Assignment Sample on Research Philosophy and Practice
1. Introduction
The hospitality industry is one of the vital global industries which are developing rapidly. Many hotel organisations and other hospitality industrial sectors have been operating internationally to serve the needs of different visitors in the world. These industries are managing international operations to accomplish the objectives of increasing revenues and multiplying guests. The industry plays a crucial role in elevating national economies (Vlăsceanu and Țigu, 2020). With it, any country of the world succeeded in creatingstrong positioning in peopleliving in other countries. Thus the topic chosen is “A study on cross cultural differences influencing international business management within hospitality industry”.
Various factors affect the operations of the hospitality industry. It is very critical to understand the cultural environment factors impacting the functions of different hospitality organisations. The success of the selected industry depends on mitigating the needs of the different types of guests (Gardini et.al. 2020). Thus, obtaining knowledge about different cultural trends contribute to developing organisational strategies aiming to serve the guest with effective hospitality services.
The study is undertaken to contribute to developing productive hospitality organisations and making the industry more effective in providing food, recreational, lodging, travel, and tourism services operating under the hospitality industry. The readers will surely read the study to develop insights on the differences between the culture and the impact of cultural factors in different nations’ operating hospitality industries. The information will be provided relating to the differences between the culture, trends, opinion, beliefs, and values of the people to incorporate hospitality services that can provide higher satisfaction to different nations.
2. Aim and objective
Research aim
The research aims to perform a study on determining the impact of cross-cultural differences in managing international business operations in the hospitality industries.
Research objectives
The research objective entails what the researcher trying to accomplish from the performance of the study. A clear and specific set of objectives provides an appropriate direction to the researcher to collect the information contributing to the entire research. These objectives provide guidance to the researcher to progress step by step in conducting a study for accomplishing the research aim. Following are the objectives of the research:
- RO1: To understand the concept of international management in the hospitality industry
- RO2: To evaluate the role of culture in the hospitality industry
- RO3: To critically analyse the influence of the cross-cultural differences in managing the hospitality industry internationally
- RO4: To identify the ways with which the international hospitality industry can bridge the gap of cross-cultural differences in the international hospitality industry
3. Context for dissertation
International business refers to operating business overseas by trading goods, technology, services or knowledge etc. For developing knowledge on international business management, the hospitality industry is selected. The hospitality industry is a much broader field within the service industries. It includes food, drink, lodging, planning a vacation, recreational, dining services, event planning, restaurants and hotels management etc. (TAKACS and VADUVA, 2017). The global hospitality market is continuously emerging, but due to the Corona-virus breakout, the market is expected to decline from $4623.2 billion to $4516.8 billion in 2019 to 2020, respectively (Dube et.al. 2020).
Many global brands such as Hyatt, IHG, Wyndham, Marriott have been performing relay well in elevating the standard of the hospitality industry and providing the best service experience to the people belonging to a different country. The selected industry is appropriate as, before the past year, the industry has never faced recessions and encounters the growing demand of the individuals for hospitality services (Paparoidamis et.al. 2019). Due to increasing work pressure and emotional problems, people love to spend time with dearest ones to get different staying experiences, which helps rejuvenate themselves to get back to their work life. Thus, the hospitality sector is great in planning vacations for the people in implementing the plans and making them returned to their places (Cook et.al. 2018).
The industrial context is appropriate as many sub-industries or sectors engaged in performing operations within similar industries want to cross borders to utilise their resources and capital to ultimately gain competitive advantages. Many hospitality industries of the UK, such as Greene King, Hyatt, J.W. Marriott, and Hilton Hotels, are engaged in providing the best hospitality services to the people. They are providing fine dining, pubs, staying facilities to the people (Rahimi and Akgunduz, 2017). The competition is increasing within the global hospitality industry. Thus, the organisations that want to differentiate themselves from other focuses on performing expansion strategies (Lugosi, 2019). They are expanding across borders to serve consumers with vast facilities and create strong brand positioning in the global market place.
The present study will be performed to contribute to the hospitality industry by developing an understanding of considering the cross-cultural differences in designing the services to satisfy the people belonging to different nations for developing strong positioning and brand equity in the international market place (Koc, 2019). The industry thus results to evaluate the role of culture in elevating the satisfaction level of the guests. They also know how the cultural gap is reduced to elevate industrial performances and maximise industrial revenues.
4. Brief literature review
The hospitality industry provides immense benefits to individuals. A person feels the need for the hospitality sector when he wants a break from his monotonous schedule or enjoying on different occasions. Traditionally, it was so complex to plan vacations. It used to waste a couple of days researching the places and source of travelling to deciding the locations and best places under the set budget (Nair and Choudhary, 2018). But due to remarkable improvements in the hospitality sector, the people just have to pay the amount by informing the budget and choose the desired locations. The hospitality services also include making a plan of the holidays for the travellers by providing those best of the service experience under the client’s budget. Elevating the level of harmony between different nations allows the people to go too far places or international places to spend the days and get acquainted with the different countries’ environment (Kim and Stepchenkova, 2017).
Culture plays a substantial role in the hospitality industries. The dining options under the services should be designed in such a manner so that cultural trends and traditions can be represented. The hospitality sector needs to maintain the culture within the internal business environment (Chahal and Poonam, 2017). An effective culture helps in developing good relationships between the employee and employer to amplify the productivity level of the industry (Jogaratnam, 2017). The tourists also perceive the satisfaction in the service quality is based on cultural settings. For instance: When Hyatt opens an international franchise in a specific country, so the citizens of that country expects the adoption of local culture in developing internal environments as well as designing services from that hotel. On the other side, the native of the UK going to different places, expects Hyatt to deliver the services based on the positioning-related in UK, thus expects to make the UK traveller familiar even in outside the nation.
The hospitality sector of the UK is emerging every day and contributing effectively to the UK economy. Many people from different countries are coming to the UK due to effective infrastructure and favourable climatic conditions (Tan and Despotis, 2021). Similarly, the people of the UK are also travelling outside to spend vacations. Thus, the hospitality industries need to manage the cross-cultural differences of the people visiting different places (Jung et.al. 2018). The hospitality industries, such as food and restaurants, are designing their menus with different cuisines to satisfy their diversified needs.
The people of different nations vary based on the beliefs, cultural traditions, norms, values, and attitude and personality traits (Nazarian et.al. 2017). They have different trends of welcoming and greeting each other. Even they may have the differential attribute of serving food and eating habits (Francesco and Roberta, 2019). Thus, every organisation operating under hospitality industries needs to bridge the cultural gaps to satisfy the domestic and foreign guest (Liu et.al. 2018). This can be achieved only if the industry develops hospitality services considering valuing every culture and traditions (Kandampully et.al. 2018). Embracing diversity at hospitality organisation can help in bridging the cultural gaps. For instance: If a UK hotel wants to expand in the market of China, it needs to hire hotel staff from the targeted region. It helps the organisation to know better about the requirements and service expectations of the Chinese people. It also helps in developing the services, cuisine and design interior of the hotels to provide a great service experience (Manoharan and Singal, 2017).
The hospitality industry can perform smooth international business if the targeted regions’ demand can be fulfilled well. For this, the industry should focus on hiring diversified employees to understand the need for different people (Jones et.al. 2017). It will help in identifying the culture of the guests or potential guest to immediately modifying the service based on the change expectations (Bergs and Lub, 2020). Diversity inclusion helps the industry to develop linguistic skills to improve guests’ interactions, developing cuisine and modifying taste based on the region, as well as developing an atmosphere that makes the guests feel homely and satisfied with the hospitality services (Mariani et.al. 2019). International business should be managed based on cultural diversity to improve the engagement of the employees and improve the satisfaction of the quests to level up the revenues and make profits from the hospitality services (Trianasari et.al. 2018).
References
Books and Journals
Bergs, Y. and Lub, X., 2020. International Human Resource Management in the Hospitality Industry. In The Routledge Companion To International Hospitality Management (pp. 279-295). Routledge.
Chahal, H.S. and Poonam, 2017. Study of organizational culture, employee turnover and employees’ retention in hospitality sector. Pacific Business Review International, 9(11), pp.119-125.
Cook, R.A., Hsu, C.H. and Taylor, L.L., 2018. Tourism: The business of hospitality and travel (Vol. 6). New York: Pearson.
Dube, K., Nhamo, G. and Chikodzi, D., 2020. COVID-19 cripples global restaurant and hospitality industry. Current Issues in Tourism, pp.1-4.
Francesco, G. and Roberta, G., 2019. Cross-country analysis of perception and emphasis of hotel attributes. Tourism Management, 74, pp.24-42.
Gardini, M.A., Ottenbacher, M.C. and Schuckert, M. eds., 2020. The Routledge Companion to International Hospitality Management. Routledge.
Jogaratnam, G., 2017. How organizational culture influences market orientation and business performance in the restaurant industry. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 31, pp.211-219.
Jones, P., Hillier, D. and Comfort, D., 2017. The sustainable development goals and the tourism and hospitality industry. Athens Journal of Tourism, 4(1), pp.7-18.
Jung, T.H., Lee, H., Chung, N. and tom Dieck, M.C., 2018. Cross-cultural differences in adopting mobile augmented reality at cultural heritage tourism sites. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Kandampully, J., Zhang, T.C. and Jaakkola, E., 2018. Customer experience management in hospitality. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Kim, H. and Stepchenkova, S., 2017. Understanding destination personality through visitors’ experience: A cross-cultural perspective. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 6(4), pp.416-425.
Koc, E., 2019. Service failures and recovery in hospitality and tourism: a review of literature and recommendations for future research. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 28(5), pp.513-537.
Liu, H., Li, H., DiPietro, R.B. and Levitt, J.A., 2018. The role of authenticity in mainstream ethnic restaurants. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Lugosi, P., 2019. Deviance, deviant behaviour and hospitality management: Sources, forms and drivers. Tourism Management, 74, pp.81-98.
Manoharan, A. and Singal, M., 2017. A systematic literature review of research on diversity and diversity management in the hospitality literature. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 66, pp.77-91.
Mariani, M.M., Borghi, M. and Kazakov, S., 2019. The role of language in the online evaluation of hospitality service encounters: An empirical study. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 78, pp.50-58.
Nair, G.K. and Choudhary, N., 2018. Sustainability in the hospitality industry: a social factor dimension. EMAJ: Emerging Markets Journal, 8(2), pp.34-44.
Nazarian, A., Atkinson, P. and Foroudi, P., 2017. Influence of national culture and balanced organizational culture on the hotel industry’s performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 63, pp.22-32.
Paparoidamis, N.G., Tran, H.T.T. and Leonidou, C.N., 2019. Building customer loyalty in intercultural service encounters: the role of service employees’ cultural intelligence. Journal of International Marketing, 27(2), pp.56-75.
Rahimi, R. and Akgunduz, Y., 2017. Driving force analysis of East European students to study tourism and hospitality in the UK. Anatolia, 28(2), pp.224-238.
TAKACS, J. and VADUVA, S.A., 2017. A swot analysis of the global hospitality industry. Revista Economica, 69(6).
Tan, Y. and Despotis, D., 2021. Investigation of efficiency in the UK hotel industry: A network data envelopment analysis approach. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Trianasari, N., Butcher, K. and Sparks, B., 2018. Understanding guest tolerance and the role of cultural familiarity in hotel service failures. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 27(1), pp.21-40.
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