Enhancing the lodging experience through ethical leadership

Purpose Grounded in ethical decision-making theory, this paper aims to develop and empirically tests a model that examines the relationships between ethical leadership, customer orientation, ethical values person-organization fit, commitment to service quality and service sabotage among customer-contact service employees in the lodging industry. Design/methodology/approach Data were electronically collected from a national survey of 316 hotel/motel customer-contact employees. Findings Results revealed that perceived ethical leadership behavior is positively related to customer orientation, ethical values person-organization fit and commitment to service quality. Customer orientation is positively related to commitment to service quality and mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and service sabotage. Ethical values person-organization fit mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and service sabotage. Research limitations/implications -The study is cross-sectional, limited to customer-contact employees in lodging settings and examines merely the employee perspective. Practical implications -Lodging leaders can benefit significantly in many areas by practicing ethical leadership. For example, service sabotage behaviors can be reduced indirectly by aligning the customer-contact employees' ethical values with those of the organization, as well as when this employee is customer-oriented. An ethical leadership style also can positively influence customer-contact employees' customer orientation and increase their commitment to service quality. Lodging properties must hire and cultivate managers and supervisors with ethical values. Originality/value -This research helps to better understand leadership behaviors useful for improving the ethical conduct and performance of customer-contact employees in the lodging industry, while simultaneously improving their commitment to service quality and guest-oriented behavior.