Tourism Management 25 (2004) 471481

Promoting service quality in tourist hotels: the role of HRM practices

and service behavior
Sheng-Hshiung Tsaur
a,
*, Yi-Chun Lin
b
a
Graduate Institute of Tourism Management, Chinese Culture University, 55 Haw Kang Road, Yang Ming Shan, Taipei, Taiwan
b
Graduate Institute of International Business Administration, Chinese Culture University, Taipei, Taiwan
Received 10 October 2002; accepted 28 May 2003
Abstract
Tourist hotels in Taiwan are focusing their attention on improving customer service quality. In general, a rms human resource
management (HRM) practices can create an environment that encourages positive employee behavior, thereby enhancing service
quality. This conceptualization is grounded in an extensive review of the literature, pooling together previously disparate research
strands. The purpose of this study is to empirically explore the relationship among human resource management practices, service
behavior and service quality in the tourist hotels. The results indicate HRM practices had partially a direct effect on customer
perceptions of service quality and an indirect effect through employees service behavior. This means that service behavior only
partially mediates the relationship between human resource management practices and service quality. The implications for HRM
and future research implications of this nding are discussed.
r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Human resource management practices; Service behavior; Service quality; Tourist hotels
1. Introduction
The tourist hotel industry has become one of the most
competitive of all service industries in Taiwan. Tourist
hotel companies are facing increasing competition from
other lodging units including bed-and-breakfasts and
campgrounds. This increased competition has forced
traditional tourist hotels to nd ways to retain current
clients and attract competitors clients. Increased service
quality through increased employee performance is a
viable way for hotels to remain competitive. However,
services are typically intangible and non-standardized.
Because of these two attributes, the evaluation of service
quality is primarily subjective and lies largely with the
customers. The intangibility of services also means that
how a service is delivered is a critical factor in any
evaluation of quality (Morrison, 1996; Schneider &
Bowen, 1993). In other words, service quality depends
heavily on the effectiveness with which front-line
employees deal with customers and clients. Efforts to
promote service quality must therefore be based on
managing employee behavior (Schneider & Bowen,
1985).
Many researchers have underscored the importance of
customer-contact employees in creating and providing
good service quality (Bitner, Booms, & Tetreault, 1990;
Hartline & Ferrell, 1996; Kelley & Hoffman, 1997;
Zeithaml, Parasuraman, & Berry, 1985). For instance,
customers have been shown to evaluate service quality
on dimensions such as concern and civility (Winsted,
2000) and listening and understanding demonstrated by
the employee (Chandon, Leo, & Philippe, 1997).
In the past, although the effects of HRM practices on
organizational performance have been emphasized by
both HR scholars and practitioners (Delaney & Huselid,
1996; Fey, Bjorkman, & Pavlovskaya, 2000; Khatri,
2000), such studies have not looked at the organiza-
tional performance from employee service-related beha-
viors and customers service quality perceptions.
Morrison (1996) suggested that a rms human resource
management practices can create an environment that
elicit more customer-oriented behavior from employees.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
*Corresponding author. Tel.: +886-2-28610511x306; fax: +886-2-
28611402.
E-mail address: shenght@ms28.hinet.net (S.-H. Tsaur).
0261-5177/$ - see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0261-5177(03)00117-1
In turn, the behavior that employees display will
positively impact on service quality. The author
discussed this issue conceptually, but no systematic
empirical investigation was published identifying
which dimensions of HRM practices and specic
forms of service behavior lead to higher service quality
in hotels.
Although the connection between HRM practices and
service quality may be intuitively relative, the underlying
logic is that there must be mediating variables between
organizational HRM practices and customers percep-
tions of service quality. More specically, it stands to
reason that a customer will, in part, evaluate service
quality on the basis of employees behavior rather than
organizational HRM practices, though organizational
HRM practices and employees service behavior may be
related. Important questions remain unanswered and
motivated this study: (1) Is there a relationship between
organizational HRM practices and customers service
quality perceptions in hotels? (2) What dimensions of
HRM practices are most important? and (3) Is the
relationship between HRM practices and service quality
mediated by employee service behavior and through
what mechanics? The purpose of this article is to present
the results of an empirical study, coupled with appro-
priate theoretical discussion, designed to answer these
questions.
2. Literature review and hypothesis
2.1. Relating HRM practices to employee service
behavior
Behavioral patterns have many important implica-
tions, both theoretical and practical, for virtually all
kinds of human resource practices including job
analysis, recruitment, selection, training, development,
performance appraisal, compensation, and even labor
and employee relations (Werner, 2000). How an
organization manages its human resources establishes
the tone and conditions of the employeeemployer
relationship. And in turn that impacts on employee
behavior. For example, Schneider and Bowen (1985)
found that, when employees perceive their organization
as one that facilitates performance, enhances career
opportunities, provides positive supervision, and
so on, they are then free to do the organizations main
work of serving customers. Zerbe, Dobni, and Harel
(1998) reported that employee perceptions of
HRM practices had a direct effect on self-reported
service behavior. These premises lead to our rst
hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1. HRM practices will be positively related
to employee service behavior in hotels.
2.2. Relating service behavior to service quality
Research has highlighted the critical role of customer-
contact employees in that their behavior has a major
impact on customer perception of service quality.
(Bitner et al., 1990; Farrell, Souchon, & Durden, 2001;
Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1985, 1988). We
dene employee service behaviors that are extra-role
and those that are role-prescribed. This denition is
consistent with that prosocial service behavior in the
organizational behavior or marketing literatures (Bet-
tencourt & Brown, 1997; Brief & Motoeidlo, 1986;
Organ, 1988).
Extra-role service behavior refers to the discre-
tionary behavior of contact employees in serving
customers that extends beyond formal role require-
ments. Hotels like Red Lion Hotels & Inns even
advertise specic service encounters in which employees
go out of the way or beyond the call for customers.
Recent marketing literature highlights the importance of
contact employees delighting the customer by provid-
ing little extras, and extra attention exceptional
service during the service encounter (Bettencourt &
Brown, 1997; Bitner et al., 1990; Kelley & Hoffman,
1997).
Role-prescribed service behavior refers to expected
employees behavior that may derive from implicit norms
in the workplace or from explicit obligations as specied
in organizational documents such as job descriptions
(Brief & Motoeidlo, 1986; Puffer, 1987). For example,
hotels like Holiday Inn monitor role-prescribed service
behavior such as greeting the customer by name,
answering the phone within three rings, and making a
personal pledge to a customer that a request will be
handled. Marketing studies reinforce the importance of
similar behaviors for customer service quality percep-
tions (Bitner et al., 1990; Keaveney, 1995; Parasuraman
et al., 1988). Based on this discussion, we expect that
employee service behavior will be positively related to
service quality.
Hypothesis 2. Employee service behavior will be posi-
tively related to service quality in hotels.
2.3. Relating HRM practices to service quality
It has been argued that in service organizations
quality improvement must be focused on the selection,
training, and compensation of employees. (Lovelock,
1985; Schlesinger & Heskett, 1991; Schneider et al.,
1985, 1995). Fey et al. (2000) found that salary level was
signicantly associated with rm performance for both
managers and non-managers. Schneider et al. (1985)
also found that employee perceptions of HRM practices
were signicantly related to customer perceptions of
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S.-H. Tsaur, Y.-C. Lin / Tourism Management 25 (2004) 471481 472
service quality. Hartline and Jones (1996) indicated that
in the hotel, contact employees should receive the
necessary training in order to deliver high quality
service. Previous HRM research has addressed that in
the service industry, nding a positive relationship
between employee perceptions of organizational prac-
tices and customer ratings of organizational effective-
ness (Tornw & Wiley, 1991; Gilbert, 1991). These
nding lead to our next hypothesis regarding the
relationship between employee perceptions of HRM
practices and customer perceptions of service quality.
Hypothesis 3. HRM practices will be positively related
to service quality in hotels.
2.4. The role of service behavior between HRM practices
and service quality
Ulrich, Halbrook, Meder, Stuchlik, and Thorpe
(1991) argued that selection, hiring, appraisal, promo-
tions, and reward administration practices can be used
to increase the shared mindset among employees and
customers, which leads to the organization attracting
customers and being competitive. In other words, when
employees feel well treated by managements human
resource practices, they can devote their energies and
resources to effectively treating clients. Researches on
the dimensions of service quality also support the
hypothesized relationship between customer-oriented
behavior and service quality assessments. Key dimen-
sions of service quality such as empathy, assurance and
responsiveness (Parasuraman et al., 1988) are all
potentially enhanced through the performance of
customer- oriented behavior resulting in more favorable
evaluations of overall service quality. Kelley and
Hoffman (1997) reported that employees who help
customers by performing customer-oriented behavior
during the service delivery process are more likely to feel
better about the service quality than those who
do not act prosocially toward the customer. Morrison
(1996) identies HRM practices that can be used to
elicit service behavior and hence service quality. Our
model has both antecedents and consequences of
employee service behavior. In these models, employee
service behaviors are shown to mediate the relation-
ship between the hypothesized antecedents and
consequences. Thus, the following hypothesis will be
tested.
Hypothesis 4. The relationship between HRM practices
and service quality would be mediated by service
behavior in hotels.
3. A concept model
For most service industries, quality is occurred in
service encounter (Parasuraman et al., 1988). Service
encounters involve interaction between customers and
employees (Bettencourt et al., 1997; Winsted, 2000) so
employees will have an important role to play in
inuencing customers perceptions of service encounters
(Bitner, 1990; King & Garey, 1997). Hereupon service
capability means the degrees of required knowledge,
skills and concepts required for the line employee to
offer excellent service (Jaworski & Kohli, 1993; Berry,
Conant, & Parasuraman, 1991). Hallowell, Schlesinger,
and Zornitsky (1996) indicated that service capability is
dened as an employees perception of his or her ability
to serve the customer and that it is a direct antecedent of
customer satisfaction. In summary, besides the require-
ments of positive service behavior, the frontline employ-
ees must possess appropriate service capability to
provide a good service for customers. In this study, we
adopt service capability as the control variable in order
to clarify the role of service behavior. The proposed
framework is illustrated in Fig. 1.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
HRM Practices
recruitment / selection
training / development
compensation / benefits
performance appraisal
Service behavior
Extra-Role service
Role-Prescribed Service
Service quality
Tangible
Reliability
Responsiveness
Assurance
Empathy
Fig. 1. Model of relationship among HRM practices, service behavior and service quality.
S.-H. Tsaur, Y.-C. Lin / Tourism Management 25 (2004) 471481 473
4. Methodology
4.1. Sample and procedures
We tested hypotheses using data collected from the
front line employee and customers in tourist hotels in
Taiwan. Prior to data collection, we pre-tested our
questionnaire with a sample of 30 employees and 30
customers from a tourist hotel. Based on the pre-test,
several items were revised and some changes were made
to the questionnaire format.
To initiate a sample, we contacted the marketing
managers of several hotel companies. Three companies
agreed to participate by providing a complete mailing
list of general managers names and hotel addresses.
This procedure resulted in a pool of 68 hotel units, all of
which were sampled. The corporate marketing managers
of the three companies mailed a letter to each general
manager that explained the research and asked for their
support. Approximately 2 weeks later, questionnaire
packets were mailed to each general manager. Each
packet contained 5 employee surveys, 10 customer
surveys, one page of instructions and postage-paid
envelopes. Contact-customer employees were asked
about their perception of human resource management,
service behavior and service capability. The customers
subjective perceptions of service quality were determined
by directly interviewing them.
Constraints imposed by the participating hotels pro-
hibited us from directly contacting employees or custo-
mers. As a result, we relied on the general managers to
distribute the employee and customer surveys. The
general managers were instructed to distribute the
employee surveys across a broad range of customer-
contact positions (e.g. front desk, food service, house-
keeping, bellstaff) and to distribute the guest surveys as
customers checked out of the hotel. All questionnaires
were returned to the researchers by each general manager.
Of the total sample, 42 different hotel units responded
by returning at least 5 employees and 5 customers. Of
these, we visually inspected all questionnaires for
missing items and haphazard answers while recording
the data, only 11 employees and 19 customer surveys
were unusable. Usable questionnaires were returned by
203 employees (59.7% response rate) and 272 customers
(40% response rate). Because 26 hotels failed to return
any type of questionnaire, we tested for non-response
bias through a time-trend extrapolation test (Armstrong
& Overaton, 1977), and no signicant differences were
found between late and early respondents, which
indicate an absence of non-response bias.
4.2. Measures
To remain consistent with previous research, the
measures were taken or adapted from previous studies
in HR management, psychology and marketing. We
used the scales developed by Khatri (2000) to assess
employee perception of HRM practices. Four aspects of
HRM practices were assessed: recruitment and selection
(3 items), training and development (5 items), compen-
sation and benets (4 items) and performance appraisal
(3 items). Scales adapted to measure employee self-
reports service behavior were developed by Bettencourt
et al. (1997). Two aspects were assessed: Extra-Role
service behavior (3 items) and Role-Prescribed Service
behavior (3 items). In addition, in order to measure
employees service capability, we use a three-item scale
developed by Jaworski et al. (1993). Service capability
was operationalized as the required knowledge, skills
and concepts for the line employee to offer excellent
service. Service quality was assessed through the
22-item performance battery of the SERVQUAL scale
(Parasuraman et al., 1988). We combined expectations
and perceptions into a single measure, as was suggested
by Brown, Churchill, and Peter (1993). Our measure
asks hotel guests to rate each item, using a ve-point
scale ranging from much worse than I expected to
much better than I expected. Higher scores reect
higher perceived service quality. In addition, we made a
slight modication by changing the wording of items
to t the features of a tourist hotel. All items were
measured on a ve-point Likert-type scale where
1=strongly disagree and 5=strongly agree.
4.3. Scale reliability and validity
The internal consistency of the four multi-item
instruments used in this study was assessed by examin-
ing the coefcient alpha scores. All coefcient alpha
values were high, ranging form 0.76 to 0.80 for the four
components of HRM practices measure, 0.750.82 for
the two components of service behavior measure, 0.90
for the 3-item service capability measure, and ranging
from 0.82 to 0.93 for the ve components of SERVQ-
UAL. These alpha values provide evidence that the
internal consistency of the multi-item instruments was
suitable (Nunnally, 1978).
Furthermore, although all of the scales have been
reported in literature, a scale validation procedure was
accomplished using (1) the analysis of item inter-
correlation, (2) the analysis of item-total correlations
and (3) factor analysis. The purpose of this stage of the
analysis was to identify and eliminate poorly performing
items for the reective measures. For establishing
construct validity, this study used the factor analysis
to determine unidimensionality. Factor analysis using
principal component analysis of the four multi-item
instruments showed that in the HRM practices scale,
there were 4 items that should not been retained (the
factor loading below 0.4). All the other items of the
instruments were indicated to have a good t.
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S.-H. Tsaur, Y.-C. Lin / Tourism Management 25 (2004) 471481 474
4.4. Analysis
For the requirement of analysis, the employee and
customer responses were aggregated to create a single
data set in which the cases represent hotels rather than
persons. The nal sample of 42 hotels consisted of an
average of 4.83 employees and 6.48 customers for each
unit. To examine the four hypotheses with separate
multiple regression analyses, two kinds of questionnaire
data were used in this survey: one from the contact
employees aspect and another from the customers
aspect. We used multiple regression to test the hypoth-
eses. And, we calculated means and standard deviations
for each variable and a correlation matrix of all
variables used in hypothesis testing.
5. Results
5.1. Sample
The sample for employees composed 66.5% female,
and 55% of respondents were married. Of the samples,
75.9% were aged 30 years or less. Most (59.6%)
respondents had worked for their hotel under 3 years.
Over half (79.3%) of respondents wages were under
937.5 dollars per month. Among the customers, most
(78%) respondents ages ranged from 21 to 50 years. Of
the clientele, 55.1% were female and 43.3% of
respondents were married. Most of respondents were
college and university educated (62.5%). Of the sample
43.4% had monthly income between 625 and 1250
dollars, and 18.8% reported monthly income above
1875 dollars.
We conducted this study with service quality as the
dependent variable, HRM practices as independent
variable, service behavior as mediator variable, and
service capability as a control variable. All the
constructs in this study were measured through the
viewpoints of employees and customers respectively.
The means, standard deviations and correlations for all
constructs are shown in Table 1. There exist signi-
cant relationships among HRM practices, service
behavior and service quality. Moreover, there also exist
positive correlations between service capability and
other constructs.
5.2. The relationship between human resource
management practices and service behavior
The relationship between perceptions of HRM
practices and service behavior was used to test Hypoth-
esis 1. Service capability was included as a control
variable in all analyses. In Hypothesis 1 we predicted
that higher scores on a measures of the HRM practices
would related to stronger perceptions of service beha-
vior. According to statistical results (Table 2) percep-
tions of recruitment/selection within HRM practices
were signicantly related to extra-role service behavior
(b 0:407; Po0:01) and role-prescribed service beha-
vior (b 0:423; Po0:01), and perception of
training/development within HRM practices were
signicantly related to extra-role service behavior
(b 0:445; Po0:01) and role-prescribed service beha-
vior (b 0:497; Po0:01). In contrast, compensation/
benets within HRM practices was signicantly related
to extra-role service behavior (b 0:357; Po0:01) and
role-prescribed service behavior (b 0:224; Po0:05).
Thus, Hypothesis 1 was partially supported.
5.3. The relationship between service behavior and service
quality
The relationship of employees service behavior and
service quality was examined in Hypothesis 2, where we
predicted that perceived service behavior of employees
was positively associated with perceived service quality
of customer.
The results in Table 3 indicated the perception of
extra-role service behavior was signicantly related
to reliability (b 0:673; Po0:01), responsiveness
(b 0:677; Po0:01), assurance (b 0:903; Po0:01)
and empathy (b 0:547; Po0:05) dimensions of service
quality. In contrast, the perception of role-prescribed
service behavior was only signicantly related to the
empathy dimension of service quality (b 0:478;
Po0:05). Thus, this hypothesis was partially supported
by the data.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Table 1
Means, standard deviations and correlations of scales
Mean SD 1 2 3 4
1. HRM practices 3.142 0.925 1
2. Service behavior 3.248 0.846 0.549

1
3. Service capability 3.551 0.874 0.426

0.766

1
4. Service quality 3.464 0.728 0.496

0.546

0.496

Po0:01:
Table 2
Human resource management practices and service behavior
Extra-role service Role-prescribed service
b t b t
Service capability 0.482 4.144

0.511 4.646

Recruitment/selection 0.407 3.425

0.423 3.781

Training/development 0.445 3.509

0.497 4.056

Compensation/benets 0.357 2.758

0.224 2.824

Performance appraisal 0.103 0.897 0.027 0.404

F 12.133

13.935

R
2
0.628 0.659
Adjusted R
2
0.576 0.612

Po0:05;

Po0:01:
S.-H. Tsaur, Y.-C. Lin / Tourism Management 25 (2004) 471481 475
5.4. The relationship between human resource
management practices and service quality
The regression results on each dimensions of service
quality are shown in Table 4. In reliability dimension of
service quality, perceptions of recruitment/selection
(b 0:432; Po0:01) were statistically signicant. In the
responsiveness dimension of service, training/develop-
ment (b 0:412; Po0:01) and compensation/bene-
ts (b 0:314; Po0:05) showed as being statistically
signicant. In the assurance dimension of service qua-
lity, training/development was most signicant (b
0:482; Po0:01), followed by the recruitment/selection
(b 0:399; Po0:05), and compensation/benets (b
0:315; Po0:05). In the empathy dimension of service
quality, recruitment/selection (b 0:542; Po0:01),
compensation/benets (b 0:475; Po 0:01) and per-
formance appraisal (b 0:356; Po 0:05) were statis-
tically signicant. In Hypothesis 3 we predicted that
better HRM practices lead to a higher level of service
quality. The data partially support the contention.
5.5. Mediation testing
We hypothesized that perceptions of service behavior
would mediate the relationship between human resource
management practices and service quality. We tested
this assumption with mediation analysis (Baron &
Kenny, 1986). The rst step of mediation analysis is to
show that the independent variables (human resource
management practices) affect the mediator (service
behavior), as shown in Table 2. The second step is to
show that the independent variable (human resource
management practices) affects the dependent variables
(service quality), as shown in Table 4. The nal step
is to show that the mediator (service behavior) affects
the dependent variable (service quality) when the
independent variables (human resource management
practices) are included in the equation (Baron et al.,
1986). If service behavior mediates the relationship, a
signicant relationship between human resource
management practices and service quality should
disappear or be reduced when service behavior dimen-
sions are added to the model. This analysis is shown in
Table 5.
The four HRM practices factors were tested as
predictors of service quality (see Table 4). The results
indicate that HRM practices are signicantly related to
all dimensions of service quality except tangibles. In the
reliability dimension, the strength of recruitment/
selection factor of HRM practices is reduced
(Table 5) when service behavior dimensions are added
to the equation. Therefore, the relationship between
recruitment/selection and reliability service quality is
partially mediated by perceptions of role-prescribed
service behavior (b 0:373; Po0:05).
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Table 3
Service behavior and service quality
Tangible Reliability Responsiveness Assurance Empathy
b t b t b t b t b t
Service capability 0.201 0.852 0.248 1.371 0.162 0.870 0.181 0.982 0.132 0.559
Extra-role service 0.428 1.655 0.673 3.391

0.677 3.306

0.903 4.462

0.547 2.108

Role-prescribed service 0.461 1.656 0.206 0.966 0.152 0.689 0.497 2.284 0.478 1.714

F 2.050 12.319

10.817

11.372

4.967

R
2
0.139 0.493 0.461 0.473 0.334
Adjusted R
2
0.071 0.453 0.418 0.431 0.266

Po0:5;

Po0:01:
Table 4
Human resource management practices and service quality
Tangible Reliability Responsiveness Assurance Empathy
b t b t b t b t b t
Service capability 0.323 1.632 0.447 2.808

0.373 2.298

0.418 2.409

0.022 0.117
Recruitment/ selection 0.439 1.345 0.432 2.154

0.117 0.436 0.399 2.288

0.542 4.589

Training/development 0.250 0.715 0.329 1.170 0.412 3.115

0.482 3.021

0.273 0.866
Compensation/benets 0.035 0.111 0.125 0.494 0.314 2.001

0.315 1.987

0.475 3.847

Performance appraisal 0.063 0.253 0.244 1.210 0.046 0.225 0.016 0.057 0.356 2.645

F 0.918 5.306

4.856

3.964

4.012

R
2
0.193 0.424 0.403 0.318 0.388
Adjusted R
2
0.104 0.344 0.320 0.224 0.274

Po0:5;

Po0:01:
S.-H. Tsaur, Y.-C. Lin / Tourism Management 25 (2004) 471481 476
In the responsiveness dimension of service quality, the
results indicate that the strengths of training/develop-
ment and compensation/benets are no longer
signicant when service behavior dimensions were added
to the equation. Therefore, perceptions of Extra-
Role service behavior mediate the relationship between
training/development and compensation/benets
and responsiveness service quality.
In the assurance dimension of service quality, when
service behavior dimensions were added to the equation,
training/development, compensation/benets and
performance appraisal are no longer signicant, and
recruitment/selection are reduced but still signicant.
Therefore, the relationship between training/develop-
ment, compensation/benets and performance ap-
praisal of HRM practices and service quality is
completely mediated by perceptions of service behavior.
Besides, recruitment/selection affect the assurance of
service quality dimension directly.
In the empathy dimension of service quality, the
strengths of recruitment/selection are no longer
signicant when service behavior dimensions were
added to the equation. Therefore, the relationship
between recruitment/selection and empathy service
quality is mediated by perceptions of extra-role service
behavior (b 0:471; Po0:01). Compensation/benets
and performance appraisal inuence empathy service
quality directly and through its inuence on extra-role
service behavior. In summary, the results indicate only
limited support for the mediation hypothesis.
6. Discussion
The present results, together with the earlier studies,
support a number of conclusions reached by previous
research. Hartline and Jones (1996) argued that the
service-oriented rm should actively encourage their
contact-employees to undergo sufcient training to
ensure that they understand their role in providing
quality and value. Our study showed evidence of the
positive relationship between training and higher levels
of employee service behavior in tourist hotel. Fey et al.
(2000) suggested that salary level was revealed to be
signicantly associated with the rms performance for
both managers and non-managers. The empirical results
indicate that the employee perceptions of HRM
practices of compensation/benets, are like train-
ing/development, linked to employee service behavior
in tourist hotel.
Employees who experience positive HRM practices
on the three dimensions recruitment/selection, train-
ing/development and compensation/benets may
thus be paying back their organization by being more
positive, courteous and helpful toward customers. In
addition, it is worth repeating that the specic dimen-
sion of HRM practices that were not found to predict
service behavior was the perception of performance
appraisal. It is suggested that when the organization
appraises employees performance, no matter how the
organization may provide performance appraisal, em-
ployees do not link this appraisal policy with under
senses of satisfaction to be derived form working
environment.
It has been argued that the better employee service
behavior is perceived, the better is service quality
perceived by customers in tourist hotels (Williams,
1999; Hartline & Jones, 1996). We here reported
ndings to indicate that there was a positive relationship
between service behavior and service quality in the
tourist hotel. It indicated when employees demonstrated
excellent service behavior, the customers perception of
service quality were increased. Consistent with the study
of Parasuraman et al. (1985), customers specially
appreciate the service encounter while measuring service
quality. Bowen and Schneider (1985) demonstrated that
customer-oriented service behavior inuenced the per-
ceived service quality of customers from the customers
viewpoint. The results proved here indicate that
proposed.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Table 5
A test of the mediating effect of service behavior on the relationship between HRM practices and service quality
Tangible Reliability Responsiveness Assurance Empathy
b t b t b t b t b t
Service capability 0.298 1.153 0.240 1.202 0.145 0.724 0.201 0.936 0.046 0.205
Recruitment/selection 0.449 1.330 0.397 3.001

0.061 0.233 0.385 2.845

0.143 1.458
Training/development 0.235 0.635 0.228 2.141 0.103 0.360 0.148 0.621 0.072 0.379
Compensation/benets 0.049 0.150 0.113 1.224 0.298 1.179 0.077 0.277 0.433 2.215

Performance appraisal 0.052 0.196 0.217 1.687 0.016 0.077 0.208 0.954 0.287 1.984

Extra-role service 0.105 0.257 0.201 1.315 0.524 3.014

0.518 4.017

0.471 3.323

Role-prescribed service 0.056 0.130 0.373 2.987

0.005 0.015 0.397 2.901

0.206 1.647
F 0.632 4.386

4.323

3.187

3.458

R
2
0.115 0.475 0.471 0.393 0.342
Adjusted R
2
0.067 0.366 0.362 0.268 0.298

Po0:5;

Po0:01:
S.-H. Tsaur, Y.-C. Lin / Tourism Management 25 (2004) 471481 477
The empirical relationship between service behavior
and service quality revealed that extra-role service
behavior positively affect the reliability, responsiveness,
assurance and empathy dimensions of service quality.
On the other hand role-prescribed behavior and service
quality affected only the empathy dimension. This might
be because routine and duty jobs are difcult to leave a
deep impression on customers. However, the tourist
hotels that we sampled specially emphasize job require-
ments and employees are strictly required to show
enthusiasm while serving customers and this may
have impacted on the ndings.
Hypothesis 4 was partially supported. Previous
studies have reported that there was a positive relation-
ship between HRM practices and service quality
(Morrison, 1996; Schneider et al., 1985). Bettencourt
et al. (1997) suggested that research should explore why
some employees are more eager than others to offer
suggestions to help the rm improve its service? What
HRM practices factors lead contact employees to
become enthusiastic advocates of the rms services?
Therefore, we considered the variable service beha-
vior meaningful from the literature review and practice
judgment. The empirical result demonstrated that HRM
practices do affect service quality directly, and indir-
ectly, through service behavior. Specically, through the
positive service behavior delivered by HRM practices,
the perceived service quality of customers could be
promoted.
What we attempted to examine in this study is the
complex relationship between HRM practices, employee
performance, behavior and service quality in hotels.
Some HRM theories suggest links between HRM
practices and service quality (e.g. Morrison, 1996;
Gilbert, 1991), but our study provides an empirical
examination of why HRM practices have an effect on
service quality. One answer may be seen in the result for
the service behavior variables that were found to
partially mediate the relationship between HRM prac-
tices and service quality. We propose here that positive
perceptions of human resource practices increase
employees motivation to provide high quality service.
In other words, when employee perceive their organiza-
tion as one that has sound HRM functions and activities
such as recruitment and selection, training and career
development, compensation, performance appraisal,
and so on, they are then enabled to do the organizations
main work of serving customers.
For the purpose of the article, we have integrated and
reviewed previous research and looked at the issue
about how HRM practices affect service quality in the
tourist hotel industry. The empirical results also provide
evidence, which support Guerrier and Deery (1998)
statements that the hospitality industry does provide a
wonderful environment in which to explore some of the
current issues in organizational studies and human
resource management. Furthermore, there is a long
history of writing about the concepts and ideas of the
service triangle in service texts. This study reveals that
the hotel industry can adopt various HRM practices to
enhance employee service behavior and better service
quality.
7. Implications for practice and further research
Our ndings hold several implications for hotel
industry. First, an organization could select employees
based on job-related characteristics, i.e. job knowledge,
and personality, resulting in the reliability of service
quality being strengthened through the role-prescribed
service behavior. Thus, employees have an adequate under-
standing and maintain consistency of service behavior
when dealing with customers. Second, employees
perceptions of training/development, and compen-
sation/benets would affect customers perceptions of
responsiveness indirectly through extra-role service
behavior. Thus, if organizations can provide
customers relationship courses to employees and pro-
vide incentive compensation systems, then the more
willing employees appear to be to assist customers and
help customers with problems beyond what is expected
or required. Third, employees perceptions of training/
development, and compensation/benets would af-
fect customers perceptions of assurance indirectly
through service behavior. Therefore, in managerial
practices of HRM, providing training and development
activities to hospitality employee is benecial and shapes
employee service behavior. Managers should pay
particular attention to: (1) a thorough needs assess-
ment, and (2) rigorous evaluation. In addition, if
employees can expect their efforts to be fairly rewarded,
they are more likely to satisfy various customers
needs. Finally, if employees were hired via sophistic-
ated selection procedures designed to screen out all
but the very best potential employees, then the
individualized attention that the employees provided
to their customers would be promoted through the
extra-role service behavior. Within a hotel service
environment, managers can tell applicants about the
special service culture in hospitality industry by recruit-
ing and selecting, to hire employees for the hotel, rather
than for a particular job. Then employees might make
better effort to understand customers need thereby
improving clients perceptions of the empathy dimen-
sion of service.
Our study suggests several avenues for further
research. First, this paper begins to explore the question
of causality. However, causality can only really be tested
with data collected at different point in time. In future,
researchers might consider a longitudinal investigation
to demonstrate the causal relationship. Second, studies
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such as ours should be repeated in other service
contexts. All the tourist hotels in the sample are from
Taiwan. Thus, we really are not sure to what extent
these ndings are generalizable to other countries in the
region. Finally, the constructs in this study were
measured through the viewpoints of employees and
customers respectively; the employee and customer
responses were nally aggregated to hotel unit for
analysis. Future studies might consider adopting the
pair-wise method to investigate the interaction effect.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by grant NSC-90-2416-
H-034-004 from National Science Council, Taiwan,
ROC. The authors thank other colleagues participation
in this project. The results and conclusions are those of
the authors and do not represent the viewpoint of the
sponsoring institution.
Appendix A
We used the following scale:
1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=feel alright,
4=agree, 5=strongly agree
A.1. Subjective HRM practices as reported by the
employee
A.1.1. Recruitment and selection
(1) In the selection of new employees, my company
often uses employment tests (e.g. knowledge test,
personality tests, language tests, etc.)
(2) In the hiring process, potential employees are often
provided with a realistic picture of the job and the
hotel, including the negative aspects.
(3) My company conducts structured and standardized
interviews (as opposed to unstructured interviews)
for selection of jobs.
A.1.2. Training and development
(1) Employees in this hotel normally go through
training programs every few years.
(2) There are formal training courses to teach new
employees the skills they need to perform their jobs
(e.g. service methods, bomb and re emergency
procedures, etc.).
(3) My company conducts systematic analysis to
determine the needs for training programs.
(4) My company assess the effectiveness of the training
programs by the degree of service behavior have
been improved.
(5) My company evaluates the training programs to
determine whether the training objectives are met.
A.1.3. Compensation and benet
(1) The nancial reward practices of my company
consist with my expecting.
(2) Promotion is based primarily on seniority (reverse-
coded).
(3) My company has elaborate/comprehensive exible
benets scheme.
(4) My company constantly reviews and updates the
range of benets to meet the needs of employees.
A.1.4. Performance appraisal
(1) Employee could know the performance appraisal
result by the formal feedback system.
(2) Performance appraisal includes the supervisor
setting objectives and goals of employees for the
period ahead in consultation with them.
(3) My company emphasizes job-relevant criteria in the
appraisal systems.
A.2. Subjective service behavior as reported by the
employee
A.2.1. Role-prescribed service behavior
(1) I perform all those tasks for customers that are
required of him/her.
(2) I help customers with those things which are
required of him/her.
(3) I fulll responsibilities to customers as specied in
the teller job description.
A.2.2. Extra-role service behavior
(1) I voluntarily assist customers even if it means going
beyond job requirements.
(2) I often go above and beyond the call of duty when
serving customers.
(3) I willingly go out of his/her way to make a customer
satised.
A.3. Subjective service ability as reported by the
employee
(1) I have enough professional knowledge to accom-
modate customers demand momentarily.
(2) I have enough abilities and skills to supply excellent
service.
(3) I have enough concepts to supply excellent service,
like importance of service quality and teamwork.
A.4. Subjective service quality as reported by the
customers
A.4.1. Tangibles
(1) They have the latest decoration and the modernized
equipment.
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(2) Their uniforms and looks of the employees are
clean, tidy and elegant.
(3) Every item of the service is labeled clearly.
(4) The uniforms and looks of the employees express a
sufcient sense of professionalism.
A.4.2. Reliability
(1) Be sure to complete the service in a promised time.
(2) This hotel makes efforts to pursue perfect service.
(3) The services of the employees make you feel
condent about this hotel.
(4) They can offer the service correctly and properly.
(5) The offered services tally with the advertisement.
A.4.3. Responsiveness
(1) The employees can solve the customers problems
well and rapidly.
(2) The employees will tell the customers the related
information they need without being asked
(3) The employees are willing to help the customers to
solve the problems initiatively.
(4) The employees can answer the customers questions
immediately.
A.4.4. Assurance
(1) The service of the employees can make the
customers feel comfortable and at ease.
(2) The employees are adequately equipped with the
professional information they need.
(3) The employees have good manners and kind
attitude.
(4) I can trust the employees.
A.4.5. Empathy
(1) This hotel considers problems from the customers
viewpoint.
(2) When the customers complain or feel dissatised,
the receiver solves the problems patiently.
(3) The employees consider the individual needs of the
customers and offer them personalized service.
(4) The employees pay attention to every right of the
customers.
(5) The employees can understand the need of the
customers.
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