Abstract
Topaz Hotel located on the island of Malta is a gorgeous 4-star hotel rightfully positioned at the Northern side of the Island. Topaz Hotel boasts of a 406-room capacity, 1100 beds, and 8 lifts among others. Actions like designing, new product upgrading, modifications to the production progression, advertising, logistics, wrapping, pricing, and delivery are among activities stressed by the general managers of Topaz hotel in the green marketing progression.
However, the sales manager does not deem green marketing as fundamental. Conflicts frequently happen in organisations where workers are not capable of tolerating the influence of their colleagues. Conflict in an organisation is generally undesirable as it can cause low morale and output in addition to high labour turnover.
The aspects that are probable of causing conflicts at Topaz hotel include motivation, and leadership style. The types of conflicts that could probably happen include interpersonal conflicts, and role conflicts. Intervention is thus required to bring sense to prevent conflicts from happening.
Introduction
Unorganised and unmanaged hotel advancement could seriously produce unpleasant environmental deprivation. While debatably hotels do not take up enormous quantities of environmental space on a single basis, jointly they bring about significant effects on the environment.
The dependence on the physical environment by the hotel sector signifies that the failure of one or more of these resources is in opposition to its own continued existence and safety (Annunzio & McGowan 2004). Conflicts generally happen in organisations since workers have different views, priorities, concerns, and convictions.
Discovering the degree to which directors in the Topaz hotel in the island of Malta have integrated environmental concerns into their marketing policies could assist in finding areas of likely conflict. This paper assesses the key aspects that trigger various behaviours and considers likely conflicts that could occur.
Topaz hotel
The Topaz Hotel, which is located on the island of Malta, is an attractive 4-star hotel suitably positioned at the Northern side of the Island. This location makes Topaz Hotel an admired destination for both the local population as well as for the tourists (De Waal 2011). The renowned regions of Qawra as well as Bugibba are situated within a walking distance from the Topaz Hotel.
In addition, Topaz Hotel offers a free transportation service to these renowned regions. Topaz Hotel has a 406-room capacity, 1100 beds, and 8 lifts. Each of its units is heated with personal control of temperature. The majority of the units boast of a private balcony in addition to a number of them also having the benefit of pool views.
The organisational constitution of Topaz hotel comprises of a general manager in addition to five line-managers who head different departments. The departments include food and beverage, rooms, human resources, accounting, and marketing and sales. The following is a discussion of conflicts that could arise in the departments.
Organizational Structure
Organisational structure denotes every formal network of relations and management that is applied to orchestrate the tasks allocated to a person or groups of workers in order to realize a set goal. Interpersonal conflicts could happen within different departments because of the nature of supervision.
The past few decades have witnessed increasing importance on ecological protection and the execution of values of sustainable improvement (De Waal 2012). Approximately, the past three decades have led to noteworthy improvements and environmental accountability is now progressively turning out to be a component of the corporate programme (El Dief & Font 2010).
High environmental alarm on the part of customers, governmental, and non-governmental establishments has placed demands on the hotel sector to instigate a number of ecological accountability frameworks embracing the type of voluntary systems of conduct, official recognition, eco-labels, rewards, self-help directives and instruction manuals, and environmental coalitions (Mullins 2007).
These forms of developments occur in tactical planning.The reporting system could as well be a source of conflict when managers fail to take into consideration the response of the workers in their judgments. Front line workers generally interact with clients every day.
Therefore, they play a key task in leadership by channelling the feedback of clients to the management. A number of triumphant marketing managers, mostly from chief hotel chains found in Western Europe as well as North America, have recently understood the significance of green marketing (Aguilera, Rupp, Williams, & Ganapathi 2007)
. This significance includes placing their businesses in the market to distinguish their businessesâ services and products from the ones of rivals and generate trustful associations with their ecological stakeholders, viz. non-governmental establishments, market mediators, the community, and most significantly their guests (Aragon-Correa, Matias-Reche & Senise-Barrio 2004).
Institutions can fall to greenwashing easily, either deliberately or via poor comprehension of the matters. This paper adds to the greening in addition to green marketing fields by mounting on the comprehension of the way individual and organisational principles are related to green marketing strategy (GMS) activity.
Organisational background and demographic inconsistencies are more significant in clarifying GMSs than individual and organisational principles (Ayuso 2006). Practical green companies are legitimate in executing GMSs willingly, with the intention of distancing themselves from opponents and clearing sentiments of guilt.
This kind of orientation is most frequent in global chain hotels by denoting the significance of official structures in promoting ethical surroundings by the application of such official instruments as systems of behaviour and training (Baker & Sinkula 2005a).
Leadership Style
Leadership signifies a process where professionals exert their influence on individuals in order to achieve identified group or organisational objectives. At the department level, lack of proper communication skills could bring about a conflict involving the managers, or other employees (Baker & Sinkula 2005b). The choice of a marketing strategy is a likely factor that can cause conflict in Topaz hotel.
To numerous employees, marketing exemplifies greed and is accountable for effects generated by over utilisation and overexpansion, which are stuck in interim personal gains instead of social wellbeing and excellence of life. The overenthusiastic marketing conducted by tourism organisations without recognising the calamity of the commons draws mass tourism to eco-responsive targets, carrying numerous visible effects on the environment.
Instead of promoting tourism like a social action, the directors of tourism marketing have a tendency of deeming it a basis of rapid economic growth, and thus concentrating exclusively on the extension of general visitor numbers (Collyer & Warren 2009).
A narrow-minded perspective of the function of marketing like the aforementioned acts as the cause of the overexpansion in numerous tourist targets, a condition that has rapidly pushed numerous of these targets into the deteriorating phase (Berkhout & Rowlands 2007).
However, marketing can be a critical device for encouraging excellent environmental models of consumption in addition to selling new ways of life (Grant 2007). Marketing is immeasurable in range and can be bettered in order to contribute to discovering workable trade-offs involving financial system and environmental science.
Sustainability must be one of the characteristics of a green marketing viewpoint and for Topaz Hotel, which considers functioning to generate sustainable dealings; green marketing remains the best option. Green marketing has been referred to as the entire management progression accountable for recognising, foreseeing, and gratifying the conditions of clients and community in a beneficial and sustainable manner (Kasim 2007).
Authentic green marketing embraces a holistic perspective and promoters of this holistic perspective highlight that green marketing has to regard the entire scope of actions in which Topaz Hotel is concerned (rather than just green communications). In entirety, actions like designing, a new product improvement, modifications to the production progression, advertising, logistics, wrapping, pricing, and delivery are critical to the general managers of Topaz hotel in the green marketing progression.
Nevertheless, the sales manager does not deem green marketing as vital (Lee & Park 2009). Green marketing is not just concerning the product, as the sales manager believes (Sharma & Henriques 2005). Instead, it has to consider the effects of the whole life sequence of the product as the general manager explains, since the development of a product cannot be separated from the way it is consumed and the impact it has on the environment.
Devoid of such an idea, Topaz Hotel can be blamed of greenwashing, its depiction of a green representation will fail, and there will be no benefit on the environment. The general manager and sales manager of Topaz Hotel have embraced different views of green marketing actions (Tosi & Pilati 2011).
The general manager declares to uphold Business Environmental Responsibility (BER) since he understands that this move is the correct thing to do and recognise that they have a responsibility to behave in a publicly accountable way. On the other hand, the sales manager embraces green marketing as it appears under stakeholder demands.
Hotels mainly with the perception as the one of the general manager of Topaz Hotel have customised their entire company culture to certify that environmental matters are integrated into all facets of their companies. However, hotels taking this view are very few. Experimental hospitality study has revealed that selflessness is a significant motivator for numerous hotels engaged in environmental plans (Buchanan & Huczynski 2004).
Some successful hotel firms have extended a variety of programmes to guard the environment. For instance, with the aim of advancing the checking of the environmental operation of its businesses, the collective administration of Hilton Hotels agreed to form Hilton Environmental Reporting (HER) as an ecological reporting and checking arrangement for every one of its facilities.
Topaz Hotel ought to make a collective agreement to enhance suitable business plans committed to three major sections of accountability, viz. wellbeing and security of workers and clients, valuing social and moral concerns in the business and society, and decreasing negative effects on the environment.
Unluckily, not every business that declares to be eco-friendly is truly green (Griffin & Moorhead 2011). A number of them predominantly utilise the thought to achieve bigger market share, thus leaping on the green style devoid of making any significant modification in their environmental activities and operations. The mainly quoted instance is alleging to be green by just clinging onto worthless accords (Collings & Mellahi 2009).
Green marketing encounters a criticism due to its not living up to its pledges as an instrument for enhancing social and environmental sustainability. The ones misleading green marketing alleges that amounts to greenwashing, and thus bring about customer uncertainty towards every allegation by minimising the gains to truly dedicated firms that seek to support the ecological elements of their commodities in the market.
There exist numerous different models for Green Marketing Strategies (GMSs) normally shaping behaviour surrounding the intensities and ways of the incorporation of environmental concerns into the activities of a company. These are normally motivated by the theoretical designs and structures of marketing planning (Lifeng 2007).
This paper affirms that GMSs of hotel firms entail assessments at both tactical and operational levels. Tactically, the business requires thinking on the effect of greening on naming, segmenting, aiming, and product setting. Operationally, green product chances have to be integrated into the organisation of the marketing mix (Saiyadain, Sodhi & Joshi 2009).
Marketing policies and operations have to be connected with one another. When environmental operations are separated from genuine tactical decisions, hotels will not be capable of shunning customersâ apathy or mistrust, thus resulting to worse off scenario as compared to when they had not done anything. Genuine green marketing must, for that reason, branch from strong ecological principles, which should be interiorised in the broader business culture.
Motivation
Motivation signifies a condition that occurs because of external and internal strategies that persuade an individual to take part in an activity that causes the realisation of a particular objective. The degree of employee motivation at Topaz hotel can be a key basis of conflict.
At early phases of environmental alteration, managerial convictions, principles, approaches, and customs are anticipated to be prospective BER determining factors, mainly in developing nations where outside forces and regulative formations might not be completely built up. The same case applies where business is deemed the most significant activity for economic advancement (Podsakoff, Whiting, Podsakoff & Blume 2009).
Accordingly, managers possessing ecocentric principles, who consider that ecological defence is a major priority, might follow a green programme in their organisations, and thus bring about the required organisational modification towards an eco-friendly culture. This supposition is maintained empirically in organisational greening as well as by the general manager of Topaz Hotel (Aguinis & Pierce 2007).
At the organisational stage, the framework differentiates three aspects of organisational principles, namely:
- Authenticity (relational)
- Competitiveness (instrumental)
- Selflessness (ethical)
The above three aspects of organisational principles aspire to comprehend the way such value aspects can direct businesses to execute GMSs and increase employee motivation (Orlikowski 2010). Competitiveness, in its relation to the environment, describes the manner in which businesses can pursue cost effectiveness or market chances, thus acquiring competitive advantages above their rivals by making use of practical environmental policies.
Authenticity-founded standards, nevertheless, utilise environmental accomplishments as a way of attaining friendly associations with different stakeholders through adherence to extensively accepted principles, models, and directives. Lastly, selflessness originates from the controversy when a number of firms lessen environmental effects since they perceive this as the correct thing to carry out.
This extensive classification of BER principles is in line with the ones recognised as organisational greening, green marketing, and corporate social accountability (Raisch, Birkinshaw, Probst & Tushman 2009). In brief, motivation influences the excellence of the organisation by deciding the determination of workers in a bid to attain organisational goals, in addition to, the trend and impact of their behaviours.
The best thing for Topaz Hotel
Overlapping value aspects are considered independently merely for investigative reasons, as studies have revealed that businesses with leading altruistic principles might also stress a strong eagerness to take up BER programmes for clear economic gains and vice versa (Luthans, & Avolio 2009).
Fascinatingly, the outcomes show that marketing managers overstressing profitability preference in their principles are less expected to undertake positive green marketing practices, thus lacking apparent competitive and economic benefits.
Debatably, they are not capable of seeing the likelihood of attaining competitive advantage through execution of GMSs, which could be due to an observed lack of consumer or public concern in hotelsâ ecological behaviours or disregarding green marketing like âgreenwashingâ.
The uniqueness of the perception or the lack of understanding might also control such preference (Hodgkinson & Rousseau 2009). Consequently, hotels could be negative (or possibly sensible) concerning the degree to which a green status in reality brings about economic gains.
Conventionally, Topaz Hotel could lack marketing expertise owing to the behaviour of the sales manager and thus find hardships in seizing markets with special concerns (Karriker & Williams 2009). With this kind of condition, business continued existence turns out to be the key concern for Topaz Hotel as local hotels in the island of Malta have to struggle strongly for a greater market share, and certainly, the environmental aspects will not be a strong point for Topaz Hotel.
Intervention by the government seems not appropriate to executing practical GMSs in the case of Topaz Hotel (Berry, Coad, Harris, Otley & Stringer 2009). This judgment defies the traditional knowledge that regulatory forces are determining factors of corporate ecological receptiveness. This element could be an indication of poor execution and checking of environmental directives in the island of Malta, which is an epitome of a developing nation.
An advance like this might thus have some effects on companiesâ compliance on the way to green (marketing) programmes. Nevertheless, tourism sector in the island of Malta has been rising at a swift rate throughout this time, thus giving the feeling that the present business model is suitable (Broadbent & Laughlin 2009).
Therefore, the sales manager of Topaz Hotel could fail to observe the competitive rate of green marketing unless there is intervention by the other managers of Topaz Hotel directly and acutely to drive the subject. The intervention by the other managers of the hotel could act to push the sales manager to see the importance of green marketing (Ramsay & Wagner 2009).
Conclusion
This paper aims at discussing the conflicts that are probable of occurring in Topaz hotel. Additionally, it is required to play a key function in promoting inter-firm teamwork and offering particular educational plans that assist the laggards to comprehend the advantages of engaging (Fugate, Stank & Mentzer 2009).
The conflict between perceptions of the general manager and those of the sales manager of Topaz Hotel concerning green marketing behaviour implies the requirement to incorporate environmental accountability internally at the governance, management, and operational ranks. Companies should promote a culture that supports empowerment and award innovation at every level of the establishment to boost employee motivation (Highhouse, Brooks & Gregarus 2009).
The aspects that are prone of bringing about conflicts at Topaz hotel include leadership style, motivation, and organisational structure. The kinds of conflicts that could arise at the hotel comprise interpersonal conflicts, and role conflicts. The conflicts could happen within and between departments. In this regard, the management must aim at executing successful preventive measures in a bid to avoid such conflicts and to boost the competitiveness of Topaz hotel.
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