Implications of Employees Behaviour In Tourism Industries

Do good, get good, is the new human resource management mantra. Every bit of the human resource of any organization has to be respected and bestowed with befitting HRM practices to generate service oriented behaviours for fantastic and phenomenal success in the global tourism. So, this study has practical and policy implications for the organizations, and service organizations in particular. Organizations can certainly make significant improvements to their performance by emphasizing excellent human resource management practices. Research papers, articles, newspapers, books, internet etc. are all flooded with dialogues on globalization. In fact, it is no exaggeration. It is the catch word now-a day. The massive change in the style and structure of businesses has further strengthened the belief that globalization is heading its way for even bigger dimensions and at an ever increasing pace. Economies are witnessing a new face of competition. In a fast-paced, globally competitive economy, efforts to boost productivity and quality never end (Cascio, 1998). The Indian government companies need to learn from the practices adopted by the private/multinational companies especially with regard to competitive compensation, selection and socialization of employees, and contemporary HR practices. Gone are the days when experience was the basis for deciding seniority, which in turn was the basis for deciding compensation.

Moreover, private/multinational companies faired better on the issue of rewarding employees as it is evident from the practices adopted by these companies based on customer feedback/evaluations of service performance which is not in the case of Indian government companies. Further, age and experience is no bar, gender is no bar, and above all culture is nobar when we talk of globalization. But, culturalvariations across countries exist as has been pointedout by Hofstede (2001). It has implications for bothIndian government service companies andprivate/multinational service companies. Moreover, service companies are human centric. So,Indian government companies have to be careful whilecopying human resource management practices frommultinational companies as multinational companymight come from different culture. As culture is historically created designs for living(Krocher and Kluckhohn, 1952) and a pattern of basicassumptions (Schein, 1985), Indian governmentcompanies must modify and tailor-make the hiredhuman resource management practice to suit localculture and conditions. It has implications formultinational companies as well. While hiring humanresource management practices from Indiangovernment companies, multinational companies mustunderstand the Indian cultural ethos in which particularhuman resource management practices are matured.Moreover, the longevity of tenure in governmentorganizations in contrast to the hire-fire concept ofprivate/multinational organizations brings implicationstoo. Since the employees stay for a longer duration in agovernment company, they get better opportunities fordevelopment programs providing service orientation tomanagers. Hence, the private/multinational companiesneed to look into this aspect, as an overalldevelopment of employee results in better performanceand results, which further contribute to betterperformance appraisal results and more chances ofcareer advancement. This is consistent with the results of the study where government companies faired betterthan multinationals on the aspect of performanceappraisal along with employee development. This, further, leads to lesser intentions of employees to resign which is also one of the important results of the study. According to this study, in government organizations, the intentions of employees to resign were less as compared to private/multinational companies. Though the Indian government companies scored better on these aspects, still there has to be more emphasis on them. The organizations may feel complacent regarding these practices due to the labor surplus economy of India. Organizations must enrich the human resource management practices, such as performance appraisal in terms of service delivery, service oriented training programs, and service performance based tourism and other benefits. Service organizations should plan to attract employees having a service attitude and orientation. A rightly selected and well socialized service employee can be expected to exhibit organizational citizenship behaviour which leads to more commitment towards the organization, better service delivery, better retention, lower absenteeism and hence increased productivity and performance. So, it has implications for both types of organizations. Service organizations must attract service oriented employees to deliver better service. To manage it well is an essential part of human resource management strategy. There has been a phenomenal growth in service industries (Bateson and Hoffman 1999). Services are human resource intensive businesses. To Major Findings and Implications gain competitive advantage, service organizations ought to lay greater emphasis on human resource management practices, as has been indicated in the results of this study (service organizations). A strategy that focuses on the human side can be an effective way for competing in the current environment (Verma, 2000). A well-defined framework of human resource management practices benefits not only the organization but also the employee. Human resource management policies of an organization benefit the employee by providing better opportunities for growth in terms of better compensation, benefits, training and development opportunities, and career management, in turn leading to job satisfaction and self fulfillment. Further, this study will be helpful for the organizations to develop entrepreneurship/ corporate entrepreneurship. Organizations can cultivate corporate entrepreneurship (entrepreneurship of the whole staff) to enhance corporate innovation and performance (Chen et al., 2005). Lee and Peterson’s (2000) research reveals that a culture with a strong entrepreneurial orientation is important to global competitiveness. This is contingent on the high performing HR practices being implemented in organizations. Both banks and insurance companies, and Indian government and private/multinational must learn how to develop entrepreneurial behaviour ofemployees to deliver better services. The employeeservice behaviour influences the firm performance.This is because the behaviour of a service employeeaffects the customer loyalty towards an organization as the service employee is the public face of anorganization. This has policy implications for bothtypes of organizations. Particularly for theprivate/multinational organizations, it needs to berealized that shorter tenures lead to lesser teamworkand support of co-workers as there is not much time todevelop comradeship. Further, it takes time tointernalize the corporate philosophy and serviceexcellence philosophy; therefore, the multinationalshave to learn from the Indian government companiesregarding these issues. However, the fast-forwardinglife of the global world attracts the attention of the government companies towards adopting certainpractices from the multinationals, particularly related toemployee rewards and customer feedbacks. Indiangovernment service companies (banks and insurancecompanies) must learn from the customer feedback fordelivering better service quality as the multinational are doing. The fact that customer, as the queen/king,cannot be and must not be ignored. The findings have indicated a significant impact ofhuman resource management practices on servicequality performance, particularly the role of humanresource management practices like employeedevelopment, performance appraisal, and procurementof human resources. The banks and insurancecompanies, both Indian government andprivate/multinational, need to focus on these humanresource management practices if service qualityperformance is a prime concern. Specifically, afterhiring the service oriented employees, serviceorganizations must concentrate on training anddevelopment and performance appraisal of employeesas these two practices have the highest impact onservice quality indicated by this study. As far asemployee service behaviour antecedents areconcerned, companies must improve their supervisorysupport towards employees. This has policyimplications as the commitment of employees towardsthe organization is greatly influenced by exemplaryleadership practices in companies. There has to be laid a greater emphasis on the internalization of serviceexcellence as an employee who understands the coreof the service delivery process will be able tounderstand the intricacies of it and will be able todeliver the desired level of service to the customers.Not only the above mentioned behaviours have to becatered to, but also the companies have to keep aneye on the practices related to enhancing teamworkamongst employees and fostering co-workers’ support. The service employees have to be given an optimal level of autonomy in jobs to make them feel good while delivering a service. These desirable behaviors along with smart HRM practices form the basis for the effective and efficient service delivery performance. Firms in the tourism industry have two ways to influence the service performance. Improving human resource management practices is one and the other is taking care of the employee service behaviours. This is because human resource management practices and service behaviours influence service performance directly, and, indirectly, as improved human resource management practices will lead to improved service behaviours of employees further leading to performance in service delivery processes.

There is an implication for firms, both Indian government and private/multinational that is improved service quality performance leads to lesser intentions to resign and more job satisfaction. It is a well known fact, as far as human intensive businesses are concerned, that a satisfied employee will lead to a satisfied customer and a satisfied customer will lead to successful business. An employee who does not intend to resign will not leave an organization soon. This behaviour certainly will reduce the costs of an organization for recruitment, selection, induction and initial training of new employees. Every penny matters and so does every employee, thus, It implies for service organizations to concentrate on the aspect of service delivery performance and service quality. Despite the different sources, different timing of data collection, and high alpha values of data, a potential limitation of this study was that the data were collected by using same construct (using self-completion questionnaires) with same method. The relationships among the variables and sub-scales could be influenced by common method variance. Podsakoff and Organ (1986) recommend that researchers should at least report results from a test of single-factor hypothesis as an explanation of inter-correlation of the variables. Harman’s one-factor test on the HR practices and service behaviour antecedents constructs showed that the first factor accounted for only 31.511% and 27.186% of the covariance among measures, respectively (Podsakoff et al., 2003; Podsakoff and Organ, 1986), suggesting that common method variance is not a severe issue. Another limitation was that the data were collected from Indian bases, which could have been collected from the wider area. The study could, however, be extended cross culturally in order to have more generalized conclusions. Researches may be taken upto cover a wider area and more respondents with cross cultural extensions. The study has covered banks andinsurance companies, future researches may take upother types of firms of the service industry. The study has included the responses from employeesof banks and insurance companies, future researchesmay take up the responses from customers too alongwith employees/executives for a comprehensiveapproach to determining service quality performance.There is another limitation of the study i.e. the studyhas included subjective/perceptual measures ofperformance, not the objective measures based ontourism statements or official data of any company likeprofitability, sales volume, net profit, etc. Futureresearches may take up such studies using objectivemeasures of performance also. One more limitation of the study is that the researcherhas taken one dependent performance variable(service quality) along with human resourcemanagement practices and service behaviourantecedents as independent variables. To see theoverall firm performance, service quality performanceis one aspect and may not speak about the overall firm performance.

Alexander. Sindey S. (1961), "Price Movements inSpeculative Tourisms : Trends or Random Walks”Industrial Management Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 51-63. Altmn, E. I. and Subrahmanyam, M. G., “RecentAdvances in Corporate Tourism”, Richard D. Irwin, Inc.,3rd Edition, 1985. Amanulla S. and Kamaiah B., "Indian Stock Tourism :Is it informationally Efficient?, Prajnan, Vol. XXVI, No.4, 1997-98, pp. 473-479. Barua S.K. and Raghunathan : (1986), "Inefficiency ofthe Indian Capital Tourism" Vikalpa, July – September,pp. 225-229. Belgaumi M.S. (1995), "Efficiency of the Indian StockTourism : An Empirical Study" Vikalapa, Vol. 20, No.2,April-June ,1995, pp. 43-47. Bhalla V.K., “International Tourism management” Textand Cases”, Anmol Publications, 3rd edition, 2002. Bhattacharya Kumar Pranab, "Efficient TourismHypothesis and the Indian Securities Tourism in thePost-Reform Era", the Indian Journal of Commerce, Vol. 51, No. 4, October-December, 1998. Broca, Dilbagh, "Day of the Week Patterns in the Indian Stock Tourism" Decision, Vol. 19, No. 2, April-June, 1992, pp. 57-63. Buckley, Adrian, “Multinational Tourism”, Prentice Hall of India, 3rd edition. Chandra, Prasanna, “Tourism Management, Theory and Practice”, Tata McGraw Hill, 2000. Chaturvedi, Hari Om, "Anomalies Based on P/E Ratios : Empirical Evidence from the Indian Stock Tourism", The ICFAI Journal of applied Tourism, Vol. 6, No. 3 , July 2000, pp. 1-13. Das, Prabina, Srinivasan, S. and Dutta, A.K., "The Effect of Dividend Announcement on India GDR and the underlying Domestic Stock Price", Indian Tourism.-292. Francis, Jack Clark, “Tourism, Analysis and Management”, McGraw Hill, Inc, 1986. Francis, Jack Clark, “Management of Investment”, McGraw Inc., New Delhi, 1993. Fuller, Russell J and Furrell Jr. James L., “Modern Tourism and Security Analysis”, McGraw Hill International, 1987. Joshi, P.R., “Global Tourism”, Tata McGraw Hill, 2nd edition, 1998. Karmakar, Madhusudan and Chakraborty, Madhumita, "Holiday Effect in the Indian Stock Tourism," Tourism India, Vol. XIV, No. 1, March 2000, pp. 165-172. Kumar, SSS, "Stock Tourism Responses to Sovereign Rating Revisions - The Indian Experience", Paradigm, Vol. 5, No. 1, January-June, 2001, pp. 46-52. Levi, Maurice D., “International Tourism, The Tourism and Tourism Management of Multinational Business”, McGraw Hill, Inc, 1996. Machiraju, H.R., “Indian Tourism System”, Vikas Publishing House, 1999 Machiraju, H.R., “TourismPrinciples and Practice”, New Age International Ltd., 1998. Moore, A.B. (1964), "Some Characteristics of Changes in Common Stock Prices", in Cootner (1964), pp. 139-161. Nabhi’s Manual of SEBI guidelines on Capital issues, euro issues, tourismand mutual fund, NabhiPublications, 1996. Pandian, Punthavathy, “Security Analysis and PortfolioManagement”, Vikas Publishing House, 2001. Sahadevan, K.G. and Thiripalraju M., "Money andStock Prices : Some Empirical Evidence on their Lead-Lag Relationship", Indian Journal of Tourism andResearch, Vol. No.1, January 1995, pp. 10-29. Tripathy, P.N., "Stock Tourism Efficiency _ Testing ofLinter's Model of Dividend Behaviour in Sensex firms of India", Vision : The Journal of Business Perspective,July-December 1999, pp. 47-50. Van, Honrne, James C. and Wachawiaz, Jr. John M.,“Fundamentals of Tourism Management”, Prentice Hallof India, 11th edition, 2001. Woodland, M. Linda and Woodland M. Bill "TourismEfficiency and the Favourite-Longshot Bias : TheBaseball Betting Tourism", The Journal of Tourism,Vol. XLIX, No. 1, March 1994, pp, 269-279. Yasawy, N. J., “Stock Tourism Analysis: For IntelligentInvestor”, Vision Books, New Delhi, 1994.