تبدیل شدن به یک هتل دو دست: نقش مشتری مداری

Because competitive pressure in the hotel industry continues to increase, hotels have to develop service innovation (i.e., exploration) and service improvement (i.e., exploitation) capacities to become ambidextrous for continually creating customer value. In this study, a theory of the effect of customer orientation on service innovation and service improvement, which facilitates service quality and results in better market performance, was developed and investigated. By analyzing the data provided by senior executives and department managers from 126 hotels in Taiwan, both service innovation and service improvement were revealed to partially mediate the relationship between customer orientation and market performance. The results imply that customer orientation affects the market performance of a hotel through the development of service capabilities, and that customer orientation can transform a hotel into an ambidextrous hotel by concurrently developing service innovation and service improvement capacities.

As hotels face greater competitive pressure from globalization and customization, they need to meet customer demand for unique and memorable experiences (Chathoth et al., 2013 and Gilmore and Pine, 2002), and provide quality service to customers effectively (Wang et al., 2012) to survive in the industry. In response to inquiries regarding customer service, ambidextrous hotels can create new services and improve the quality of current services simultaneously. New service development (exploration) and existing service improvement (exploitation) (Martínez-Ros and Orfila-Sintes, 2009 and Orfila-Sintes et al., 2005) are at the opposite ends of the service innovation spectrum. The capability of new service development is called “service innovation,” which defined as the capability to apply useful knowledge derived from multiple resources to create new services (Yang et al., 2009). The capability to improve existing services by applying planning methods is called “service improvement” (Boer et al., 2000; Ettlie, 1983 and Peccei and Rosenthal, 1997). In addition, the capability to provide customers with new services is considered to be “exploration.” The capability to conduct continual service quality improvements is termed “exploitation.” In this study, exploration and exploitation were conceptualized into service innovation and service improvement, respectively, which are terms more closely related to the hotel context that is explored in this study. Both of these capabilities help hotels become both proactive and reactive toward external industry environment trends and changes regarding customer needs. Most current studies on exploration and exploitation focus on technology and product contexts (e.g., Yalcinkaya et al., 2007), whereas sufficient discussions on the contexts of customer interaction and service delivery have not been conducted (Lisboa et al., 2011 and Vorhies et al., 2011). In the hotel industry, customer requirements for continue improving service quality, service production and consumption occur simultaneously, and customer needs are diverse and heterogeneous (Orfila-Sintes et al., 2005). These service characteristics have led to the development of new services and to the improvement of existing services, both of which are crucial for hotel operations (Chang et al., 2011 and Orfila-Sintes et al., 2005). However, research exploring the effect of service innovation and service improvement capacities on market performance has been scant (Ottenbacher, 2005), although numerous researchers have emphasized the great benefits of these capacities in promoting market performance (Shaw et al., 2011 and Zhou et al., 2009). Market performance is defined as the degree to which hotels satisfy and retain customers by offering quality products and services compared with those of direct competitors (Moorman and Rust, 1999 and Zhou et al., 2009). Therefore, the first purpose of this study was to examine the contributions of service innovation and improvement capacities to market performance in the hotel industry. The development of new services and the improvement of existing services were typically considered trade-offs (Berthon et al., 1999 and Olsen and Sallis, 2006) and difficult to achieve simultaneously because the development of service innovation and improvement capabilities require distinct perspectives, decision-making methods, and operating processes and resources (Auh and Menguc, 2005, Cegarra-Navarro et al., 2013, Denicolai et al., 2010 and Olsen and Sallis, 2006). However, Gibson and Birkinshaw (2004) argued that a firm with ambidextrous attributes can perform contradictorily organizational activities simultaneously. For example, ambidextrous hospitality firms can integrate various resources to develop new services for adapting to environmental changes and concurrently establish regulations and management activities to improve service quality systematically (Chang et al., 2011 and Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004). To gain this competitive advantage, hotels have to conceive of a method for balancing two contradictory service capabilities. However, a comprehensive understanding of how a hotel can become an ambidextrous organization is lacking. Therefore, the second purpose of this study was to investigate which strategy orientation hotels should emphasize to promote the development of two contradictory service capabilities to become ambidextrous service firms. Customer orientation is perhaps the main factor that impels hotels to become ambidextrous firms. Customer orientation enhances a hotel's understanding of customers, and helps it design new or improved service solutions to meet customer needs (Grissemann et al., 2013 and Sin et al., 2005); thus, customer orientation enhances managerial and financial performance (Sin et al., 2005, Tajeddini, 2010 and Tajeddini and Trueman, 2012). Based on the aforementioned reasons, service capability was assumed to be a plausible mediating mechanism. Therefore, to reduce the risk of new service development (Grissemann et al., 2013) and develop ideas for improving existing services (Lages and Piercy, 2012), hospitality firms need to understand customer needs; consequently, hotels can balance the capabilities of service creation and improvement for satisfying customer needs. However, few studies have examined the mediating mechanism through which customer orientation affects market performance (e.g., Tajeddini, 2010, Tajeddini, 2011 and Zhou et al., 2009). Therefore, the third purpose of this study was to determine how customer orientation helps hotels create customer value through service capabilities and eventually achieve superior market performance. In summary, the manner in which customer orientation strategy can help hotels balance contradictory capabilities, service innovation and service improvement, and eventually become an ambidextrous hotel with a competitive advantage, was investigated. This research also elucidates the links between customer orientation and market performance by emphasizing the mediating role of service innovation and improvement capacities.