Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access
Open Access Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Restricted Access Subscription Access

Viewing Hotel Industry through Customer Oriented Bureaucracy


Affiliations
1 Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India
     

   Subscribe/Renew Journal


Direct contact with the customer in any service interaction creates a unique set of challenges for both the employer as well as the front-line service worker. It occurs in the pursuit of dual, contradictory goals of efficiency and being customer-oriented. This paper, while using the example of the hotel industry explicates that efficiency is achieved at the cost of quality of service delivery. Howsoever unattainable the dual goals seem to be in the hotel industry, with proper investments in human resources organizations have thrived and excelled in their environments and proved that the goals might not be contradictory in nature after all.
Subscription Login to verify subscription
User
Notifications
Font Size


  • Angela Knox, (2007),”Never the Twain Shall Meet? The Customer-oriented Bureaucracy and Equal Employment Opportunity in Service Work”, Management Research News, 30(3): 216 – 27
  • Atkinson, J. (1984), “Manpower Strategies for Flexible Organizations”, Personnel Management, August: 28–31.
  • Atkinson, J. (1985), “The Changing Corporation”, in Clutterbuck, D. (ed.), New Patterns of Work. Gower, Aldershot
  • Benner, P. E. & Wrubel, J. (1989), The Primacy of Caring: Stress and Coping in Health and Illness (Vol. xxii), Reading, MA, US: Addison-Wesley/Addison Wesley Longman.
  • Bird, E., Lynch, P. A. & Ingram, A. (2002), Gender and Employment Flexibility within Hotel Front Offices, Service Industries Journal, 22(3): 99–116.
  • Biswas, M.(2012), “Aesthetic Discrimination during Campus Interview: A Phenomenologically Informed Application”, Vilakshan: The XIMB Journal of Management, 9(1): 73–94.
  • Bowen, D. E. & Lawler, I. (1992): “The Empowerment of Service Workers: What, Why, How and When”, Sloan Management Review, 33(3): 31–39.
  • Bull, P. & Church, A. (1996), “Recession and the Hotel and Catering Industry: A Regional Perspective”, Service Industries Journal, 16(2): 118–39.
  • Chen, Licheng & Wallace, Michelle (2011), “Multi-skilling of Front-line Managers in the Five Star Hotel Industry in Taiwan”, Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, 19 (1): 25-37
  • Davidson, M., Guilding, C. & Timo, N. (2006), “Employment, Flexibility and Labor Market Practices of Domestic and MNC Chain Luxury Hotels in Australia: Where Has Accountability Gone?” International Journal of Hospitality Management, 25(2): 193.
  • Doherty, L. & Stead, L. (1998), “The Gap between Male and Female Pay: What Does the Case of Hotel and Catering Tell Us?” Service Industries Journal, 18(4): 126–44.
  • Duncan, Tara (2005), “Current Issues in the Global Hospitality Industry”, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 5 (4): 359-66
  • E. Soltani & A. Wilkinson (2010), “What is Happening to Flexible Workers in the Supply Chain Partnerships between Hotel Housekeeping Departments and Their Partner Employment Agencies?” International Journal of Hospitality Management, 29: 108–19.
  • Fisher, R. & McPhail, R. (2011), “Internal Labor Markets as a Strategic Tool: A Comparative Study of UK and Chinese Hotels”, Service Industries Journal, 31(2): 137–52.
  • Grandey, Alicia A. (2003). “When ‘The Show Must Go On’: Surface Acting And Deep Acting As Determinants of Emotional Exhaustion And Peer-Rated Service Delivery”, Academy of Management Journal, 46(1): 86-96
  • Hochschild, A. (1983), The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feelings. Berkeley: University of California Press
  • Hui-O Yang & Dr. Hsin-Wei Fu (2009), “Contemporary Human Resource Management Issues and Concerns in the Hotel Industry: Identifying the Priorities”, International Journal of Organizational Innovation, 2(1): 201–24.
  • Korczynski, M. (2002), Human Resource Management in Services Work, Palgrave Publishing: N.Y.
  • Lai, P. C., Soltani, E. & Baum, T. (2008), “Distancing Flexibility in the Hotel Industry: the Role of Employment Agencies as Labor Suppliers”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 19(1): 132–52.
  • Levitt, T. (1976). “Production Line Approach to Services”, Harvard Business Review, Sept/Oct: 41-52
  • Liladrie, S. (2010), “Do Not Disturb/Please Clean Room”: Hotel Housekeepers in Greater Toronto”, Race & Class, 52(1): 57–69, doi:10.1177/0306396809354177
  • Liz Doherty& Simonetta, Manfredi (2001), “Women’s Employment in Italian and UK Hotels”, International Journal of Hospitality Management, 20: 61–76
  • Lucas, Rosemary (1995). “Some Age-related Issues in Hotel and Catering Employment”, The Services Industries Journal, 15:2,
  • Mairna, Hussein Mustafa (2012), “The NonConsonance between Tourism Universities’ Programs and the Needs of Tourism Employment in Jordan”, International Education Studies, (1).
  • Maria, McNamara, Philip Bohle & Michael Quinlan (2011), “Precarious Employment, Working Hours, Work-life Conflict and Health in Hotel Work”, Applied Ergonomics, 42: 225–32.
  • Nickson, D. P., Warhurst, C., Witz, A. & Cullen, A. M. (2001), “The Importance of Being Aesthetic: Work, Employment and Service Organization”, retrieved November 19, 2012, from http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/2413/
  • Ritzer, R. (1998), The McDonaldization Thesis, Sage Publications, London.
  • Schlesinger, L.L. & Heskett, J.L. (1991), “Breaking the Cycle of Failure in Services”, Sloan Management Review, Spring: 17-28.
  • Warhurst, C., Lloyd, C. & Dutton, E. (2008), “The National Minimum Wage, Low Pay and the UK Hotel Industry: The Case of Room Attendants”, Sociology, 42(6): 1228–36.
  • Wong, K. K. F. (2004), “Industry-specific and General Environmental Factors Impacting on Hotel Employment”, Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 9(1): 19.
  • Zahari, M. S. M., Hanafiah, M. H., Othman, Z., Jamaluddin, M. R. & Zulkifly, M. I. (2010), “Declining Interest of Hospitality Students toward Careers in Hotel Industry: Who’s to be Blamed?” Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 2(7): 269–87.
  • Zemke, R. (1990), The Service Edge/ : 101 Companies that Profit From Customer Care / by Ron Zemke with Dick Schaaf, foreword by Tom Peters, New York, N.Y./ : Penguin, 1990.

Abstract Views: 296

PDF Views: 0




  • Viewing Hotel Industry through Customer Oriented Bureaucracy

Abstract Views: 296  |  PDF Views: 0

Authors

Shreyashi Chakraborty
Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India

Abstract


Direct contact with the customer in any service interaction creates a unique set of challenges for both the employer as well as the front-line service worker. It occurs in the pursuit of dual, contradictory goals of efficiency and being customer-oriented. This paper, while using the example of the hotel industry explicates that efficiency is achieved at the cost of quality of service delivery. Howsoever unattainable the dual goals seem to be in the hotel industry, with proper investments in human resources organizations have thrived and excelled in their environments and proved that the goals might not be contradictory in nature after all.

References