Harmonizing hospitality across cultures: Unveiling the role of servant leadership, and strategy in diverse cultural contexts

Abstract

In the fast-paced and competitive world of the hospitality industry, strategies have an inseparable role in unlocking the full potential of the hotels in this industry. The current study examined how strategy differentiation (SD) and strategy social responsibility (SSR) influence corporate identity (CI), organizational commitment (OC), and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of independent hotel employees across various national cultures. Additionally, it investigated the role of servant leadership (SL) in shaping these strategies. Data were gathered through questionnaires from 840 hotel employees in the USA and Portugal, representing two distinct GLOBE cultural clusters. The results indicated that the two cultural groups were significantly different. The main hypothesis proposed a positive link between SL and OCB, which was found to be significant only in the Portugal cluster. The USA cluster did not show this relationship. Four other hypotheses acted as mediators for the main hypothesis. The second and third hypotheses focused on the mediating effects of SD and CI between SL and OCB, showing significance in Portugal but not in the USA. The fourth hypothesis regarding SSR as a mediator was insignificant for both groups, while the fifth hypothesis about SSR and OC as mediators was supported only in the USA. This research sheds more light on servant leadership and strategy in the hotel industry within two distinct GLOBE clusters. It illustrates how cultural differences within these clusters influence relationships between servant leadership, different strategies and their impact on different organisational variables.