Innovation Behaviour of Employees in Small and Medium-Sized Hotel Enterprises

The paper aims at finding out whether employees of small enterprises can be seen as resources in innovation processes and if the determinants "skills", "knowledge" and "commitment" influence this innovation behaviour. Researchers haves used the model proposed by Talke, Salomo and Mensel (2006), which integrates all three elements (skills, commitment and knowledge) into the innovation creation process. For empirical testing, a case study is conducted by investigating a typical small, family owned hotel in the alpine region of Austria. The applied research measures are questionnaires, interviews and a qualitative experiment. The study proves that external impulses, respectively strategic management measures, are able to increase the innovation activities of employees.

The results show that it is the management's task to emphasise and convey the importance of innovation to the employees. Moreover, it is possible to actively stimulate the innovative behaviour of employees by creating innovation-supporting structures within hotel enterprises.