment of crisis management is due
to the leadership styles or other factors. Therefore, this study examines the relationship
between leadership styles, leaders’ experience, crisis management and hotel
performance from the perspectives of transactional -transformational leadership theory,
contingency theory, and the resource-based view theory. Based on a questionnaire
survey of 119 respondents currently holding managerial positions in Jordanian 3 to 5-
star hotels, the Partial Least Square (PLS) Structural Equation Modelling (SEM)
analysis shows the results of examining the direct effect hypotheses that the
transformational leadership style has significant positive effects on hotel performance
and crisis management. Transactional leadership style has a significant positive effect
on crisis management and crisis management has significant positive effects on hotel
performance. While transactional leadership style has an insignificant positive effect on
hotel performance. Furthermore, the mediation results indicated that crisis management
partially mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and hotel
performance. While the relationship between transactional leadership and hotel
performance was fully mediated by crisis management. Moreover, it was found that
leader experience has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between
transformational leadership style and hotel performance, while the relationship between
transactional leadership style and hotel performance has a negative moderating effect.
The results are consistent with the contingency theory which argues that leadership style
is contingent upon external and internal factors, and the resource-based view theory
which argues that leadership experience is one of the most valuable and unique
resources for a hotel when facing a turbulent business environment. Based on the
findings, the results show that leadership styles and experience are very important
factors in ensuring the survival of a hotel when facing a crisis, while crisis management
is an essential practice for a hotel nowadays. This study contributes theoretically to the
area of leadership and crisis management while contributing practically to the Jordanian
hotel industry.
Description
Keywords
Hotel performance