Definition of Accountability
Modern business faces challenges presented by the world’s tendencies, namely the predicted and unpredicted ones. Managers can predict the future tendencies connected with global events, which influences the number of visitors to some hotels in the country. A crisis, war, or other pandemics may present the unpredicted course. Entrepreneurs cannot foresee these events, creating a potential business activity threat. Hospitality suffered the most after the pandemics of COVID-19 and had to rearrange its business strategy in terms of ethics. It was necessary for this business worldwide to revive stability and customer trust. Accountability is the term that represents a company’s strategic direction and the level of the customers’ reliance (Ferrell et al., 2022). Businesses had to consider this definition to succeed in development after the crisis.
Summary
The chosen article from the Wall Street Journal describes the business strategy and its ethical applications by hotels in the United States (Feurer, 2023). They integrate new approaches and strengthen their accountability from the customers’ side. The hotel managements observe a high volume of business travel, which motivates them to upgrade their services. They chose the term accountability in business ethics for further business recovery.
After the pandemic, many remote workers went to meetings and visited other cities, so many hotels increased the quality of their beverages and food. The expansion of workspaces also takes place in many hotels throughout the country, positively impacting customers’ and investors’ accountability (Ferrell et al., 2022). Managers must create long-term sustainable value for their businesses and customers to build a strong accountability rate and integrate their new strategies (Trevino & Nelson, 2021). The hotels receive various types of guests daily, so the image of their business ethics is vital. On the other hand, some issues may appear as the hospitality business has to balance quality and price (Ferrell et al., 2019). Many American hotels offer their customers lower- and mid-price rates, which sometimes negatively impacts the quality (Feurer, 2023). For example, the article describes the BWH Hotel Group, which successfully integrates its ethical strategies by creating unique benefits for medical staff travel and raising the company’s accountability level. The research is directly connected with the key term of accountability, representing companies’ strategic direction in the hospitality business and the customers’ trust level.
Discussion
The article highlights hospitality activity during the after-pandemic period, a clear example of a business that suffered greatly from the consequences of the crisis, which caused economic and customer loyalty issues. A vast majority of the pandemic problems are still present in the hospitality business, which needs improvements in ethics. Such an improvement will lead to better communication with the customers and will enhance their loyalty. This article relates to the chosen definition of accountability, showing how hotels rebuild their businesses by attracting more customers.
They choose different ways, one of which is increased accountability of their activity by the customers. The managers develop new strategies and improve their enterprise, which creates the customers’ trust and makes them accountable. The article describes how the hotels develop their buildings, rooms, food, and beverages. In other words, the customers’ accountability motivates businesses to adapt to new realities while keeping the customers’ volumes on a high level. In conclusion, different businesses have their points of view on the rebirth of activity after the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, ethics in professional surroundings and customer-related surroundings are integral to future success. The example of the Best Western group showed that the combination of suitable business approaches and ethical definition application towards customers and partners would promote better activity indicators in terms of finance and branding.
References
Ferrell, O.C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2022). Business ethics: Ethical decision making and cases, 13th ed. Cengage Learning.
Ferrell, O.C., Harrison, D.E., Ferrell, L., & Hair, J.F. (2019). Business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and brand attitudes: An exploratory study. Journal of Business Research, 95, 491-501. Web.
Feurer, W., (2023). Hotels embrace blue-collar workers to prop up sagging business travel. The Wall Street Journal. Web.
Trevino, L.K. & Nelson, K.A. (2021). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right, 8th ed. Wiley.