Dwi Suhartanto, Fatya Alty Amalia, Norzuwana Sumarjan, Carol Yirong Lu and Muhamad Nova
This study aims to explore the role of the sense of community in shaping Muslim tourists’ experiences in both Islamic and non-Islamic destinations, using the experience…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the role of the sense of community in shaping Muslim tourists’ experiences in both Islamic and non-Islamic destinations, using the experience quality-intention framework.
Design/methodology/approach
Data was collected from 420 Muslim tourists visiting Islamic destinations and 371 visiting non-Islamic destinations, all of whom were Indonesian inbound or outbound tourists. Partial Least Squares analysis was applied to evaluate the sense of community’s impact on factors influencing Muslim tourists’ experiences.
Findings
The analysis reveals that integrating the sense of community into the framework enhances understanding of the factors affecting Muslim tourists’ overall experiences, satisfaction and behavioural intentions across both destination types. Notably, the sense of community significantly shapes tourists’ holistic experiences, satisfaction and intentions, though it affects attraction experiences differently between Islamic and non-Islamic destinations.
Practical implications
From a managerial perspective, findings suggest that destination managers can enhance Muslim tourists’ experiences and promote positive behavioural intentions by fostering a sense of community, regardless of tourists’ backgrounds. This underscores the importance of leveraging community connections to enrich experiences and encourage favourable intentions in diverse destinations.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the existing literature by expanding the Experience Quality-Intention framework to include the sense of community, providing fresh insights into predicting tourist experiences and intentions across diverse destinations.
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Carol Lu, Celine Berchoux, Michael W. Marek and Brendan Chen
The purpose of this paper was to determine whether luxury hotel managers and customers have the same understanding of service quality and satisfaction and whether there is a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was to determine whether luxury hotel managers and customers have the same understanding of service quality and satisfaction and whether there is a disparity between services offered by luxury hotels and the way customers actually experience them.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper used interviews with managers and guests of 5-Star hotels in Taiwan and qualitative analysis to understand definitions and perceptions of luxury, service quality and satisfaction.
Findings
The major findings of the study were that: there were no fundamental disconnects in the respective understandings of managers and guests; however, the two groups used different language to describe luxury, service quality and satisfaction; the managers evaluated satisfaction in terms of services provided, but the guests conceptualized satisfaction in terms of value received for the price of lodging; and luxury, service quality and satisfaction were closely related in the minds of the managers and guests and were not independent constructs.
Research limitations/implications
Recommendations are made based on marketing communications theory, that is all factors identified in this study can be considered to be part of the brand identity of the hotel; local culture can introduce variables that may be outside the scope of international standards; and information on local expectations and preferences can inform advertising and public relations efforts of the hotel.
Originality/value
This study is significant because little research into luxury hotel customer satisfaction has been done using qualitative methodology, which provides a richer understanding of the experiences of the participants than can quantitative design.
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Luminita Hurbean, Louie H.M. Wong, Carol XJ Ou, Robert M. Davison and Octavian Dospinescu
The authors investigate the relationship between instant messenger (IM) use and work performance, mediated by interruptions and two key indicators of the stress associated with…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors investigate the relationship between instant messenger (IM) use and work performance, mediated by interruptions and two key indicators of the stress associated with technology use: overload and complexity.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors validate this research model using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with data collected through a survey of 416 working professionals.
Findings
The data reveal that while IM use contributes minimally to work interruptions and to a greater extent to technological complexity, these two constructs fully mediate the direct influence of IM use at work on technology overload, and meanwhile significantly and directly contribute to work performance.
Research limitations/implications
This research provides theoretical insights into the deployment of IM and its actual impacts in the workplace. To improve the generalisation of the findings, the authors call for more IM-related research in other countries, with more native theories and various methodologies in this domain.
Practical implications
The level of stress generated through IM use is moderate, considering IM is not a significant contributor to work interruptions. Thus, despite the potential negative effects of IM communication, the positive effects of using IM at work prevail. As a result, the technology can be promoted as long as employees, their managers and the organisation as a whole are well prepared. Employees can transfer skills and behaviour from the personal setting to their work environment and thus may find an intrinsic motivation to make better use of the IM technology at work.
Originality/value
The authors argue that this research model is novel for its perspective on evaluating the actual impacts of IM use at work instead of the reasons of using it. The authors conceptualise the process to explain how IM contributes to interruptions and other technostress indicators in the working context, and the impact on performance. Contrary to some prior research, the authors find that overall IM applications do not have a negative impact on work performance, and instead may enhance it.
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Xiayu Chen, Carol Xiaojuan Ou and Robert M. Davison
This study investigates how employees' work- and social-related use of social media can individually and interactively render different impacts on employees' performance in the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates how employees' work- and social-related use of social media can individually and interactively render different impacts on employees' performance in the context of internal or external social media.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the research model in these two different contexts, the authors collected data from 392 internal social media users and 302 external social media users in the workplace.
Findings
The data suggest that the respondents' job performance can be enhanced when using internal social media for work-related purposes and using external social media for social-related purposes. Meanwhile, the interaction of work- and social-related use is positive for external social media but negative for internal social media on job performance. These findings highlight the significant distinction of social media use in the workplace.
Originality/value
First, this study contributes to the literature on the business value of IT by providing theoretical arguments on how companies can capitalize efforts to consider work-related use in combination with social-related use to create business value. Second, this research theorizes two distinct yet interacting views of social media use. The authors offer a more granular insight of the paths from work- and social-related use to employee performance instead of encapsulating social media use in a unitary concept and linking it simply and broadly to employee performance. Third, this research considers the interdependent effects of work- and social-related use on employee performance, and thus goes beyond the independent roles of these two types of social media use. Fourth, the authors find that the links from employees' work- and social-related use of social media to job performance vary in different contexts.
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Wei Qian, Carol Tilt and Ping Zhu
This paper aims to examine the role of local/provincial government in influencing corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) in China, and more specifically, how the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the role of local/provincial government in influencing corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) in China, and more specifically, how the underlying economic and political factors associated with local government have influenced the quality of CSER.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used 234 environmentally sensitive companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges during 2013 and 2015 as the research sample to test the relationship between CSER and local government’s political connection and economic prioritisation and the potential mediating effect of local economic prioritisation.
Findings
The analysis provides evidence that local/provincial government’s political geographical connectedness with the central government has directly and positively influenced the level of CSER, while local prioritisation of economic development has a direct but negative effect on CSER in China. In addition, local/provincial prioritisation of economic development has mediated the relationship between local–central political geographical connectedness and CSER.
Practical implications
While local/provincial governments are heavily influenced by the coercive pressure from the central government, they also act in their own political and economic interests in overseeing CSER at the local level. This study raises the question about the effectiveness of the top-down approach to improving CSER in China and suggests that the central government may need to focus more on coordinating and harmonising different local/provincial governments’ interests to enable achieving a common sustainability goal.
Originality/value
The authors provide evidence revealing how the economic and political contexts of local government have played a significant role in shaping CSER in China. More specifically, this paper addresses a gap in the literature by highlighting the importance of local government oversight power for CSER development and how such oversight is determined by local prioritisation of economic development and political geographical connectedness of local and central governments.
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Eddie W.L. Cheng, Samuel K.W. Chu and Carol S.M. Ma
Wikis, as one of the Web 2.0 tools, has been increasingly used to engage students to learn with others in a collaborative virtual environment. However, there are relatively few…
Abstract
Purpose
Wikis, as one of the Web 2.0 tools, has been increasingly used to engage students to learn with others in a collaborative virtual environment. However, there are relatively few studies examining the application of wikis in secondary schools. Therefore, this study aims to investigate factors affecting the use of PBWorks (a popular wiki tool).
Design/methodology/approach
The aim was achieved by empirically examining an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) from a sample of 429 junior secondary students in Hong Kong. Specifically, relationships among six latent variables, which were school support, teacher support, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitudes towards use and the intention to use, were posited in the model. The more robust factor-based partial least squares structural equation modelling (factor-based PLS-SEM) was used to test the research model.
Findings
The results indicated that most of the hypotheses were supported, which suggested that the extended TAM could explain the rationale behind students’ intentions to use PBWorks for group projects.
Originality/value
This paper extended the original TAM by including two additional variables (school support and teacher support) for explaining behavioural intentions. Because of the increased use of e-learning platforms in secondary schools, more understanding of what motivates secondary school students’ e-learning intentions is necessary.
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Maureen Yin Lee Chan and Robin Stanley Snell
As background information, the authors describe the Service Leadership Initiative (SLI), which provided pump-priming funding for government-funded universities in Hong Kong to…
Abstract
As background information, the authors describe the Service Leadership Initiative (SLI), which provided pump-priming funding for government-funded universities in Hong Kong to develop educational programmes preparing students to become service leaders. The universities were expected to create opportunities for students to develop requisite task competencies, character strengths and caring dispositions through experiential learning. The authors also describe how, prior to the SLI, Lingnan University (LU) had already been building networks and systems for service-learning projects to benefit the community while furthering academic development, and this platform was helpful for service leadership development.
In the core of this chapter, the authors explain how faculty and staff members at LU have designed, structured and supported course embedded service-learning projects that were undertaken by teams of undergraduate students as vehicles for developing their attributes as emerging service leaders.
Based on our prior research into students’ accounts of negative and positive experiences, the authors identify and explain some unfavourable and favourable contextual factors for undergraduates’ development as emerging service leaders. The favourable factors are based on three preconditions: genuine service leadership responsibilities; community partner representatives as co-educators; and the students’ own readiness to practice as service leaders (as opposed to learning passively).
Based on students’ descriptions, the authors provide illustrations of how students practiced ten service leadership attributes in the context of service-learning projects conducted at local kindergartens, and about the further self-developmental needs they identified. This chapter concludes with the observation that the discrete service leadership attributes the authors identified appear in practice to be mutually supporting.
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Pengzhen Yin, Carol X.J. Ou, Robert M. Davison and Jie Wu
The overload effects associated with the use of mobile information and communication technologies (MICTs) in the workplace have become increasingly prevalent. The purpose of this…
Abstract
Purpose
The overload effects associated with the use of mobile information and communication technologies (MICTs) in the workplace have become increasingly prevalent. The purpose of this paper is to examine the overload effects of using MICTs at work on employees’ job satisfaction, and explore the corresponding coping strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is grounded on the cognitive load theory and the coping model of user adaptation. The overload antecedents and coping strategies are integrated into one model. Theoretical hypotheses are tested with survey data collected from a sample of 178 employees at work in China.
Findings
The results indicate that information overload significantly reduces job satisfaction, while the influence of interruption overload on job satisfaction is not significant. Two coping strategies (information processing timeliness and job control assistant support) can significantly improve job satisfaction. Information processing timeliness significantly moderates the relationships between two types of overload effects and job satisfaction. Job control assistant support also significantly moderates the relationship between interruption overload and job satisfaction.
Practical implications
This study suggests that information overload and interruption overload could constitute an important index to indicate employees’ overload level when using MICTs at work. The two coping strategies provide managers with effective ways to improve employees’ job satisfaction. By taking advantage of the moderation effects of coping strategies, managers could lower employees’ evaluation of overload to an appropriate level.
Originality/value
This study provides a comprehensive model to examine how the overload resulting from using MICTs in the workplace affects employees’ work status, and how to cope with it. Two types of overload are conceptualized and corresponding coping strategies are identified. The measurements of principal constructs are developed and empirically validated. The results provide theoretical and practical insights on human resource management and human–computer interaction.
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Charitable Choice Policy, the heart of President Bush’s Faith‐Based Initiative, is the direct government funding of religious organizations for the purpose of carrying out…
Abstract
Charitable Choice Policy, the heart of President Bush’s Faith‐Based Initiative, is the direct government funding of religious organizations for the purpose of carrying out government programs. The Bush presidential administration has called for the application of Charitable Choice Policy to all kinds of social services. Advocates for child‐abuse victims contend that the Bush Charitable Choice Policy would further dismantle essential social services provided to abused children. Others have argued Charitable Choice Policy is unconstitutional because it crosses the boundary separating church and state. Rather than drastically altering the US social‐policy landscape, this paper demonstrates that the Bush Charitable Choice Policy already is in place for childabuse services across many of the fifty states. One reason this phenomenon is ignored is due to the reliance on the public‐private dichotomy for studying social policies and services. This paper contends that relying on the public‐private dichotomy leads researchers to overlook important configurations of actors and institutions that provide services to abused children. It offers an alternate framework to the public‐private dichotomy useful for the analysis of social policy in general and, in particular, Charitable Choice Policy affecting services to abused children. Employing a new methodological approach, fuzzy‐sets analysis, demonstrates the degree to which social services for abused children match ideal types. It suggests relationships between religious organizations and governments are essential to the provision of services to abused children in the United States. Given the direction in which the Bush Charitable Choice Policy will push social‐policy programs, scholars should ask whether abused children will be placed in circumstances that other social groups will not and why.
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Tommy Lau, Man Lai Cheung, Guilherme D. Pires and Carol Chan
The abolishment of the wine tax in Hong Kong has led to increased wine consumption and increased demand for wine-related professionals, such as sommeliers. Yet the importance of…
Abstract
Purpose
The abolishment of the wine tax in Hong Kong has led to increased wine consumption and increased demand for wine-related professionals, such as sommeliers. Yet the importance of sommeliers’ value-adding performance in the context of upscale Chinese restaurants has not been examined. To address this gap, the SERVQUAL framework is adopted to examine the influence of sommeliers’ service quality (SQ) on customer satisfaction (CS) and loyalty in the context of upscale Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong.
Design/methodology/approach
The survey method is used to collect data from 302 units of the population of interest, partial least square-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is used to test the links between constructs.
Findings
Four of the seven dimensions of sommeliers’ service quality, namely, empathy, tangibles, credibility and assurance, have a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, whereas the impact of perceived value and responsiveness on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty is positive but only marginally significant. Reliability has a weak and non-significant impact on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
Research limitations/implications
Examining a small number of upscale Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong limits generalisation of the findings to other contexts. Replication of the research in different contexts will enhance generalizability. In terms of implications, the discussion highlights the importance of sommeliers’ service performance on customers’ SQ perceptions SQ, CS and loyalty, all of which are important variables for restaurateurs.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of the influence of the quality of sommelier’s SQ on CS and loyalty in upscale Chinese restaurants in Hong Kong. Given the lack of attention to this service role in the literature, the study contributes theory from which further understanding can develop.