Business Commons^™

The Return On Investment For Undergraduate Degrees In Hospitality And Tourism Management, Asli D. Tasci, Abraham Pizam, Robertico Croes, Po-Ju Chen

Rosen Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Increasing concerns regarding the value of higher education in the USA have motivated several organizations to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for college education by employing diverse methodologies. This study evaluates these methodologies by using data from a survey of alumni of Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida. The results reveal that the highly publicized low ROI for college education might be inaccurate, confusing and misleading for several reasons, among which is the assumption of zero income while studying, causing debt to be the total of a student’s expenses. Data reveal that Rosen College …

Creation Of A Professionalism Scale For Hospitality Students: An Exploratory Study, Tammie Kaufman, Peter Ricci

Rosen Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The hospitality industry is dependent on a professional staff to exceed guests’ expectations. Existing research has focused primarily on the various attributes necessary for success in the hospitality industry. The primary focus of this research was professionalism and hospitality students’ self-perception of their professional attributes. Data collected from a focus group of hospitality human resource managers were used to develop a professionalism scale. The scale produced five factors that explained 53.6% of the variance in the responses. Students were more likely to agree in their preparedness for the interview process, but less in agreement of their preparedness for workplace issues. …

Intercultural Interactions Outside The Classroom: Narratives On A U.S. Campus, Xinran Lehto, Liping A. Cai, Xiaoxiao Fu, Yi Chen

Rosen Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This study provides a picture of the interactional experiences between domestic and international undergraduate students outside the classroom on a US campus. Based on 9 focus group sessions, 8 distinctive themes emerged as a result. The study revealed some similarities but many differences between domestic and international students, illuminating the lack of and barriers to intercultural learning. The findings highlight the challenges and opportunities currently faced on US campuses, thereby making a timely contribution to efforts at developing students’ readiness to be successful in a global and multicultural environment.

Occupational Self-Perceptions Of Hotel Employees: An Exploratory Study, Arie Reichel, Galia Fuchs, Abraham Pizam, Yaniv Poria

Rosen Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This study aimed to reveal the occupational self-perceptions of rank-and-file employees in the Israeli hotel industry. Due to the exploratory nature of the study a qualitative research approach was adopted. The findings are based on 40 semistructured interviews with current and former Israeli hotel employees. The results revealed that almost all participants had disconcerting negative perceptions of rank-and-file occupations in the Israeli hotel industry. The themes emerged as relevant to the understanding of employees' occupational self-perception were classified into four groups: working conditions, occupational profile, job characteristics and requirements, and moderating factors linked with the reputation of the hotel and …

Stars, Diamonds, And Other Shiny Things: The Use Of Expert And Consumer Feedback In The Hotel Industry, Edwin Torres, Howard Adler, Carl Behnke

Rosen Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Over the past few years, researchers have studied the topic of online consumer feedback. Most of these studies focus on consumer decision making, and managing a hotel's image.Consequently, more research could explore consumer-generated feedback from the viewpoint of hotel operations and service quality improvement. The present research explored the ways in which hotel General Managers use feedback from consumers (namely online), experts, and internal sources to improve service quality. A combination of a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews were utilized. The study targeted General Managers of upscale hotels.Quantitative data was analyzed using multiple and simple regression analysis, correlations, and ANOVA. …

Attributes Influencing Meeting Planners' Destination Selection: A Case Of Orlando, Florida, Adi Hayat, Kimberly Severt, Deborah Breiter, Khaldoon Nusair, Fevzi Okumus

Rosen Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The current study used Orlando, Florida as a case study, and investigated whether there are differences between the three meeting planner types (association, corporate, third party) in regard to destination selection attributes. The study further identified attributes that affect future bookings to Orlando. Data were collected from a nationwide survey of meeting planners with a usable sample of 2,388 completed phone surveys and 118 completed online questionnaires. One significant difference was found between the three meeting planner types. This research was performed in the midst of the recent recession and explored the impact the recession has had on planning meetings. …

Interpersonal Trust, Organizational Culture And Turnover Intention In Hotels: A Cross Level Perspective, Ahmet Ozturk, Murat Hancer, Yao-Chin Wang

Rosen Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The aim of the present study was to understand the influence of interpersonal trust and organizational culture on employees’ turnover intention. The data of the study were collected from 252 hotel employees in Turkey. Study results showed that both affective trust and cognitive trust were negatively related to hotel employees’ turnover intention. Furthermore, clan organizational culture, adhocracy organizational culture, and market organizational culture were also negatively related to turnover intention of hotel employees. However, the results indicate that hierarchy organizational culture does not have a significant impact on hotel employees’ turnover intention. The findings provide valuable theoretical and practical implications …

Are There Gender Differences In What Drives Customer Delight?, Edwin Torres, Xiaoxiao Fu, Xinran Lehto

Rosen Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose– This paper aims to understand how male and female hotel guests become delighted customers. It aims to present the similarities and differences along with respective implications for theory and application.

Design/methodology/approach– During a period of three months, tourists were interviewed at an upscale Florida hotel. A total of 208 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The script for the interviews was based on an interview protocol used by Crotts et al. Adapted from a previous customer delight study (Torres and Kline), a codebook was developed to determine the salient themes that emerged during the interview process. Interviews were coded independently by …

Managerial Process Of Discount Decision-Making In The Lodging Industry: The Role Of Human Agency, Seung Hyun Lee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Management faces a paradox in managing discrepancies between actual demand and expected demand in daily operations, thereby requiring constant adjustments in pricing under the supervision of management in the short term. The purpose of this study is to determine how discount choices are created and to understand information processing related to the pricing and discounting decision-making process as well as narrating the events, stages, and cycles of choices made by hotel managers. This study also determines the role of human judgment based on contextual factors in the decision-making process. This mixed methods research design consists of three steps: observation, classification, …

Antecedents And Consequences Of Customer Experience In Beverage Establishments, Milos Bujisic

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is estimated that there are approximately 42,000 beverage establishments in the U.S. whose annual revenue surpasses $20 billion (First Research, 2014). To facilitate discussion of beverage establishments, it is essential to recognize beverage establishments as businesses whose majority of sales come from alcoholic drinks (Moss, 2010a). In this research, beverage establishments are divided into beverage-only bars, bar/entertainment combinations, and food and beverage combinations. Even though they are a well-established industry, beverage establishments have received little academic attention (Moss, 2010b). For example, previous studies have given little attention to the development of the model that examines the relationships between quality …

Customer Evaluation Of Managers' Responses To Online Complaints, Eric Olson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Managers have begun to respond to customers' online reviews of services on online review websites. However, it is not known how viewers evaluate company-initiated service recovery in the form of manager responses to online reviews. This research has three objectives: (1) to explore how managers are currently responding to electronic word of mouth; (2) to investigate whether a manager's response to electronic negative word of mouth (eNWOM) positively influences viewers' behavioral intentions; (3) to examine which elements in a manager's responses increases viewers' evaluations of trust and behavioral intentions towards the company. Three studies were conducted, one for each objective. …

The Role Of Freedom In Assessing The Relationship Between Tourism Competitiveness And Quality Of Life: The Case Of Central America, Marketa Kubickova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation study is to investigate the relationship among tourism competitiveness, quality of life, and freedom. The main premise is that the degree of freedom shapes the relationship between tourism development and quality of life. The study hypothesized that the greater the degree of freedom is, the greater impact tourism development will have on quality of life of residents of a destination. The theoretical framework of this study is based on combining Sen's capability approach with the tourism competitiveness theory. Tourism competitiveness aims at enhancing the quality of life, while Sen's capability approach provides the ingredients for …

Annual Impact Of Paid Internship Programs At A Hospitality Management Program – A Case Of The Largest Hospitality Management Program In North America., Robertico R. Croes, Tadayuki Hara

Rosen Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Hospitality management programs across the nation increasingly favor internship programs in their academic curriculum. Internships play an important role in the reputation of academic program by widening the network with the industry and recruiting prospective students. However, little consideration has been given to the economic impact prompted by internship programs. This study focuses on the economic impact of paid internship over a regional economy. Paid-internship programs prompt economic transactions incurred as a consequence of payment of wages to the internship students in exchange for their labor inputs in the industries’ delivery of goods or services. In 2012, a total of …

The Role Of Tourism In Poverty Reduction: An Empirical Assessment, Robertico Croes

Rosen Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper assesses how tourism affects absolute poverty beyond its effects on growth in two developing countries. In particular, the author explores whether tourism spending leads to a decline in the proportion of people below the poverty line. An error correction model is applied to estimate the relationship between poverty and tourism spending. The results reveal that tourism does matter for the poor, but that it does not appear to have systematic effects, and that tourism development matters most for the poor at the lower levels of economic development. The findings from the two developing country case studies show differing …

Website Interactivity As A Branding Tool For Hotel Websites, Albert Barred Davila

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation explored the relationships among Website interactivity, brand knowledge, consumer-based brand equity and behavioral intentions in the context of hotel Websites. Based on an in-depth literature review, a theory-driven model was proposed and ten hypotheses were developed. The dissertation employed an empirical study based on a survey design, and collected data via a marketing company. Respondents who booked a hotel room online using hotel branded Websites in the last 12 months were approached to complete the online questionnaire. Four hundred ninety six (496) respondents completed the online questionnaire by answering to questions related to their last hotel booking experience. …