The Impact of Environmental Stimuli on Hotel Service Employees’ Service Sabotage—Mediation Role of Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Dissonance

Habib Alipour, Shahrzad Amelshahbaz, Farzad Safaeimanesh, Bahman Peyravi and Alireza Salavati
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Habib Alipour: Faculty of Tourism, Eastern Mediterranean University, 99450 Famagusta, Turkey
Shahrzad Amelshahbaz: Faculty of Tourism, Eastern Mediterranean University, 99450 Famagusta, Turkey
Bahman Peyravi: Faculty of Business Management, Vilnius Gedimino Technical University, Saulėtekio al. 11, 10223 Vilnius, Lithuania
Alireza Salavati: Aberystwyth Business School, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3FL, UK

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 2, 1-18

Abstract: While scholarly inquiries into Service Sabotage (SS) have received ample attention in the literature of various industries, the role of Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Emotional Dissonance (ED) in employee-customer relations in the context of Environmental Stimuli (ES) in the tourism accommodation sector has remained unexplored. The role of employee–customer interaction in tourism is paramount for a hospitality organization’s growth, sustainability, and profitability. We hypothesized hotel service employees’ EI and ED can be influential factors to SS. Adopting the Mehrabian–Russell model (M–R) and Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework as conceptual paradigms, we tested the effect of hotel ambiance on employees’ emotions, which can have significant effects on SS. The study revealed that ES links to behaviors and elicits EI and ED as human emotional responses to environments that have a parallel mediating effect on mitigating or neutralizing the negative effect of SS in an organization. The findings provide important insights into an organization’s awareness of the provision of ES as a positive factor for employees, subsequently forming their behavioral consequences of EI and ED which can mitigate the negative impacts of SS. The study yields important implications on how hospitality organizations should pay attention to the impact of rule-breaking behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

Keywords: tourism accommodation; emotional intelligence; emotional dissonance; service employees; service sabotage; north Cyprus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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