Service Leadership in Tourism Industry

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International Journal of Hospitality Management 31 (2012) 648–658 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect International Journal of Hospitality Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhosman Service-leadership competencies for hospitality and tourism management Mark R. Testa ∗ , Lori Sipe L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, College of Professional Studies & Fine Arts, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182, United States a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Competency models have become useful tools for management development in hospitality and tourism organizations. At the same time, these models provide limited focus on leadership behaviors that facilitate employee service performance and customer satisfaction. The present study seeks to address this issue by developing a “service-leadership” competency model for use in the hospitality and tourism context. The following study reports on the results of interviews with 110 industry managers, which yielded a model of some 100 behaviors in 20 competency areas. These competencies cluster into 3 high order categories, namely business savvy, people savvy and self savvy. The results of the study are discussed in the context of extant research. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Keywords: Leadership Hospitality and tourism Competency model Service quality 1. Introduction Competency models have become a useful method for identifying requisite skills in both hospitality and tourism education (Chung-Herrera et al., 2003) and operations (Tas, 1988). These models serve a variety of organizational functions and help to develop important managerial skills. Certainly, a number of studies have been conducted identifying important competencies in the hospitality arena (Johanson et al., 2010). At the same time, which specific success

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