PEOPLE MANAGEMENT IN THE HOSPITALITY: The relationships between human resources practices, organizational culture and guest satisfaction.
Human Resources Practices. Organizational culture. Guest Satisfaction. Hospitality.
Currently, the individual-organization relationship has had its importance increasingly recognized in the field of organizational identity, being also a strategy to make companies more competitive. Human Resources Practices and their representation in Organizational Culture are examples of components recognized as valuable for the success of a company. In the hospitality industry, online reputation is a way of measuring organizational success, as it allows measuring Customer Satisfaction. However, the relationship between Human Resources Practices, Organizational Culture and Guest Satisfaction in Brazilian hotels is still unknown. Understanding such connections allows to achieve the knowledge that helps the conceptual relationships applied to this branch of hospitality in Brazil. Thus, the aim of this research is to evaluate the relationship between Human Resources Practices, Organizational Culture and Guest Satisfaction in Brazilian hotels and, based on this relationship, to assist the management of Strategic People Management in this segment. This is a descriptive study, with a quantitative approach, in which questionnaires were applied in 104 hotels of 4- and 5-stars categories and Brazilian resorts present on the TripAdvisor website. The research was carried out in two stages: the first, with managers or those responsible for the Human Resources of the hotels, through the Human Resources Practices questionnaire by Nadda et al. (2014) and the Bavik Organizational Culture questionnaire (2016); and the second, with the analysis of the general scores that these hotels received on the online reputation site TripAdvisor. The data were evaluated using descriptive statistical techniques and structural equation modeling. The results revealed a positive relationship between Human Resources practices, Organizational Culture and Guest Satisfaction in Brazilian hotels. Human Resources Practices contribute to shaping Organizational Culture and, consequently, achieving Guest Satisfaction. Isolated, the constructs are not related to Guest Satisfaction, requiring a mutual relationship for this achievement, showing the interdependence between HR Practices and Culture. In this research, Organizational Culture contributed to the relationship, but did not play the role of mediator, thus creating an adequate understanding of organizational achievements. It is also expected to contribute to the academic progress of the topics studied. The results allowed to deepen the academic studies of Strategic People Management, as well as to understand how this relationship works, in order to assist the management of hotel organizations in favor of organizational results, especially aimed at Guest Satisfaction.