The dualistic model of passion and the service quality of five-star hotel employees during the COVID-19 pandemic

Tung-Ju Wu; Jia-Min Li; Yu-Shu Wang; Ruo-Xi Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2023.103519

The dualistic model of passion and the service quality of five-star hotel employees during the COVID-19 pandemic

Int J Hosp Manag. 2023 Aug:113:103519. doi: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2023.103519. Epub 2023 May 29.

Authors

Tung-Ju Wu¹, Jia-Min Li², Yu-Shu Wang³, Ruo-Xi Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), Harbin, Heilongjiang Province 150001, China.
² School of Business Administration, Northeastern University, Shenyang, Liaoning Province 110167, China.
³ Department of Health Policy and Hospital Management, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province 150001, China.

Abstract

Given the generally stressful job demands of the hospitality industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, understanding the work passion and emotions of hotel employees is particularly important. Based on the conservation of resources theory and the job demands-resources model, this study develops a multiple mediation model to investigate how frontline hotel employees with different types of work passion choose emotional labor strategies under the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of different choices on their service quality. A two-stage survey using data from 206 frontline employees of five-star hotels in China explored how work passion influences emotional labor and thereby affects emotional expression as well as service quality. The results showed emotional labor partially mediates the relationship between work passion and emotional expression, which in turn mediates the relationship between emotional labor and service quality during the COVID-19 pandemic. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.

Keywords: COVID-19; Dualistic model of passion; Emotional expression; Emotional labor; Service quality.