Transformational Leadership in Hotel Industry Dissertation

Introduction

Transformational leadership or level 3 leadership has been popular for the last two decades and continues to attract attention in the practitioner and research field. It is noted as a leadership style that managers can use to create positive effects of motivation, alignment, performance, and satisfaction of staff members (Osula & Ng, 2014). The theory of this kind of leadership shows that there is a mutual benefits relation between leaders and their followers.

Nevertheless, the relationships are still not elaborated, and there is a need for further development to understand relationships and additional insights into the transformational leadership theory. This study seeks to explore the topic further by looking at its relationship with other organisational staff member attributes that determine staff loyalty. It looks at the use of level 3 leadership in the hotel industry.

Background of the problem

In the hospitality industry, especially the hotel industry, leadership faces a challenge of maintaining team unity, establishing open communication policies, protocols and managing information. The industry also suffers from insufficient support from executives and shareholders of the hotels, who sometimes have to work with poor integration and oversight of new technology. These challenges cut across sectors in the hotel industry. Nevertheless, the management of hotels is reviewed according to the productivity and effectiveness of employee and overall outcomes of human relations management. It comes in light of employees being the biggest assets of service-based companies like hotels. The ability of level three leaders to sustain employee organisational behaviour comes in handy at defining success for hotels. A leadership gap should be understood in the hotel industry to support the effective management of human resources.

Statement of the problem

The level 3 leadership in the hotel industry has been associated with positive effects on organisational commitment and performance and this is presented in detail in the literature review section of this paper. However, studies that have been conducted have examined the general field of management or general businesses, with only a few researchers focusing on the hotel industry regarding the level 3 leadership (Schriesheim, Castro, Zhou, & DeChurch, 2006).

It is important to look into the same research in a specific context to test the validity of the statement and contribute additional literature to the subject. While research managed to produce positive evidence of transformational leadership as explored in the literature review section of this study, the linkage of using level three leadership in the hotel industry and its outcomes remains vague and in need of research, that clarifies the relationship between various variables at play.

While transformational leadership is about bringing about performance beyond expectations, it is worthy to note that without a clear definition and review of the expectation, it would be impossible to determine the success of the level three leadership usage. Thus, a way forward is to explore this part of the transformational leadership theory by researching on how to level three leaders offer services. Empirical studies and surveys on hotel management and employee performance, as well as hotel leadership point to a significant relationship between transformational leadership and success. However, the link needs to be elaborated partially to improve the generalizability of present research and offer tangible solutions for hotel industry leaders and managers.

Purpose of the study

The study seeks to understand the best leadership strategies applied in directing the solvency of L3L (transformational leadership) in the hotel industries.

Rationale

This research strives to contribute to the understanding of the functions of level three leaders in the hotel industry. It addresses a conceptual gap of functionality through its exploration of the relationship that level 3 leadership has with the organisational commitment of staff members. The study’s contribution helps to shed light on the context of L3Ls in the hotel industry and the involved relationships with staff members.

The findings of the study are helping to promote additional knowledge about L3Ls. They are also testing findings from other studies about the positive effects of using L3Ls. At the same time, they present challenges that these leaders face in the hotel industry and insights for practitioners and researchers to use. The study contributes to the existing literature on L3Ls and provides researchers with a basis for exploring the subject further in the hotel industry. It bridges the gap in qualitative and quantitative research design to assist in the interpretation of uses of L3Ls in the hotel industry.

Research questions or hypotheses

RQ: How does the hotel industry use Level 3 Leaders and what is the effect of using this leadership regarding employee response?

• Hypothesis 1: Transformational Level 3 Leadership has a positive effect on Continuance Commitment.

Discussion of hypothesis 1

High-quality leadership will cause employees to want to keep on working in the same organisation. Therefore, by measuring the continuance commitment of workers, it should be possible to show the way transformational level 3 leadership is effective.

• Hypothesis 2: Transformational Level 3 Leadership has a positive effect on Normative Commitment.

Discussion of hypothesis 2

Secondly, the study will be testing the leadership style of hotel managers by reviewing reactions and thoughts expressed by employees working under them. Thus, it is expected that the qualities of transformational leadership that have been identified in literature will come out as the key factors influencing positive employee association with their organisation and job performance. It explains the two hypotheses of transformational level 3 leadership having a positive effect on normative commitment and affective commitment.

• Hypothesis 3: Transformational Level 3 Leadership has a positive effect on Affective Commitment.

Discussion on hypothesis 3

Following the available information from leadership literature, precisely transformational leadership, the expected outcome of the study points towards the possibility of having desired results for affective commitment. Moreover, just like the other hypothesis show on their variables, the affective commitment outcomes should turn out positive because the assumption based on literature is that transformational leadership is effective.

It also follows that transformational level 3 leadership serves as the face of a hotel; therefore, it is in touch with all aspects of its operation. Thus, if the leadership is excellent, as highlighted by literature on L3Ls, then its effect on the organisation should turn out positive regarding performance, according to the values and goals of the organisation. Hotels operate like many other service industry businesses, and they are affected by competitive forces; thus, they too are expected to conform to the expectations of transformational level 3 leadership being effective when applied to them.

Contribution paragraph

The study is going to increase the awareness of the way transformational leadership and level three leaders work in organisations, and whether they are contributing to the realisation of a firm’s vision and goals. By focusing on outcomes of leadership as reflected by employee reaction, the findings will be directly applicable to different organisational scenarios. Key additions by the conclusions from this study would be the testation of leadership theory, an increase in the validity of other studies that have focused on level three leadership or transformational leadership. It will also refine an understanding of methods for transformational leadership to interact with employees when pursuing specific organisation goals.

Literature Review

Background

This chapter presents the literature review about the level three leaders (L3Ls) in the hotel industry. The chapter seeks to explain the intricate features of transformational level 3 leaders that make them succeed in a different organisation setting. It also explores studies that have tested a similar hypothesis in the present study, where the effectiveness of transformative leaders is contested. Such studies have explored effects by focusing on employee reactions. Others have also looked at the leader’s orientation while seeking to find out their motivation. This study will go a step further to synthesise the available literature on employee performance, and organisation success then links it with the L3L leadership style to show a correlation as it prepares the reader for the interpretation and discussion of empirical results.

The definitions of transformational leadership and level three leadership present a foundation for discussion and exploration of the three hypotheses. Since all three hypotheses are looking at the relationships of leaders and employees, the definition set up the concept and operational terms that will form a basis for interpreting the study’s findings.

The section on empirical studies in this literature review is necessary to present valid evidence for testing or denying claims that point the reader towards the validity of the hypothesis. In this section, all hypotheses are considered collectively. The section covers transformational leaders and level three leaders from the perspective of other studies looking at their effectiveness. The information presented is linked to expected roles played by the leaders. The information also prompts subsequent discussion and review of the literature regarding each outcome of the hypothesis namely normative commitment, affective commitment, and continuance commitment as expressed by employees.

The section on the scope of work of L3Ls lays out the variations of the leadership in the different organisation to provide an understanding of possible areas of influence that arise in any organisation. This section also informs readers of the way such leadership works so that expectations on influence on employees are realistic. In this case, it has tied the leadership to the hotel industry. The next section ties the identified characteristics and roles of level three leaders and transformational leaders to goals of a hotel organisation to innovate. It precedes the presentation of literature on empowerment that attaches functions and qualities of the leadership to the eventual realisation of goals through empowerment.

Thus, the section on empowerment relays particular attitudes, methods and intentions of the leadership in allowing employees to thrive in their work and how it manifests in the hotel industry. Furthermore, there is also a section on intellectual stimulation which is a build-up of the fact that leadership affects thinking and motivations of employees. This section breaks down the ability of transformational and L3Ls to create or sustain company cultures that lead to the outcomes favourable to the three hypotheses of the study.

The section on talent acquisition, and teamwork and interpersonal relations counter checks the abilities and roles of employees and how they are aided by the respective leadership of an organisation. The section assists in relating the outcomes on employee performance such as continuance commitment, normative commitment and affective commitment, to the roles played by leaders in organisations.

Reviewed literature corroborate the information under the employee retention and commitment organisation section, which specifically addresses the hypothesised outcomes of normative commitment and continuance commitment. Lastly, customer satisfaction, challenges and challenges and limitations of level three leadership offers some evidence to show the possibilities of some effect on employee continuance, normative and affective commitments as hypothesised, being outside the influence of the leadership in hotel organisations, and how that eventually affects the ability of leadership to demonstrate effectiveness.

The literature review has delivered information to highlight issues of leadership in hospitality as the L3Ls scope of work, challenges and limitations, as well as synthesizing these literal works. The main attention is laid on L3Ls innovations, empowerment, intellectual simulations, talent acquisition, employee retention, organisational commitment, teamwork, interpersonal relations, and customer satisfaction.

This literature review targets at revealing relevant information associated with the L3Ls to identify and zip any gap apparent in the hotel industry. The information retrieved from the review lays down the baseline of the research investigation. The literature shows how L3Ls is implemented in the hotel industry. It investigates about the successes and shortcomings of the model in leading the stakeholders of various organisations in the hospitality industry.

The presentation has been projected to evaluate the L3Ls from its definition, significance and other attributes associated with it. The themes developed by this literature will address the best strategic practices for the level 3 leaders on various factors in the prevailing hotel industry. The present research naturally extends the definitions of level 3 leaders and transformational leaders by applying the concepts to a real-world situation and discussing results. The focus has been on the hospitality industry across the world. Moreover, studies done in the last decade have been prioritised due to the dynamic nature of the industry, as well as the need to make findings relevant to present and future leaders.

Defining L3Ls and transformational leadership

In the hotel industry, leadership is perceived as a key strategic and performance driver in organisations (Hinkin, 2011). The level-three-leadership was introduced by Hinkin (2011) as modernisation of leading tactics. As such, L3Ls play a vital role in directing the success of any hotel organisation. The way level 3 leaders work directly with employees is similar to transformational leadership style. Here, leaders work with the employees to identify solutions and implement programs.

Despite their central role, L3Ls can be defined in different perspectives depending on various schools of thought. It is the system directing people to attain a goal willingly by creating competition and motivation in their working processes. L3Ls pays attention to the values, assumptions, beliefs, and expectations of an organisation’s system. In comparison, transformational leadership also pays attention to the vision and values of an organisation. Transformational leadership aims to connect the follower’s sense of identity and self with the ongoing project and is focused more on delivering long-term results.

On the other hand, L3L will appear fixed on the immediacy of results and may seem more hands-on compared to transformational leadership (Darbi, 2012). L3L seeks to engage individuals by seeking freewill attentiveness in attaining success per employees. This leadership model does not only direct its styles by creating an effective management system, but also forming ways to motivate the employees by other alternate rewards like promotions and gifts among other things. The outcomes of applying the L3Ls model may lead to positive outcomes measured as high profits, efficiency, and quality end-products or services (Mosedale, 2011).

However, L3Ls can also attract undesirable outcome when employees are subjected to burnouts and overworks among other consequences. According to the available literature, the leaders are not supposed to push their followers. On the contrary, leaders achieve their objective by applying this approach and rallying them towards one goal (Darbi, 2012). In the hotel industry, management focuses on creating the efficiency and control which are different from the focus adopted by leaders in their work.

Hinkin (2011) argues that the leaders in the hotel industry focus on creating innovations to drive the sector forward, adapting the organisation to emerging trends while empowering and developing the employees. As such, L3Ls are accountable for the direction in which the entire organisation takes as well as determining if the mission and objectives are achieved. The L3Ls rely heavily on the departmental managers and other employees to achieve their objectives as well as the organisation’s performance in the hotel industry (Ispas & Tebeian, 2012).

The L3Ls are responsible for executing their mandates as leaders in the hotel industry. The approach of the L3Ls moves away from the traditional management approaches where the employees are restricted (Clawson, 2011, p. 6). Here a key contrast of L3Ls and transformational leadership shows. First, the former is associated with daily operation and realisation of short term goals. It is also mostly practised at the mid-level management.

On the other hand, transformational leadership considers whole transformational of the organisation. It can be practised in crises or when there is a long-term need to modify organisation orientation and behaviour to achieve its goals. Therefore, it embraces a holistic approach to employee engagement, which is different from the L3L conservative leadership focus (Given, 2008). The leadership style of L3Ls is far removed from the restriction of employees and adopts an approach that stimulates the employees and inspires (Blayney & Blotnicky, 2010).

Both L3Ls and transformational leaders motivate employees to ensure that they work for the benefit of the organisation in the hotel industry. The L3Ls are required to assess continually the management practices in the organisations so that they empower themselves by acquiring skills such as emotional intelligence (Tracey & Hinkin, 1994).

The skills that the L3Ls acquire to end up being translated into the factors that they use to motivate the employees as they carry out more comprehensive and upbuilding performance reviews (Kingir & Mesci, 2010). The people nature of the hotel industry, as well as the competitiveness and dynamism of the industry, means that the role of L3Ls in driving growth cannot be overlooked (Enz, 2011).

Empirical Studies

There are various empirical studies conducted in the area of leadership within the hospitality industry. These research studies vary in the presentations and reliability of ideologies according to the availed information. Essentially, the information ranges from the levels of leadership, workers empowerment program, transformational leadership, employee motivations, the associated customer satisfaction and managerial efficiencies among other attributes in the industry. In a bid to seek information from these positive research findings, this section reviews the literature associated with the level-three-leadership in the hotel sector.

Research performed by Al-Ababneh and Talal (2013) investigates the effects of leadership styles on job satisfaction in five-star hotels. The researchers sought to release questionnaires with 57 questions to collect the information required for analysis. They applied the random sampling tactics to identify the participants to respond to the 5-point Likert scale questions. The sample population targeted by the research was 350 where 220 people were able to respond to the questionnaires. The data were evaluated using the SPSS software packages to determine that there were two types of dominating leadership models of the five-star hotels.

These two strategic approaches to leadership were identified as democratic and laissez-faire. The two styles were effective in impacting the satisfaction of employee positively. However, the democratic tactic was found to relay the most significant approach in terms of ideologies and level of satisfaction to the employees. These researchers concluded that each approach of leadership has distinct effects on the attainment of job satisfaction in the hotels. These research findings, however, leaves a gap in the methods of leadership applied since only two styles were compared. Other methods of leadership, especially in the level-three activities, have not been addressed. Probably, further researches should be conducted to fill this gap in knowledge.

In perspective, leadership models contribute significantly to the outcomes and success of an organisation. This factor implies that a hotel must hold reliable and updated leadership models depending on its terms of work. Andriana and Andreia (2012) were broader in their approach to investigating leadership within the hotels than Al-Ababneh and Talal (2013). Their comparative analysis placed two fundamental areas of control known as a servant, and transformational leaderships alongside each other.

They applied a qualitative analysis approach to argue that transformational leadership is effective in enabling the success of an organisation while the servant approach provides teamwork and competence among other advantages. The finding from these two studies showed a huge similarity in an ideology where they suggest the efficacy of acting following the suggestion of the employees and assisting them in solving organisational problems.

Leadership is a paramount and unexceptional tool for an industry targeting to make profits successfully. Blayney and Blotnicky developed a study to investigate the variations of the leader’s competencies concerning various demographics factors. Furthermore, the researchers evaluated the performances of hotels in respect to these competencies in Canadian hotel leadership. The study collected data to index competencies when there were environmental challenges to affect normal hotel progress.

They conducted a regression analysis to determine the relationships of demographics and competencies as well as competencies alongside the performance of the hotel organisation. The most outstanding model was identified as the visionary and strategic approach of leadership that had positive outcomes. In this regard, the researchers concluded that transformational leadership was a critical approach in ensuring the improvement of the hotel performance.

The L3Ls must pay very precise and strict attention to the demand and recommendation of the employees since they identify and report issues within the organisation. Essentially, the faults and failures can be identified by checking and investigating each comment from the employees to prevent or reduce possible losses. The article written by Rasmi and Puad (2013) approaches the problems and failures associated with employee dissatisfaction within the hotel sector.

These researchers reviewed the literature on the labour-intensive employees and turnover crisis. Their attention was to avail various causes of dissatisfaction among employees and their preferences for other jobs. It assessed the issues of employee retention and theoretical evaluation of the Mobley model. In their analysis, they pointed out the dissatisfaction factors that lead to such turnover crisis. The main issues of dissatisfaction were triggered by poor working conditions. Therefore, the researchers concluded that the Mobley model can be used by leaders to manage the retention of the experienced workforce in the hotel industry.

While addressing the risk of turnover crisis, Reza, Piran, Ahmadi, Mir, Hassan, and Ahmad present a fundamental finding in fostering leadership to empower employees. The researchers argue that the increase in production and profit-making is unachievable without the human workforce. They developed a model to determine the factors that hinder the empowerment of employees via training encouragement and management tactics. Their findings dictated that leaders ought to manage the motivation, training and participation of employees to boost capabilities and overall organisational achievements.

Scope of Work for L3Ls

The L3Ls are the face of the organisation in the hotel industry. They define the direction of the hotel and can be said to be the overall responsibility bearers of the operations that take place in the hotel industry. The L3Ls have a wide scope of responsibility which encompasses most of the aspects of the business. Given the L3Ls extended work scope, it means that the level of responsibility of these leaders is also extended.

The L3Ls are responsible to the shareholders in the hotel industry as they are meant to ensure the business continues to grow in the face of the growing competition. The L3Ls are expected to inspire the organisations to ensure that the shareholders in the hotel industry continue to reap from their investments (Davidson, 2008).

The L3Ls are also accountable to the other managers as they seek to ensure that they are empowered enough to continue managing the staff that work directly under their divisions or departments. The extent of the accountability for the L3Ls also extends to the employees in the hotel industry as it is their responsibility to ensure that the staffs continue to enjoy their work and remain inspired to deliver. It is the responsibility of the L3Ls to ensure that the customers of the organisations get value for their money (Oki, 2014).

The L3Ls operate from a higher level of leadership and there is much more that is expected of these leaders. As such, they are responsible for providing leadership to the management team (Clawson, 2011). The management team that is directly answerable to the L3Ls includes the departmental managers as well as heads of different organisational divisions. The L3Ls are heavily reliant on these managers who in turn depend on frontline managers and supervisors to achieve the departmental and unit objectives. The L3Ls are also responsible for the coordination of the departmental work to ensure the organisational objectives are achieved. The coordination of departmental or division work is achieved by the level three managers driving the discussions that ensure the right objectives are set in the different departments (Jha, 2008).

The higher position of these leaders puts them in a situation where they are held accountable by the owners of the business (Kasimu, Zaiton & Hassan, 2012). As such, the level three managers assume full responsibility for the performance of the organisations that they head. The failure of these organisations, as well as the growth of the organisations, is attributed to their leadership. The managers are also expected to give direction in defining the organisation culture as well as the hotel policies and strategies (Wood, 2015).

It also falls within the scope of the L3Ls to ensure that they offer leadership in other areas such as financial performance and management. The L3Ls are also at the centre of guiding the interaction of the hotel industry and the community in which the hotels operate while at the same time overseeing the preservation of the environment (Bruns-Smith, Choy, Chong, & Vema, 2015).

Innovation

The hotel industry is growing all over the world and continues to contribute significantly to the economies of most countries. The emergence of new products and new approaches are at the epicentre of the operations in the hotel industry. Most businesses acknowledge that the world today is a global village which is highly competitive (Tavitiyamana, Qu & Zhang, 2011). The statement is true in the hotel industry where the clients are driven towards different directions based on the preferences set by new information and socialisation. Political and economic realignments that are a common occurrence in the world lead to the increase of competition for the players in the hotel industry.

The upsurge of the internet and the adoption of e-commerce have contributed significantly to changing the mindset of consumers as well as their behaviour. The new generations of consumers in the hotel industry are more interested in taking short vacations and for a fair price while expecting to enjoy quality services (Borkar & Koranne, 2014). These new complexities in the hotel industry mean that the traditional ways on which the L3Ls relied in the past to gain a competitive edge are no longer feasible.

The L3Ls heading the hotel organisations today are required to be more flexible and adaptable to ensure that their organisations remain afloat. They need to improve the efficiency of their organisations continually in terms of the daily routines, as well as the standards of services (Barros, 2010). These leaders are expected to take charge of analysing the routines of their organisations and anticipate the new changes that may occur to inspire their staff members to adapt to these changes. The adaption can be driven by the creation of new products and services or the enhancement of the existing processes to foster customer satisfaction (Dominici & Guzzo, 2010).

The L3Ls are responsible for the creation of appropriate organisational policies that lead to the hiring and training of talents in the organisations (Nzonzo & Chipfuva, 2013). The new talent and the new knowledge impact on them during the training sessions are critical in developing the new approaches to resolve the emerging issues and as such the organisation becomes innovative (Pivcevic & Pranicevic, 2012).

The L3Ls are also responsible for the creation of a human supportive environment, which thrives on mutual trust between the leaders and the employees. The environment created is directly responsible for ensuring that the employees are creative and take the necessary risks while learning from failure. Chew, Cheng, and Petrovic-Lazarevic (2013) argue that the L3Ls emerge as the change agents that enable the organisations to adapt and remain competitive by empowering the employees to drive innovation.

The application of new leadership strategies allows the active participation and development of new ideologies that introduce fresh ideologies. The discovery and establishment of viable strategies within the hospitality industry can cater to customer needs. It may involve the development of consultation techniques and flow of information from the clients to the leadership system to set up a consumer-based interest in the hotels.

In a bid to ensure that such a systematic arrangement is viable in the business setup, each stakeholder must be motivated to relay quality services and provide satisfactory hospitality to the customers. Finally, researchers have approved that innovation is determined by the input of the stakeholders of an organisation. This factor implies that motivation allows employees among other people to relay new and significant knowledge aimed to benefit a hotel.

Empowerment

The hotel industry is among the most service-intensive industries. This outcome arises from the services provided by employees in ensuring customers satisfaction besides the physical and infrastructural aspects in place (Ayupp & Chung, 2010). Therefore, the ability of employees to offer quality services is critical in determining the success of a hotel organisation, especially in the presence of adverse competition (Uran, 2010). L3Ls are responsible for defining the quality standards that their hotels should be able to meet and pass the same information to the divisional and departmental heads working under them (Kara, 2012).

However, it is nearly impossible for the L3Ls, departmental or divisional heads to dictate and control the delivery of services in a rigid manner. According to Ayupp and Chung (2010), rigidity is inhibited greatly as the staffs need to retain sufficient flexibility to meet the customers’ expectations adequately within their discretion. Therefore, there is a need to empower the employees in decision-making while moving away from the traditional role of managers where the L3Ls exercised stringent control of the human resources (Nzonzo & Chipfuva, 2013).

To achieve the required level of employee empowerment, it takes the L3Ls to ensure that the employees are satisfied with their job as well as motivating them (Cetin, 2013). The L3Ls are also required to adopt a unique leadership style which fosters the empowerment of the employees (Alipour et al., 2013). The level three leaders are required to adopt a participatory style of leadership which ensures that the employees are empowered, and they contribute effectively towards the running of the operations in the organisation (Tsaur, Chang & Wu, 2004).

The ability of the L3Ls to foster a participatory environment leads to the evolvement of teamwork in the organisation, which in turn leads to more pronounced empowerment. The process of fostering participation among the staff requires that the L3Ls create an atmosphere of mobility among their staff members (Mohanty & Mohanty, 2014). The L3Ls should create a policy where the front line managers can pay attention to the ability of the employees to resolve problems as they arise.

The L3Ls should also provide adequate learning and training opportunities for the employees so to impact the staff members with the requisite knowledge to enable them to make the decisions on their own. The L3Ls are required to set the organisational policies that determine when and how often the training sessions are provided. According to Alipour et al. (2013), to remain competitive, the L3Ls should be in a position to set policies that ensure that employees are trained on new trends that are emerging in the hotel industry. The L3Ls have a responsibility to ensure that the training provided is adequate to ensure that the employees emerge as a specialist in their different areas of work (Ayupp & Chung, 2010).

These leaders should continually adapt the empowerment processes that exist in their organisations to ensure that the organisation continues to be more competitive (Alipour et al., 2013). It is also the responsibility of the L3Ls that the empowerment is embedded in the organisational culture (Ayupp & Chung, 2010). As such, the vision and mission of the organisation should be aligned to ensure that it is well indicated that the employees are the key drivers of the organisation.

The empowerment of the employees is a key determinant of the growth that occurs in the hotel industry. Most of the L3Ls have the intention of growing their organisation to great heights which include penetrating the international markets (Kara, 2012). To achieve this success, L3Ls need to ensure that they have a group of empowered employees to ensure some of these challenges are met.

For employees to be in a position to lead teams in venturing the new markets they need to be assured that the L3Ls that heads the organisations that they work for believing in their abilities. The L3Ls need to mentor the staff and instil the ability to view business objectives from the perspective of the organisation to ensure that they can replicate the growth in different areas. The ability of L3Ls to establish teams that can develop other markets plays a critical role in the objective of ensuring continued growth in the hotel industry (Alhassan & Sakara, 2014).

Intellectual Stimulation

Knowledge sharing is a critical factor in ensuring that a hotel organisation gains a competitive advantage over other players in the industry. The knowledge that the employees acquire is at the epicentre of their ability to be creative in resolving existing issues in the hotel industry (Baytok, Kurt & Zorlu, 2014). The existing literature indicates that there are different types of knowledge which are classified as task-specific, task-oriented, trans-active or guest-oriented knowledge. It is the role of L3Ls to ensure that their organisations can initiate a reliable knowledge management system that ensures that employees are stimulated to grow in their different spheres (Utami & Utami, 2013). The intellectual stimulation initiated by the L3Ls is critical in ensuring that the hotel organisations are transformed into knowledge-based organisations.

L3Ls are responsible for creating a culture where the employees are inspired to create transformative knowledge and share the information within the organisations. To ensure that the organisation is stimulated to adopt knowledge as the key driver of strategy, the level three managers are obligated to ensure that they initiate processes that stimulate employee intellectual activity (Gustavo, 2013). The level three managers should ensure that there are sessions where their staffs can engage in sessions of incubation and think aloud. It is also important that the level three managers engage their relevant networks in the industry and be in a position to relay the trends obtained from these sessions to their staff to inspire and spur their creativity.

The L3Ls can also set up policies that enable employees to be in a position to research their different areas of work from the most complicated tasks to the simplest of the task in the organisation. According to Baytok et al. (2014), the relevant knowledge that is raised in the different research areas should be shared with the rest of the teams to ensure that there is knowledge transfer. The resignation of the key employee should be matched with a replacement strategy that ensures that the remaining employees are not de-motivated (Arokiasmy, 2013). To ensure that the knowledge gaps do not exist in their organisations, the L3Ls should ensure that strategic hiring is adopted.

The ability of L3Ls to stir intellectual stimulation can be another avenue to ensure that teamwork continues to thrive in the organisation. When L3Ls ensure that employees understand that the organisation can solve the challenges that they face is embedded in their teamwork, the employees begin to initiate their collaboration. L3Ls should be in a position to ensure that they create an incubation hub where ideas from the different employees are taken up and evaluated by the staff themselves, constructively. As such, the innovation spirit is embedded in the organisation and is seen as the driver of career growth which in turn ensures that the employees continue to innovate (Jong & Hartog, 2007).

The L3Ls are also supposed to ensure that they vet different ideas and source sizeable amount of resources to fund the development of the ideas. When employees are motivated to drive the innovations in the hotel industry, it provides the organisation with an irreplaceable asset that can be used to ensure competitiveness in the hotel industry.

Talent Acquisition

The strength of any organisation in the hotel industry is heavily dependent on the persons who are recruited into the workforce of the organisation. The L3Ls are critical in driving the process of acquiring talents in the hotel industry. Despite the L3Ls not participating directly in the recruitment process, they have to set expectations regarding culture, recruitment process, and talent. The L3Ls should inspire those working under them to ensure that the hiring process mirrors the required level of skills as well as other factors that define the organisation (Givens, 2008). The culture revolving the acquisition of talents in the organisation in the hotel industry is heavily dependent on the leadership provided by the L3Ls.

The recruitment of talented individuals in any sector of the economy requires much patience and commitment on the part of the recruiting department and their personnel. As such, the L3Ls are required to hold all recruiters accountable to adhere to the recruiting policies. The L3Ls have a responsibility of ensuring that they do not heavily criticise the recruiters, but they should act in an inspiring manner (Bonn & Forbringer, 2014).

L3Ls should be in a position to understand the challenges that the process of recruitment poses to the organisational achievement and be ready to make the necessary changes to ensure that the organisation achieves its objectives. The L3Ls should be in a position to make changes that enable the employee recruitment process to adapt easily to the new avenues that emerge for the acquisition of talent (Huda, Haque, & Khan, 2014).

The hotel industry is dynamic and as such the methods of acquiring talent that has been used to acquire talent previously, may not necessarily work in the present recruitment. It is also paramount that L3Ls define the different methods of talent acquisition that are to be used to fill the different position and ensure that the recruiting department is empowered to adhere to these avenues.

Teamwork and Interpersonal Relations

Employee interaction in the hotel industry has a high percentage of occurrences given the need to cooperate to ensure that the customers are provided with a wholesome package. The interdepartmental collaboration also pushes the employees in the hotel industry to cooperate more to ensure that they can achieve most of the organisational goals (Zou, Zheng & Liu, 2015). The L3Ls are responsible for ensuring that the organisations they head adopt the spirit of collaboration and teamwork. The L3Ls instil confidence in their staff by being examples in the frontier of staff collaboration (Adullah et al. 2012).

It is also the responsibility of L3Ls to ensure that they express the high expectations they have by offering constructive feedback to their employees regarding the level of collaboration that the team needs to be able to demonstrate teamwork (Zou et al., 2015). The L3Ls should set the modalities that guide methods through which the staff members should be in a position to collaborate. The hotel organisations should also develop systems that reward staff who participate actively in the collaboration process.

The literature demonstrates that L3Ls set the identity of their staff as a team by ensuring that they are proud of team achievement. The expression of team achievements by the L3Ls inspires staff members to accept collective goals. As such, the organisation’s vision of a team-oriented approach allures the staff members to adhere to its attractiveness. According to Zou et al. (2015), employees who are aligned to the teamwork approach end up developing a collective identity and as such can front the same level of concern for customer issues (Jin-zhao & Jing, 2009).

The staff members can help their co-workers in leading to an environment that is riddled with trust and respect among the members of the entire organisation. By encouraging teamwork among the staff members, the L3Ls can raise the self-worth of their teams, and hence they derive more satisfaction from their jobs (Zou et al., 2015). As a result, the organisation realises improved relationships between the management and the staff which in turn ensures that organisational issues are resolved with minimal delays (Lis, Glińska-Neweś & Kalińska, 2014).

Employee Retention and Organisational Commitment

The retention of employees in the hotel industry is directly correlated to their commitment to the organisation’s mission and vision as well as its goals. According to and Wang (2012), the leadership, as well as the trust bestowed by the organisation’s leaders, is central to the retention and commitment of the employees. The available literature indicates that the ability of the L3Ls to understand the needs of their employees is critical to ensuring that the employees reach their work objectives (Kamau & Waudo, 2012). The ability of the L3Ls to steer the employees in the organisation to achieve better performances enhances the trust that they have in themselves (Ladkin, 1999). It implies that L3Ls determine the level of trust that employees develop towards the organisation.

L3Ls can inspire the employees to trust their immediate managers. This can be achieved by demonstrating that they too have much regard for the role that the departmental leaders or frontline supervisors play in the organisation.

Chiang and Wang (2012) argue that the trust that employees bestow on their leaders or immediate supervisors also extend to the entire organisation. The employees demonstrate a commitment to the organisation based on the personal support that they derive from the entire organisations (Albattat & Som, 2013). As such, it is the responsibility of the L3Ls to establish support systems for their staff. The support systems could include things such as staff loans, insurance covers as well as an appropriate remuneration package. As such, the L3Ls must establish an understanding of their employee’s needs to impact their commitment to the organisation and positively affect their performance (Chiang & Wang, 2012).

Customer Satisfaction

The intense market competition that is a characteristic of the hotel industry renders most managers unable to predict accurately the market trends in the industry and as such end up making the wrong decisions (Jin-zhao & Jing, 2009). L3Ls can adopt different leadership styles which determine how they survive the competition that exists in the hotel industry. The ability of the L3Ls to inspire the vision of their employees by sharing and articulating their vision is one of the ways that the organisations in the hotel industry can remain competitive (Darbi, 2012). Employees who share the same vision with their managers can accept delegated duties and execute them more effectively. As such, the L3Ls can rest assured that their employees, who are closer to the customers, can make the best decisions when it comes to ensuring customer satisfaction (Karunaratne, & Jayawardena, 2010,).

The proficiency of L3Ls’ ability to ensure that their employees are satisfied with their jobs is critical to ensure the delivery of quality products as well as services (Al-Albabneh, 2013). The L3Ls also ensure that there is good interaction between the staff and the customers creating an enabling environment which ensures that the organisation can deal with competition.

Most organisations in the hotel industry tend to rely on issuing discounts on their products as well as services. The downside to these discounts is the decrease in personalised services to cut down the expenditure (Ivanov & Zhechev, 2012). The long term effect of these measures is the decline in the quality of most of the services that are offered in the hotel. It is the responsibility of the L3Ls to ensure that whenever the discounts are offered in their organisations, the employees are made aware of the principles that inform these decisions. As such, the employees will be inspired to ensure that they do not lower the professionalism and other human resource aspects related to the provision of the discounted services (Kuria, Wanderi & Ondigi, 2012).

The ability of L3Ls to inspire their employees to offer discounted services during hotel off-peak periods will ensure that the staff members continue to provide quality services as they are required in peak periods (Borovskaya & Dedova, 2014).

Challenges and Limitations of Level three leadership

The existing literature has not been able to identify any limitations that face the styles adopted by the L3Ls. However, there is an emerging body of scholars who contend the level the leadership due to overemphasis on the increasing staff motivation and performance. The theory is viewed as to focus on some stakeholders in the hotel industry while leaving others out of the picture. For example, in practice, L3Ls has a focus on the top management, business owners and customers. The focus occurs at the expense of other employees such as the employees who are at the lower spectrum in the hotel industry such as cleaners and front desks personnel (Ishak, Abdullah & Ramli, 2011).

The L3Ls, who emphasise on the motivation of their employees, may end up causing burnouts among their employees (Cetin, 2013). Highly motivated employees can develop a high degree of emotional involvement towards their work which results in prolonged stress episodes. Uran (2010) argues that emotional involvement can result in a situation where the L3Ls exploit their employees even without being aware that exploitation is occurring. The downside of emotional burn out among the employees in the hotel industry is that the quality of services may decline (Simons & Enz, 1995). Being a human capital intense industry, there are serious consequences of having a pool of staff members who are not able to perform to their level best (Erkutlu, 2008).

The fact that L3Ls result in inspiring and influencing their staff members towards achieving their goals in the hotel industry, there could be other detrimental consequences of that result. Most employees who are influenced by L3Ls who have competing visions may find themselves experiencing role conflict as well as some level of ambiguities in their work. There could emerge excessive competition between the different departments and divisions in the organisation which has a result of killing creativity (Uran, 2010). According to managerial literature, there is a need to have departmental cooperation to ensure that organisational effectiveness is maintained while at the same time not killing creativity (Al-Albabneh, 2013). As such, there is a need to understand more the possibility of L3Ls hurting the cohesiveness of the organisation.

Synthesis of Literature

The available literature seems to agree that L3Ls and transformational leaders are a brand of leaders who are accountable to several stakeholders in the hotel industry. As compared to the traditional managers, the L3Ls depart from the ordinary leadership approaches which are restrictive. The L3Ls adopt an approach that stimulates the employees and inspires their employees to be creative while continuing to commit to the organisational goals (Kanten & Yaşlioğlu, 2012).

The style of leadership that is adopted by the L3Ls is evident in all the areas of their work due to the practical nature of their jobs. It may not be quite visible on the transformational leadership style. Therefore, the hypotheses of the present study as well as research question are expected to favour an interpretation of L3Ls more than transformational leadership. At the same time, it is expected that with the huge similarity of the two leading types, most of the literature supporting one type will also apply to the other.

The scope of work for L3Ls exemplifies the central role that these leaders play as well as their pivotal role in ensuring growth and organisational effectiveness in the hotel industry. At the core of their approach is ensuring that there is adequate employee empowerment through the provision of adequate training opportunities. The purpose of employee empowerment feeds well into the other roles of L3Ls, which is to ensure that there is adequate innovation in the organisations. The competitive nature of the hotel industry requires that the organisations need to keep innovating so that they can provide the required level of customer satisfaction (Ncube, Sibanda, Maunganidze, 2013). The provision of adequate training is also critical in ensuring that the employees are stimulated intellectually to ensure that there is continuity of innovation and growth.

To sustain innovativeness and to guarantee that the organisational effectiveness is at a favourable level for the optimal function of the L3Ls, there is a need to ensure that good systems for the acquisition of talent are in place (Mohammed & Rashid, 2012). The L3Ls are required to attain that the persons working with them are well aware of the personal characteristic that makes a good fit for the organisation. It is also the role of the L3Ls to ensure that the organisation has adequate teamwork and interpersonal relations. With adequate collaboration, the L3Ls are in a position to ensure that other attempts at inspiring their team in different fronts will be replicated by their staff (Vasquez, 2014).

The teamwork and reduced restrictiveness do also contribute to an increase in employee retention and organisational commitment. Proper teamwork and collaborative coupled with innovations in the hotel industry are bound to ensure that there is increased customer satisfaction (Curtis, Upchurch & Severt, 2009). With most of the organisations in the hotel industry reducing prices to attract more customers, the employees must continue providing quality services (Mattila & O’Neill, 2003). It is important to point out that the L3Ls also do have a couple of challenges which may result from their approach to leadership.

Discussion of the article and the way it influences the methodology

Empirical studies noted in the literature review have used survey instruments to collect information from companies. Others have based their findings of a meta-analysis of the literature on the subject. Since this study sought to present empirical evidence, its method would be through the use of survey questionnaires because preceding studies have used the same method without succumbing to problems of validity.

Also, it takes up a cross-sectional approach due to limitations in resources and also from the influence of studied literature where reliable outcomes are obtained regarding leadership effectiveness by looking at specific aspects of the three hypotheses presented earlier. The contribution of this study would be to cross-check the respective findings in one study hence the use of cross-sectional survey method for research.

Methodology

This chapter instigates the tactical method applied to render this research to understand its credibility. It delivers the strategies applied in seeking data from the sample population. In this regard, the selection of the charges requested figure in the factors fundamental in organizing the methods properly. The methodology delivers the direction followed to finalise the conclusions of these proceedings. In light of conducting this research study, various undertakings were accomplished about data collection, analysis, and assurance of the credibility. This chapter seeks to describe how each of these activities was conducted to obtain reliable results. Specifically, there will be a detailed description of the research philosophy adopted in the study, the strategy, approach, design, time frame, data collection, analysis, ethics, and validity among others.

While seeking to understand the best leadership strategies applied in directing the solvency of L3L in the hotel industries, it is important to create a layout for working or a framework for the overall proceeding. This research has three vital stages that can warrant successful results. First, there is a consent letter inquiring about the involvement of the target sample population to determine whether they can respond to the questionnaire.

Secondly, the people approving their acceptance to the survey are given the assessment documents which are submitted after filling. Finally, the data filled in the questionnaires are assessed and evaluated strategically to facilitate a comprehensive analysis aimed to prove the research hypothesis or to meet the core goals of the investigation. In this case, the data was to identify the best leadership styles applied by leaders in controlling the business models of the companies in the hotel industry (Flick, 2009). It had to be evaluated using the quantitative analysis to examine and approve the most applicable strategies of transformative leadership in such companies.

The study is a replication of Chiang and Wang (2012) and it seeks to apply the same methodology to a new situation. The original research question was important and had the potential to support further development of the transformational leadership and level three leadership theory. This study also identifies that current knowledge in management can be used to extend the validity of the original study. The findings of this study will improve the internal validity of the research by minimizing attribution to history effects, maturation, testing effects, and instrumentation. Thus, similar findings of both studies will improve the confidence of both, while variations will help to explain the flaws.

Research Philosophy

Marshall and Rossman (2011) suggested that a researcher must formulate a way of relating the knowledge in the theoretical arena and the nature of the study that is being conducted. The research philosophy is used to create this critical relationship between these fundamental aspects of the research study. The research philosophy includes the values and conceptual ideologies that are used during the analysis and interpretation of the collected data.

In essence, it is meant to use the values and perceptive to connect the underlying aim of the researcher and the research question. Following the nature of the research study, it can include more than one research philosophy if its analytical demands require that provision (Emmett & Biddle, 2010). This research study will use two separate, but fundamental research philosophies to take care of its data analysis.

One of these research philosophies is known as positivism, and it is based on the ideology that credible knowledge can only be obtained and deduced through mathematical means. It implies that dependable results come from calculating certain quantitative variables that help to determine the extent to which they affect other parameters in the research (Fernandes & Karnik, 2010). Essentially, it disregards all other methods of obtaining information and making deductions in a study.

As such, all other sources of information, according to the positivistic ideology, are invalid because it assumes that all the parameters are quantifiable. In addition to this, researchers suggested the positivism is not characteristic of introspective knowledge that is obtained by the mere observation of the environment or people’s behaviours. Also, it renders the use of intuitive knowledge null and void and hence uses verifiable parameters of measurements rather than speculations. In essence, it does not depend on those paradigms since they are considered as speculation rather than a real representation of the included phenomena.

Although this research philosophy invalidates these aspects of making deductions, it is inappropriate to disregard resolutely any other methods of deductions just because they are not mathematically and scientifically verifiable. When dealing with research seeking to study the behaviour of people, it is important to understand that objects are completely different from human beings. As such, the people’s behaviour cannot be subjected to mere mathematical variable since there are other opinions regarding the improvement of tourism that cannot be quantified (Emmett & Biddle, 2010). It cannot be disputed that a research study like this one, which seeks to study transformational leadership on a brand image and association, requires another paradigm allowing and accommodating the analysis of people qualitative opinions to become holistic.

The above sentiment citing the deficiency of positivism in light of conducting this research paves the way for the inclusion of the second research philosophy known as interpretivism. Denscombe (2009) stated that interpretivism is a research philosophy that provides the allowance and framework of deducing qualitative implication in a research study. It implies that this research philosophy is critical to the analysis of all non-mathematical aspects of the study. As such, interpretivism can be viewed as being the exact opposite of a positivistic approach to research. It is found on the idea that a realistic approach of life is relative and subjective because it depends on people’s understanding.

Since people have different bodies of knowledge, it happens that the reality is understood from multidimensional perspectives. Researchers, therefore, argue that the multidimensionality of these understanding should be given consideration rather than concentrating on the purely empirical approach during the analysis of issues. The profound considerations allow the inclusion of an inherent understanding of social behaviours and people’s interactions.

With this understanding in mind, Denscombe (2009) suggested that interpretivism allow the researcher to adopt a value-laden approach when analysing research results to make conclusions. In this research, the respondents will be expected to explain why they prefer or disregard the hotel management. Understandably, these opinions are very critical to this research, but the positivistic approach does not give room to rely on value-laden information. As a result, interpretivism will be used in this case to include such aspects and deduce meaningful implications concerning proven strategies of transformational leadership in the hotel industry.

Holistically, therefore, the study on best transformational leadership styles will be viewed from both the interpretive and positivistic perspectives. Essentially, this is necessitated by the fact that this research has used both the qualitative and quantitative research approaches which could otherwise be termed as mixed approach (Arokiasamy, 2013). It is to state that since the research partially used quantitative methods, using positivism will be appropriate in light of justifying the use of mathematical computation to determine the extent to which leadership affect business models in hotels. This factor is supported mainly by the basic premises that reliable knowledge can be obtained from mathematical stipulations only. On the other hand, interpretivism will focus on the explanatory aspects venturing to answer the question that requires deep and comprehensive descriptions (Flick, 2009).

It is vital to seek consent from the population sample to ensure that people can manage to send responses. The consent of people was attained by sending emails and face-to-face requests. The group either received the hard copy questionnaire immediately after accepting to provide responses or a link to the LimeSurvey containing an online survey. It was also apparent that some people suggested their most convenient media to fill and submit the survey. In this respect, the consent provided the most basic information regarding the best tactics to research on time in the appropriate order. It ensured that the researchers did not inconvenience the participants in any intentional way.

Research Approach

The research approach chosen is deductive. When pursuing deductive reasoning, a researcher begins with the theory. Here, the study started with defined expectation and features of transformational leadership and L3Ls. It then moved on to the formation of hypotheses that would drive the rest of the study’s focus. The hypothesis used were three and they combine the expectations of theory with the need to support or prove that the theory holds in a particular situation. In this case, the hypotheses point to the management and employee relations in the hotel industry, and on one part, there is the particular leadership type, while on the other, the study looks at the observed outcomes versus the expected outcomes.

The observation is carried out in the main part of the research where data is collected, analysed and discussed. Inferences are made according to the results and also based on the literature available in this subject that refers back to theory.

Finally, the study presents a test of the relevancy of transformational leadership and L3Ls in sustaining the high performance of employees in the hotel industry. It also generalises the findings to a suitably larger population of hospitality industry organisation whose operations and demands for efficiency and attainment of organisation goals are similar to those of the hotel industry. During the test of the hypotheses and eventual support or improvement of the theory, the study also presents a recommendation for improving it and for practitioners to use when implementing elements of transformational leadership and L3Ls.

Strategy

The present study is cross-sectional and it uses a mixed approach. By being cross-section, it only offers primary data for the limited duration of the study. Meanwhile, it seeks to combine both qualitative and quantitative approaches to studying the effect of transformational leadership and L3Ls in the hospitality industry, with a focus on the hotel industry. The quantifiable data will be analysed using statistical methods while the qualitative data will be interpreted according to reviewed literature and findings of the statistical analysis.

In respect to the strategy used in this research, the study was essentially a survey in which respondents had been selected from the relevant population to participate in the provision of the information required. These respondents gave their opinions on the hotel management and job satisfaction among others. To save time and the resources available for the research, an online survey containing seventeen questions were sent to or posted for the respondents (Goodburn, Norman, Elders, & Popescu, 2012).

They were expected to fill in the surveys using the lime survey system. The online surveys were critical when it came to efficiency since it allowed the research to take place for a short period without compromising the quality of the study (Panacek, 2008). This factor is also underpinned by Perry (2009) who suggested that the communication allowed by online surveys is enough for obtaining the information sought.

However, Sachdeva (2009) discovered that although the research question has many benefits to such a study, they were vulnerable to fundamental disadvantages which could also affect the credibility of the investigation significantly. Essentially, it does not provide the opportunity for the researcher and respondent to interact physically and allow the research to perceive some of the responses identified visually. Also, the respondent does not have the platform to ask for further clarification in case he does not get the first question. Equally, it is not the best strategy to use especially when the researcher needs to ask follow-up questions. Therefore, it implies that the researcher has to work with what has been provided even if the respondent has not answered the question with clarity (Yin, 2009).

Research Timeframe

In respect to the research timeframe, Yin (2009) suggested that a research study can either follow a cross-sectional or longitudinal time frame. This research study adopted a cross-sectional timeframe based on its various feature. First, it was observational since the respondents’ environment and freedom of expression was not changed. It means that the environment was not manipulated in any way to obtain any useful results in favour of the researcher’s view (Go & Govers, 2010).

Additionally, various variables of the research study were studied at the same point of time rather than a prolonged period. Some of these variables include the management style, its strengths, and the progress of employee satisfaction in the hotel among others. It is an assurance that the adopted timeframe was cross-sectional. The whole research was scheduled for 2 months in which a plan was made, data collected, and analysed to make conclusions.

Data Used

The research relies on two sources of data. The first source is interviews with managers in the hotel industry. The second source is survey results collected from employees in the hotel industry. Essentially, the collecting of data is among the most critical parts of this analysis. The credibility of results and their generalisation strictly relies on random data. Randomisation allows researchers to make the conclusions applicable to a larger group of people.

The data must reduce the level of possible calculation errors by increasing the number of people delivering the opinion. This factor implies that the population sample should be as large as possible to get a reliable insight into the general population sampled. In this case, the research sought consent to 128 individuals working in the international hotel industry as part of their studies at Les Roches international school of hotel management in Switzerland. From these potential respondents, 107 people managed to make responses through their most convenient media. The questionnaires were dispersed via the LimeSurvey system.

Methods and Techniques

The study used a survey method. It relied on questionnaires as survey instruments. It captured demographic details and responses of employees based on questions designed to answer the three hypotheses and the research question. The sample was selected randomly for subordinate hotel employees. Employees came from different hotels to form the study population.

The population that was targeted in this research study was segmented in two parts, including the managers and the employees. However, the employees were the main part of the respondents since the issues such as the needs of the hotel and vices that obstruct the organisation were very relevant to them. Berg (2009) suggested that the entire population cannot take part in a research study because resources are limited.

In respect to this understanding, the research study collected a sample of 107 respondents within the international hotel industry. In this case, random purposive sampling was applied. Collis and Hussey (2009) stated that random purposive sampling is, in fact, a combination of two different sampling methods. The first sampling method known as random sampling is based on the idea that the respondents are chosen in a manner that does not follow any predetermined criteria and arrangement. It allows the researcher to pick any respondent at will. Furthermore, it is aimed to ensure that the sample is not collected in a manner of obtaining certain known results favouring the opinions of the research.

It encourages the impartiality of the research when collecting the sample. Purposive sampling is concerned with the fact that the researcher must collect the sample in a manner that includes respondents who are familiar with the subject (Zhang & Ma, 2009). For this reason, the respondents included the stakeholders of international hotel companies. This aspect ensured that the respondents had interests and substantial knowledge of the aspects of the hotel industry.

Also, the research incorporated local hotels since it had been noted that previous research studies had disregarded them. By including the local hotels, there was an opportunity to identify ways in which the authorities could tap its citizens and use them to popularise the culture of the country in the tourism sector. As such, the two sampling methods form a blend that increases the reliability of the research study (Creswell, 2009). During data collection, the respondents included in the sample population were served with online questionnaires to fill them in and send back to the researcher. In this regard, the quantitative questions were measured under a scale of strength while others were valued individually.

Questionnaire

Since this is a quantitative study, the question will use closed-ended questions. The questions are set up in three parts to correspond to the hypothesised outcomes on normative commitment, affective commitment and continuance commitment as expressed by employees. Employees answer questionnaires, thus the questions presented reflect the expected level of knowledge by employees regarding transformational or level three leadership. Questions are formulated with the aid of the literature reviewed, to improve reliability.

The questionnaire helped to test hypothesis 1 where respondents would answer in the affirmative about their interest to continue working in the firm. Positive answers would confirm hypothesis 1, 2 or 3 while a neutral response or a negative response would show that there was no effect of transformative leadership and level three leadership on continuance commitment, normative commitment or affective commitment. The questionnaire parts on normative commitment would measure the second hypothesis. When analysed, the results would show whether the null hypothesis holds. Positive responses to Likert based questions would demonstrate agreement with the second hypothesis and when the positively responding participants outnumber the rest, then the hypothesis would have been tested.

Null hypothesis and alternative hypotheses

The null hypothesis is that there is no relationship between transformational leadership or level three leadership with continuance commitment of employees in the firm. Hypothesis 1 is that there is a positive relationship where transformational leadership or level three leadership leads to the improvement of expressions of continuance commitment by employees. The null hypothesis is that there is no relationship between transformational leadership or level three leadership with a normative commitment of employees in the firm.

Hypothesis 2 is that there is a positive relationship where transformational leadership or level three leadership leads to the improvement of expressions of normative commitment by employees. The null hypothesis is that there is no relationship between transformational leadership or level three leadership with an affective commitment of employees in the firm. Hypothesis 1 is that there is a positive relationship where transformational leadership or level three leadership leads to the improvement of expressions of affective commitment by employees.

Questions for testing hypotheses

Three sets of questions offered information on responses for testing the hypotheses. They were categorised according to the dependent variables of normative commitment, affective commitment and continuance commitment. The questions were quantified using the Likert scale format and the means and standard deviations were captured to determine the uniformity of responses. For normative commitment, the employee answered the following questions, indicating whether they agreed or not, and answers were captured using the Likert scale. They responded on whether they agreed with the following statements, “I believe that a person must always be loyal to his or her hotel, jumping from a hotel to hotel seems unethical to me.” “One of the major reasons I continue to work for this hotel is that I believe that loyalty is important and, therefore, feel a sense of moral obligation to remain.”

Additional statements were, “if I got another job elsewhere I would not feel it was right to leave my hotel, I was taught to believe in the value of remaining loyal to one organisation, and things were better in the days when people stayed in one organisation for most of their careers.” More statements included, “I think wanting to a “company man” or “company women” is sensible.” Additional statements for the questionnaires responding to each variable have been captured in the appendix section, together with the mean of the responses given for agreement of each statement. They were then analysed and compared to the employee responses to the transformative leadership question.

The same format was used for transformative leadership where employee agreed to several statements about their manager. Some of the statements include, my manager has a clear understanding of where we are going and my manager paints an interesting picture of the future for our group. The questions meant to show that employee attribute certain strategic and operational activities and outcomes of their organisation to the work by management. It would then explain the relationship of their answers on other statements for normative commitment, continuance commitment, and affective commitment.

Mixed method

The specific method used for the study was a mixed-method, which embraces the cross-sectional design, yet it uses a hybrid structure of qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Correlation analysis was done to test the relationship between variables and help in making inferences in the discussion section of this report. Since the research study followed a mixed methodology, this factor had to be reflected in all its levels. Accordingly, the analysis of data was both quantitative and qualitative.

The quantitative analysis was applied to the question demanding the value of numbers in making analysis. The Likert scale was used in such a manner that the mean score could be obtained to provide the leadership style which was more popular and suitable than other from the respondents’ perspectives (Marshall & Rossman, 2011).

For the qualitative analysis, this was used to find out the value-laden information concerning some of the strategies that the leaders opt to improve the industry. The descriptive analysis allowed the study to formulate an overview by identifying the value of the points laid out by the respondents. A regression analysis was conducted on the tabulated data using regression analysis to determine the credibility of each question as well as the final research remarks.

The correlation analysis focuses on the Pearson correlation which gives a correlation coefficient (r) which is used to identify the level of association. If the correlation coefficient is positive and greater than 0.5, there is a high positive association. If the correlation is less than -0.5, there is a strong negative correlation between the variables (McBurney & White, 2010). In case the coefficient is positive and less the 0.5, there is a weak positive correlation. Similarly, if the coefficient is greater than -0.5 and negative, there is a weak reverse association as shown in this table.

Explanation of regression and the hypothesis being tested

Regression analysis covers the four variables. One variable, the transformational leadership, measures the input by transformational leadership or level three leadership. The other variables correspond to the three outcomes of hypothesis one, two and three. They are continuance commitment, normative commitment, and affective commitment. In the result, the variables are indicated by transformational average, continuance average, normative average and effective average. The multiple regression analysis then tests the nature of the relationship between transformational average as the independent variable and normative, continuance and affective averages as the dependent variables. The regression analysis results are then used to test the three hypotheses individually.

The scores for the continuance commitment were taken as the dependent variable while the scores on transformational leadership were used as the independent variable. A simple regression analysis was done. The analysis was repeated with the substitution of affective commitment results for the dependent variable. Lastly, a normative commitment was used as the dependent variable while transformational leadership remained the independent one for all the comparisons.

The relationships were presented as preliminary findings. Afterwards, all variables were used in a multiple regression so that findings would be used to compare the variables that had the most effect on the independent one. The regression value of the simple tests for each dependent variable and the multiple regression for all the dependent variables together with the dependent variables were then compared to show the findings were valid and could be used to form the basis of analysing the study and confirming its hypotheses.

Ethics

Babu (2013) suggested the consideration of ethics is an important undertaking when it comes to a research study since all the activities involve interaction with people. This aspect of research affects the extent to which the entire research is credible and reliable. In specific prospect, Babu (2013) stated that a research study is ethical if it ensures the confidentiality of information, the anonymity of the people involved in answering the questions, and the professionalism envisaged during the research. To fulfil these ethical mandates, the researcher went for the official consent to sermon the personnel working for the hotels in the hospitality industry.

This attribute ensured that the heights of professionalism were maintained. Also, all the respondents were not required to give their details to ensure that all the information given could not be traced back to them showing the courage to give data without any fear of administrational penalties after the study. The findings and results of the raw questionnaires were not disclosed to anyone.

Limitations

In respect to the limitations experienced during the research study, the accessibility of the respondents and their willingness to reply to the survey was a consideration. To get access to the contacts, the respective organisation had to test with the students making the process of data collection not obvious. There were about 128 surveys that had been sent to obtain the 107 full replies. This was an indication that the collection of data was not straight forward.

Reliability and Validity

There are various ways in which reliability and the validity of the research were ensured. In this case, sampling was done randomly to prevent biasness and purposively to ensure objectivity. Additionally, the researchers used a quantitative approach which is more valid than the qualitative methods. As such, the reliability and validity of the research were substantially ensured.

Results

The report offers the results of the study in two main parts. There is the quantitative part that brings out the tangible evidence of the study, seeking to offer a direct inference of support to the hypothesis or their denial. It also uses the data reported to show the outcomes of statistical tests used to test their significance and relevancy to the overall discussion and answering of research questions.

From the first data source, the result shows the outcomes of the statistical analysis done on employee responses. From the second data source, the results show the summarised outcomes of interviews with managers in the hotels used for the study. Also, there are four variables captured as part of the data analysis on the first data source, which was employees working in hotels. These four variables are derived from the hypotheses and the research question. The study seeks to test three hypotheses and it also seeks to answer the main research question. The three hypotheses have pointed to three specific attributes of verifying the effect of transformational leadership and level 3 leadership on hotels. These three aspects are therefore considered as the dependent variables for this study given that, they rely on transformational leadership or L3Ls to manifest.

They are normative commitment, continuance commitment and affective commitment. However, for the study, the averages of the data captured are used, hence the transformation of the variables into normative average, commitment average and continuance average. Besides, the transformational leadership style and the L3Ls are considered as similar, with the expectation of having similar effects on the other three variables. Thus, the fourth variable, which serves as the independent one, is transformational average. The same case of relying on the average of responses applies to this variable as it did to the others.

Employees Survey results

From the sample population, 128 respondents completed the survey questionnaire by November 5 and they were used in the study. The questionnaires returned were assessed for validity and only 107 passed the assessment. The 107 were representative of 46 present women and 54 per cent males as can be seen in Table 1. The descriptive statistics of the respondents are presented in the tables below. Table 2 shows that all respondents were below age 30, and the majority were aged 21 to 30 years. Also, most respondents (94.39%) were unmarried and they were working full time (84%).

The departments most represented by the sample were front office, food and beverage, and marketing at 37.38%, 36.455 and 9.35% respectively. Meanwhile, the majority of respondents have worked in the hotel industry for less than 3 years and out of this number, most (53.27%) have worked for between six months and one year. In the total sample, 61.68% of respondents answer to a deputy manager or above in the organisation hierarchy while 30.84% answer to an entry-level manager.

The study has four variables being evaluated for the relationship with leadership performance as evaluated by the total sample. The variables are transformational average, which are indications of the 21 questions that were asked to respondents about the transformation leadership of their organisation. The second variable was continuance average, which was collected as the average of the answers on the seven questions measuring continuance commitment.

Besides, there is a variable on normative commitment reflected by the normative average as presented in Table 13 and it is a summary of the answers to seven questions on the same. Lastly, there is the affective commitment captured by the affective average as showing in Table 14, which highlights the same mean and standard deviations. In interpreting the mean values, it is important to note that the responses to the survey questions were in the form of seven Likert scale options (Cramer, 2003).

The results of the questionnaire survey on transformational leadership show a pluralist positive agreement with the descriptions of the leader. There is a strong indicator of a clear understanding of where the organisation and its employees are going. There is also a pluralist indication of managers being able to show employees that they expect a lot from them. These two indicators have standard deviation scores less than “1”.

As for continuance commitment, which is another attribute of employee behaviour that demonstrates management quality, deviation from the mean is higher for the total sample population compared to similar questions on transformational leadership as shown in Table 11 and 12. The mean score is also lower than four for the majority of the responses. Based on the results of the continuance commitment, there is a less overall agreement with personal sacrifice being a major hindrance to continuance commitment as the data shows the least mean and the highest standard deviation. In the same variable, respondents agreed that it was difficult for them to leave their jobs, but the variation in the respondent was not satisfactory i.e. standard deviation was more than 1.5 (actual for N=107 was 1.662).

On the normative commitment variable, the most agreed to statement was the belief that a person should always be loyal to his or her hotel. This indication of the norm felt by employees concerning their institution and therefore an extension to management effects on the company tradition received the least deviation score in the category (St. Deviation of 1.257). The results of the normative commitment variable also show that all participants are mostly in agreement with the statements, given the above middle score mean. The preliminary finding is that the organisational characteristics support employee loyalty.

The last variable registered high deviation from the mean on average, but the responses were within the overall variables sample of less than 2.0. The highest was 1.856 corresponding to a question on employee sentiments about being happy to spend the rest of his/her career with the hotel. Besides the deviation, the mean is supportive of the statement at 4.68. On the other hand, the least score on this variable is a question on the ability to be attached to another hotel as one was attached to the same hotel. This question got a mean of 4.57, which still shows that employees are supportive of their present environment. The deviation was also within range, implying a general agreement with the statement.

Correlation analysis

This part of the results shows the correlation and regression outcomes for the sample and the four variables to determine their relationship. The study relied on the variables to demonstrate its validity and generalizability regarding the effectiveness and performance of L3Ls. The tables below show the correlation analysis results of the four variables. The other tables are for three regression analyses. They were the:

1. Continuance average (dependent) against transformational average (independent).
2. Normative average (dependent) against transformational average (independent).
3. Affective average (dependent) and transformational average (independent).

The findings show that there is a positive correlation for all the variables. The strong relationship is between normative commitment and affective commitment showing 0.623, which is greater than 0.5 identified as the median indicator of the strength of the correlation. The other strong relationship is by affective commitment against continuance average, which shows a correlation value of 0.369 between affective average and normative commitment.

Another important finding is that all other variables have differentiated correlation scores against the transformative average. Continuance average has the weakest correlation of 0.033 while the affective average has the strongest correlation value of.452. The result tests the descriptive results in the first part of this section which show that there was a wide variation in the mean, even though all the mean scoring were above the median score and were therefore interpreted as positive. The next part of the analysis will be presenting the regression scores to determine the relationship that exists between the variables and tests the hypothesis of the study.

So far, findings show that the hotel has effective L3L management that is exhibited by positives in varied responses by employees collectively and individually. The correlation analysis has shown that these variables are all related. An effect on one of them affects the outcomes of the other variable. Given that the score between Transformative and continuance variables was very low, almost “0”, it is okay to state that there was no relationship (Miles & Shevlin, 2001).

Regression analysis

The following tables present the results of the regression analysis. Three relationships were observed and analysed with interchanging variables as dependent and independent to fulfil the requirements of regression and to highlight the aims of the study. In the regression analysis, findings show that the transformational variable has a positive and significant impact on normative and affective variables. However, there is no significant impact on continuance. This is a test of the effect highlighted on the correlation analysis where there was no significant relationship between transformative and continuance.

As Table 17, Table 18 and Table 19 show, there are different B values, which indicate the effect of changing the transformative variable on the respective variables. Table 17 shows very little, almost no effect because the value of B is lower than the significant value. For the other values in Table 18 and 19, the B value is higher than the significance value meaning that the results are statistically valid (Vogt & Johnson, 2012).

The interpretation of the study is that the employees at the hotel will prefer to stay with the hotel or change and move to other hotels on several reasons but the transformative leadership of the hotel will not be one of the factors. However, the results strongly test that transformative leadership is the one responsible for normative beliefs that employees have in the hotel. It is also responsible for the affective commitment that employee demonstrates with their responses to the questions on this variable.

The result of the regression analysis was the last part of the quantitative analysis for this study and they were meant to discover whether the results obtained make sense in term of being related and influencing each other. Given that the results show relation, the next part was to test the nature of the relationship. The regression analysis presents a positive relationship for all tests done. This shows that modification of the transformative variable in any way, lead to a similar modification in the other variables by the degree indicated by their regression values. It is the testament showing the true nature of the variables in this study, and this will be useful when discussing the implications of the study to practitioners and management staffs.

Although the results of the analysis show that there are relationships among the variables and have even presented the exact relationships. It is important to extend the analysis to validate the figures received and examine any incidence of error. In case of any errors, the results will be less reliable and will affect the generalizability of the study. The first step of the test is to present the data in light of the inferences made in the analysis.

Looking at Table 13 on transformative, the respondents all scored a mean above 5 showing that they all agree and the standard deviation ranged from 0.9 to 1.2, which shows that variations in responses would be on slightly agree and strongly agree. However, in Table 12, most means are about 3.5, which shows that the respondents answered as agree or not sure. The standard deviation scores are however high, above 1.5 showing that on the extreme the respondents strongly disagree at a score of “2” and below or slightly agree at a score of “5” and above.

The selection of two-variable tables in the descriptive statistics and their review in light of the correlation and regression results tests the observation. There is no relationship between transformative and continuance commitment. The other part of the test would be to take other variables that have tested positive relationship and see whether the descriptive statistics attest to

the relationship. Here, the study looks at the normative commitment and transformative. Going with the interpretation of transformative descriptive statistics in the previous paragraph, the study looks at the descriptive statistics of the normative variable.

The second step of testing reliability looked at the t statistic and the significance level mainly to infer the extent of the relationships. The t value provides a value of precision for measuring the regression coefficient. When the regression provides a positive value showing that there is a positive relationship and that the relationship is significant, the t value helps to interpret the level of significance regarding the standard error. In all the three regression tables, there is a higher value of t compared to the standard error. Another figure to look at is the coefficient. In the regression analysis, the coefficient of each independent variable offers the reader the size of the effect that the variable will have on the dependent variable. This is the result that helps to answer the question, how large is large.

Given that this study uses linear regression, the coefficients offer a straightforward explanation. The positive coefficient shows that the relationship is incremental. When the independent variable changes, in this case, the transformative variable, the dependent variable will also change based on the coefficient value given. If this study is to be used as a basis for predicting the outcomes of transformative leadership in a hotel with similar characteristics as the one used for the study, investigators can look at the R-squared value as presented in the regression table. It offers a precision answer to the existing relationship between the variables analysed and therefore acts as a predictor of what will happen to the dependent variable when there is manipulation for the independent variable. Such information is important when seeking to extend this study into an experiment design. The R-square value will help to present the hypothesis that will be tested.

Overall, the results show that the null hypothesis does not hold for two out of three relationships in the study. It only holds weakly on the relationship between transformative variable and continuance commitment. The interpretation and conclusion part of this study will break down the probable and observed causes of the analysed behaviour of the variable. Independent overview of the hotel as captured by responses shows that employees are strongly positive about the extent of transformative leadership expressed by the hotel’s management as indicated by the least mean score is 5.41.

The employees are also not very keen on continuing with the organisation when better chances arise and manipulation of the transformative leadership qualities in the organisation is unlikely to yield positive effects because the relationship between these two variables is very weak. However, it is possible to change the normative and acceptance commitment of employees in the hotel. Already, the employees are showing a high score in the mean of their responses on questions regarding these variables. The mean normative commitment score is 4.44 and the mean affective commitment score is 4.68.

Another result that should be considered is the initial descriptive statistics, which can help to place the study findings in related literature. A large majority of the respondents were relating to the same supervisor as they had spent several months, at least six, working with the same supervisors. Also, the highest number of respondents had spent between six to twelve months in the hotel industry. It shows that this group was the biggest influence in the opinion collected. Therefore, the interpretation of the findings in reviewing the validity of the study must consider these limitations and must use them as parameters for comparison.

Managers’ interview results

In addition to the employee survey, this study also had a qualitative component that included interviews with the management staff members at the hotel. It was important to conduct this part of the study to highlight the management inferences about transformative leadership and then test the findings with the quantitative part of the study and come up with a holistic interpretation for the whole study. This part helps to enrich the study’s contribution to the overall literature on L3Ls (Bazeley, 2007).

There were four manager’s interviews and they were all from Holland with their nationality being Dutch. The descriptive details of the managers are presented in the table below. The names of the managers are left out for research confidentiality reasons. Another notable characteristic applying to all the interviewees is that they all work fulltime and have more than ten years in the hospitality industry (Grbich, 2007). Another thing indicated in Table 20 is the self-reported leadership style of the interviewed managers. When asked about their preferences for leadership, the managers offered either the style or the characteristics corresponding to the style/s included in the table below.

The expectorations of the managers were that their leadership character would help them yield loyal employee behaviour. There was the realisation that employees are critical to the service industry business and the first indication of good management was the retaining of current employees. When asked about being fair. All four managers responded that they have carried themselves in a fairway.

They were also positive that they have received a good rating on fairness from their employees. The manners were making inference about their fairness characteristic concerning their entire career as managers. Table 20 shows that two of the managers have had their position for less than ten years while the other two had their position for more than ten years. When asked about their intention to present their leadership as fair, the managers quoted the need to provide a good example to their employees as the key intention for fairness.

While there were references to an inherent belief on being cognizant of the future consequence of a given decision, all managers mentioned that their decisions were all happening concerning the expectations they were placing on their employees. It was important for the managers to make sure that all employees can relate to their actions and find meaning in reward or disciplinary action was taken by management.

Thus, another emergent theme in management was integrity. Managers wanted to behave in a way that allows employees to develop meaningful knowledge of the role that their ordinary tasks play in the overall success of their organisation. This expression meant that managers would go out of their way to attend to employee needs which in many cases as highlighted by interview responses were to gain recognition and respect. Here, the results show that managers are taking proactive behaviour to initiate or maintain them in a frame that demonstrates integrity.

Work values

Managers noted that the times were moving fast and the industry attributes were changing. Managers needed to be ahead of trends and they were supposed to communicate trends to their employees in the right manner. This point was presented accurately among all the four managers. This was when they were asked about their work values and what motivates them to pursue the values.

The manager with the least management experience of five years, and who described her leadership style as autocratic noted the following remarks. Her work was meant to bring meaning to employees and the organisation. Being stern and affirmative inaction was necessary because employees did not only act on the precinct of direct command; they also gauged the commitment of management and used that as a basis for evaluating the urgency and importance of assigned work. The manager was driven by a feeling and expression of order when performing work and loyalty when considering work issues related to the employer and employees.

She believed in a demonstration of personal commitment to one’s work as a way to lead and as long as one did this, then there was no point of trying to take employees for a ride. She understood management as a two-edged sword. On one part, she would have to be very firm in her resolve and commitment to her work and on another part, she was to be very sensitive and responsive to concerns by employees about her work and their assignment work, and be willing to respond even in unorthodox ways as long as a solution emerges.

The second manager had a different view of work values. His work was to ensure that employees perform well for the organisation. He considered himself a tool that the company uses to ensure that employees are optimally attached to their jobs. Thus, his respect for work and employees was concerning the role that each person played to ensure that the organisation was moving forward. The manager mentioned culture, traditions and the values of the organisation as instruments that must be expressed and supported well as part of management to guide employees on the expected behaviours while at work.

When asked how the demonstration of these values and features would arise, the manager mentioned that when there is a feeling of family in the organisation, then employees and management have achieved their correct roles. Being organised lead to the overall organisation of the hotel and the values or culture were instruments that aided the manager in achieving the required results. These results were increased employee detainment in the organisation, improved employee productivity and better matching of employee abilities and job roles.

The third manager was concerned more with intellectual stimulation. She wanted to inspire creativity in ordinary work performance and problem-solving among employees. She emphasised on using signage, reminders, memos, and other communication tools within the organisation to reach employees and remind them of the values and principles of best work practices. She reasoned that employees would find it okay to pursue these values and principles as a way to please management and earn rewards on the job. As the employees did so, they would be able to achieve the hotel’s objective.

Here, the manager was demonstrating gentleness in her approach. She did not use a direct way of confronting employees when they do good or bad. Instead, she focused on the collective role of teaching using the instruments available at work such as codes of practices and work rules to maintain her control of individual and collective employee activity. The manager believed that existing rules and instruments of leadership were enough and that if there was a problem with employees or with the leadership of the hotel, then it would be the leader’s fault at using the already available avenues to communicate the right way to appeal to the personal and collective interests of the employees.

The fourth manager expressed a need to build momentum when making and pursuing changes in the organisation. These were his motivating factors that eventually demonstrate his work values. In anything that he did as a manager, he considered it as part of an on-going effort. Similarly, all outcomes were within a continuum. The main task for the manager was to understand the current position and work towards making use of what comes next.

Ensuring that employees care about what they are doing as part of their roles was very important. Therefore, being a phenomenal manager called for extensive listening in the literal and figurative sense. The manager believed in checking activities of employees, getting feedback, tapping into tacit communication channels within the organisation and being in touch with everything that was happening. Hotel training and management also help enshrine these values, where one has to work in all departments in preparation for a management role. The manager believed it was wrong if there was a need for the explanation of what one was doing as a manager.

He believed that managers should be natural leaders whose actions and decisions inspire courage on employees to take on assigned roles and to accomplish them with minimal delays and frustrations. Thus, being attentive to conditions of work and responding to them before calling them out was important.

Leadership role

Two managers expressed a need to ensure that the hotel management was following a common role and they took this as their leadership role. The other managers mentioned that helping others made them understand that their roles were important, which was done through the establishment or implementation of organisational ways of communicating order, reward, discipline, and responsibility. All the managers actively worked with other managers in different departments. There were mainly supervisors that were low in rank compared to the interviewed managers. The managers have also expressed mentorship as part of their leadership role. They advise employees on-demand about avenues for career progression and use their management role as a role that influences employee aspirations.

Technologies

The managers have also shown that they have less regard for technology as ideal for being transformative. They say that technology is important only when it supports work performance, otherwise, it is irrelevant in a manager’s job. Only one manager expressed a strong connection with technology, explaining that she would have a difficult time working without it to direct and monitor employees. Upon probing, she revealed that she was concerned more about a table device that was her portable computer and she had a habit of taking data from all kinds of measurable aspects of the work.

Helping others grow

The managers helped employees grow by giving them bigger assignments. However, one manager expressed the lack of avenues for giving lower-level employees enough job requirements to help them grow. The manager was limited by circumstances and did not see any other way to achieve the objective of helping her employees go. Meanwhile, the managers also mentioned the use of research as a way to help their employees grow.

Research in the field and overall industry of hotels helped them to have insights about the nature of jobs and the growth prospects. They would use the information as part of their career development advice whenever employees approach them. Two managers mentioned that career development was the most sought after advice by employees while all four managers showed that salaries and benefits were the main topics that employee brought up when seeking an audience with management. As a result, three managers emphasised the use of compensation to encourage employees to take up difficult tasks. They also saw this as a motivator for employees to sacrifice themselves for work duty as a way to qualify for rewards. Managers offered rewards using already existing provisions at work.

The common rewards that helped employees to do more work well include an increase in off days or rescheduling of off days to correspond to an employee out of work commitments. The leaders did not want to change the rules in their organisation or create new features that would be difficult to sustain. They wanted to ensure that they were able to get their employees motivated and at the same time maintain a normalised working environment for all staffs. Thus, the role of helping others grow was all about balancing employee demands, management knowledge and work roles. One manager mentioned that:

“One cannot be everything to everyone and a manager does not work in all cases that employees do. Therefore, the best way to help my employees grow is by giving them assignments that they are trained for, but also asking them to deliver better than their counterparts in a creative way. Asking, in this case, happens through the rewards that the company policy offers on different employee levels and my management role is to balance the available rewards and employee challenges in a humane way.”

In summary, the interviews with hotel managers who have served for different durations and have different levels of formal management education certifications show common features of leadership. The main themes from the interviews were that acting in a fair way and with integrity were central to good management behaviour. Also, all managers wanted their employees to succeed and embraced varied techniques to make sure they got this outcome.

The techniques are influenced by individual beliefs, experience and opportunities available in the organisation. As leaders, the interviewed managers saw their role as part of collective action within their organisation to move it to the right direction. They all believed in working with others on the same capacity and different capacity. It is important to note that, the managers are recognizing employees as important elements in the organisation. Technology does not appear as a major management determinant and it is recognised as a facilitator, meaning that the managers would be okay even without the available technologies. As for their role in management, which has asked as their role in helping employees grow, the managers gave differentiated responses that all pointed towards mentorship.

The aim was to show employees what was achievable and then stimulate them to achieve the goals as part of the overall firm’s goals. These eventually allow the managers to keep employees loyal. A notable thing is that the captured responses from the managers are representative of all conditions that their hotels might be facing. The managers are likely to show or prefer specific outcomes and approaches to different conditions. The asking of general questions was meant to prevent situational biases that could have negatively influenced the presentation of the findings according to common themes (Tribble, 2005).

After showing strong indicators for transformative leadership in the management interview results and expressing a strong relationship of transformative leadership other variables, this study now presents a link of the findings with present literature. In the next section concluding the study, the inferences of the results and analysis part are combined with research and theoretical understandings of the field of transformative leadership to explain connections and show the contributions of this study to existing literature. The section will also highlight limitations, areas for further research and make a conclusion about the impacts of transformative leadership in the hotel industry for practitioners to use.

Discussion

This chapter covers the inferences from the research and links the findings and analysis of results to current and future applications in research and practice. The section is the last step of the study that intends to offer a simplified understanding of the uses of L3Ls in the hotel industry. It includes actual conclusions from the study and the recommendations for other researchers who will use the findings for informing their studies and for practitioners who will want to use the findings to improve aspects of their job performance or to understand their role and consequence of their actions as managers in the hotel industry. The study shows that influencing is a major impact on transformational leadership.

Employee survey

After analysing survey results of 107 respondents, the study tests that behaviours of transformational leadership play a major role in the determination of employee commitment. Therefore, the hotel industry uses transformational leaders to increase employee commitment and to improve overall performance. Transformational leadership is a technique or resource used to counter the effects of high employee turnover that affects the hotel industry. Nevertheless, the effects of transformational leadership on employee commitment in the hotel industry were relevant for the work history of less than a year in most cases. The highest percentage of study respondents had worked in the same organisation for six to twelve months.

Other studies mention that support and cooperation among hotel employees are key factors in improving service quality, and this study’s findings support such outcomes (Chen, 2013). It shows that hotels can generate the right environment for support and cooperation. It has offered a basis for creating policy that would be used by hotel management to ensure that employee commitment prevails, which would lead to better service quality and overall success of the hotels.

Test of Hypothesis 2 and 3

The study finds that transformational leadership exerts the greatest influence on normative commitment and affective commitment. It exerts no significant influence on continuance commitment. Following the definitions of the three types of employee commitment used in this study, the findings show that transformational leadership does not affect employees’ fear of loss. This infers that transformational leadership in the hotel industry does not work using fear at an employee motivation tactic. On the other hand, it shows that hotels use transformational leadership to instil a sense of obligation for employees to keep serving their current employer (Low, 2012). However, it also shows that the leadership style is beneficial to hotels as it increases the investment that employees have in their employer, which improves overall job outcomes.

Research Question

Management interview results answer the research question by explaining the way the hotel industry uses L3Ls to manage employee responses. Others studies have shown that it is easier to manage employees who are already committed to the organisation than to deal with those who express dissatisfaction and willingness to leave whenever an opportunity arises. The interview results test that transformational leaders will engage in practices that led employees to admire them and trust them. They inspire motivation and offer the required stimulation for high-quality job performance as earlier reported in other similar studies (Maier, Tavanti, Bombard, Gentile, & Bradford, 2015).

Besides, the study has contributed knowledge to the demographic perspectives of employee commitment. Its study population was young, below age 30, with a significant proportion being below age 20. Overall, it represents the sentiments of young employees in the hotel industry. Its findings are representative of the general Y and millennials perceptions placed on leadership. The findings on the significant causative relationship between transformational leadership and affective or normative commitment provide an important inference for the studied group (Mariam & Taylor, 2011).

It shows that young workers today value hotels whose leadership is oriented towards people rather than tasks and organisational mission. The study tests other findings from recent research that Millennials want leaders who show inclusion, collaboration and commitment values (Maier et al., 2015).

Both the survey results and the interview results provide significant support to the theory of leadership styles. They show that transformational leadership leads to expression of aspiration towards organisation success by employees. This comes from the earlier association of transformational leadership with normative commitment and affective commitment of employees, as the hypotheses suggested.

While the study does not explicitly indicate this relation, it is possible to infer it from the relations of the variables and known aspects of employee behaviour and organisational outcomes. When employees are committed to an organisation and its leadership, they would want the organisation to succeed so that they do not lose the value of their commitment. Therefore, commitment leads to better employee dedication to work and performance.

The study has helped to inform the needs of employees in the hotel industry such that they can be attended. It has shown that hotels share similar issues affecting employee commitment. The survey and interviews with management collected data from different hotels, yet the findings show common attributes and relationships. This shows that the study can be generalised to affect the hotel industry in general and in doing so; it will be testing the validity of its findings.

The study relied on accepted instruments of data collection and analysis. The researcher was keen to provide an unbiased interpretation of interview questions and presented a summarised analysis of major themes appearing in the interview results. They corroborate the findings and analysis of the survey to show that the instruments used in the study were reliable.

Overall, the study has shown that L3Ls support the development of employee commitment sentiments among employees in the hotel industry. Thus, their role is in ensuring that employees support the hotel’s organisation objective. The study has also pinpointed the types of commitment that the transformation leaders can effect and the reasons for the existing relationships. There are sufficient conclusions to be made regarding the role of transformational leadership or L3Ls in the hotel industry in addition to showing the way the hotel industry exploits these leadership styles.

Conclusion

Main findings

The study was a replication of Chiang and Wang (2012) and it sought to apply the same methodology to a new situation. The original research question was important and has the potential to support further development of the transformational leadership and level three leadership theory. This study also identifies that current knowledge in management can be used to extend the validity of the original study.

The findings of this study will improve the internal validity by minimizing attribution to history effects, maturation, testing effects and instrumentation Thus, similar findings of both studies should improve the confidence of both, while variations will help to explain flaws. It has confirmed findings by the original study on the manager’s need for deeper involvement in directing employee efforts and building trust.

The study shows that transformational leaders in the hotel industry are instrumental in creating employee affective commitment and normative commitment. It shows that the majority of hotels rely on transformational leadership. Therefore, it shows that hotels would be a good study environment for seeking other aspects of transformational leadership. The main reason is that they are people-oriented both in customer service and employee performance.

Nevertheless, the sentiments collected by this study are most relevant to hotel employees who have worked for less than a year as indicated by the descriptive statistics in the study’s results. Beyond that point, the study has supported existing literature findings on the positive effects of transformational leadership and young generation employees’ preferences for people-centred leaders. Leaders must work collaboratively with employees ensuring that they demonstrate transformational behaviours while being responsive to situational changes in their organisation and overall trends in the work environment. For example, they should be sensitive to generational differences in leadership preference and perception then use that as a context for applying their transformational behaviours.

The workforce in hotels remains a critical challenge for management that seeks to sustain service-driven operating cultures. The improvement of leadership capabilities will lead to effective solutions for these challenges. Insights from this study show that there is a possibility of using leadership to achieve expected employee behaviour and, therefore, confront employee-related challenges that organisations face. Managers must interpret the findings to suit their organisational situation and then attach them to their day-to-day operations and leadership considerations.

The first recommendation is for management staffs to undergo training in transformational leadership such that they can make full use of the existing relationship between the leadership style and employee expression of commitment. The study shows that management may practice transformational leadership indirectly implying that the actor is doing something unintentionally and continues to do it because it works.

Understanding why transformational leadership works have been the aim of this study in addition to finding out its uses in the hotel industry. With the results of the study, practitioners are now able to link their behaviour to the outcomes in their organisation. They should now seek additional understanding of their behaviours as managers about transformational leadership style and qualities and how they are permitted and supported in the hotel industry context. The research was conducted in two months and practitioners are working in the hotel industry daily.

Therefore, they should be careful to try out aspects of the study’s findings and its recommendations for smaller groups of employees before extrapolating their experimentation to the entire organisation. Therefore, practitioners should create small teams that are linked to management mentors and role models. The teams will work on particular projects or job roles that are people-oriented and play a significant role in organizational success. They should be a task and organisational level sensitive to ensure that managers get sufficient insights and feedback to use when adapting the practices of transformational leadership to the whole organisation later.

This study has shown that a causal relationship between transformational leadership and employee commitment exist. However, it has not given directions on how to find transformational leaders within the organisation. Therefore, the recommendation for practitioners is to look into avenues for recruitment and selection that support the transformational leadership model. This should lead to the overall organisation becoming transformational and influencing employee and managers learning environments. Lastly, practitioners should pay attention to expressions of employee commitment as indications of the effectiveness of transformational leaders. Hotel owners can use this indicator to determine the efficacy to predict the future performance of the hotel and make necessary changes in advance when a hotel’s management culture is still malleable.

Recommendations for Research

Some opportunities for additional research emerge from this study. The first one is that this study only focuses on the hotel’s industry without differentiating tourist hotels and general hotels. Researchers seeking to be specific about the type of industry can be detailed in their approach by using either of the two or coming up with another category within the hotel industry to test or find out uses of transformational leadership.

A second opportunity for research is in the methodology used. This study relied on a survey that was administered using online channels. It was limited to a period of 2 months, which included data collection and analysis. Future studies can be more comprehensive. They should collect more data over a long period or in different periods. For example, researchers can follow the same research design as this study, but also include survey data collected from other studies for the same population. This should lead to a richer commentary of findings and their explanation with relevant theories.

The third suggestion for researchers is to improve the study population by increasing the number and distribution. Rather than work with simplified random sampling, the researchers can opt for structured randomised sampling so that they gain a representative number of different age groups of workers. Findings from such studies will provide additional insights into generational differences in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee commitment in the hotel industry. A fourth suggestion, related to the third, is to have a demographic characteristic such as years worked in the hotel industry or employee age as one of the variables being examined in the study. This will be a way to understand the topic further such that it is more useful to practitioners.

Self-Reflection

Although this study has provided significant insights into the uses of L3Ls in the hotel industry, its limitations need addressing. First, the design can be improved by having a questionnaire for managers in the survey part and having interviews scheduled for employees. This will ensure that there is an improvement in the scope of data collected using the two methodologies. The researcher will be able to get a better understanding of the phenomenon studied, which will aid in the analysis and interpretation. It will also lead to better generalisation of the findings to reflect the entire hotel industry. An additional improvement would be for the duration of the study.

The current study was limited by funds and availability of time. If these limiting factors are addressed, then it will be possible to carry out the study for longer, such as collecting more responses in the survey and using additional tools for analysis or examining additional relationships in the chosen variables for the study. It will be a way to improve the validity of the study and to enhance the role the study plays in informing research literature on transformational leadership.

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Appendices

Results Quantitative Research Paper Chiang and Wang

For this research the research questions form the article The Effects of Transactional and Transformational Leadership on Organisational Commitment in Hotels: The mediating Effect of Trust was partially replicated.

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Regression