This dissertation increases our insight into the role of the service employee’s intercultural competences in the service to culturally diverse customers. Investigating the effect of the intercultural competences of service employees is of major importance because, as a consequence of globalization, the number of intercultural service encounters has increased dramatically and still does. The delivery of service to a culturally diverse customer-base requires a combination of knowledge, skills and attitude; the intercultural competences (also known as Global Mindset). In this study the hotel sector has been investigated specifically. The hotel sector is an important economic player that continues to grow inspite of economic downturn. The special characteristics of hotel services make the sector also very suitable for the research of face-to-face encounters in an international context. In this dissertation, a holistic approach has been chosen, meaning that in the four empirical studies not only the perspective of the manager, but also that of the employee and the customer was investigated. All three of the above-mentioned are actors in intercultural service according to the argumentation of the ‘service-profit chain’ (Heskett, Jones, et al., 1994). Together, the manager, employee and the customer form the so-called ‘service triangle’ (Bitner, 1990).
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The purpose of this study is to provide a better insight into the impact of rebranding on stakeholders; the case for this study is the rebranding of the Hotel Management School (HMS). This research has explored how the stakeholders have experienced rebranding and how the rebranding has affected the brand identity, image and loyalty. A qualitative research method was used and data was gathered conducting semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with the students, staff and industry partners. The data illustrates that due to effective internal communication the employees were not affected by the rebranding. Nevertheless, the brand identity, image and loyalty did not have the same effect on the students and industry partners. Thus, it is recommended that HMS pay more attention to improving the communication, rebuilding and expansion of the brand identity.
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Purpose As a step toward more firmly establishing factors to promote retention among younger employees in the hospitality industry, this study aims to focuses on fun in the workplace (fun activities, manager support for fun and coworker socializing) and training climate (organizational support, manager support and job support) as potential antecedents of turnover in a European context. Design/methodology/approach Logistic regression was used to analyze the impact of fun and training climate on turnover with a sample of 902 employees from Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands. Data on fun and training climate were obtained through surveys, which were paired with turnover data from organizational records. Findings With respect to fun in the workplace, group-level manager support for fun and coworker socializing were significantly related to turnover, but not fun activities. With respect to training climate, individual-level job support was significantly related to turnover, but not organizational support and manager support. Research limitations/implications As the data were obtained from employees from one organization, further research would be valuable with additional samples to substantiate the generalizability of the results. Practical implications Given the challenge of turnover, organizations should foster informal aspects of fun in the workplace and learning opportunities to promote retention. Originality/value The study examined the fun–turnover relationship in a context outside of the USA where previous fun–turnover research has been conducted, and it examined fun relative to training climate, which has not been studied heretofore. This study also investigated group- and individual-level effects of both fun and training climate on turnover.
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This article describes a method for promoting sustainable business practices in the hospitality sector and focusses on energy usage in hotels. It raises questions about the actual impact of eco-labels on actual environmental performance.
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This research concerning the experience and future of zoos was carried out from 2011-2012 and takes regional ideas concerning Zoo Emmen as well as global visions into account. The research focuses partly on Zoo Emmen, its present attractions and visitors while also comparing and contrasting visions on the future in relationship to other international zoos in the world. In this way, remarkable experiences and ideas will be identified and in the light of them, it can serve as inspiration for stakeholders of zoos at large. The main research subject is a look at the future zoos in view of: The Zoo Experience – an international experience benchmark; The Zoo of the Future – a Scenario Planning approach towards the future; The virtual zoo - zoo’s in the internet domain.
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The focus of the thesis is an exploration into students’ vocational knowledge in the context of Dutch vocational education and training (VET). The reason students’ vocational knowledge requires exploration is because there is no consensus among scholars in the field of VET about how to theorise the nature of students’ vocational knowledge; most (not all) scholars rely on dichotomous conceptualisations, such as theory versus practice, general versus specific or explicit versus implicit. However, such commonly used dichotomies are not very helpful to understand the complex nature of vocational knowledge. Vocational knowledge is more than putting bits of theoretical and practical knowledge together, it is characterised by sometimes-intimate relationships between knowledge and actions. As a result of the above-mentioned gap in the VET literature, there is little empirical research on how VET students develop vocational knowledge and the extent to which this is occupation-specific knowledge. To understand students’ vocational knowledge, four different aims are formulated and carried out in four studies. The aim of the first study is to identify powerful vocational learning environments to enable the selection of a case that represents high quality vocational learning and teaching. With an eye on analysing students’ vocational knowledge, the second study aims to conceptualise the nature of vocational knowledge that avoids dichotomies. Therefore, two conceptual frameworks are integrated; the idea of contextualising is introduced which is based on cultural-historical theory to highlight the crucial role activity plays in knowledge development and to understand the relationships between the mind (i.e., what people think (and feel)), and action (i.e., what people do). Secondly, the theory is supplemented with ideas from inferentialism, a philosophical semantic theory of meaning to provide a useful way to focus on students’ processes of knowing and to reveal students’ vocational knowledge in terms of ongoing reasoning processes. The third study uses the conceptualisation of vocational knowledge to explore how students develop vocational knowledge in occupational practice, and to illustrate the process of contextualising. The forth study aims to describe what characterises students’ vocational knowledge using an analytic framework that distinguishes between occupation-specific knowledge components and qualities. This thesis contributes to research scholarship in the field of VET and an understanding of students’ vocational knowledge in practice. The theoretical framework of contextualising supplemented with inferentialism provides an alternative way to focus on students’ processes of knowing and helps to reveal students’ vocational knowledge in terms of reasoning processes. The empirical explorations and illustrations of students’ vocational knowledge contribute to the scholarly literature and practice on understanding the nature of vocational knowledge, how students develop vocational knowledge and what characterises their vocational knowledge. The intention to introduce the idea of contextualising is not about reinventing the wheel but rather an attempt to understand how it turns and how it functions. The intention of this thesis is to encourage dialogue and move the debate about the nature of vocational knowledge further, and hence, to provide some “food for thought”.
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“Hoe kunnen bedrijfsregel management systemen geclassificeerd worden?” Voor bedrijven kan deze classificatie een belangrijke rol spelen in het selectieproces van een BRMS. Er bestaan meerdere classificatieschema’s van BRMS’en. Drie veelgebruikte schema’s zijn: 1) een classificatie naar de variabiliteit van een bedrijfsregel, 2) een classificatie naar de levenscyclus van een bedrijfsregel en 3) een classificatie naar de waardepropositie van een bedrijfsregel. In dit artikel gaan we dieper in op het tweede classificatieschema: de classificatie naar de levenscyclus van een bedrijfsregel.
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This paper identifies dimensions of perceived cleanliness and subsequently presents a scale for measuring perceived cleanliness in service environments. The cleanliness perceptions scale (CPS) is more comprehensive than existing scales, which focus on how customers perceive the cleanliness of specific interior elements, thereby ignoring other dimensions, including the aesthetic quality of a service environment. Whereas existing scales are intended restaurants and hotels, the CPS was specifically developed for the facilities management industry, which is responsible for cleanliness in a wide variety of service environments. A qualitative study followed by two quantitative studies resulted in the twelve-item CPS, which covers the three dimensions of perceived cleanliness: cleaned, fresh, and uncluttered.
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Publicatie naar aanleiding van de door Stadslab European Urban Design Laboratory georganiseerde Master Class met als thematiek het ontwerpen van een Innovative District voor de Poolse stad Lublin. De Master Class werd gevolgd door 8 internationale deelnemers en stond onder supervisie van Didier Rebois (Europan, Parijs), Marc Glaudemans (Fontys) en Juliette van der Meijden (Fontys)
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