Engaging hearts and minds in hospitality: the interplay between authentic leadership, affective commitment, and the Et-Moone cultural bond

Abstract

The fast-based and diverse work environments at hotels and tourism settings comprise specific dynamics that drive employees’ attitudes and behaviours at the workplace. However, scant attention has been dedicated towards investigating the stance of employee engagement via the lens of employees’ domestic cultural and social norms. Therefore, guided by social exchange theory, we embrace an employee-centred approach integrating various lines of inquiries (individual, institutional, and cultural) in one nomological network. Towards that end, a purposeful sampling technique was used to gather data from 681 employees working for 4–5 hotels in Jordan. Conducting multiple mediation analyses, the results revealed that indirect-only mediation regulates the associations between authentic leadership, affective commitment, and Et-Moone. Further, the findings reported a complementary mediation between the affective commitment-Et-Moone-employee engagement associations, indicating direct and indirect (via Et-Moone) influence of affective commitment on employee engagement. The findings of the current study provide a novel contingency view advancing the state of knowledge on employee engagement and relationship development and guiding firms on how to foster positive attitudes and behaviours in hospitality and tourism-relevant contexts. This research endeavour has also discussed significant conceptual and practical implications, along with research limitations and guidance for future research.