Customer relationship management (people, process and technology) and organisational culture in hotels: which traits matter?

Abstract

Purpose: Current study tries to examine the impact of four organisational cultural traits of adaptability, consistency, involvement and mission on the three components of CRM, namely; people, process and technology in the context of the hotel industry. Methodology: Required data is collected with a quantitative approach and using a questionnaire adapted from the Denison organisational culture survey and the Mendoza CRM model. The questionnaire distributed among 364 managers of a chain hotel in the UK and gathered data examined by the Structural Equation Modelling method. Findings: The results of the research reveal that the four traits of organisational culture (adaptability, consistency, involvement and mission) have positive and significant impacts on three components of CRM (people, process and technology). A set of theoretical contributions and practical implications also discussed. Research limitations: The research is conducted with a case study approach hence the findings cannot be generalized to a larger population and the results might be different for other industries. Due to the limitation of access to all employees, only managers were selected as the sample and future studies with all employees may show different results. Practical implications Current study helps hotel managers to understand the role and importance of organisational cultural traits in successful implementation of the components of their CRM strategy. Originality/value: The position taken in this research recognizes the need to enhance the understanding of organisational culture’s impact on implementing CRM components. Organisational cultural traits have different levels of impact on CRM implementation and this is the first study to investigate the detailed impacts of four traits of adaptability, consistency, involvement and mission on three components of CRM, namely; people, process and technology.