This study provides an overview of challenges and opportunities presented by the increasingly prevalent self-service technology adoption in the hotel industry, with a focus on the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study provides an overview of challenges and opportunities presented by the increasingly prevalent self-service technology adoption in the hotel industry, with a focus on the post-COVID-19 pandemic era and related workplace issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of relevant literature along with references to secondary data is provided to support the viewpoints presented by the authors. A brief critical interpretation of published works on automation, self-service and similar technology-supported services in the hospitality industry, particularly the hotel industry, is outlined.
Findings
Potential near- and long-term workplace challenges, in the context of automation, for hotel employees and operators are summarized. Evidence based on published scholarly works and news reports indicates that there will be a period of difficulties in the hotel industry, and the hospitality industry in general, when it comes to the adoption of transformative technology solutions that support automation and self-service. However, the authors assert that a balanced and calculated approach to embracing such technologies could create new career paths as well as job security for hotel employees and stability for hotel operators.
Originality/value
The perspectives offered in this study focus on the difficulties as well as prospects of embracing technology-supported automation in the hotel industry in the context of a unique era and the accelerated adoption of various technology solutions following the COVID-19 pandemic. The documented challenges are also framed with aligned opportunities to offer a roadmap for both practitioners and scholars.
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The paper aims to explore the extent to which the legal experience of minority shareholder actions in Hong Kong supports the sociological model of the Chinese family firm as…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to explore the extent to which the legal experience of minority shareholder actions in Hong Kong supports the sociological model of the Chinese family firm as developed by Wong Siu‐lun and reports some preliminary findings for the period 1980‐1995.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based upon the analysis of 275 minority shareholder petitions in the High Court of Hong Kong between the years 1980 and 1995 inclusive. It also draws upon material from a questionnaire sent to law firms involved in those petitions and interviews with members of the Hong Kong judiciary with experience of hearing minority shareholder cases, members of the legal profession and accounting and company secretarial professions directly or indirectly involved in the administration of companies in Hong Kong and regulators.
Findings
The findings indicate that the problematic early, emergent stage of the model as described by Wong Siu‐lun is quite accurate. Whilst there is considerable support for some aspects of the model of the Chinese family firm, the experience indicates a number of complex dynamics at play, some of which the model does not take into account. However, the findings, at least by implication, do point to the cohesive strength of the Chinese family firm with occasional fault lines resulting in some “disputes” of earthquake proportions which may rumble on in some cases for years.
Practical implications
The findings demonstrate the usefulness of lifecycle modeling of the family and other type of corporate firm. It also demonstrates some of the complex subtleties at play. The findings also have implications for the law matters thesis of La Porta et al.
Originality/value
This is one of the first studies to actually examine the legal experience of minority shareholder protection in a particular jurisdiction (Hong Kong) by examining the petitions and writs actually filed and relating them to a sociological model of the Chinese Family firm.
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Kim Man Erica Lee, Yanto Chandra and Ho Lee
The social venture (SV) is an increasingly popular form of organization to pursue social goals using a commercial approach. Although marketing plays an important role in SV…
Abstract
Purpose
The social venture (SV) is an increasingly popular form of organization to pursue social goals using a commercial approach. Although marketing plays an important role in SV research and a key driver of the performance of SVs, how and the extent to which market conditions play a role remains understudied. This study examines if market turbulence can moderate marketing capabilities and performance relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors developed several hypotheses rooted in the marketing literature and tested them using data collected from a sample of 109 SVs from East Asia (i.e. Hong Kong and Taiwan). Using multiple regression analysis and structural equation modeling, the authors analyzed the marketing capabilities and financial and social performance relationships and the positive moderating role of market turbulence.
Findings
The results suggested that market turbulence is a positive moderator which influences the effect of the marketing capabilities–financial performance relationship, but not the marketing capabilities and social performance relationship.
Originality/value
This paper attempts to interrogate the SV's marketing capabilities–performance relationship in the East Asian context and how market turbulence may enhance or weaken the relationship. This is one of the earliest papers in this research area. The key findings from this research offer valuable theoretical contribution to the study of SV performance.
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Jungsun (Sunny) Kim, Andrew Hardin and Samuel Lee
When organizations implement a new information system (IS), they often experience users' resistance behaviors. This study explored the effects of IS self-efficacy, perceived ease…
Abstract
Purpose
When organizations implement a new information system (IS), they often experience users' resistance behaviors. This study explored the effects of IS self-efficacy, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and anxiety on resistance to IS change within the hospitality domain. It also compared these relationships before and after completing e-learning courses for a new IS.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey responses were gathered from current and future hospitality employees. All hypotheses were tested via confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.
Findings
The results demonstrated that (1) IS self-efficacy had significant effects on both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of IS; and (2) IS anxiety had a significant impact on resistance to IS change, both before and after completing the e-learning courses. The results also showed that self-efficacy had a significant effect on anxiety and, in turn, resistance to change, after completing the e-learning courses, but not prior to the training.
Research limitations/implications
This study addressed the lack of theory-driven empirical research on predictors of user resistance to IS change, based on social cognitive theory, technology acceptance models, and user resistance research.
Practical implications
Based on the findings, hospitality operators and vendors can focus on improving factors influencing user adoption of a new IS when they design and implement it. Operators can design better change management strategies to reduce resistance to IS change.
Originality/value
Few investigations have been conducted to explain the relationships among the aforementioned factors, before and after completing e-learning for a hospitality IS.
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Shelley Kinash and Madelaine-Marie Judd
Students are drawn to doctorates for both the intellectual journey and the aspirational destination. However, many contemporary doctoral students and graduates are feeling like…
Abstract
Students are drawn to doctorates for both the intellectual journey and the aspirational destination. However, many contemporary doctoral students and graduates are feeling like battlers, in that victory does not assure a career. In this context, the weapons of choice are a clear vision, identity, and strategic choices. The aim of this chapter is to inform students, their supervisors, and university executive leaders how to achieve heightened graduate employability. As such, it has been written for four audiences: (1) PhD students, who want academic careers, and (2) those who want careers beyond universities; (3) PhD supervisors; and (4) university executive leaders. The key takeaways are practical recommendations for each of these four groups. The content is informed by an Australian national research study into postgraduate student experience, which included 319 postgraduate students as research participants. The first chapter author was one of two principal researchers leading the study, and the second chapter author was the project manager and researcher. The authors have added their reflections and personal experiences as supervisor and PhD student respectively.
One important discussion comes under Knight’s heading of “Social Control.” To appreciate his argument, one has to understand that Knight’s social theory is developed within a…
Abstract
One important discussion comes under Knight’s heading of “Social Control.” To appreciate his argument, one has to understand that Knight’s social theory is developed within a tension between: (1) his knowledge that social control is both inevitable and necessary; and (2) his correlative desire for individual autonomy. One could add to that a hatred of social control, some of which is relevant. But what Knight dislikes is, first, selective elements of existing social control and, second, change of social control, e.g. change of the law by law, except for those changes of the law that remove the selective elements he dislikes; Knight is not opposed to all change of social control. In any event, the problem of social control is also for Knight (as it was for Vilfredo Pareto) the problems of social change and of the status of the status quo as well as of hierarchy.
Hannah King occupies a unique place in missionary and colonial history, the history of education, cross‐cultural relations and material culture in New Zealand. She was the only…
Abstract
Hannah King occupies a unique place in missionary and colonial history, the history of education, cross‐cultural relations and material culture in New Zealand. She was the only woman from the first 1814 Missionary settlement of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in New Zealand to remain in New Zealand for the rest of her life, yet she does not have an entry in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, and is rarely indexed in either New Zealand’s general historical works or even works more specifically related to the Missionary era. John and Hannah King were one of three artisan missionary couples who sailed with the Revd Samuel Marsden on his ship, the missionary brig ‘Active’, from Port Jackson, Australia to Rangihoua, in the Bay of Islands, in late 1814. Marsden’s 1814 Christmas Day service on the beach at Rangihoua is recognised as the beginning of missionary activity and planned European settlement on New Zealand soil.
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At the doorsteps of the fourth wave of the industrial revolution, it is compulsory to develop a new understanding regarding the future of human labor based on “Industry 4.0” for…
Abstract
At the doorsteps of the fourth wave of the industrial revolution, it is compulsory to develop a new understanding regarding the future of human labor based on “Industry 4.0” for German manufacturers, and two American concepts: “The Industrial Internet” and “The Internet of Things.” How will the nature of human work be in the digital economy of the forthcoming future? The problem of unemployment and the composition of the labor market, in terms of professional skills, are yet to be waiting for answers. Scientific management is also transforming to answer the emerging requirements of this new era, as “Digital Taylorism” to re-organize work in a techno-centric manner. Accordingly, the aim of this chapter is to examine the nature and the possible opportunities and threats of the digital age and try to develop a digital Taylorism understanding to minimize the negative impacts of digitalism on both individual workers and society in a way that all parts including the manufacturers can fully take the benefit of potential advantages of this new era.
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Albert Wertheimer and Thomas Santella
The relationship between patents and the pharmaceutical industry is both complex and important. While many believe that patents are manipulated by the pharmaceutical industry for…
Abstract
The relationship between patents and the pharmaceutical industry is both complex and important. While many believe that patents are manipulated by the pharmaceutical industry for its own economic ends, a historical approach to the utilization of patents combined with an analysis of current patent issues places this relationship in its proper context. Though patents were created long before the pharmaceutical industry reached its current status as a major industry in the United States, a historical, analytic approach shows that the pharmaceutical industry has adjusted to constantly evolving legislation enacted to provide the most effective and efficient system by which to research, invent, regulate and patent new medicines.