Ethics in the American Hospitality Industry Dissertation

Abstract

Ethical challenges have of late been a big issue in the business community. Despite many initiatives in the business world, the issue of ethics has prominently featured. This dissertation focuses on the role of enhancing ethics in employees’ job satisfaction in the American hospitality industry.

This research met its aims of assessing the prescription of common organizational work ethics in the US hotels on employees’ job satisfaction. Secondly, it aimed at assessing the impact of prescription of common organizational work ethics within the U.S hotels on employees’ job satisfaction.

These aims were met through extensive study of the relevant literature as well as through the implementation of the practical research. Establishments used in this research were Ritz Carton, Four Season’s Group of Hotels, Millennium hotels and W. Hotels.

Questionnaires were deployed to the human resource management and further use of relevant literature. Data were subjected to the rating index.

This research came up with a number of findings: the surveys confirmed that ethics played a major role towards job satisfaction by employees on top of increasing brand loyalty that eventually led to the success of the hospitality establishments.

It was recommended that ethical structure should be established and conformity sought as this ended up boosting the morale of the employees, hence, great productivity commitment achieved.

Introduction

Compared to other industries, the hospitality sector is one area where many dynamics are taking place. It is for largely labor intensive with many workers spread in hotels, restaurants, resorts among other closely related enterprises.

The issue of ethics in the hospitality industry is linked to the many trends that are taking place in the world sectors. Most of the media is awash with stories related to some sort of crime or the other. The business world has faced the challenges of being profit driven only.

This means that, no matter what it takes, the end result is post profit. By this, many organizations have had to adopt a culture where ‘shortcuts’ are taken to maximize profits without much care to the need for morally gaining that profit (McCain et al., 2010).

Again, most businesses do not mind committing these crimes as long as they are not caught. Some business schools have even gone ahead to teach their graduates that profit should be the final goal no matter the cost.

This great hunger for profit, regardless of the ethical considerations, has characterized many industries including the hospitality sector.

The effect of the insatiable thirst for profit has greatly impacted the very core of many businesses. The effect, thus, manifests itself in manipulation of rules and set regulations in several ways. What is strange is that such practices have been considered justifiable by the business managers whose eye is always set on profit only.

What has exacerbated this further is the advent of great competition in the market. However, this practice has eventually ended up affecting the core financial viability of several businesses.

Most businesses have felt greatly affected as their financial viability has taken a serious beating, hence, the need to consider their current business policies.

Better managed companies have seen it important to reevaluate their business policies. On a bigger picture, they have started reexamining the ethics of their organizations (Swanger et al., 2009).

This means that not only are they concentrating on the ethical considerations of the business put, but also those of the particular members and all the players in the industry. Ethics is now becoming a crucial element in the success of many businesses.

Over time, the hospitality industry and the educators have deemed in crucial to embark on addressing the critical issues that bedevil their organizations.

Webster’s online dictionary ethics includes a set of moral principles: a theory or system of moral values.

In a nutshell, ethics stands for a set of moral issue used in and also serve as a guiding philosophy that governs individuals or organizations in relating to others. Morals, on the other hand, stand for what an individual considers right based on their beliefs (Forsey, 2010).

It is therefore crucial to note that for one to fully create a workplace that is ethical, there is a need to consider the various differences that arise in relation to the workforce itself, and also those differences that do exist between the workforce and the general society at large (Lynn, 2010).

But it is crucial to note that the organization’s moral standing is usually determined to a major extent by individuals. These could include the top management or the actual owners of the business (McGehee et al., 2009).

Due to their position, they do come up with certain policies that trickle down to the whole organization, thereby, creating the picture of how that organization runs, thereby, creating the picture of how that organization stands out morally.

This brings to the fore the importance of the influential individual in the organization. If the individual in the organization has a high moral standing, this can impact the organization positively and, if the reverse is true, then the organization tends to have low moral standing (Simola et al., 2010).

This means that the influential individual should not be one who tells the employees to everything they can as long as profit, work and customer satisfaction are achieved. This is quite a dangerous path to go.

It is against this backdrop that this research endeavors to investigate the relation and impact of the concepts of business ethics in the American hospitality industry in a view of the employee satisfaction and subsequent performance.

This means in a nutshell, the research is attempting to unlock the relation between employee satisfaction due to set code of ethics and general success of the hotel. The hotels in the study are renowned hotels.

Literature review

Several researches have been conducted on the aspect of ethics in the hospitality industry (Walker, 2010). The human resource direction has actually recorded several ethical issues in the hospitality industry.

They have mentioned a range of problems which include employees being disrespectful to each other, racial conflicts, cultural differences, gender troubles, dishonesty and issues that majorly deal with the differences emanating from the different sexual orientations of the different players in the industry, among others (Pettijohn et al., 2008).

This research majorly identified the types of ethical challenges that are found in the hospitality industry and listed them in terms of the most common ones.

However, in this research, the researcher is going to, on top finding the ethical challenges in the four hotels, look into the interrelationship between the set code of ethics, employee satisfaction and the general success of the specific hotels.

According to another research, Liao et al (2009) ended up recommending how important the ethics should be used. The research reported recommendations, for instance the management discussing the ethical issues with employees, including the use of open dialogue.

This is unlike what the research undertook to cover. This research undertakes a look into the common organizational workethics on the U.S. hotels, employee’s commitment to the employing organizations (Muijen, 2008).

Lynn (2010) has greatly looked at ethics in the hospitality industry. In this report, which involved a survey on 26 establishments, reflected that there was a relationship between leadership of the managers and the job satisfaction by the employees such that if managers were ethical, there was a marked satisfaction by the employees; hence, a decrease in the turnover.

In yet another survey by the same study in which about fifty employees in a casino were surveyed, it was established that distributive justice (that is a case where equal pay, workload, incentives etc.) leads directly to a marked rise in ethical behavior of the employee reduced turnover (Jung et a., 2010).

Further, it was found that frontline employees, who projected ethical behavior to their customers, ended up having a high level of job satisfaction. This means that the employees were able to explain to the customers why certain rules were applied and generally.

It was found that in such cases perceptions of unfairness were clearly minimized and this made the employees greatly satisfied.

This is unlike in this research since it does not undertake to study as many establishments. The research is restricted to only four establishments. What is more, the above study focused on the ethical leadership only.

This is unlike in this research where the undertaking is limited considering the issue of ethics in relation to employee satisfaction.

In another study conducted on, about 788 Korean food service staff in hospitality establishments run and managed through contract to determine whether worker -organization fit would reduce subsequent turnover, it was found that the most reliable fit emerged when the values of the employees did match the company values were ethical (Lee & Way, 2010).

It was finally found that the turnover greatly reduced when the values of the employees were in line with those of the organization. When employees are inducted with ethics, they tend to advance the establishment’s image and even reduce the frequency to switch job (Lee & Way, 2010).

Apart from the above study, there was another study in which interns were asked if they considered certain behavior to be ethical. This study was carried out in 39 countries. The female employees, it was found, tended to find certain questionable behavior to be more questionable than others.

It was further found that the American interns certain behavior to be more unethical as compared to their Asian counterparts (Lee & Way, 2010).

Thus, cultural differences did not cause many profound differences. In this study too, it was found that American interns did consider violations by the organization to be more unethical than what the European and Asian counterparts considered unethical.

The age of the participant interns did not bring about any differences. It can be seen that, in this research, the researcher will be addressing a totally different issue. This research undertakes to study the ethics in four hotels only.

The research has got limited scope and specifically looks for the information that relates to ethical nature of establishments vis-a-vis the employee satisfaction. However, in some related research the study above, one sees that satisfaction of employees has some relation with the nationality.

This finding thus serves to be crucial in that this information will help this paper to probably consider the nationality mix of those to be interviewed in relation to the effect on the responses to the questionnaire.

The issue of costs to affecting ethical aspects is an issue that greatly determines the direction of a business. The costs do exhibit themselves not only in capital cost but also in time. These two factors towards implementing an effective ethical environment do make it sometimes a big challenge for the establishments to implement.

In various studies therefore, the issue of costs especially do pose a big challenge in integrating the employees to the new ethical system or one yet to be implemented (Lugosi et al., 2009). What proves to be a big challenge is trying to bring about the great change in culture.

Perhaps, the employees may not be used to the new way of doing things. This may further lead to the challenge of further implementing the ethical plan.

The workers may not have had any code of ethics before or this maybe find it totally troubling to change from the code of ethics they were used to and the large radical strategic decisions necessitated by the shift.

The link between morale and the attendant ethical strategy of the establishment does come to the forehere.

Again, this has got much to do with how productive the employees’ job satisfaction and the attendant commitment to the organization. If the employee is not committed to the organization, it loses in both productivity and image.

Ethical issues are varied and come with different expectations. Studies have shown that those issues to do with ecotourism are quite a challenge. It was found, for example, that Canadian Inuit use very powerful rifles and boats as they go on hunting expeditions.

This means that it is unrealistic to expect an establishment that promotes ecotourism to be fully ethical as some Eco tourists may not be ethical at all. This could lead to a conflict between what the tourists do and the general ethical expectation of the employee.

Wide ranging organizations have implemented far reaching measures to do with empowering theiremployees. This has entailed harnessing and nurturing the best there is in the market and urging the workers to try and implement. Empowering workers have required that they are able to make informed decisions.

Marriothas been the champion of implementing this program of empowering its employees. But many players have not been able to implement this program. The employees are well trained, mentored and authorized to make decisions and these impacts greatly on job satisfaction.

With this program, barriers that do hinder employee satisfaction are minimized, hence the employees go out of their way to meet and even exceed customers’ expectations. In this approach, there is constant collaboration between managers and employees (Kim, 2009).

This model has included referring to employees as associates and not employees. This model does espouse serious ethical standards. Morality is highly valued.

It has become quite apparent that this is not just any other business program but a philosophy that does greatly determine the establishment’s moral outlook that has a bearing on both the establishment’s employees and customers (Malloy, 2009).

This information is crucial to this research as it provides an avenue for further knowledge bank crucial to this research. This information shows another angle through which ethics could be considered (Holjevac, 2008). This effort put in an employee improvement is in itself ethical and it boosts the image of the organization.

In this case, it can be seen that the implementation of the program entailed consistent training of the associates in one area to the next, thereby systematically removing anything that may hinder their productivity and commitment to the organization.

The program is not just expecting the employee to implement what is taught just like that; the associates who undergo successful empowerment, get rewarded in many forms including even acknowledgement by the administration (Beck, 2010).

In a scholarly erudition entitled Job Satisfaction Among Information Technology Professionals, Ghazzawi (2008), it was found that professionals in the information technology found their jobs more satisfying if the organizations exhibited practical commitment to social responsibility and well-structured ethical standards.

It can thus be concluded that organizations that are ethical stood a higher chance of retaining their staff and hence more profitable in contrast to the organizations which do not consider social responsibility (Holjevac, 2008).

The above study is useful to this research in that on the top of adding to the body of knowledge to this research, it shows the relationship of employee satisfaction and ethics in relation to the American hospitality industry.

The researcher is going to find out ethical foundations in relation general success as of the hotels (McGehee, 2009).

Green sustainable practices provide an area that is current and adopted by many organizations.

From the twenty eight hospitality establishments studied in Hong Kong in order to determine the actual environmental cost in relation to water consumption, it was established that, due to measures put in place, water consumption per room dropped from the year 194-2002 (Enz, 2010).

Still on green sustainable practices, it was found that the fish number was seriously on the decline due to unsustainable fishing practices. This is why, in some hotels in Europe, the strategy has been for sustainable fishing practices and most hotels went ahead and adopted and utilized eco-labels.

Fairmont is an example of a hotel chain that does distribute its Green Partnership Guide all over the world. It therefore offers locally or even organically grown food products. The hotels are replete with herb and vegetable gardens that are on-site (Ogbeide t al., 2009).

Caffe Sospeco is an establishment that advocates for animal and people cruelty free environment. In showing environmental responsibility, it does uses meat and eggs obtained from free range farming.

Therefore, in a study which involved two hundred and fifty eight respondents, it was found that the consumers did take those establishments that championed green policy, did elicit favorable positive attitude (Fennell & Nowaczek, 2010).

The researcher will, however, place more emphasis on the influence of the common organizational ethics on the employees’ commitment to the organizations for which they work. This is unlike most of the surveys which have majored on the ethics and consumer perceptions above (Park & Boo, 2010).

It has also been established that most hospitality establishments do have ethics which they espouse. This research is also going to find out how the different ethics practiced by four hotels impact employee satisfaction.

Reference List

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