Creativity and innovation in hotels and resorts: the role of leadership
Creators: name: Moghimi, Solmaz
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024

description: The role of innovation in the contemporary hotel industry is significantly important in sustaining competitive advantage. Given this, this thesis seeks to identify the determinants of employees’ creativity and innovation. Of all the factors related to employees’ behaviour, leadership has been found to be one of the most influential in supporting and encouraging subordinates’ creativity and innovation, and several authors have asserted that understanding creativity and innovation, at both individual and organisational levels, matter.<br><br>The key purpose of this thesis is to examine the influence of perceived innovation -enhancing leadership behaviours, the employee’s perceptions of an organisational climate supportive of innovation, and personal initiative on employees’ creativity and innovation in hotels and resorts in Australia and in Iran. In particular, this thesis examines the direct impact of perceived innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours on employees’ creativity and innovation. Hierarchical regression analysis is employed to investigate the moderating role of employees’ perceptions of an organisational climate supportive of innovation (contextual factor) and personal initiative (individual factor) on perceived leadership behaviours and the employees’ creativity and innovation.<br><br>This thesis adopts a mixed-methods approach. Ten exploratory interviews with managers from Australian and Iranian 3-, 4- and 5-star hotels and resorts were conducted to identify the salient leadership qualities influencing employees’ creativity and innovation. Findings from the qualitative study, along with relevant literature, led to the development of a new instrument comprising seven leadership behavioural categories that were likely to enhance and encourage hotel employees to be creative and innovative. A newly developed instrument measuring innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours, together with the other survey instruments adapted and adopted in this thesis, were tested for validity and reliability in a pilot study with 44 participants from Australian and Iranian hotels and resorts. The second study, a quantitative survey of 399 hotel and resort employees and managers, examined the relationships between the factors of interest in this thesis The psychometric properties of the new instrument were evaluated through rigorous examination, including exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Simple, multiple and hierarchical regression analyses were employed to examine the relationships between factors and to respond to the research questions.<br><br>The empirical findings indicate that the newly developed construct for measuring innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours relates positively and significantly to employees’ creativity and innovation in Australian and Iranian hotels and resorts, and this set of behaviours is demonstrated to have an important effect on the creativity and innovation of employees. The findings also suggest that employees’ perceptions that they are working in an organisational climate supportive of innovation and personal initiative enhance the influence of their leaders’ behaviours on their creativity and innovation. This thesis provides insights into the behaviours that leaders in this industry should adopt to stimulate creativity and innovation among their employees. This thesis finds that besides the behaviours identified here, working in an organisational climate supportive of innovation and personal initiative are other important elements that promote and nurture creativity and innovation in employees’ daily work. On the basis of this finding, industry practitioners will be able to develop strategies to develop innovative and sustainable organisational advantages in the competitive hotel industry and its findings specially in the category of leadership behaviours, will offer useful directions for training and development programs. The newly developed and validated instrument to measure innovation-enhancing leadership behaviours also contributes to the literature on leadership and innovation.