Decision Making in the Hospitality Industry

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Dispute resolution
Limitations
Overcoming limitations
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Hospitality organizations hire staff with varied cultural backgrounds to serve tourists with sundry cultures. Hence, hospitality organizations should be able to resolve cultural conflicts that might arise in workplaces. Besides, the organizations should be able to coordinate and foster cooperation between staff. Participative leadership can help to resolve cultural conflicts and promote teamwork (Gelfand & Brett, 2004).

Participative leadership allows staff to participate in decision-making processes aimed at addressing issues that affect an organization. Therefore, an organization makes decisions that receive support from all employees. This paper will discuss how a participative leader can help to resolve disputes in a hospitality organization.

Dispute resolution

One of the conflicts that arise in hospitality organizations is cultural conflict. In most cases, employees disagree due to cultural disparity. Different cultures have different ways of doing things. Thus, employees with diverse cultural backgrounds may fail to agree on tactics to use to discharge duties. In such a case, participative leadership can help to resolve disputes by bringing workers together (Kim, 2002).

A participative leader can help workers to identify their shared interests and to reach a common ground. It is hard for workers to cooperate if they do not believe that they are pursuing a common goal. Therefore, a participative leader should bring employees together and help them to identify a common objective and strategies to apply to achieve the objective.

Limitations

One of the limitations that participative leaders encounter when addressing disputes in hospitality organizations is time constraints (Kim, 2002). Participative dispute resolution style requires adequate time to consult and mitigate resistance, which might not be available. However, a participative leader may help an organization to avert employee resistance by creating a sense of ownership in the employees.

Additionally, the leader may encounter problems in determining the workers to participate in the decision-making process. It might be hard for a hospitality company to involve all employees in the decision-making process. Nevertheless, the organization should ensure that all employees are represented during the process (Gelfand & Brett, 2004). Involving employees’ representatives would help an organization to consider workers’ interests and concerns when making a decision.

Overcoming limitations

One way through which a participative leader can overcome the challenge of identifying employees’ representatives is by making “Participation as broadly inclusive as possible” (Ayoko, Hartel & Callan, 2002, p. 167). A participative leader should ensure that all cultures are represented. The leader can guarantee inclusive representation by increasing the number of participants. Alternatively, a leader can select employees who are highly regarded to participate in the decision-making process.

These are employees who are influential and receive massive support from their colleagues. The participants would help to convince other employees that an organization considered their interests to arrive at a decision. This would avert cases of employee resistance and guarantee cooperation between the employees (Ayoko et al., 2002).

In addition, a participative leader can use the employees to “Validate the concerns of each cultural group and educate employees on the importance of cultural diversity” (Maznevski, 2007, p. 534). The education would not only avert resistance, but it would engender teamwork.

Conclusion

Participative leadership can facilitate to resolve cultural disputes that arise in the hospitality industry. A participative leader brings employees together and works with them to establish a common goal. Additionally, the leader ensures that all cultures are represented during the decision-making process to avert resistance.

References

Ayoko, O., Hartel, C., & Callan, V. (2002). Resolving the puzzle of productive and destructive conflict in culturally heterogeneous workgroups: a communication accommodation theory approach. International Journal of Conflict Management, 13(2), 165-195.

Gelfand, M., & Brett, J. (2004). The Handbook of Negotiation and Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Kim, S. (2002). Participative management and job satisfaction: lessons for management leadership. Public Administrative Review, 62(2), 231-241.

Maznevski, M. (2007). Understanding our differences: performance in decision-making groups with diverse members. Human Relations, 47(5), 531-552.

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