An empirical investigation into the influence of human resource

Description
This study aims to examine the impact of specific human resource management practices
on employees’ work engagement

International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
An empirical investigation into the influence of human resource management practices on work
engagement: the case of customer-contact employees in Malaysia
Choo Ling Suan Aizzat Mohd Nasurdin
Article information:
To cite this document:
Choo Ling Suan Aizzat Mohd Nasurdin , (2014),"An empirical investigation into the influence of human resource
management practices on work engagement: the case of customer-contact employees in Malaysia", International J ournal of
Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 8 Iss 3 pp. 345 - 360
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Ling Suan Choo, Norslah Mat, Mohammed Al-Omari, (2013),"Organizational practices and employee engagement:
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dx.doi.org/10.1108/17515631311295659
Anitha J ., (2014),"Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee performance", International J ournal
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Alan M. Saks, (2006),"Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement", J ournal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 21
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An empirical investigation into the
in?uence of human resource
management practices on work
engagement: the case of
customer-contact employees in Malaysia
Choo Ling Suan and Aizzat Mohd Nasurdin
Choo Ling Suan is a PhD
Student and
Aizzat Mohd Nasurdin is
Professor at School of
Management, Universiti
Sains Malaysia, Penang,
Malaysia
Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to examine the impact of speci?c human resource management practices
on employees’ work engagement.
Design/methodology/approach – Data were gathered using surveys from a sample of 438
customer-contact employees attached to 34 upscale hotels throughout Malaysia and analyzed using
partial least squares technique.
Findings – The ?ndings showed that service training and performance appraisal have a positive and
signi?cant in?uence on work engagement. The proposed model was able to explain 16.2 per cent of the
variance in work engagement.
Research limitations/implications – The ?ndings indicate that hotel authorities can enhance work
engagement of their customer-contact employees by improving service training and re?ning
performance appraisal practices.
Originality/value – This study is one of the few studies that focus on the speci?c effect of individual
human resource management practices on work engagement, especially within the context of a
developing country (i.e. Malaysia) using structural equation modelling.
Keywords Human resource management practices, Malaysia, Hospitality industry, employees,
Hotels, Work engagement, Partial least squares
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The activities of tourism are expanding throughout the world due to the increase in income
and leisure time (Medlik, 1994). It is projected that world tourism will continually grow in
2013 at the rate between 3 and 4 per cent (The World Tourism Organization, 2013).
Similarly, in the case of Malaysia, the growth in tourism is overwhelming (Kler, 2010). For
instance, it is reported that tourism industry generated MYR60.6 billion income from tourist
receipts as a result of 25.03 million incoming tourists in year 2012 (Tourism Malaysia, 2013).
This rise is considered phenomenal compared to a decade ago where tourist receipts were
only MYR25.8 billion and incoming tourists to Malaysia were 13.29 million. According to the
Ministry of Information Communications and Culture (2011), the escalation of tourism in the
country has led to the growth of tourism-related industries such as hotels, transportation,
leisure, retail and other services. Of the key players in the tourism trade, hotels play a key
role, as they serve as a place in providing facilities for the transaction of business, meetings
and conferences, as well as recreation and entertainment (Medlik, 1994).
Received 12 December 2013
Revised 2 April 2014
Accepted 30 April 2014
Both authors contributed
equally in the write-up of this
manuscript. This study is
funded by a Postgraduate
Research Grant Scheme from
Universiti Sains Malaysia,
Penang, Malaysia. Grant No:
1,001/PMGT/845061
DOI 10.1108/IJCTHR-12-2013-0083 VOL. 8 NO. 3 2014, pp. 345-360, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1750-6182 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH PAGE 345
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The increasing number of incoming tourists has expanded business opportunities for the
hotel sector, which stimulates more investment on the part of hotels. Statistical data showed
that the number of hotels in Malaysia has substantially increased from 1,492 units in 2000
to 2,724 units in 2012 (Tourism Malaysia, 2013). As more and more hotels expand
themselves and new ones become established, hotels have to struggle in sustaining their
market share. For upscale hotels, increasing competition suggests that they need to deliver
more outstanding service quality to their customers. This is because customers who are
willing to pay more will be expecting to receive better service quality (Kandampully and
Suhartanto, 2000). Therefore, to ensure customer satisfaction, it becomes crucial for
upscale hotels to deliver excellent services to their customers.
Being a labour-intensive industry, hotels need to capitalize on their human resources to
strengthen their competitive position (Baum and Mudambi, 1999; Hayes and Ninemeier,
2007). Although the hotel business employed a multitude of human resources, Bienstock et
al. (2003) stressed that it is the frontline employees (hereafter known as customer-contact
employees) that represent the most vital resource for a hotel, as they frequently have
face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact with customers which enables them to distinguish a
hotel’s service delivery quality from its competitors (Karatepe and Uludag, 2008; Nailon,
1989; Samen?nk, 1994; Yang, 2012; Yeh, 2013). During these “touch points” with
customers, customer-contact employees act as representatives of their employing
organization in the delivery of service. As such, they have the opportunity to strengthen or
weaken their institution’s image. For instance, an inappropriate response from a particular
customer-contact employee during the service interaction may result in customer
dissatisfaction (Bitner et al., 1990).
Because customer-contact employees play a central role in in?uencing guest satisfaction,
combined with the hotels’ need to strive for competitive advantage and business
sustainability, infusing such employees with positive attitudes in the form of high work
engagement would be a strategic move (Kusluvan et al., 2010). According to Schaufeli et
al. (2002), work engagement is de?ned as a positive, ful?lling and work-related state of
mind that is characterized by vigour, dedication and absorption. Engaged employees have
been found to be highly energetic, self-ef?cacious individuals who will exercise in?uence
over events that affect their lives (Bakker et al., 2010). Similarly, using a sample of service
employees and customers from 114 service organizations in Spain, Salanova et al. (2005)
discovered that work engagement enhances service climate in the organization, which, in
turn, resulted in favourable employees’ performance and greater customer loyalty. More
recently, in a study conducted by Karatepe (2013) among 110 frontline employees from
eight Romanian hotels, work engagement was found to have a positive and signi?cant
relationship with job performance and extra-role customer service.
Given the bene?ts associated with work engagement, numerous studies have tried to
identify the predictors of work engagement. Nevertheless, several observations have been
noted that highlight gaps for future research in this area. First, a majority of past studies on
work engagement were saturated with job-related predictors and personal- related
predictors. Job-related predictors that have been examined include supervisor coaching
(Bakker et al., 2007; Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004), job control (Hakanen et al., 2006; Mauno
et al., 2007), autonomy (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007, 2009b) and social support (Karatepe
and Olugbade, 2009; Othman and Nasurdin, 2012). While, personal-related predictors that
have been studied were self-ef?cacy (Xanthopoulou et al., 2009a), optimism (Xanthopoulou
et al., 2007, 2009a, 2009b) and organizational-based self-esteem (Mauno et al., 2007).
Scholars opined that contextual factors play a more prominent role in shaping a person’s
attitude as opposed to internal factors (Salanova et al., 2005; Schneider et al., 1998).
Speci?cally, it has been argued that human resource management practices (hereafter
known as HRM practices) are particularly important for hotels in promoting positive
attitudes among its employees (Hoque, 1999; Kusluvan et al., 2010). Salanova et al. (2005)
maintained that HRM practices constitute organizational resources that can assist
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employees to achieve their work goals, reduce the spending of their resources (such as
time and energy) in work, and thereby, help reduce their job demands. When work goals
can be achieved and job demands be reduced, employees are likely to adopt a positive
attitude towards their work, such as being energetic, dedicated and happy in work, all of
which characterize work engagement (Christian et al., 2011).
A glance at the literature on work engagement (Karatepe, 2013; Salanova et al., 2005)
indicates that HRM practices have been found to be predictors of work engagement.
Unfortunately, these studies viewed HRM practices as a combination of individual
practices using an aggregate measure. Speci?cally, in the work by Karatepe (2013),
training, empowerment and rewards constituted HRM practices, whereas in the case of
Salanova et al. (2005), HRM practices were characterized by training and autonomy. Saks
(2006) alone, however, examined the individual effects of speci?c HRM practices (rewards
and recognition) on work engagement. The scarcity of research on the individual in?uence
of HRM practices has led Arrowsmith and Parker (2013) to conclude that the effects of
speci?c HRM practices on work engagement remain unclear to HR practitioners. In
addition, Kusluvan et al. (2010, p. 193) commented that:
[. . .]before searching for best bundles of HRM practices, researchers need to develop
considerably more basic knowledge of effective HRM practices and how to get managers to
adopt those good practices.
Following the calls by Kusluvan et al. (2010) and Arrowsmith and Parker (2013), more
studies on the role of speci?c HRM practices in predicting work engagement are needed.
Identifying the speci?c HRM practices that could contribute to work engagement would be
able to facilitate the hotel’s management in promoting work engagement among their
customer-contact employees. Moreover, the two studies that investigated the relationship
between HRM practices and work engagement were conducted in the Western context,
such as in Spain (Salanova et al., 2005) and Romania (Karatepe, 2013). Kao et al. (2000)
stressed the need to indigenize the applicability of management practices in Asian
organizations. In addition, Kusluvan et al. (2010) concluded that there is no single
approach to what constitutes HRM practices for the tourism and hospitality industry.
Kusluvan et al. (2010) suggested that HRM practices should be tailored to different tourism
and hospitality organizations.
Given that Malaysia is a multicultural country with a unique national culture and social
outlook (Ministry of Information Communications and Culture, 2011), embarking on a study
in the context of Malaysia would help broaden the database in this area. Finally, studies that
have examined the predictors of work engagement within the context of the hotel industry
are still limited (Karatepe, 2011; Kim et al., 2009; Terje and Mehmetoglu, 2011). Owing to
the fact that the hotel industry is one of the major players in contributing to Malaysia’s
economic growth, coupled with the key role played by work-engaged customer-contact
employees in a hotel’s success, a study that aims to examine the role of speci?c HRM
practices in predicting work engagement among Malaysian hotels is warranted.
2. Literature review
2.1 Work engagement
According to Schaufeli et al. (2002, p. 74), work engagement is de?ned as a “positive,
ful?lling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigour, dedication and
absorption”. Vigour refers to a high level of energy and mental resilience at work even when
the individual is faced with dif?culties. Dedication refers to the involvement, enthusiasm,
inspiration, challenge and pride attached to work. Absorption refers to a person’s focus and
that he/she is happily occupied in work. Schaufeli et al. (2006) further asserted that work
engagement is a persistent, pervasive and positive affective–cognitive state of mind. To
measure work engagement, Schaufeli et al. (2006) introduced the nine-item Utrecht Work
Engagement Scale. The scores obtained are then aggregated to create a single index of
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work engagement. Having engaged employees, especially those at the frontlines, is
important to employing organizations, and even more so to hotels. This is because as
boundary spanners, customer-contact employees in hotels serve as the primary interface
between the hotel and its guests. Hence, customer-contact employees who are energetic,
devoted and enjoy doing work, will create a favourable impression of the hotel. In addition,
highly engaged customer-contact employees are more likely to please their customers’ in
terms of their needs and desires that ultimately lead to their satisfaction and retention.
2.2 Human resource management practices
In the hospitality literature, Tanke (2001, p. 4) de?ned HRM practices:
[. . .]as the implementation of strategies, plans and programmes required to attract, motivate,
develop, reward and retain the best people to meet organizational goals and operational
objectives of the hospitality enterprise.
Speci?cally, scholars noted that the way in which a hotel manages its human resources
could serve as a competitive advantage, which helps distinguish itself from its competitors
(Ayse Bas, 2007; Bitner et al., 1990; Nankervis and Debrah, 1995). In the past, HRM
practices have been shown to have a positive impact on employees’ attitudes, which
include organizational commitment (Yang, 2012), job satisfaction (Chow et al., 2007; Pollitt,
2011; Zheng and Ricardo, 2009), behaviours such as organizational citizenship behaviours
(Sun et al., 2007; Tang and Tang, 2012) and organizational outcomes like customer
satisfaction and favourable ?nancial return (Mohinder and Anastasia, 2007). However,
there is a lack of consensus on what makes up the “best” HRM practices for a service
industry (Maroudas et al., 2008). In harmony with the approach taken by scholars (Macky
and Boxall, 2007; Nasurdin et al., 2011), we identi?ed four common HRM practices that
have been consistently associated with employees’ attitudes and behaviours. These four
practices include:
1. service training (Tang and Tang, 2012; Wei et al., 2010; Yang, 2012);
2. service rewards (Tang and Tang, 2012; Yang, 2012);
3. performance appraisal (Tang and Tang, 2012; Wang, 2010); and
4. information sharing (Mendelson et al., 2011; Paré and Tremblay, 2007; Yang, 2012).
Thus, these four practices were investigated as predictors of work engagement in the
present study.
2.3 HRM practices and work engagement
According to the Conservation of Resource (thereafter labelled as COR) theory (Hobfoll,
1989), resources (in the form of objects, personal characteristics, conditions and energies)
are valuable to individuals, as the availability of resources facilitates individuals to
accomplish their goals and reduce their job demands (such as time and energy in
completing their job). The COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989) suggests that individual with
resources are more capable of gaining more resources and are less inclined to resource
loss. The COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989) further suggests that individuals are motivated to
protect their resources from loss and will strive to accumulate as many resources as
possible. Consistent with this view, Salanova et al. (2005) proposed that one form of
resources at the organizational level is HRM practices, as these practices are able to assist
employees to achieve their work goals effectively and reduce their job demands when
executing their task. When employees are able to implement their jobs with minimal burden,
they are more likely to develop a positive attitude at work such as being energetic,
dedicated and happy, all of which characterized work engagement (Christian et al., 2011).
Findings from a recent empirical study by Karatepe (2013) among 110 frontline employees
from eight Romanian hotels demonstrated that HRM practices indeed have a positive and
signi?cant relationship with work engagement.
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2.4 Service training
According to Yang (2012), service training relates to programmes sponsored by the
service organization designed to improve the task-related skills and behavioural skills of its
employees. These skills enable customer-contact employees to better handle the complex
and diverse customer needs, wants and personalities (Karatepe et al., 2007; Schlesinger
and Heskett, 1991). It is, therefore, reasonable to expect that a higher level of service
training would enable customer-contact employees to improve their work performance and,
at the same time, decrease their job demands. In such situations, they would reciprocate
the provision of these resources by becoming more energetic, dedicated and happy in
work. Therefore, it is posited that:
H1. Service training will have a positive and signi?cant relationship with work
engagement.
2.5 Service reward
Service reward is an important resource offered by an organization in motivating its
customer-contact employees to work towards goal achievement. Employees often tie their
value in the eye of their employer via the rewards that they received (Hayes and Ninemeier,
2009). According to Lytle (1994), a shortage of rewards create an unpleasant environment
that eventually diminish employees’ work efforts and caused withdrawal from the job. Past
studies have illustrated that service rewards are important in stimulating positive attitudes
and behaviours among employees. For instance, a study conducted by Yang (2012)
among 172 customer-contact employees in Taiwanese restaurants provided evidence on
a positive relationship between organizational commitment and rewards. Likewise, in a
study conducted by González and Garazo (2006) among 149 hotels in Spain,
customer-contact employees were motivated to go beyond their formal work roles when
they are satis?ed with service rewards that they received. Based on the above discussion,
one can expect customer-contact employees in service organizations such as hotels to
develop a positive attitude at work by being highly engaged in their work when they are
given appropriate amounts of rewards. Therefore, our next hypothesis reads as follows:
H2. Service rewards will have a positive and signi?cant relationship with work
engagement.
2.6 Performance appraisal
Performance appraisal is a continual observation and assessment of employee
performance against predetermined job-related standards (Cheung and Law, 1998).
Erdogan (2002) described performance appraisal as the procedure which include the
establishment of performance standards, assessment of the related behaviours,
determination of performance rating and communication of the rating assessment to the
employee. Performance appraisal is undertaken for the purpose of administrative decisions
(such as pay raise, promotion), feedback, development and personnel research (Cawley et
al., 1998). According to Haynes and Fryer (2000), performance appraisal signals to
employees the behaviours that are valued and appreciated by the service organization.
According to Erdogan (2002), performance appraisal has extensive implications on
employees’ attitudes and behaviours in organizations. This is because performance
appraisal provides valuable inputs for employees’ performance improvements, which
eventually shape their role-related attitude and behaviours. Because performance
appraisal serves as a tool for employees to gauge their performance, assists them to
identify areas for improvements and, ultimately, garners greater rewards, performance
appraisal is expected to motivate customer-contact employees to become more engaged
in their work. Therefore, it is hypothesized that:
H3. Performance appraisal will have a positive and signi?cant relationship with work
engagement.
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2.7 Information sharing
Browning et al. (2009) asserted that information sharing within an organization conveys the
message to employees that the organization trusts them, which is likely to make them feel
important. As such, they are more motivated to contribute towards the achievement of the
organization’s goals. In an empirical study among 289 hotel employees in Taiwan, Chiang
and Jang (2008) found that employee who experienced higher communication satisfaction
were more motivated in their work. Customer-contact employees act as the primary link
between the organization and its customers. In the case of hotels, customers usually
approach employees at the frontlines (such as those at the reception) when they intended
to seek more information (such as the hotel’s information, interesting tourist spots,
promotional food menu, price and so forth). Hence, greater information sharing would be
useful for customer-contact employees in responding to customer’s enquiry. When
information is widely disseminated in an organization, employees do not need to spend
extra resources (i.e. time and energy) to look for the information. Findings from an empirical
study conducted among 50 employees in 13 European hotels by Nicole et al. (2009)
showed that information sharing was positively related to customers’ responsiveness. Thus,
it can be concluded that information sharing helps trigger employees to exhibit a
favourable attitude such as being engaged in their work. Hence, we posit that:
H4. Information sharing will have a positive and signi?cant relationship with work
engagement.
2.8 Research model
Based on the preceding discussion, a research model was developed as shown in
Figure 1. HRM practices, which consisted of service training (ST), service rewards (SR),
performance appraisal (PA) and information (IS) were posited as predictors of work
engagement.
3. Methodology
3.1 Sample and procedure
The population in this study consisted of customer-contact employees working in upscale
hotels in Malaysia. As mentioned in previous studies, upscale hotels refer to large hotels
with 4- and 5-star ratings (Lee and Morrison, 2010; Sun et al., 2007). Based on the of?cial
published record, there are 198 upscale hotels across Malaysia (Ministry of Tourism, 2012).
Before conducting the survey, consent from each hotel was sought. However, from the
Figure 1 Research model
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total, only 34 hotels agreed to participate. For the sake of con?dentiality, questionnaire
distribution had to be managed by the hotel’s respective HR managers whereby these
personnel would distribute and collect back the completed questionnaires from the
customer-contact employees. Two weeks were given for respondents to answer the
questionnaire.
A total of 925 sets of questionnaires were distributed. After the stated time, 438 were
completed and analyzed. This yielded a useable rate of 47.4 per cent. Following the
suggestion made by Armstrong and Overton (1977), a test of non-response bias was
undertaken using independent t-test. The result indicates that there are no signi?cant
differences in terms of the study variables between early (407) and late (31 cases)
responses. Therefore, all responses were combined for further analysis.
Our sample consisted of males (46.1 per cent) and females (53.9 per cent). Respondents’
age ranged from 18 to 53 years with an average of 28.4 years (SD ? 7.1). In terms of
ethnicity, 61.6 per cent of the respondents were Malays followed by Indians (13.0 per cent),
Chinese (11.9 per cent) and “others” (13.5 per cent), which include indigenous groups
such as Iban, Kadazan and Dusun. More than half of the sampled respondents were
unmarried (54.1 per cent). In terms of their education pro?le, about 67.6 per cent were
secondary school leavers (who hold either SPM/SPMV/STPM). This is expected, as the
academic entry requirement for non-supervisory hotel employees are normally low similar
to previous studies (Hemdi, 2009; Hoque, 1999). In terms of work department, 60.3 per
cent of the sample came from the front of?ce with the remaining 39.7 per cent from the food
and beverage department. Finally, the average organizational tenure and job tenure for the
sample is 4.2 years (SD ? 5.3) and 3.7 years (SD ? 4.8) respectively. Meanwhile, the
descriptive mean scores for service training was 5.34 (SD ? 0.96), service rewards was
4.59 (SD ? 1.34), performance appraisal was 5.18 (SD ? 1.02), information sharing was
4.92 (SD ? 0.97) and work engagement was 5.09 (SD ? 0.77).
3.2 Measures and control variables
Our independent variables comprised 21 items relating to four HRM practices, namely,
service training, service rewards, performance appraisal and information sharing. Service
training (six items, e.g. “I received continue training to provide good service”) and service
rewards (?ve items, e.g. “I am rewarded for service customer well”) were adapted from
Karatepe et al. (2007), and the reliability was reported as 0.91 and 0.86, respectively.
Performance appraisal (four items, e.g. “This hotel evaluates my performance based on the
track record of my courteous service to customers”) was adapted from Liao et al. (2009)
with the reliability of 0.89. Information sharing (six items, e.g. “Information about how well
this hotel is doing ?nancially is shared with me”) was adapted from Zacharatos et al. (2005)
with the reliability 0.75. On the other hand, work engagement (nine items, e.g. “At my work,
I feel bursting with energy”) was derived from Schaufeli et al. (2006) with the reliability of
0.87. Respondents responded to the items using a 7-point Likert-type scale with “1” ?
“strongly disagree” and “7” ? “strongly agree”.
We initially undertook a pilot study on 30 customer-contact employees in two hotels to gain
feedback on the clarity of the instruments. From their comments, some minor modi?cations
to the original items were made to ?t the context of the study. For instance, the word
“organization” has been changed to “hotel”; the word “employee” has been changed to
“customer-contact employee”. Because previous studies have demonstrated that
demographic variables (such as age, gender, ethnicity, academic quali?cation, marital
status, job tenure and organization tenure) were correlated with work engagement (Burke
et al., 2009; Karatepe and Olugbade, 2009; Kim et al., 2009; Mauno et al., 2007; Simpson,
2009), these seven variables were statistically estimated to avoid overestimating the effect
of the exogenous variables on the endogenous variables.
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3.3 Analytical strategy
Our hypotheses were tested using partial least squares (PLS) software developed by
Ringle et al. (2005). According to Henseler et al. (2009), the PLS model can be evaluated
and interpreted in two stages using:
1. the measurement model; and
2. the structural model.
The measurement model examines the relationships between the manifest variables
(observed items) and latent variables. The measurement model is also examined in terms
of its reliability (item reliability and internal consistency) and validity (convergent validity
and discriminant validity). On the other hand, the structural model speci?es the
relationships between the latent variables through “bootstrapping”. The structural model is
evaluated based on the signi?cance of the path coef?cients and R
2
measures.
4. Results
4.1 Measurement model results
To test the reliability and validity of the measurement model, the loadings for each item and
the composite reliabilities were examined. Item reliability speci?es the correlations of the
items with their respective construct which is indicated by the item’s loading (Chin, 1998).
Chin (1998) suggests a minimum loading of 0.70. As presented in Figure 2, all items
loadings were above Chin’s (1998) threshold value of 0.70 except for two items relating to
information sharing (IS17 and IS20) with a loading of 0.685 and 0.687, respectively.
However, we decided to retain these two items due to two reasons. First, in accordance to
Chin (1998), other indicators for this construct showed strong correlation (average variance
extracted [AVE] ? 0.5). Second, the composite reliability values for this construct
exceeded the minimum 0.70 ceiling which revealed the existence of suf?cient reliability
(Fornell and Larcker, 1981). According to Henseler et al. (2009), composite reliability
speci?es the internal consistency of the latent variable. Fornell and Larcker (1981)
proposed 0.70 as the minimumcut-off value. As reported in Table I, the composite reliability
values in this study ranged from 0.872 to 0.940, which exceeded the 0.70 ceiling
recommended by Fornell and Larcker (1981). Therefore, the measurement model is judged
reliable.
Figure 2 Path coef?cient and R
2
in the research model
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4.2 Composite reliability and the AVE for the measurement model
We subsequently examined the validity of the measurement model based on its convergent
validity and discriminant validity. Convergent validity re?ects whether a particular items
measures a latent variable which it is supposed to measure (Urbach and Ahlemann, 2010).
Fornell and Larcker (1981) proposed that the AVE that is used as the criterion to measure
convergent validity of a measurement model. According to Fornell and Larcker (1981), an
AVE value greater than 0.50 indicates that, on average, a latent variable is able to explain
more than half of the variance of its indicators. As shown in Table I, the AVE values (ranging
from 0.532 to 0.760) surpassed the 0.50 cut-off proposed by Fornell and Larcker (1981).
Hence, it can be surmised that the measurement model possesses convergent validity.
Meanwhile, discriminant validity focusses on the degree in which the item of a latent
variable differs from one another. Henseler et al. (2009) suggested the use of both Fornell
and Larcker’s (1981) criterion and Chin’s (1998) cross-loading criterion in determining
discriminant validity. From Table II, it can be seen that the square root of the AVE of the
latent variable exceeded the correlations of other constructs which ful?l Fornell and
Larcker’s (1981) criterion. According to Chin (1998), items indicated suf?cient convergent
and discriminant validity if the loading of each indicator is greater than all of its
cross-loadings. We inspected through the loadings of each indicator and found that the
respected loading was greater than all of its cross-loadings. This indicates the presence of
discriminant and convergent validity of the measurement model. Based on the estimated
parameters, it can be concluded that the measurement model is reliable and valid.
4.3 Structural model results
Before performing the path analysis, the effect of the control variables on exogenous
variables was estimated. As portrayed in Table III, even though four control variables
(academic quali?cation, age, ethnicity and organizational tenure) were found to have
signi?cant effects on the endogenous variable, the R
2
change (ranging from 0.008 to 0.024)
was considered as weak based on Cohen’s (1988) interpretation, as all values were ?0.13.
After estimating the effects of the control variables, algorithms were executed to examine
the relationships between the exogenous variables and the endogenous variable. Figure 2
Table I Items loadings, composite reliability and the AVE for the measurement model
Constructs Composite reliability AVE
IS 0.872 0.532
PA 0.922 0.746
SR 0.940 0.760
ST 0.931 0.691
WE 0.933 0.607
Notes: Composite reliability (CR) ? (square of the summation of the factor loadings)/{(square of the
summation of the factor loadings) ? (square of the summation of the error variances)}; AVE ?
(summation of the square of the factor loadings)/{(summation of the square of the factor loadings)
? (summation of the error variances)}
Table II Discriminant validity of constructs
Construct IS PA SR ST WE
IS 0.730
PA 0.629 0.864
SR 0.586 0.598 0.872
ST 0.504 0.568 0.425 0.831
WE 0.254 0.378 0.186 0.315 0.779
Note: Diagonals (in bold) represent the square root of the average variance extracted while the other
entries represent the correlations
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presents the beta coef?cients between exogenous and endogenous variables. As depicted
in Figure 2, ST had a positive and signi?cant relationship with work engagement (WE) (? ?
0.154, p ?0.01). Therefore, H1 is supported. In contrast, H2 was found to be unsupported,
as the path between SR and WE was insigni?cant (? ? ?0.089, n.s). PA showed a positive
and signi?cant relationship with WE (? ? 0.329, p ? 0.01), thereby, supporting H3. Finally,
information sharing did not have any relationship with WE (? ? 0.021, n.s). Thus, H4 was
rejected. Our hypothesis testing results are summarized in Table IV.
We also examined the variance explained by the exogenous latent variables in the
measurement model. According to Chin (1998), R
2
value ranges from zero to one. In fact,
based on Cohen’s (1988) interpretation, R
2
value of 0.26, 0.13 and 0.02 for endogenous
latent variables are considered as substantial, moderate and weak, respectively. The R
2
value is shown in Figure 2. Overall, based on Cohen’s (1988) cut-off values, it can be
concluded that the measurement model was able to explain a rather moderate amount
(16.2 per cent) of variance in work engagement.
5. Discussion
The purpose of the present study was to examine the predictors of work engagement of
customer-contact employees working in upscale hotels in Malaysia. Our statistical results
showed that service training and performance appraisal were the two signi?cant predictors
of work engagement. Speci?cally, customer-contact employees become more engaged in
their job when they are provided with greater service training. This is because service
training enhances employees’ task-related and behavioural skills as suggested by Yang
(2012). With such skills, customer-contact employees would become more equipped to
deal with the complex and diverse needs, wants and personalities of customers, which, in
turn, enables them to complete their work more effectively (Karatepe et al., 2007;
Schlesinger and Heskett, 1991). When employees are able to perform well, they are likely
to develop a favourable attitude such as becoming more energetic, dedicated and happily
engrossed in their work, all of which constitute WE. This ?nding is consistent with past
studies which reported that when employees received suf?cient training, they tend to
display favourable job attitudes such as satisfaction (Karatepe et al., 2007) and
commitment (Yavas et al., 2011). In particular, the ?nding of this study corroborates with
Table III Assessment of the control variables
Control variable
WE
Beta t-value R
2
change
Academic quali?cation ?0.159 2.677** 0.024
Age 0.103 2.482** 0.010
Ethnicity ?0.132 1.988* 0.017
Gender 0.030 0.654 0.001
Marital status ?0.118 1.012 0.014
Job tenure 0.074 1.757 0.005
Organisational tenure 0.093 2.234* 0.008
Notes: *p ? 0.05; **p ? 0.01
Table IV Hypotheses testing
Hypothesis Relationship Beta coef?cient t-statistics Decision
H1 ST ? WE 0.154 2.690** Supported
H2 SR ? WE ?0.089 1.533 Rejected
H3 PA ? WE 0.329 5.254** Supported
H4 IS ? WE 0.021 0.353 Rejected
Notes:
**
p ? 0.01
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that of Karatepe (2013) whereby in their study of frontline hotel employees in Romania, they
discovered that HRM practices as a collective measure that encompasses service training
was a signi?cant predictor of WE.
According to Karatepe (2013), to motivate employees to provide outstanding services to
customers, they need to be rewarded adequately. However, the results of the present study
showed that service rewards did have a signi?cant relationship with work engagement. As
reported above, service rewards had the lowest mean score among the studied variables.
This low mean score revealed that customer-contact employees perceived that the rewards
provided by their employing hotels did not commensurate with the kind of service work that
they have performed. This could be one of the possible reasons that accounted for the
non-relationship between service rewards and work engagement.
The ?nding of this study indicates that performance appraisal has a positive and signi?cant
relationship with work engagement. According to Cheung and Law (1998), performance
appraisal is a continual observation and assessment of employee performance against
predetermined job-related standards. Through performance evaluation and feedback,
customer-contact employees are able to improve their work performance accordingly. In
addition, performance appraisal may serves as a signal to employees on attitudes and
behaviours that are valued and appreciated by the organization. When employees
understand what it takes for them to achieve better performance, they are more likely to
become motivated to develop positive attitude at work such as being energetic, dedicated
and absorbed, all of which characterized work engagement.
Lastly, our results demonstrate that information sharing was unrelated to work engagement.
Lawler (1986) suggested that disseminating organizational information (e.g. mission,
vision, goals, policies and strategies) to employees creates a sense of identi?cation with
the organization, which, in turn, motivates them to aid the organization to achieve its goals.
However, the relationship between information sharing and employees attitudes depends
on the quality of information itself (de Ridder, 2004). In his study among 791 respondents
from ?ve service organizations in The Netherlands, de Ridder (2004) found that
non-task-related information sharing did not have any effect on employees’ commitment. In
our study, respondents sampled were non-supervisory hotel workers with secondary
school education (67.6 per cent). As such, they may not be able to perceive how
information shared by the hotel’s management (such as occupancy rate, average room
revenue, total sales of the day, hotel’s pro?ts) are related to their job. Hence, the amount of
information sharing may not have any in?uence on their level of work engagement.
6. Implications and recommendations for managerial practice
Several implications have emerged from our study’s ?ndings. Perceptions of
customer-contact employees regarding their employing hotel’s HRM practices affect their
levels of work engagement. At the same time, having highly engaged customer-contact
employees would be a strategic move for hotels (Kusluvan et al., 2010), as work
engagement has been recognized as having a positive in?uence on customer’s perception
of service quality.
Because service training has been found to have a positive impact on work engagement,
hotels may want to consider conducting training programmes among customer-contact
employees at two basic stages. For new employees, instead of getting senior staff to
become mentors for these new recruits, the hotel’s management may want to design a
more structured orientation program for them. As noted by Tanke (2001), the objectives of
orientation programs include:

to acquaint the new employee to the hotel and its culture as well as his/her speci?c
work unit; and

transfer the knowledge that is related to their job (e.g. how to provide good service to
customers, how to deal with customers problems and complaints and others).
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With a more thorough orientation programme, it is believed that new hires will be able to
reduce their job entry anxiety and increase their con?dence level when performing their job.
According to Tanke (2001), reduction in job anxiety and greater con?dence will eventually
translate into a more positive work attitude. Besides, new recruits should be exposed to
some form of basic training on how to serve customers. Because these employees are still
new, the hotel’s management may want to incorporate role-playing exercises during the
training session. Role-playing stimulates learning by having trainees act out real-life
situations. The learning experience gained from doing would de?nitely have a better impact
on their behavioural skills rather than mere observation. For existing customer-contact
employees, the hotel’s management may want to make it compulsory for them to attend a
minimum number of hours of service training on an annual basis. In this way,
customer-contact employees are able to refresh their skills.
Given that performance assessment was able to stimulate customer-contact employees to
become more engaged in their work, managers need to communicate clearly the criteria
used in evaluating their subordinates’ performance. In the context of hotels, the importance
of quality service delivery to customers and how this is tied to career advancement and
receipts of bene?ts should be highlighted. This emphasis should be captured through the
use of several performance appraisal criteria, which can include records of
accomplishments in service delivery, commitment to customers, ability to meet customers’
needs and wants and the ability to resolve customer complaints. Performance feedback
should be conveyed to the employees, and managers should make their subordinates feel
important to the hotel’s success by illuminating the role they play in contributing to the
overall service delivery. By doing so, employees’ motivation will be fostered, which, in turn,
leads to greater work engagement.
7. Limitations and future research suggestions
As with all research, several limitations have been identi?ed in this study. First, our study
was cross-sectional in nature, which limits causal inferences. One suggestion to address
this problem would be to carry out a longitudinal study. Second, our data were gathered via
self-reports, which may be subjected to common method variance issues. Future
researchers may opt to collect data from multiple sources (such as from the supervisors as
well as peers) to address this shortcoming. However, in our case, the use of self-ratings is
justi?able, as only employees themselves are able to provide a complete picture of their
attitudes and behaviours, whereas supervisor ratings may also be limited in the sense that
supervisors may only notice those actions that impressed him/her as suggested by Organ
(1988). Third, this study was con?ned to full-time customer-contact employees working in
upscale hotels in Malaysia. As such, the issue of generalizability arises. Given that the hotel
industry is well-known for its high turnover rate, and the demand for hotel product is
inherently seasonal, employing large numbers of temporary workers has become a
common practice as noted by Hoque (1999). Therefore, future studies may want to expand
the current sample to include temporary workers. Finally, although rewards and information
sharing have been identi?ed as key determinants of work motivation and attitudes by
previous researchers (Chiang and Jang, 2008; González and Garazo, 2006; Nicole et al.,
2009; Tang and Tang, 2012), in our study, these two variables did not emerge as signi?cant
predictors of work engagement. Hence, it is our hope that future researchers replicate this
study in other service settings (e.g. retailing, banking and transportation), as well as in other
Southeast Asian countries. All these would help enrich the generalizability of the ?ndings.
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Corresponding author
Choo Ling Suan can be contacted at: [email protected]
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