Abstract
Ethics plays central roles of enhancing employees’ satisfaction in their jobs coupled with the inducement of a strong commitment to the organizations for which they work. In the current research, the role of ethics in enhancing satisfaction of employees and commitment to an organization in the hospitality industry is expected to be arrived at based on the information obtained from the hospitality industry in the U.S.
By deploying questionnaires and online interviews to garner data, the research is expected to find out that hotels such as Ritz-Carton, four season’s group of hotels, millennium hotels, and W Hotels can magnificently benefit by deploying ethics in their operations.
Introduction
Employees constitute one of subtle human resources available to an organization that when well utilized can result to an immense success of an organization both in terms of expansion and profitability. One of the mechanisms of harnessing employees’ abilities is by orienting them to a common organizational behavior based on a common prescribed organizational code of ethics.
In the context of this research proposal, ethics refers to standards of behaviors or conducts. It entails evaluating individual values, possession of knowledge on communal principles, and individual standards (Beran, 2009, p.987). It also entails the development of the capacity to make well-informed choices and the realization of the impacts of the choices made both in short-term and long-term basis.
However, this noble role of ethics is impaired if the employees’ needs are not crafted to make sure that they are satisfied with their job besides remaining committed to the organization (Ghazzawi & Smith, 2009, p.301). In organizational settings, social responsibility amounts to one of the mechanism of enhancing the development of these concerns of business ethics in the hospitality industry.
CSR encompasses having a sense of competence and control, acceptance of cultural diversities, and having plausible information about the purpose of engaging in socially benefitting activities and projects (Muijen, 2008, p.238).
In this research proposal, the results indicate that embracement of concepts of business ethics in the American hospitality industry can result to enhancement of the industry’s performance based on employees’ satisfaction and commitment to organizational values.
Consequently, it is hypothesized that the firms in the industry (Ritz-Carton and four season’s group of hotels, and millennium hotels and W Hotels) may experience an immense success through a prescription of common codes of work ethics, something that enhances an excellent public image of firms with the ultimate result of increased success of the organization in terms of profitability.
In the attempt to prove or disapprove this hypothesis, a research is conducted on the role of ethics in contributing to organizational commitment and employees’ satisfaction in the American hospitality industry. The specific selected sub industry within the hospitality industry is hotels. These hotels are Ritz-Carton and four season’s group of hotels, and millennium hotels and W Hotels.
The rest of the research paper presents literature review, Methodology, problem statement, research questions and hypothesis. Then, results for the study are presented followed by discussion of these results. Finally, the last section presents recommendations and conclusions.
Literature Review
Following the collapse of large organizations in America coupled with the immense concerns of fraudulent activities within organizations across the globe, topics of ethics have gained popularity in organizational debates. The word ethics is coined from the Greek term-ethos meaning habit (Holjevac, 2008, p.1034).
When adopted in the organizational settings, the word may fundamentally mean fairness or honesty in executions of one’s mandates. For organizations seeking to excel in the future uncertain world of business, it is critical for them to embrace the concepts of ethics.
This implies that transformation of leadership is essential to ensure that ethics constitutes one of the moral principles of any business operations (Simola, Barling & Turner, 2010, p.181). Thus, ethics demand to be observed, cultivated, accorded respect, and applied in all work scenarios.
Even though management scholars contend that ethics is necessary for the success of any organization, there appears to lack a universally agreed upon definition of ethics. For instance, Beran (2009) argues that ethics entangles principles, established standard guidelines, and rules coupled with various codes that make up particular organizational behaviors (p.987).
On the other hand, Barsh and Lisewski (2008) define it as “the systematic process that commercial organizations use to evaluate actions as right or wrong” (p.29). What one can pinpoint from these definitions is that ethics entails making the right decisions for the right cause, the right cause being the one, which does not disadvantage an organization in the end.
Inculcating a given form of organizational behavior entails laying down certain principles for the employees to follow.
These principles are shrouded with perspectives of an organization’s management, which endeavors not only to maintain the workforce morale but also to make sure that the jobs are satisfying (Walker, 2010, 87: George & Gareth, 2008, p.56 ) coupled with the reduction of employees’ turn over (Droege & Hoobler, 2010, p.55).
Strict compliance to a prescribed code of organizational ethics is subtle in helping to mitigate risks associated with external events. However, engaging in ethical business behaviors has costs. These costs do not only express themselves in terms of time but also in terms of money.
An additional cost is the cost related to the need to integrate individual employees (Champoux, 2011, p.23), engaging work groups (Christian, Garza & Slaughter, 2011, p.101), and altering leadership approaches (Purvanova & Bono, 2009, p.348) to merge new code of organizational ethics.
Pettijohn et al. (2008) shares this line of argument by further asserting, “hotel industry will be compensated for the money invested through the profits generated through increased employee morale and productivity” (p.546).
Consequently, although an organization may encounter higher expenses following its strategic decisions to run an ethical firm in the short run, long-term gains may form subtle grounds for engaging in such an endeavor.
The link between ethics, employees’ morale, and their productivity is critical since it has been also proven that a link exits between employees’ morale and job satisfaction coupled with employees’ commitment to an organization (Pettijohn et al., 2008, p. 547). Therefore, it is essential that organizations in the hospitality industry focus on inculcating strong business ethics.
This may be accomplished through making the employees bear the consequences of engagement in non-ethical behaviors in deviance to the set out organizational codes, principles, and rules of conduct.
This is crucial bearing in mind that many people like working in organizations, which possess a positive ethical environment. Hence, it can translate to a higher job satisfaction, reduced stress levels, and higher organizational commitment by the employees (Liao, Hu & Chung, 2009, p.1815).
There are growing concerns that the hospitality industry is experiencing myriads of challenges ranging from a decline of business travels, intensification of competitions among the hospitality organizations, and the repercussions of financial challenges associated with the recent financial crunch.
Inspired by these challenges, Lee and Way (2010) argue that the challenges can help in explaining the “questionable and unethical management behavior within the hospitality industry” (p.349).
This revelation poses challenges to organizations in the hospitality industry particularly upon appreciation of Pettijohn et al. (2008) argument that the hospitality industry is characterized by traits such as inseparability coupled with intangibility (p.553). This means that the organizations within the industry have to respond to instances of unethical behaviors in a more spontaneous manner in comparison with other industries.
Different organizations are established with different goals and objectives. In an organization whose operations are inspired by concepts of capitalism, one of the noble objects is to increase returns to the owners. In similar firms within the hospitality industry, strategic decisions are realized through hefty investment in building the brand image to help organization achieve this goal.
However, when unethical conducts present themselves within the industry, this may be impossible. Pettijohn et.al (2008) explains this by informing, “even though organizations spend millions of dollars to build positive public image, that money is soon wasted when the organization’s unethical practices are reported” (p.555).
In his scholarly work entitled Job Satisfaction among Information Technology Professionals, Ghazzawi (2008) amplifies this argument further by informing that information technology professionals are more satisfied with their jobs if the organizations they work for approach their businesses from the perspectives of social responsibility and dimensions of strict compliance to certain particular ethical values (p.9).
The implication of this argument is that ethical organizations stand better chances of being more profitable in comparison with organizations, which do not intertwine their operations with social responsibility and ethics. The implication of this argument to the hotel industry in America is that it stands better chances of being successful by executing its business in a manner that is both ethically and socially responsible.
Although there is large scholarly evidence that business ethics may contribute to the success of organizations in general, only a little literature exists scrutinizing the implications of business ethics to the satisfaction and organizational commitment of employees within the tourism and hospitality industry (Lee & Way, 2010, p.349).
This research seeks to fill this gap by conducting a research based on the American hotel industry context.
Methodology
This research is done within an approximated period five months. It will dwell specifically on hotels within the U.S. in studying the impact of ethics in the hospitality industry on organizational commitment and employees’ satisfaction. These hotels are Ritz-Carton, four season’s group of hotels, millennium hotels, and W Hotels. It is impossible to collect primary data from all hotels within the United States.
Consequently, it uses ‘J.D power and associates index, a satisfaction index used by the North American hotels in 2009’, to rate satisfaction of guests to aid in the selection of the sample. The target sample is principally hotels that engage in providing service to any business’ travelers.
The choice of hotels falling within this sector is influenced by the fact that such hotels employ people who are not only exemplary trained but also people who have wide exposures to multicultural environments. Therefore, it is likely that ethics would have the most impact for such employees’ levels of satisfaction and commitment to the organizations for which they work.
To provide comparative grounds, the hotels chosen are the first two in the highest rank of the index (Ritz-Carton and four season’s group of hotels) while the last two appear the lowest in the index (millennium hotels and W Hotels).
Data is collected via the simple random sampling technique with the aid of the human resource arm of the four chosen hotels. Once the sample is determined, online surveys will be conducted coupled with the administration of questionnaires that have been typed particularly to persons who cannot access online services within their organizations.
The data collected will be used to find out the percentage of employees in the top rank and lowest rank hotels respectively in the selected rating index who think that standard principles and procedures of doing their work enable the clients to come with certain anticipations. The question under investigation is whether the employees like their jobs.
From the answers, the percent of employees in the top rank of the index and the percentage of employees working in the hotels in the lowest rank in the index who fill that knowing precisely what both the organization and the clients anticipate on them help them to do their work better will be found out.
This helps in making deductions and conclusions on the roles of a particular code of ethics in resulting to satisfaction and organizational commitment of the employees in hotels.
Research Problem
Problem Statement
Hospitality industry handles people of varying cultural backgrounds. These people have varying needs, which may pose friction between the employees and clients particularly where the two come from different cultural contexts. Consequently, common paradigms need to be deployed to bridge these differences in the attempt to make the organizations realize success in meeting the myriads of needs of their clients (Enz, 2010, p.18).
The main problem is whether engineering common organizational ethical guidelines for all the workers within the industry may help in lubrication of the industry to eliminate the risks while making the multicultural employees both satisfied and committed to the organization.
The Purpose Statement
The research is purposed to determine whether prescription of several work ethics within the hotel industry may have pronounced impacts in the manner employees perceive the extents to which the jobs they do satisfy their needs, coupled with the degree to which they develop a commitment to an organization. The focus is on the hotel industry.
However, the purpose of the research would expand to include making general conclusions about the entire hospitality industry. Therefore, the entire hospitality industry may reap optimally through making provisions for guaranteeing the employee job satisfaction through designing appropriate ethical environment that fits the needs of the employees.
Based on the stated problem, the research will accomplish the task of scrutinizing the contribution of ethics in inducing the preference of employees for organizations, which provide clear and non-ambiguous ways of doing work by prescribing particular ethics. This is an attempt to find out mechanisms for boosting the employees’ morale in the hotel industry.
In congruence with the stated problem, this research is critical in helping to advocate that adherence to ethical and social values in an organization falling in the realm of the hospitality industry is a phenomenal issue that calls for organizations to focus on ethical dilemmas more than ever before.
Research Questions
Two main research questions in this research proposal are
What is the impact of prescription of common organizational work ethics within the U.S hotels on employees’ job satisfaction? There are two variables here: organizational ethics and employees’ job satisfaction. The qualitative value of Job satisfaction variable is found by asking whether the workers felt that prescribed ethics of work within the organization they work for made them feel that their needs are satisfied.
On the other hand, the degree of prescription of ethic values is determined with the help of the HR in each of the four hotels to finds out about inceptives set for ethical behaviors and quantitative data of the number of employees within their organizations who have benefited from such incentives.
This question links with the stated problem in that perceptions and possession of adequate information on the manner in which one deserves to treat all clients may help in improving the standard procedures for executing duties of the employees within all the four hotels.
What is the influence of common organizational work ethics on the U.S hotel’s employees on the employees’ commitment to the organizations employing them? Aspects such as the rate of turnover and absenteeism will measure employees’ organizational commitment variable.
This question links with the stated problem in the sense that managers are critical in the inculcation of the spirit of ethical behaviors within an organization in the hospitality industry in an attempt to induce organizational commitment.
Therefore, in the context of the problem of this research, this question is critical in mandating the management the task of making subordinate staff to develop strong organizational commitment.
Hypothesis
In this research proposal, it is hypothesized that prescribing organizational code of ethics among employees of Ritz-Carton, four season’s group of hotels, millennium hotels and W Hotels, makes the organizations stand better chances of being competitive in the end.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The focus of the research will be on roles that ethics can play in the hotel industry in the American hospitality industry. The findings are expected to lead into recommending that Ritz-Carton, four season’s group of hotels, millennium hotels and W Hotels need to study the relevance of incorporating ethical behaviors within their businesses.
This recommendation is substantive since with regard to Yang (2008) findings, ethical rules, which govern an organization, are key determinants for employees’ levels of commitment to an organization (p.440). Ethics can incredibly aid in the creation of job satisfaction coupled with inducement of organizational commitment and trust among the employees of the hotel industry.
With this trust, employees become satisfied with various working conditions, something that results to increased chances of their retention coupled with boosting their morale. These roles of ethics are critical especially upon appreciating the argument that maintenance of workers’ morale is a key pillar for increasing the productivity of an organization and hence the profitability.
This means that engaging in ethical behaviors within an organization is an incredible strategy for achieving a long-term success of any organizations in the hospitality industry such as Ritz-Carton, four season’s group of hotels, millennium hotels, and W Hotels.
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