In deze publicatie, met als subtitel 'de kracht van verbinding', wordt ingegaan op de onderzoekslijnen en -thema's die vanuit het lectoraat voor de komende jaren zijn vastgesteld, de lopende onderzoeken en de plannen die worden ontwikkeld. Deze aspecten staan centraal in hoofdstuk 2. Daarna wordt in hoofdstuk 3 dieper ingegaan op de invulling van deze plannen en de uitdagingen die daarbij spelen. Dit gebeurt in samenwerking met collega's van binnen en buiten het lectoraat, de onderzoeksgroep, studenten en het werkveld. Het is de overtuiging dat de problemen en uitdagingen op het gebied van digitalisering en veiligheid alleen adequaat kunnen worden aangepakt door middel van goede samenwerking, waarbij verschillende disciplines worden betrokken. Daarom wordt de nadruk gelegd op 'de kracht van verbinding'.
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).
High Performance Organization (HPO) characteristics indicate why an organization is able to achieve significantly better results than other organizations and these characteristics can facilitate associations to optimize employees’ work outcomes. The independent professional (IP) is an increasingly occurring phenomenon in the labor market that fulfils an organizations’ need for flexibility in knowledge productivity. This study focuses on the contribution of HPO characteristics to the knowledge productivity of IP's. It was conducted among managers and HRM professionals in various Dutch knowledge-intensive organizations that frequently enlist the services of IPs. This study found a number of HPO attributes that appeared to contribute to the IPs' knowledge productivity, namely the quality of management, an open and actionfocused organizational culture, and continual improvement and innovation. We will use these results to look ahead and consider the future consequences for professional practice. Managers and HRM professionals should strive to contribute to the incorporation of these characteristics within the organization in order to safeguard and enhance knowledge productivity of independent professionals.
