افزایش تعهد سازمانی مدیران هتل : بررسی تاثیر ساختار، نیاز به موفقیت و بودجه بندی مشارکتی

This study investigates the role of decentralised structure and managers’ need for achievement as antecedents of participative budgeting, and the impact of the concurrent relationships of all three preceding variables on organisational commitment. Ninety-one managers from the Australian hotel industry participated in the study and data were analysed using path analysis. Direct and positive relationships were found between the two antecedent variables: decentralised structure and managers’ need for achievement, and participative budgeting. Participative budgeting, in turn, was found to have a direct and positive relationship with organisational commitment. The results of the study have implications for the design of effective management control processes and for human resource management of hospitality organisations.

The hospitality industry has been traditionally characterised by low job morale and high turnover (Deery and Shaw, 1999; LaLopa, 1997). For example, according to the American Hotel Foundation's 1998 “Turnover and diversity in the lodging industry” report, the national turnover in 1997 for line-level employees was 91.7%, 13.5% for property managers and 11.9% for supervisors (Worcester, 1999). Iverson and Deery (1997, p. 82), however, argue that “the hospitality industry, and in particular five-star hotels, cannot afford excessive turnover. This dramatically increases costs and reduces the quality of services provided”. Prior research in organisational management identifies organisational commitment as an important factor for lowering turnover and improving job performance (Randall, 1990; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990). Organisational commitment is defined as employees’ acceptance of organisational goals, their willingness to exert effort on the organisation's behalf and remain with the firm (Angle and Perry, 1986; Porter et al., 1974).1Mowday et al. (1982) argue that understanding of the processes related to organisational commitment has implications for both the employees and the organisation. From an individual's viewpoint, his or her commitment to an organisation may make the individual more eligible to receive both extrinsic rewards such as bonuses and awards, and intrinsic rewards such as job satisfaction and positive relationships with colleagues. From an organisation's perspective, employees’ commitment to the organisation is important since it is negatively associated with employees’ lateness to work, absenteeism and turnover, which in turn, have implications for overall organisational performance (Randall, 1990). Empirical evidence on factors affecting the organisational commitment of hotel employees, however, remains scant. LaLopa (1997) in his study of non-supervisory resort employees, reports a positive association between employee interaction with customers and organisational commitment. Other researchers examining the effects of participative management strategies based on empowerment philosophies in the hotel industry argue that such strategies will increase employee involvement, and this in turn, will lead to more favourable job-related outcomes such as organisational commitment (Gray and Ligouri, 1994; Parsons, 1995). At the same time, there are increasing calls for research relating to accounting-based planning and control systems in hotels and their effects on employee job-related outcomes (Rustch, 1991; Becker and Olsen, 1995). Potter and Schmidgall (1999) in their recent review of management accounting practices in the hospitality industry also highlight the need for further research connecting the design of accounting systems and the overall organisational design and culture of a property. No study to date, however, has examined the direct relationship between accounting-based planning and control systems and organisational commitment. Such evidence is clearly important for developing appropriate accounting-based planning and control systems that facilitate effective human resource management in the hotel industry. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of accounting-based planning and control systems on the organisational commitment of managers in the hotel industry. More specifically, this study tests a model of organisational commitment with participative budgeting as the focal accounting-based planning and control system variable, and organisational structure and managers’ need for achievement as the antecedents of participative budgeting. Fig. 1 provides an overview of the model. The development of the model largely draws upon literature from two broad areas: organisational psychology and managerial accounting system studies (Young, 1988; Ronen and Livingstone, 1975; Shields and Shields, 1998). It is argued that the demand for participative budgeting may arise because of the level of decentralised organisational structure and the managers’ need for achievement. The level of participative budgeting by managers, in turn, is expected to affect their organisational commitment.Additionally, the study was limited to organisational commitment at the managerial level for two reasons. First, organisations have considerable investment in managers in that they are more highly and longer trained. Consequently, the cost of finding and replacing a manager becomes quite high (Stalcup and Pearson, 2001). Second, managers are usually actively involved in the strategic decisions of an organisation including involvement in the goal-setting process. Thus, a better understanding of the processes that engender commitment to organisational goals becomes increasingly relevant at the managerial level. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. In the next section, the theory underlying the study and the hypotheses for testing are developed. The method section is then presented, followed by an analysis and discussion of the results. The final section addresses the conclusions and limitations of the present study as well as implications for future research.

The present study has broadened extant literature on the role of budgetary processes and its implications for managers’ organisational commitment in the hotel industry. It has identified that organisational structure and need for achievement are two significant antecedents of participative budgeting, and enhanced organisational commitment is an important outcome of such participation. The results suggest that participative budgeting plays a critical role in engendering organisational commitment, and that managers with high need for achievement and working in decentralised organisations will participate more actively in budget-setting. As such, the results have implications for both human resource management policies as well as management strategies within the hotel industry. It is clear that a more holistic approach that simultaneously considers both individual and organisational characteristics is critical for fostering favourable job-related outcomes. Such an approach is aligned with previous findings in prior management and accounting studies (Shields and Shields, 1998; Lowry, 1990; Young, 1988). The findings of this research should be considered within the limitations of the study. First, the instrument used for assessing managers’ need for achievement is based on a questionnaire format, i.e., a modified version of the Steers and Braunstein (1976) Manifest Needs Questionnaire. Alternative measures of the variable based on projective perceptual measures such as Thematic Apperception Tests (TATs) as used by McClelland and Boyatzis (1982) can also be used in future studies to test the validity of the findings. The managers who participated in the study, however, appeared to have no problems with the more traditional questionnaire-based instrument. Second, the study has focused on the hotel industry. For comparative purposes with prior studies that have largely concentrated on manufacturing organisations, the model can be tested in a manufacturing setting. Third, the usual caveats of a survey-based study limit the generalisability of the findings. The results of the study, nevertheless, indicate that organisational commitment can be fostered among managers with high need for achievement and through participative budgeting. These findings have implications for both organisational design and for human resource management. Future research into participative budgeting may benefit from approaches which investigate concurrently the influence of other individual-level variables (such as locus of control and tolerance for ambiguity) and organisation-level factors (such as business strategy and corporate culture).