Search results

The local availability of needed publications is, from most users′ point of view, probably the most appropriate measure of a library′s effectiveness. Although immediate availability is the ideal, interlending offers a way to improve availability over time. With the goal of maximum availability in the shortest possible time, the interlending section of the Unisa Library has developed a number of performance measures to determine its effectiveness. The performance measures were instrumental in targeting problem areas which could contribute to a more effective service by technological and other means. Briefly describes the rationale behind the performance measures and the actual performance attained, as well as the factors contributing towards their improvement.

Dear Mr Pettman Whilst John Pateman has every right to promote LIWO (Library and Information Workers Organization) as a group of young and so‐called progressive librarians. I seriously object to his negative caricature of SAILIS (The South African Institute for Librarianship and Information Science).

Looks at the effects reduction in Local Government spending has had on race initiatives in the multi‐racial library service. Notes that multi racial librarians will be required to work two days a week at designated service points therefore diluting the service they provide. Concludes that a service for black and ethnic minority communities may be forced to depend on income from the very communities it was created to serve.

The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between leadership styles and burnout among hospitality managers currently working in the industry of Cyprus. Specifically, transformational, transactional and passive/avoidance are to be investigated in order to establish which leadership style is more prone to burnout effects.

Adopting a quantitative approach, the multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ 5X‐Short) was utilized to allow research participants to describe their leadership style as they perceive it. In addition, the most widely acknowledged tool for measuring burnout, the Maslach burnout inventory (MBI), was also incorporated in the questionnaire, which was then distributed to 500 hospitality managers in Cyprus. A number of hypotheses, reflecting the primary objective of the study, were postulated.

The findings suggest that transformational leadership has a significant positive association with personal accomplishment and is negatively related to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. In addition a positive relationship exists between passive avoidance leadership and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Finally, individuals with a passive avoidance leadership style exhibited higher levels of burnout.

It is well documented in the literature that surveys measuring sensitive issues, such as leadership styles and burnout levels, have inbuilt limitations. With regards to leadership, the authors acknowledge that they were not able to replicate the original nine‐factor solution of the MLQ 5X, therefore, findings should be viewed with caution. The second limitation is the small sample size (n=131) and the homogeneity of the sample, which limit the generalizability of the findings.

The findings have a practical relevance to both hospitality stakeholders and academic scholars who wish to further explore the leadership‐burnout association. In addition, human resources practitioners could utilize the findings when developing strategies for recruiting and developing leaders.

The paper adds to existing knowledge by investigating an issue presented in just a few hospitality‐related studies. While burnout and leadership separately have captured the attention of hospitality researchers, studies investigating their association are ubiquitous by their absence. The insights derived from this paper are of value to academic scholars wishing to build on this exploratory investigation.

Until recently, only relatively few Northern European companies had organized their operations by use of autonomous work groups, although the first literature on this subject stems from the 1950s. Yet this seems to be changing. From recent publications and the author′s experience it appears that the diffusion of autonomous work groups is increasing relatively suddenly. A survey among eight cases in six companies (two Dutch, four Swedish) shows that recent changes in the marketplace and in available technology are the main reasons why this increase has taken place and why, according to the companies, this is the very moment to start using autonomous work groups. On the one hand these changes enable the companies to introduce autonomous work groups, while on the other these changes force companies to do so.

This study aims to theoretically construct the role of hospitality job characteristics (HJCs), conceptually identify specific HJCs and empirically examine the relationships of these to work–family conflict and job stress. Hospitality employees work in a “smile factory” – often under stress.

Data were collected from 346 hotel employees in China and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) and a series of hierarchical regression analyses (HRA).

The SEM results confirmed the general role of HJCs as a job stressor, and the HRA findings differentiated the specific impacts of the characteristics on work–family conflict and job stress.

The survey was cross-sectional and correlational in nature. Furthermore, the results were also from selected hotels, and the respondents do not fully represent all hotel employees. Finally, the measures of hospitality job uniqueness were employees’ subjective agreement on the given statements.

The study offers a systematic framework of specific job characteristics in the hospitality context for the reconciliation of previously inconsistent research findings. The findings may also be useful to hospitality managers as they attempt to analyze and understand the specific job characteristics that are the most salient reasons for withdrawal attitudes and behaviors.

The present study identified the list of HJCs by summarizing previous studies and examining the roles of HJCs in work attitudes among hospitality employees. These efforts could be helpful both for scholars by constructing a consistent base for future research and for managers by precisely analyzing the specific job attributes.