Entrepreneurial Behaviors in the Hospitality Industry: Human Resources Management Practices and Leader Member Exchange Role

The entrepreneurial behavior of the employees in the hospitality industry plays an important role in ensuring “customer satisfaction” by affecting the quality of service provided to customers. In this sense, the promotion of entrepreneurial behaviors is a very important issue in order to maintain the sustainable competitive structure of the hospitality industry. The main purpose of our research is to contribute to the literature of hospitality industry by providing a better understanding of the factors affecting entrepreneurial behavior and to provide practical suggestions to sector managers. In this context, a conceptual model has been developed that includes the relationship between leader member interaction and human resource management practices and entrepreneurial behaviors. Structural equation modeling was used to test the model experimentally. Data were collected from 5-star hotel staff in Cyprus and 302 survey answers were analyzed. The results of the analysis show that human resources management practices positively affect entrepreneurial behaviors and the leading member interaction has an mediating role in this relationship. The uniqueness of our research is that it examines the impact of human resources management practices on entrepreneurial behaviors separately and provides valuable contributions to the literature by testing the mediating model.