Creativity and Innovation in Hotels and Resorts: The Role of Leadership A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Solmaz Moghimi Master of Business Administration (MBA) Bachelor of Occupational Health and Safety Management School of Management College of Business RMIT University March 2016 Declaration I certify that except where due acknowledgement has been made, the work is that of the author alone; the work has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, to qualify for any other academic award; the content of the thesis is the result of work which has been carried out since the official commencement date of the approved research program; any editorial work, paid or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged; and, ethics procedures and guidelines have been followed. Solmaz Moghimi March 2016 i Acknowledgements Firstly, I am grateful to God for giving me the health, patience and perseverance to complete this thesis. It was the most challenging period of my life but you were always with me. My PhD journey would not have been possible without the invaluable support, understanding and motivation of my supervisory team.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr Nuttawuth Muenjohn, Associate Professor Rosalie Holian and Professor Adela McMurray whose continuous support and immense knowledge helped me in all the time of my research. Their exceptional knowledge, experience, insightful feedback, and constructive critiques substantially guided me through this process to overcome my PhD challenges. I can’t imagine having a better supervisory team. It has been a true pleasure for me to know you and have the opportunity to work with you over the past four years.
I owe this accomplishment to my lovely parents, Nasrin and Mohammad Reza, and my brother Daniel, who have always been there for me through all the tough moments. They have been a source of unfailing support, encouragement, and endless love. I will forever remember and appreciate the sacrifices that you have made for me to live my dreams. I am deeply grateful and you should know that your support was worth more than I can express on paper.
I would like to extend my appreciation to my friends and fellow PhD candidates at RMIT University who made this journey joyful and pleasant. I will always remember in my heart the beautiful moments that we shared together. A special thanks goes to the faculty members and administration staff at the School of Management, RMIT, for their guidance and support during the course of my study. They have always been available to help with my academic and personal matters.
This thesis has been professionally edited by Dr Margaret Johnson of The Book Doctor, in accordance with the Institute of Professional Editors’ guidelines. I truly appreciate her flexibility, support and guidance. ii Dedication This thesis is dedicated to my parents and brother whose love and support have made this journey possible. iii Publications, Presentations and Grants Conference Publication Moghimi, S & Muenjohn, N 2014, ‘The conceptual link between leadership and innovation: the role of organizational climate and personal initiative’, in Proceedings of the Asian Conference on Business and Public Policy, Osaka, Japan 20–23 November, pp.
Conferences Moghimi, S, Muenjohn, N, Holian, R & McMurray, A 2016, ‘The impact of leadership on employee’s creativity and innovation in the Australian hotel industry’, paper presented to Australia and New Zealand International Business Academy (ANZIBA) Conference Sydney, 17–19 February. Moghimi, S, Muenjohn, N, McMurray, A 2014, ‘Capturing innovative leadership in the hotel industry’, paper presented to 28th Australia and New Zealand Academy of Management (ANZAM) Conference, Sydney, 3–5 December. Moghimi, S & Muenjohn, N 2014, ‘The conceptual link between leadership and innovation: the role of organizational climate and personal initiative’, paper presented to Asian Conference on Business and Public Policy, Osaka, Japan, 20–23 November 2014. PhD Milestone Presentations Moghimi, S 2015, ‘Creativity and Innovation in hotels and resorts: the role of leadership’, completion seminar, School of Management, College of Business, RMIT University, Melbourne, 25 June.
Moghimi, S 2014, ‘Creativity and innovation in hotels and resorts: the role of leadership’, mid-candidature review, School of Management, College of Business, RMIT University, Melbourne, 17 July. Moghimi, S 2012, ‘Creativity and innovation in hotels and resorts: the role of leadership’, confirmation of candidature, School of Management, College of Business, RMIT University, Melbourne, 29 November. iv Grants 2014 Higher Degree by Research Travel Grant (HDRTG) RMIT University: International Conference Travel Grant. 2014 Higher Degree by Research Travel Grant (HDRTG) RMIT University: Domestic Conference Travel Grant.
xviii Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION .1 Background of the Research.2 Research Objective and Questions.1 Introduction to World Tourism Industry .2 Tourism Industry in Australia and Iran .3 Hotel Industry in Australia and Iran .5 Structure of the Thesis. 22 Chapter 2 Literature Review .2 Innovation in the Hotels and Resorts Context .3 Creativity and Innovation.4 Definition of Leadership .5 Recent Leadership Theories .6 Leadership and Innovation.7 Organisational Climate Supportive of Innovation.9 Proposed Relationships between Factors of the Study.1 Leadership and Employees’ Creativity and Innovation.2 Leadership, an Organisational Climate Supportive of Innovation and Employees’ Creativity and Innovation .3 Leadership, Personal Initiative and Employees’ Creativity and Innovation .10 Development of Research Theoretical Framework .1 Theoretical Foundation of Framework .2 Research Conceptual Framework .3 Scope of the Proposed Research Framework. 70 Chapter 3 Research Methodology .1 Research Paradigm Choice .3 The Rationale for Mixed Method Research .1 Mixed Method Design Approaches .2 Sequential Exploratory Mixed Method Design .4 Study 1: Qualitative Study.2 The Instrument: Semi-structured Interview .5 Study 2: Quantitative Study .1 Sample and Sampling Strategy .3 Controlling for Common Method Bias .4 Data Collection Procedure .5 The Survey Questionnaires .6 Data Analysis Approaches and Tools .2 Exploratory Factor Analysis .3 Confirmatory Factor Analysis .4 Multiple Regression Analysis. 97 Chapter 4 Study 1: Qualitative Findings .3 Results and Emergence of Themes .1 Innovation-enhancing Leadership .2 Categories of Innovation Practice in the Hotels and Resorts Industry .4 Developing Categories of Innovation-enhancing Leadership.
142 Chapter 5 Instrument Development .2 Scales Used in the Quantitative Study .1 Development of the Innovation-enhancing Leadership Behaviours Instrument .1 Determining the Construct Conceptualisation .2 Item Pool Generation.3 Determining the Format of Measurement.2 Employees’ Creativity and Employees’ Innovation .3 Organisational Climate Supportive of Innovation .3 Exploratory Factor Analysis .4 Descriptions of Survey Used in the Quantitative Study. 163 Chapter 6 Study 2: Quantitative Analysis .1 Data Screening and Cleaning .3 Collinearity Statistics and Outliers .4 Assessment of Common Method Variance .5 Distribution of Latent Constructs .1 Innovation Enhancing Leadership Behaviours .2 Organisational Climate Supportive of Innovation .4 Demographic Characteristics of Respondents .1 Analysis of Sample Characteristics: Comparisons between Australia and Iran .3 Highest Level of Education .4 Current Organisational Position .8 Hotel Star Rating .6 Exploratory Factor Analysis .1 Factor Loadings Associated with Innovation-enhancing Leadership Behaviours 179 6.2 Factor Loadings Associated with an Organisational Climate Supportive of Innovation .3 Factor Loadings Associated with Personal Initiative .4 Factor Loadings Associated with Employees’ Creativity.5 Factor Loadings Associated with Employees’ Innovation .7 Construct Reliability and Validity .8 Confirmatory Factor Analysis.1 Innovation-enhancing leadership .2 Organisational Climate Supportive of Innovation .10 T-Test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA): Differences between Groups .1 T-Test and Analysis of variance (ANOVA): Differences between Groups in the Australian Sample .2 T-Test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA): Differences between Groups in Iranian Sample .2 Discussion of Main Results .1 Innovation-enhancing Leadership Behaviours in Australian and Iranian Hotels and Resorts .2 Relationships between Innovation-enhancing Leadership Behaviours and Employees’ Creativity and Innovation .3 Moderating Role of Organisational Climate Supportive of Innovation on the Relationships between Innovation-enhancing Leadership, and Employees’ Creativity and Innovation .4 Moderating Role of Personal Initiative on the Relationships between Innovation- enhancing Leadership and Employees’ Creativity and Innovation. 255 Chapter 8 Conclusion, Implications and Future Research .2 Conclusion from Research Findings .1 Conclusion from Research Model .2 Conclusions from Research Questions .3 Contributions of this thesis .4 Limitations of the Study.5 Directions for future research. 274 Appendix A: Ethics Approval.
302 Appendix B: Ethics Approval (Amendment). 303 x Appendix C: Invitation to Participate in a Research Project (Qualitative Study) 304 Appendix D: Invitation to Participate in a Research Project (Quantitative Study) 308 Appendix E: Interview Protocol. 312 Appendix F: Consent Form (Interviews). 313 Appendix G: The Survey Questionnaire.
315 xi Tables Table 1.1 Tourist accommodation, Australia (2013) .2 Tourist accommodation, Australia (2013) .3 Distributions of hotels and resorts in Australia (2013) .4 Distribution of hotels and resorts in Iran (2013) .1 Worldview elements and implications for practice .2 A pragmatic alternative to the key issues in social science research methodology .3 Different approaches of mixed method designs .4 Criteria for a model fit .2 Innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours mentioned by participants .3 Categories of innovation practices in Australian and Iranian hotels and resorts. Innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours: categories and examples of responses .5 Definitions of categories of innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours.1 Innovation-enhancing leadership instrument .2 Innovative behaviour measures .3 Employees’ creativity and employees’ innovation instruments .4 Demographic analysis of pilot study .5 Reliability score for innovation-enhancing leadership scale .6 Reliability score for the climate supportive of innovation scale .7 Reliability score for employees’ creativity scale .8 Reliability score for employees’ innovation scale .9 Reliability score for personal initiative scale .2 Statistical distribution of the innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours measure (N: 399) .3 Statistical distribution of the organisational climate supportive of innovation measure (N: 399) .4 Statistical distribution of the personal initiative measure (N: 399) .5 Statistical distribution of the employees’ creativity measure (N: 399) .6 Statistical distribution of the employees’ innovation measure (N: 399) .7 Demographic data of respondents .8 Gender: comparisons between Australian and Iranian sample .9 Age: comparisons between Australian and Iranian sample .10 Education: comparisons between Australian and Iranian sample .11 Organisational level: comparisons between Australian and Iranian sample .12 Tenure: comparisons between Australian and Iranian sample .13 Hotel category: comparisons between Australian and Iranian sample .14 Organisation type: comparisons between Australian and Iranian sample .15 Star rating: comparisons between Australian and Iranian sample .16 Reliability score for all variables .17 Innovation-enhancing leadership construct KMO & Bartlett’s test of sphericity.18 Innovation-enhancing leadership construct factor-loadings, principal component analysis .19 Organisational climate supportive of innovation KMO and Bartlett’s test 182 Table 6.20 Organisational climate supportive of innovation construct factor- loadings, principal component analysis .21 Personal initiative KMO and Bartlett’s test .22 Personal initiative construct factor loadings, principal component .23 Employees’ creativity KMO and Bartlett’s test.24 Employees’ creativity construct factor loadings, principal component analysis.25 Employees’ innovation KMO and Bartlett’s test.26 Employees’ innovation factor loadings, principal component analysis .27 Construct reliability and validity .28 Criteria for the model fit .29 Fit analysis: innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours .30 Fit analysis: organisational climate supportive of innovation .31 Fit analysis: personal initiative .32 Fit analysis: employees’ creativity .33 Fit analysis: employees’ innovation .34 Regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours and employees’ creativity, Australian and Iranian hotels & resorts .35 Regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership (with control variables), Australian and Iranian hotels & resorts.36 Multiple regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours and employees’ creativity, Australian and Iranian hotels & resorts .37 Regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership and employees’ creativity, Australian hotels & resorts .38 Regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership (with control variables), Australian hotels & resorts .39 Multiple regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours and employees’ creativity, Australian hotels and resorts .40 Regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership and employees’ creativity, Iranian hotels and resorts .41 Regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership (with control variables), Iranian hotels and resorts .42 Multiple regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours and employees’ creativity, Iranian hotels and resorts .43 Regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership and employees’ innovation, Australian and Iranian hotels and resorts.44 Regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership and employees’ innovation, Australian and Iranian hotels and resorts (with control variables) .45 Multiple regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours and employees’ innovation, Australian and Iranian hotels and resorts .46 Regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours and employees’ innovation, Australian hotels and resorts .47 Regression model: innovation-enhancing leadership and employees’ innovation, Australian hotels and resorts .