Editorial

Citation

Okumus, F. (2012), "Editorial", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 24 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijchm.2012.04124aaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Volume 24, Issue 1

This first issue of IJCHM in 2012 includes eight full articles and two book reviews. In the first article, Seung Hyun Kim and his colleagues explored the effects of the size of the board of directors and board involvement in strategy on financial performance in the private club industry. The authors collected data via a web-based survey from members of the Club Managers Association of America (CMAA). Study results showed that board members’ involvement in strategy and the size of the board of directors have a positive influence on a private club’s financial performance. In the second article, Jin-Feng Uen, Ting Wu, Huei-Chun Teng and Yu-Shuan Liu investigated the messages delivered by transformational leaders to front-line employees to build an organizational brand climate and encourage employees’ branding behaviors to attain better company performance within the Taiwanese hotel industry. The authors collected data from 34 human resource managers and 326 customer contact employees working in Taiwanese hotels. Study results suggest that transformational leadership has both direct and indirect positive influences on the development of organizational brand climate and employees’ branding behavior.

In the next article, Ramakrishnan Ramanathan explores performance of hotels in terms of various criterion influence loyalty behavior of customers. Data were collected from www.laterooms.com. According to the study results, value for money is the most important criteria influencing loyalty behavior of customers in UK hotels. This study’s results suggest that expectations of guests are quite different across various categories – star classifications, chain and independent hotels, and leisure and business guests. In the following article, James M. O’Donnell, Seoki Lee and Wesley S. Roehl examined evidence indicating the presence of economies of scale among Atlantic City casinos at the property-level and between multi-unit and single unit operators. The study collected 320 annual property observations for the main analysis for the period of 1980 to 2009 and used detailed financial performance data for the 2007-2009 period. Results of this study suggest that there are economies of scale for casinos in Atlantic City. Additionally, larger size was associated with better performance even during the current economic downturn. The next article by John W. O’Neill explored the apparent norm of partying that persists in the hotel industry despite evidence suggesting it can negatively affect both employees and organizations. The authors collected data from 544 managers from 65 hotels. The study found that in hotels with organizational culture oriented towards work and family balance, managers displayed less partying behavior. Study results further indicate that relatively older employees spend less time than younger employees partying with work colleagues outside work.

Yu-Chin (Jerrie) Hsieh content analyzed the environmental management policies and practices of the top 50 hotel companies as disclosed on their corporate web sites. Only 46 percent of the selected hotel companies used web pages to post information related to environmental issues on their public web sites. The web pages of Wyndham, IHG, Accor, Whitbread, Hyatt, Rezidor, Sol Melia, TUI, and Scandic featured more revealing environmental information than that posted by other companies, which indicated their environmental commitment and engagement. The study findings identified 12 major environmental focus areas in which the sample hotel companies engaged. Qu Xiao, John W. O’Neill and Anna S. Mattila examined corporate strategic effects on hotel unit performance. A total of 2,012 hotels across the USA were analyzed for the period between 2003-2005. Study results suggest that a hotel owner can have significant influence on the operating performance of its hotel properties by implementing strategies regarding its properties’ locations, segments, brand affiliations and operators.

In the final article, Pimtong Tavitiyaman, Hanqin Qiu Zhang and Hailin Qu aimed to investigate the influence of competitive strategies and organizational structure on hotel performance and to explore whether organizational structure has a moderating effect on the relationship between competitive strategies and hotel performance. This study employed a causal and descriptive research design to determine the cause-and-effect relationships among competitive strategies, organizational structure, and hotel performance. The target population for this study was US hotel owners and general and executive managers. The results show a competitive HR strategy to have a direct impact on a hotel’s behavioral performance and a competitive IT strategy to have a direct impact on a hotel’s financial performance. Organizational structure is found to have a moderating effect on the relationship between both of these strategies and behavioral performance. Finally, this issue includes two book reviews by Maximiliano Korstanje. The first book review is on The Darker Side of Travel, which was written by Richard Sharpley and Phillip R. Stone. The second book review is on Tourist, Tourism, and Good Life, which was co-authored by Phillip Pearce, Sebastian Filep and Glenn Ross.

We hope that our readers find all the articles published in this issue timely, relevant and useful.

Fevzi Okumus