آنالیز عوامل تعیین کننده کلیدی رفتار اخلاقی کارکنان هتل An analysis of the key determinants of hotel employees’ ethical behavior

1. Introduction An increasing number of ethical scandals have kept the hotel industry in the spotlight in recent years. “Hotel ethical scandals include, but are not limited to, cases of sexual harassment, different types of discrimination, lack of workplace diversity, violations of international business and cross-cultural norms, environmental injustice and sustainability, marketing and pricing, theft, and blame shifting, all over the world” (Dimitriou, 2013). Cases like Starwood Hotels accusing Hilton of trade secret theft (Orey, 2009), or individual hotel employees suing the company they worked for on the grounds of being treated unethically such as Charlotte Thomas who sued Marriott for age and sex discrimination (Cadwallader, 2009) are some of the characteristic examples which reflect the unethical conditions and behaviors that currently exist and prevail in the hotel industry. This study aims to highlight these issues and find some answers to these challenges in an effort to help the hotel industry address them. The only way to achieve this goal is by going to the root of the problem of unethical behavior and closely examining the factors which promote and encourage ethical behavior. In other words, to find answers to the following questions: What factors could influence hotel employees to switch to a more ethical decision-making? What factors could cause them to conduct their business in a more responsible manner? Directors’ and researchers’ studies on non-hospitality environments blamed the companies’ organizational culture, the intense competition, or the people’s personal characteristics for the reasons why employees steal or behave in an irresponsible and inappropriate manner in a working environment (Weber, Kurke, & Pentico, 2003). Other studies found that peers can significantly influence the ethical behavior of salespeople (Jones & Kavanagh, 1996; Lantos, 1999; Singhapakdi & Vitell, 1990). Some researchers (Cagle & Baucus, 2006; Hollier, Blankenship, & Jones, 2013) contended that business ethics education has a positive effect on the way business and finance students think and behave whereas others supported that managers play a key role when it comes to the ethical behavior of their subordinates (Jaffe & Tsimerman, 2005). However, all these studies focused on non-hospitality employees and students and there has been a lack of research on the factors influencing the ethical behavior of employees in hospitality settings. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to close this gap in the hospitality literature and identify the factors influencing the ethical behavior of employees in the hotel industry. The signifi- cance of this study is immense as it also aims to assist the hotel industry gain a deeper understanding of what determines employees’ ethical behavior and leads to a more responsible and sound decision-making. The most important stimulus that inspired both the research framework and survey instrument for this study was Deshpande, Joseph, & Prasad’s (2006) study, which was an in-depth analysis of factors influencing the ethical behavior of hospital personnel. Research findings revealed that ethical behavior of peers, ethical behavior of successful managers, and professional education impacted the ethical behavior of the respondents. In addition, female nurses behaved more ethically than their male counterparts. The current study attempts to replicate Deshpande, Joseph, and Prasad (2006) study in hotel settings and examine whether it will yield similar results. It must be noted that the current study is also based on a previous work that the first author presented at the EuroCHRIE 2013 conference in Freiburg, Germany (Dimitriou, 2013). The research model used for this study is based on Deshpande et al. (2006) research model and focuses on the factors influencing the ethical behavior of hotel employees as seen in Fig. 1.