2011 Awards for Excellence

Citation

(2012), "2011 Awards for Excellence", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 24 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijchm.2012.04124aaa.002

2011 Awards for Excellence

Article Type: 2011 Awards for Excellence From: International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Volume 24, Issue 1

The following article was selected for this year's Outstanding Paper Award for International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

"Employee satisfaction in the Iberian hotel industry: the case of Andalusia (Spain) and the Algarve (Portugal)''

Eva GallardoBusiness Organization, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Sandra-M. Sanchez-CanizaresDepartment of Management, University of Cordoba, Cordoba, Spain

Tomas Lopez-GuzmanDepartment of Economics, University of Cordoba, Cordoba, Spain

Maria Margarida Nascimento JesusDepartment of Management, University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal

Purpose -- This paper aims to analyze job-satisfaction differences between employees of the hotel industries of two similar tourist destinations: Andalusia (Spain) and the Algarve (Portugal) Design/methodology/approach -- A questionnaire survey was conducted in the two regions. The population for this study comprised employees of any hotel establishment in these regions. The authors have used stratified random sampling based on the number of hotels in each category and the number of hotel beds these represent. A total of 2,064 usable questionnaires from 165 hotels were returned in Andalusia and 461 from 23 hotels in the Algarve.

Findings -- Findings from this study show an acceptable level of job satisfaction in both regions, although this is higher among the Andalusian workers, not only in terms of the overall score but also for each of the job facet scores considered. In contrast to previous findings, in this study the effect of wage on job satisfaction has been reported as significant in both regions.

Research limitations/implications -- The different periods of time in which the fieldwork was done may have caused some distortions in the perception of working conditions in each region. Besides this, some departments may not be sufficiently represented.

Practical implications -- This paper encourages hotel managers to focus their attention on their remuneration systems, promotion possibilities and the perception of their profession's prestige in order to improve staff satisfaction. Particularly in Andalusia, it would be advantageous to develop retention strategies for talented people. In the Algarve region, more training and an improved recognition system are needed.

Originality/value -- Although job satisfaction is an employee attitude that has been studied extensively, there have been few studies on that topic in the tourism sector in Spain, and even fewer in Portugal. Moreover, whereas prior work has mainly focused on small samples -- a limited number of hotels surveyed in some specific area -- in this study two important tourist regions using a wide sample, and taking all hotel categories into consideration are compared.

Keywords Employee attitudes, Hotel and catering industry, Job satisfaction, Portugal, Spain

www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/09596111011035936

This article originally appeared in Volume 22 Number 3, 2010, pp. 321-„34, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

The following articles were selected for this year's Highly Commended Award

"Hotel performance: state of the art''

Ruggero Sainaghi

This article originally appeared in Volume 22 Number 7, 2010, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

"Leadership styles and burnout: is there an association?''

Anastasios Zopiatis

Panayiotis Constanti

This article originally appeared in Volume 22 Number 3, 2010, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

"'When experience matters': building and measuring hotel brand equity: the customers' perspective"

Kevin Kam Fung So

Ceridwyn King

This article originally appeared in Volume 22 Number 5, 2010, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

Oustanding Reviewers

Dr Billy BaiUniversity of Nevada, USA

Professor Rob LawHong Kong Polytechnic University, People's Republic of China