Polychronicity, work engagement, and turnover intention: The moderating role of perceived organizational support in the hotel industry
Introduction
Increased globalization has brought several changes in the current business world, including the hospitality industry (Cheng & Chen, 2017). Nowadays, the hospitality business has become more demanding, where employees are required to perform their tasks perfectly (Wang, 2017). However, engaging and retaining the pool of talented employees in the hotels is a critical task (Afsar, Shahjehan, & Shah, 2018; Kong, Jiang, Chan, & Zhou, 2018). These Days, several roles in the hospitality business require employees to be flexible and accomplish multiple duties simultaneously; i.e. employees have to involve in multitasking (Afsar et al., 2018; Z. Li, Duverger, & Yu, 2018). For this, individuals must have been selected depending on their personality traits, competence, and capacity to meet the demands of service employment (J.-Cheng & Yi, 2018).
Polychronicity involves performing multiple activities simultaneously or switching between different tasks (Allen C Bluedorn, Kaufman, & Lane, 1992; Kaufman-Scarborough, 2017). It is based on the idea that people multitask with task-switching behavior in a particular amount of time (Osman M et al., 2013; Huang, van der Veen, & Song, 2018). Polychronic individuals are able to withstand interruptions and adapt to unexpected situations by changing planned activities’ schedules (Guchait et al, 2018). Such a person may attempt to absorb additional alternatives in real-time while executing many activities (Arici, 2019). Within the time-use preferences at a specified period, he would go backwards and forwards among tasks (Wu, Gao, Wang, & Yuan, 2020). This type of polychronic person has a low turnover rate, excellent performance, and higher stress tolerance (Chinchanachokchai, Duff, & Sar, 2015).
A number of pertinent research have established a link between polychronicity, job satisfaction, and turnover in the hospitality business (Osman M et al., 2013; Kaufman-Scarborough, 2017; Huang et al., 2018; Grobelna, 2019b; Muhammad Asghar, Gull, Tayyab, Zhijie, & Tao, 2020). Within this context, several studies have found the fundamental relationship between polychronicity and different job outcomes based on person-organization fit theory (Kaufman-Scarborough, 2017; Korabik, Rhijn, Ayman, Lero, & Hammer, 2017). As a result, it is predicted that if there is a person-o-fit between high multitasking job demands and an individual with high levels of polychronicity (Afsar & Badir, 2017), this individual will have low turnover and show high performance (Grobelna, 2019b; Muhammad Asghar et al., 2020). However, the mediating and moderating mechanism related to polychronicity to job performance and turnover intention through work engagement and perceived organizational support (POS) in three-star and four-star hotel contexts has not been explored yet. (Three-star hotels are frequently affiliated with larger, more upscale hotel brands like Marriott, Radisson, and DoubleTree, etc. These hotels are typically more fashionable and comfortable than one- and two-star establishments, and they provide a broader selection of services and amenities (Pacheco, L. 2017; Hu, F. 2020). Also referred to as outstanding hotels, four-star hotels are large, affluent businesses that are professionally staffed and equipped with an abundance of amenities. The spacious rooms feature luxury furnishings and exquisite details such as plush bedding and high-end bath amenities. A four-star hotel provides exceptional services and experiences to its most discerning guests. It entails a more expansive scope of facilities and architecture. These hotels are typically located in good locations and have dining areas and unique amenities such as in-house gyms and swimming pools (Pacheco, L. 2017; Hu, F. 2020; AlKahtani et al., 2021).
The primary objective of this study is to address the hospitality industry's workforce and management challenges. Five-star hotels are quite rare and hence account for a small fraction of our hotel industry jobs. Employees at five-star hotels are equipped with cutting-edge technology as a minimum prerequisite for task completion and are well-trained to do their duties (Osman M et al., 2013). Second, they are well compensated and receive ongoing training and development. On the other hand, three- and four-star hotels account for a sizable share of the broader hotel business, where managerial conflicts and a high employee turnover rate are prevalent. These types of hotels have disregarded mainly the development of strategies for employee retention and job satisfaction (J.-Cheng & Yi, 2018). These types of hotels do not provide personnel with technical assistance that would aid them in their daily tasks. Employee training and development are also not given attention, despite the fact that staff are forced to execute many duties concurrently. Additionally, their well-being and competitive compensation packages are lacking in this type of industry (Pacheco, L. 2017; Hu, F. 2020). On the basis of this rationale, we seek to examine the impact of polychronicity on job performance and turnover intention under the mediating and moderating effects of work engagement and perceived organizational support, respectively in the four- and five-star hotel industry.
An extensive research survey indicates a research gap in assessing how to work engagement and perceived organizational support improve polychronicity and job performance and decrease turnover intention in the three-star and four-star hotel industry. Thus, this study attempts to bridge this knowledge gap by establishing a relationship between the variables mentioned above for the hotel business. Through this research, we mainly attempt to address the following questions.
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Does work engagement increase the job performance of polychronic employees?
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Does work engagement decrease the turnover intention of polychronic employees?
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Does perceived organizational support (POS) enhance the engagement and performance of polychronic employees and reduce their turnover intention?
Work engagement is a self-motivated behaviour that shows employees' dedication to their job (Tsaur, Hsu, & Lin, 2019). It reveals how well individuals execute their duties by psychologically, physically, and emotionally tying them to their jobs. However, recent studies (Jung & Yoon, 2016) and Lu, Lu, Gursoy, & Neale, 2016) have focused on psychological capital, job satisfaction, and job commitment as a moderator or mediator to decrease the negative effects of polychronicity on employees' turnover intention, no one has emphasized on perceived organizational support linking polychronicity and work engagement to employees’ job performance and TI (Grobelna, 2019a; S. Park, Johnson, & Chaudhuri, 2019). Primarily, the buffering role of perceived organizational support (POS) on the impacts of polychronicity on work engagement, job performance, and turnover intention has not yet been explored. POS is an essential aspect of the hospitality industry to improve efficiency across many organizations.
The hospitality industry, especially three-star and four-star hotels, have little consideration of how POS impacts polychronic employee behavioural and organizational outcomes (J.-Cheng & Yi, 2018). POS is defined as which level needs to support and motivate the employees to handle several tasks. Additional research has suggested that POS increase employee engagement and decrease turnover rate (J. J. Li, Bonn, & Ye, 2019). This study explores the buffering role of POS, contemplating its factors to reduce turnover intention and polychronicity impact on employee engagement, consequently their turnover intention (TI) and job performance (JP) (see Fig. 1).
Furthermore, this research contributes to both the theoretical and empirical literature of polychronicity, employees' work engagement, JP, and TI in two aspects (see Table 1). First, this research determines the impact of polychronicity on employees' turnover intention and job performance through employees' engagement; this process is essential for employees and the organizational level, especially in the hotel business. Obviously, the three-star and four-star hotel industry have a higher turnover rate than other businesses, where polychronic employees are required to perform in difficult work situations (J.-Cheng & Yi, 2018; J. J. Li et al., 2019). The second contribution of this study explores the buffering role of POS to enhance the relationship of polychronicity and employees' engagement, consequently increasing the employees' performance and decreasing turnover intention. In managerial terms, understanding the nature of polychronic employees and how it can affect job performance immensely facilitate the managers in making a strategy to reduce employee turnover intention and improve employee engagement. POS as a moderator in this study relates to polychronic individuals' and employees engagement. Finally, our study's findings provide insight into the polychronic behaviour of employees who undertake numerous jobs concurrently, where POS plays a crucial role in mitigating employee turnover intentions and enhancing employee performance.
Section snippets
Literature review and hypotheses
This section provides comprehensive analysis of the current body of the research related to polychronicity, work engagement, perceived organizational support, turnover intention, and job performance.
Sample and procedure
We have used a cross-sectional research design in this study. This type of research design is more convenient and cost-effective for researchers as data can be collected in a single time frame. When hypothesis is based on a well-developed and tested theory, this design is beneficial and supportive. The purposive sampling technique was used to collect data from 23 (15 three-star and 8 four-star) hotels situated in the major cities of the province of Punjab, Pakistan. The rationale for selecting
Result and data analysis
Complexity in analysing the relationship among constructs require a more comprehensive data analysis approach (A. Hair, 1998). To do this, we employ the partial least squares and structural equation modelling techniques in Smart-PLS (v 3.2.7) to evaluate the study variables included in our proposed model, as described in Ali, Rasoolimanesh, Sarstedt, Ringle, and Ryu (2018). We can use the PLS-SEM technique to examine the complexity of reflective and formative models (Joe F Hair, Ringle, &
Discussion and conclusion
The objectives of this research are twofold: a) to determine the role of work engagement in mediating the relationship between polychronicity, task switching behavior, job performance (JP), and turnover intention (TI); and b) to develop a buffering role of POS in the relationship between polychronicity and employee engagement, with the goal of increasing JP and decreasing TI which is a key contribution of this study where POS serves as a moderator among polychronicity, work engagement, JP, and
Acknowledgement
This research work was Funded by the General Research Project of Humanities and Social Sciences of Ministry of Education, China (18YJAZH079).
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