Faculty & Research
Questioning Conventional Wisdom: Is a Happy Employee a Good Employee, or Do Other Attitudes Matter More?
Vol 8 No 6
By: Michael C. Sturman Ph.D. and Sean Way Ph.D.
Executive Summary: The notion that good service results when companies ensure their employees’ satisfaction has found little support in empirical research. The idea is an enduring one, however, and it has been codified as the starting point in the widely espoused service-value-profit chain. This study of food and beverage managers in forty Asian hotels is the first to address this issue directly in the hospitality industry. The findings underscore the weak connection between workers’ satisfaction and the ratings of F&B supervisors. Instead, another factor has a much stronger effect on performance. That factor is the workplace climate, which comprises employees’ understanding of the practices, procedures, and behaviors that are rewarded, supported, and expected by the organization with regard to customer service and customer service quality. A strong workplace climate is a precursor to effective service performance, as measured by supervisors’ ratings of the F&B work groups in this study. None of this is to say that employers should disregard employees’ satisfaction with their jobs, particularly because of the influence of satisfaction on turnover and other workplace issues. To improve performance, however, this study reinforces existing research findings that managers should ensure that all employees understand what is expected of them and how their performance will be appraised and rewarded.
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- Questioning Conventional Wisdom: Is a Happy Employee a Good Employee, or Do Other Attitudes Matter More? By: Michael C. Sturman Ph.D. and Sean Way Ph.D.
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Other Reports or Articles You May Find of Interest
- Restoring Workplace Communication Networks after Downsizing: The Effects of Time on Information Flow and Turnover Intentions, by Alex Susskind
- The Cost of Employee Turnover: When the Devil Is in the Details, by J. Bruce Tracey and Timothy R. Hinkin
- Why Trust Matters in Top Management Teams: Keeping Conflict Constructive, by Tony Simons and Randall Peterson
About Michael C. Sturman Ph.D.
Michael C. Sturman teaches undergraduate, graduate and executive education courses on human resource management, compensation and cost-benefit analysis. His research focuses on the prediction of individual job performance over time, the influence of compensation systems, and the impact of human resource management on organizational performance. He has published research articles in such journals as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Academy of Management Journal, Personnel Psychology, and Journal of Management. He has also published practitioner papers in the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Lodging Magazine, Lodging HR, A.A.H.O.A. Hospitality , HR.Com, and The American Compensation Association Journal. Sturman is the Kenneth and Marjorie Blanchard Professor of Human Resources. He holds a PhD, MS, and BS from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and is a Senior Professional of Human Resources as certified by the Society for Human Resource Management.
For more information visit http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/facultybios/faculty.html?id=96
About Sean Way Ph.D.
Sean A. Way is an Assistant Professor of human resource management at the Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration (saw234@cornell.edu). Sean earned a Ph.D. from Rutgers University’s School of Management and Labor Relations. His dissertation entitled “A Firm-Level Analysis of HR Flexibility” received the 2006 Ralph Alexander Dissertation Award by the Academy of Management HR Division for the best dissertation in the field of human resource management. Sean has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in HR Management, HR Strategy, and Training and Development in the U.S., Canada, and Hong Kong. His current research focuses on a number of strategic human resource management topics, including the effects of HR systems, workforce mixing, HR flexibility, climate, culture, internal marketing, and market orientation on the performance and effectiveness of organizations and their employees. He has presented his work at numerous national and international conferences, and his work has been published in diverse outlets such as the Journal of Management, Human Resource Management Review, and Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Research and consulting sponsors include Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, Marriott International, and R.P. Scherer Canada.
For more information visit http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/facultybios/faculty.html?id=206
