Organisational commitment, job satisfaction and profitability: A cross-national analysis of hotel workers in Mexico and China

Abstract

Organisational commitment and job satisfaction are important measures of employee performance in the workplace. Although employee commitment and job satisfaction have been studied extensively, their links with organisational performance have not often been considered. The research establishes measures of commitment and job satisfaction using data obtained from workers in a multi-national hotel chain. Commitment is conceptualised by means of an adapted OCQ. Job satisfaction is conceptualised by means of an adapted MSQ. The measures are then used to compare the commitment and job satisfaction of workers in hotels in Mexico and China, judged to be well-performing and poorly-performing national hotel groups respectively. Links between the measures and organisational performance are explored. The resulting adapted measures are shown to measure effectively the commitment and job satisfaction of employees in the hotel industry. Using the measures to compare hotel groups in Mexico and China shows significantly different levels of value commitment and intrinsic job satisfaction between low and high performing hotels. Commitment is shown to be a significant predictor of financial performance and guest satisfaction. Job satisfaction is a significant, though weak, predictor of financial performance, but is not significant in terms of guest satisfaction.