HOSPITALITY CLIMATE AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS IN THE HOSPITALITY SECTOR (Published)
Demand is on the increase for encouraging strategic human resource practices that are value-added in terms of enhancing competitive ability of organizations. The hospitality sector which has recently witnessed increased level of participation with new entrants and customer patronage is faced with heightened competition, therefore requires exploring and understanding workplace practices that are likely to influence desired outcomes. The study used a structured survey instrument named Hospitality Climate and Competitiveness Survey (HOCACS) to generate data from the sampled four star hotels in the South-South and South-West geopolitical zones. The analyzed data showed some findings thus: encouraging competency is a potent means of staying competitive as employees have the requisite skills to undertake strategic and real tasks; empowering employees and rewarding were also found to have link with competitiveness and clear communication of task and work goals were necessary practices to remain competitive. The study concluded that hospitality climate is required in the face of heightened competitiveness in the hospitality sector and recommended that managers should encourage a friendly work climate and guarantee cross-functional relationship and work member cooperation and commitment.
Keywords: Employee empowerment, Hospitality, communication, competency, employee rewards
AN ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATION APPROACHES USED BY SMES IN ZIMBABWE (Published)
Literature highlights the importance of communication in the formulation and implementation of strategies. The level of communication has been seen to positively correlate with the overall performance of organisations. Unfortunately the level of communication in SMEs in Zimbabwe has not received much research neither have studies revelled the communication processes used by SMEs. This study sought to establish the communication approaches used by these SMEs and their contribution to the overall performance of these organisations. This was a qualitative study using the multiple case study approach involving eight organisations. In depth interviews and non-participant observations were used to collect data from owner/managers. The major findings were that SMEs used informal communication channels to share information with employees particularly the grapevine to gather organisational information. This tended to create organisational disharmony with each employee striving for favours from the owner. Employees were also given information on a need to know basis and this adversely affected overall organisation performance due to inadequate or delayed information
Keywords: Performance, SMEs, Strategy Implementation, communication
Rural Agribusiness-Based Household Preferences and Management Of Communication Services In Abia State, Nigeria: A Hedonic Approach (Published)
This study on agribusiness-based household preferences and management of communication services in Abia State, Nigeria was analyzed using a hedonic approach. The study tried to identify which mobile communication services impacts most on agribusiness households, and which network provider guarantees better utility to the household users. Thus, 240 agribusiness-based households were selected using multistage sampling technique. Two out of three agribusiness zones in Abia State were selected namely: Aba and Umuahia agricultural zones were selected for the study. The study made use of primary data obtained using a well-structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, multivariate tests and Hedonic analysis were used for the data analysis. Results revealed that males (61.67%) dominated as agribusiness-based households’ heads in the study area. Majority (26.25%) of households were in the age bracket of 61-70 years who were also engage in agricultural activities being their major activity. The hedonic model revealed that household characteristics such as sex, education, electricity connection to household buildings, ownership of house, and increased household size related positively with household ability to settle call prices charged by the preferred network provider while poor and extremely poor households related negatively with ability to settle call prices as charged on calls per day. The multivariate test showed that Mobile Telecommunication Network (MTN) Limited Communication service impacted most on the welfare of these households than Globalcom (GLO) communication services Nigeria Limited. No meaningful contribution was observed in the case of Airtel communication services. It was recommended that communication service providers in the study area should reduce their call rates to accommodate the poor and extremely poor households in order to increase household preferences and subscriptions.
Keywords: agribusiness, communication, households, preferences, services