Sally Lindsay, Joanne Leck, Winny Shen, Elaine Cagliostro and Jennifer Stinson
Many employers lack disability confidence regarding how to include people with disabilities in the workforce, which can lead to stigma and discrimination. The purpose of this…
Abstract
Purpose
Many employers lack disability confidence regarding how to include people with disabilities in the workforce, which can lead to stigma and discrimination. The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of disability confidence from two perspectives, employers who hire people with a disability and employees with a disability.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative thematic analysis was conducted using 35 semi-structured interviews (18 employers who hire people with disabilities; 17 employees with a disability).
Findings
Themes included the following categories: disability discomfort (i.e. lack of experience, stigma and discrimination); reaching beyond comfort zone (i.e. disability awareness training, business case, shared lived experiences); broadened perspectives (i.e. challenging stigma and stereotypes, minimizing bias and focusing on abilities); and disability confidence (i.e. supportive and inclusive culture and leading and modeling social change). The results highlight that disability confidence among employers is critical for enhancing the social inclusion of people with disabilities.
Originality/value
The study addresses an important gap in the literature by developing a better understanding of the concept of disability from the perspectives of employers who hire people with disabilities and also employees with a disability.
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Sally Lindsay, Mana Rezai, Winny Shen and Brent Lyons
Many employers struggle with how to have a disability disclosure discussion with their employees and job candidates. The primary purpose of this study was to identify issues…
Abstract
Purpose
Many employers struggle with how to have a disability disclosure discussion with their employees and job candidates. The primary purpose of this study was to identify issues relevant to disability disclosure discussions. In addition, we explored how simulations, as an educational tool, may help employers and managers.
Design/methodology/approach
Seven participants (four employers and three human resource professionals) took part in this study. We used a qualitative design that involved two focus group discussions to understand participants' experiences of building a simulation training scenario that focused on how to have a disability disclosure discussion. The simulation sessions were audio-recorded and analyzed using an open-coding thematic approach.
Findings
Four main themes emerged from our analysis. Three themes focused on issues that participants identified as relevant to the disability disclosure process, including: (1) creating a comfortable and safe space for employees to disclose, (2) how to ask employees or job candidates about disability and (3) how to respond to employees disability disclosure. A fourth theme focused on how simulations could be relevant as an educational tool.
Originality/value
Developing a simulation on disability disclosure discussions is a novel approach to educating employers and managers that has the potential to help enhance diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Further, the process that we followed can be used as a model for other researchers seeking to develop educational training scenarios on sensitive diversity and inclusion topics.
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Kevin S. Groves, Mary Pat McEnrue and Winny Shen
The purpose of this study is to empirically test whether it is possible to deliberately develop emotional intelligence (EI) as conceptualized in the Mayer and Salovey model.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to empirically test whether it is possible to deliberately develop emotional intelligence (EI) as conceptualized in the Mayer and Salovey model.
Design/methodology/approach
This empirical study utilized a sample of 135 fully‐employed business students in a treatment/control group research design in which treatment group participants underwent an intensive 11‐week EI training program. Additional samples of 270 and 130 fully employed business students were utilized to develop an EI measure appropriate for EI development.
Findings
The results indicate that EI can be deliberately developed; the treatment group demonstrated statistically significant overall EI gains and across each EI dimension, while the control group did not show any significant pre‐/post‐test differences.
Practical implications
In addition to illustrating EI training best practices, a new EI measure is described that is appropriate for leadership development.
Research limitations/implications
Research implications are discussed for the role of EI training in leadership development programs and fertile research directions for EI training.
Originality/value
Emotional intelligence training has emerged into a popular and lucrative field, but empirical evidence on the deliberate development of EI has been substantially more elusive. This study provides an empirical EI training study that overcomes the conceptual and methodological limitations of extant research on the EI development process.
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Mary Pat McEnrue, Kevin S. Groves and Winny Shen
The purpose of this paper is to examine the separate and combined effects of three individual characteristics on training gains achieved in a leadership development program…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the separate and combined effects of three individual characteristics on training gains achieved in a leadership development program designed to enhance participants' emotional intelligence (EI). The overall purpose was to test heretofore untested propositions advanced by various theorists concerning the impact of openness to experience (OE), self‐efficacy (SE), and receptivity to feedback (RF) on training outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
This empirical study utilized a sample of 135 fully‐employed business students in a treatment/control group research design.
Findings
The findings suggest that leadership development professionals will likely derive differential EI training gains depending upon participants' status across several variables. Receptivity to feedback was directly associated with EI training gains while the SE‐RF and SE‐OE interactions were predictors of EI training gains.
Practical implications
The results hold implications for organizations that seek to enhance the EI of leaders both effectively and efficiently. The application of these findings to a range of leadership development practices and to training efforts that focus on other competencies are discussed.
Research implications
The paper connects EI to one of the major challenges facing leaders and leadership development professionals in the future: managing change and offers recommendations regarding research on other factors that are likely to optimize results achieved through efforts to develop the EI of leaders.
Originality/value
This is the first study to investigate the impact of these three individual characteristics on training gains achieved. The paper's findings suggest that some individuals are better candidates for EI training and presents a method to identify them.
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Winny Perwithosuci, Izza Mafruhah, Evi Gravitiani and Tamat Sarmidi
Environmental degradation is a global concern that results from massive economic activities. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are one of the environmental degradation indicators…
Abstract
Environmental degradation is a global concern that results from massive economic activities. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are one of the environmental degradation indicators. This study investigates the impact of population, oil consumption, international tourist arrival, and corruption on CO2 emissions in ASEAN’s five developing countries of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam from 1998 to 2017. This study employed panel Fixed-effect (FE) regression to estimate the panel data generated by British Petroleum and World Bank. The result revealed that the population has a significant positive effect on CO2 emissions. Furthermore, oil consumption has a significant positive effect on CO2 emissions. Meanwhile, the effect of tourism and the corruption perception index (CPI) as a proxy of corruption on CO2 emissions was positive but not significant. Authorities should construct such policies to reduce CO2 emissions by applying low-carbon technologies, green mass transport, and creating less corrupt behavior.
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María-José Foncubierta-Rodríguez
Happiness management is receiving increasing attention in business, and this is reflected in the literature. But any business management option has to be grounded in a true…
Abstract
Purpose
Happiness management is receiving increasing attention in business, and this is reflected in the literature. But any business management option has to be grounded in a true awareness or belief that it will be a suitable and appropriate choice. In this belief the personal values of those who have the power to lead the way to weigh heavily. In this sense, there are personal values that, when used as guidelines in the management of a company, seem to promote the happiness of employees in the work environment. The purpose of this paper is to find the personal values of the entrepreneur. As a secondary objective, the authors also study whether these values are associated with certain entrepreneurs’ socio-demographic factors (gender and age).
Design/methodology/approach
The group to be studied is the Spanish business community. An exploratory study is carried out, first, with the definition of value constructs according to Schwartz’s personal values model and, second, with a relational analysis, measuring association effects through logistic regression.
Findings
Two higher-order personal values of the entrepreneur are found that seem to contain all the elements that would lead to management styles that would facilitate happiness at work. These values emerge from a dimension model of Schwartz’s theory of basic human values. MVP which, however, does not follow its four adjacent/antagonistic dimensions, but is composed of three dimensions adjacent to each other and, therefore, complementary. Moreover, some stereotypes in the literature on the relationships between personal values and certain socio-demographic factors are broken down and their effects on happiness at work are revealed.
Research limitations/implications
One of the limitations of this work is the relatively small sample size. In this sense, it would be useful to check whether the overall results are repeated in larger samples. Another limitation is that this is a portrait of the group at a given time. Given the experimental nature of this type of work, especially in the case of socio-demographic factors, it would be advisable to carry out a follow-up longitudinal analysis with a time horizon. This would allow a more precise investigation of the effects of the variables mentioned above. In addition, a third limitation is that the authors are studying the collective of Spanish entrepreneurs, and in the study of personal values, culture has a determining influence (Schenck, 2016; Boer and Boehnke, 2016; Perozo and Paz, 2016). It would also be worthwhile considering this study by sector: are the values the same for entrepreneurs in different sectors?; or in some specific sectors, for example, are there differences between entrepreneurs with tech businesses versus non-tech businesses or those who make the circular economy or the green economy a guideline for their organizations? Thus, technology companies must be open to change. Openness and innovation are for their entrepreneurs’ key values to ensure their performance (Tseng, 2010; Van Auken et al., 2008). However, in these organizations, there is a framework of conflicting values between the required flexibility and the values of power and control that the entrepreneur needs, and wants, to have (Albarracín et al., 2014). On the other hand, personal values determine green self-identity and moderate its relationships with ecological care and the moral obligation of the entrepreneur (Blankenberg and Alhusen, 2019; Barbarossa et al., 2017). Therefore, it could be analysed whether these values are maintained in entrepreneurs in these sectors, influencing, as discussed in this paper, greater happiness in the work context; and whether they are conditioned by gender or age (Fotieva, 2021; Li et al., 2020). It would also be helpful to study the socio-demographic influence further, to analyse the possibility of interaction or confounding effects between socio-demographic variables and some other variables not addressed in this paper. For example, does purchasing power or income level, affect personal values? And do the values that give content to F2, power and control, lead the entrepreneur to a higher level of income level or vice versa? Do other factors play a role? In fact, for Hirigoyen (2008), values such as altruism, benevolence and universalism are considered as obstacles to the development of the company. Subsequently, authors such as Salas-Vallina (2018) and Boubakary (2015) conclude that far from that idea, these axiological elements would lead to more significant business development through the satisfaction and happiness they generate in employees and stimulate their productivity, matching with the conclusions. It would be interesting, as a complement to the approach of this work, to carry out a study on the happiness at work of the entrepreneur’s employees, being the group of employees surveyed. Knowing the profile of values of an entrepreneur through the scale proposed in this work, it would be possible to analyse whether this is associated with greater or lesser perceived happiness among his/her employees. As mentioned above, from the methodological point of view, a risk of using the multidimensional scaling modelling for the analysis of personal values is that the respondent reflects more what he/she considers socially desirable than his/her true perception. This bias is one of the main limitations of psychological research. However, the fact that European Statistical Office surveys are guided by experts, both in processing -knowing how to deal with social desirability in personal values research (Danioni and Barni, 2020) – and in data collection, eliminates this limitation.
Practical implications
However, despite the above limitations, this paper makes important contributions. On the one hand, at a theoretical and instrumental level, it shows that the higher-order values graph of Spanish entrepreneurs follows the circumplex essence of the Schwartz value model but does not obey its number of higher-order dimensions. In the case of entrepreneurs, it consists of three elements, three dimensions, adjacent and complementary. None of them contradicts any other. A methodology is created to portray the Spanish entrepreneur in an axiological way and, from this portrait, to reveal his/her tendency towards a leadership style that promotes the happiness of his/her employees, through the importance given to these three factors or dimensions. These dimensions are weighted, in turn, by issues such as gender or age group. For added practical purposes, this information would be beneficial, in the first place, for all those who want to work in and with a particular entrepreneur. The type of leadership or management expected is a factor or reason why a person decides where he/she would like to work (Qing et al., 2020; Lee, 2016). This is not only for the potential employees of that business but also for all those groups or stakeholders, who engage with the company to perform their functions. Individuals make important decisions and choices about their relationships in the work environment based on the alignment of their values with those of the party they want to engage with (Sagiv et al., 2015). On the other hand, it can serve entrepreneurship educators. By knowing the value factors of entrepreneurs, adjusted to the culture of the particular territory, they will be able to pass on this information to their entrepreneurship students (Karimi and Makreet, 2020; Arieli and Tenne-Gazit, 2017) and teach them how they could increase the happiness at work. It also serves to better understand the constructs of management values-employee engagement-workplace happiness in the current environment (Ravina-Ripoll et al., 2020; Salas-Vallina et al., 2017; Wang and Yang, 2016), by introducing the role of personal values on the entrepreneur’s governance style into this construct (Figure 1).
Social implications
Finally, this study can also have social implications, making its tiny contribution to the SDGs through the study of personal values that guide the behaviour of the entrepreneur. The decision by international institutions for countries to implement the sustainable development goals (SDGs) (UNSDG 2030 Agenda) as cross-cutting strands of their policies has boosted the idea of addressing happiness at work. Thus, SDG 8 talks about Decent Work. In addition to the priority of improving the conditions of groups living in discriminatory working environments (child labour, poverty, precariousness, etc.), taken to its maximum expression, this objective encompasses much more. Workers spend a large part of their lives at work. At the same time, a business needs its employees to be productive. SDG 8 aims to ensure that people have quality employment, increasing their productivity and consumption potential. On the other hand, SDG 3 is about “Health and Well-being”, i.e. ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all ages. It is also about health and well-being in the work environment. Issues such as interpersonal relationships at work, environment and teams, organizational culture, role in the organization, autonomy at work and fostering innovative spirit, can be factors that, if poorly managed, reduce the feeling or perception of happiness at work, especially in today’s digital world (Foncubierta-Rodríguez and Montero-Sánchez, 2019; Leka and Houdmont, 2010; Näswall et al., 2008).
Originality/value
The role of certain higher-order personal values of the entrepreneur is highlighted, which could make him/her tend towards the realization of happiness management practices. Furthermore, through the methodology used, a model of the entrepreneur’s higher-order values has been established, which can be used as a tool to generate reasonable expectations about his/her way of governance and to what extent it is close to a framework conducive to happiness management. This information can be beneficial to all those people and groups that establish relationships with the company, from managers and employees to external stakeholders. In this way, it also helps to anticipate the companýs response to corporate social responsibility.
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After completion of the case study, the participants would be able to understand the challenges in building a sustainable homestay tourism business; develop a positioning…
Abstract
Learning outcomes
After completion of the case study, the participants would be able to understand the challenges in building a sustainable homestay tourism business; develop a positioning statement for La Pinekonez which builds a unique competitive advantage; and outline elements of the business strategy to profitably sustain and grow a sustainable tourism homestay in terms of service offering, pricing, marketing and operations.
Case overview/synopsis
La Pinekonez Homestay, located in the beautiful region of Himachal Pradesh, India, is the subject of this case study, which explores both its successes and its difficulties. In August 2022, Arvind, the dedicated sole proprietor of La Pinekonez, grappled with multifaceted challenges, the first being the foray of established hotel chains into the homestay business. As the protagonist, was is in dilemma of preserving La Pinekonez’s unique identity amidst corporate competitors, particularly with regards to differentiating from the expanding hotel chains. The clash between customer expectations for hotel-like amenities and the homestay’s commitment to sustainable tourism presented a crucial challenge. Negative reviews questioning the authenticity of La Pinekonez’s green initiatives heightened the complexity. Adding to Arvind’s predicament were the seasonal fluctuations in tourist inflow and his aspiration to embrace immersive tourism trends. This case study facilitates exploration of strategic positioning, sustainability management and marketing strategies in the dynamic and competitive hospitality industry. It also offers insights into the complexities of balancing differentiation, customer satisfaction and sustainability while navigating the evolving landscape of tourism trends.
Complexity academic level
This case study is suitable for students of tourism and hospitality management at postgraduate level. The case study can be discussed once the basic concepts of hospitality management and service dimensions are covered.
Supplementary material
Teaching notes are available for educators only.
Subject code
CCS 12: Tourism and hospitality.