70 research outputs found
Job involvement, commitment, satisfaction and turnover: Evidence from hotel employees in Cyprus.
No full textThe study of attitudes at work seeks to enhance organizational knowledge and capabilities in developing an ‘ideal’ working environment that delivers exceptional customer service. The current study investigates the causal relationships of job involvement, organizational commitment (normative and affective), and job satisfaction (intrinsic and extrinsic), with the intention of hospitality employees in Cyprus to either remain at or leave their job. Utilizing structural equation modeling, positive associations were found between job involvement, affective and normative commitment, and intrinsic job satisfaction. Positive associations between affective and normative organizational commitment, and intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction were also found. In addition, negative associations between affective organizational commitment, extrinsic job satisfaction and turnover intention were revealed. However, a negative association between intrinsic job satisfaction and turnover intention was not supported. The implications of these results for future research are also discusse
‘The past is prologue to the future’: an introspective view of hospitality and tourism research
No full textSince the early 1970s, scholars have contributed their talent and intellect towards the establishment of the discipline and the education of the next generation of hospitality and tourism professionals. Espousing the popular notion ‘‘publish or perish’’, numerous scholars have explored the discipline’s research foundations from an array of different perspectives, such as the ranking and rating of scholars, journal publications and institutions. This novel empirical endeavor aims to enrich the existing intellectual capital by investigating the publication strategies of forty-four prolific hospitality and tourism scholars, by focusing on three distinctive thematic areas, namely, a journal’s impact factor and citations, authorship specifics, and research themes. Findings are of interest to both current and future scholars in their quest for academic excellence and contributions, which further enhance the hospitality and tourism discipline
Leadership styles and burnout: is there an association?
No full textThe primary purpose of the study was to investigate the association between leadership styles and burnout among hospitality managers currently working in the industry of Cyprus. Specifically, transformational, transactional and passive/avoidance were investigated in order to establish which leadership style is more prone to burnout effects.
Design/methodology/approach - Adopting a quantitative approach, the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 5X-Short) was utilized to allow research participants to describe their leadership style as they perceive it. In addition, the most widely acknowledged tool for measuring burnout, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), was also incorporated in the questionnaire, which was then distributed to 500 hospitality managers in Cyprus. A number of hypotheses, reflecting the primary objective of the study, were postulated.
Findings - The findings suggest that transformational leadership has a significant positive association with personal accomplishment and is negatively related to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. In addition a positive relationship exists between passive avoidance leadership and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Finally, individuals with a passive avoidance leadership style exhibited higher levels of burnout.
Research limitations/implications - It is well documented in the literature that surveys measuring sensitive issues, such as leadership styles and burnout levels, have inbuilt limitations (Hunt, 1999; Antonakis et al., 2003). With regards to leadership, the authors acknowledge that they were not able to replicate the original nine-factor solution of the MLQ 5X, therefore, findings should be viewed with caution. The second limitation is the small sample size (n=131) and the homogeneity of the sample, which limit the generalizability of the findings.
Practical implications - The findings have a practical relevance to both hospitality stakeholders and academic scholars who wish to further explore the leadership-burnout association. In addition, Human Resources practitioners could utilize the findings when developing strategies for recruiting and developing leaders.
Originality/value - The paper adds to existing knowledge by investigating an issue presented in just a few hospitality-related studies. While burnout and leadership separately, have captured the attention of hospitality researchers, studies investigating their association are ubiquitous by their absence. The insights derived from this paper are of value to academic scholars wishing to build on this exploratory investigation
Extraversion, openness and conscientiousness
No full textPurpose: The primary purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between leadership styles (Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 5X-Short)) and the "Big Five" personality traits (NEO-FFI) of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness and agreeableness among managers currently working in the hotel industry of Cyprus. Design/methodology/approach: Adopting a quantitative approach, the MLQ 5X-Short was utilized to allow research participants to describe their leadership style as they perceive it. In addition, the most widely acknowledged tool for measuring personality traits, NEO-FFI, was also incorporated in the questionnaire. Findings: Findings suggest that transformational leadership is positively associated with extraversion, openness and conscientiousness; while in contrast, passive/avoidance leadership style is negatively associated with conscientiousness and agreeableness. Research limitations/implications: The small sample size (n=131) and the homogeneity of the sample, limit the generalizability of the findings to other environments. Practical implications: Hospitality organizations should recruit, promote and invest in developing extrovert individuals who are both open to experience and conscientious, and who also exhibit transformational leadership behaviours. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the scientific literature by investigating the association between the "Big Five" personality traits and transformational leadership behaviour
Managing Hospitality Internship Practices: A Conceptual Framework
No full textBy challenging the existing paradigms governing hospitality internship practices over the last two decades the paper presents some innovative ideas, in the form of a framework, as to how the practice can be enhanced for the benefit of all stakeholders involved. The framework, which lay its foundation in Kolb's (1984) theory of experiential learning, covers the fundamentals of designing, monitoring, and evaluating students' internship practices, as well as providing an exploration of the theory and rationale of internships as effective educational practices. The proposed framework is of value and has practical implications both for academic scholars, who wish to further investigate the issue, and industry practitioners, since it can serve as a guide for the provision of a pedagogically sound internship experience to the next generation of hospitality professionals
Quality and satisfaction with culinary education: evidence from Cyprus
No full textCulinary education has experienced remarkable growth in Cyprus in the past decade. Numerous institutions are offering a variety of related programs with the aim of adequately preparing the next generation of culinary professionals. Despite this unprecedented growth, many argue that a short-term opportunistic business mentality prevails. Driven by the profession’s celebrity status, institutions offering culinary-related education risk downgrading the quality of their portfolio. Adopting a uantitative methodology, the study set out to investigate industry professionals’ and educators’ perceptions of the quality and overall satisfaction with the current culinary education offerings. The findings inform and provide practical recommendations for those striving to improve the nature, identity, scope, and value of culinary education
Case study of physiotherapy treatment of a patient with the diagnosis Ankle Distortion
No full textTitle: Physiotherapeutic treatment of a patient with ankle distortion Nazev: Fyzioterapeutická léčba pacienta s zkreslení kotníku Author: Vryonides Panayiotis Location of clinical practice: C.L.P.A (Centrum léčby pohybového aparátu) Aim The purpose of my bachelor thesis is to understand the structure and function of the ankle joint as well to discuss the most common injuries concerning the ankle. Moreover a day-to-day rehabilitation program will be presented concerning ankle distortion. Summary The bachelor thesis consists of two major parts, the general part where an extensive analysis concerning the diagnosis (ankle distortion), the anatomy, biomechanics and common injuries takes place. Moreover it follows the practical part, which also is the main part of the thesis. It consist the anamnesis, all the initial and final examinations and the day after day rehabilitation procedures and progress. Regarding the therapeutic session, they were composed with stability exercises, sensomotoric stimulation, strengthening and also from physical therapy laser. Results Subsequently of the eight rehabilitation sessions that I had with my patient, he fully recovers. The pain and the limitation on the ankle joint that he had wasn't enormous as a result to succeed great results in that limited time that we had. A..
Simulation of TIOA
No full textThesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2006.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-74).This Master of Engineering Thesis describes the design, implementation, and usage of the TIOA Simulator. The TIOA Simulator, along with the other components of the TIOA Toolset aims to provide a framework for developing dependable distributed systems. The project is based on the Timed Input/Output Automaton framework, and supports TIOA, a formal language for specifying timed I/O automata. Simulation of TIOA programs is useful in the process of testing the proposed system over a specific set of executions. During the execution the Simulator is able to test proposed invariants and validate a proposed simulation relation between the system's implementation and its specification. A step correspondence between the steps of the implementation and the specification drives the validation of the simulation relation. The identification and validation of the invariants and the simulation relation constitutes the first step towards a formal verification of the system's correctness. The proposed step correspondence can be used in a formal proof to show that the proposed relation is indeed a simulation relation.by Panayiotis P. Mavrommatis.M.Eng
Improving temporal interpolation of head and body pose using Gaussian process regression in a matrix completion setting
No full textThis paper presents a model for head and body pose estimation (HBPE) when labelled samples are highly sparse. The current state-of-the-art multimodal approach to HBPE utilizes the matrix completion method in a transductive setting to predict pose labels for unobserved samples. Based on this approach, the proposed method tackles HBPE when manually annotated ground truth labels are temporally sparse. We posit that the current state of the art approach oversimplifies the temporal sparsity assumption by using Laplacian smoothing. Our final solution uses: i) Gaussian process regression in place of Laplacian smoothing, ii) head and body coupling, and iii) nuclear norm minimization in the matrix completion setting. The model is applied to the challenging SALSA dataset for benchmark against the state-of-the-art method. Our presented formulation outperforms the state-of-the-art significantly in this particular setting, e.g. at 5% ground truth labels as training data, head pose accuracy and body pose accuracy is approximately 62% and 70%, respectively. As well as fitting a more flexible model to missing labels in time, we posit that our approach also loosens the head and body coupling constraint, allowing for a more expressive model of the head and body pose typically seen during conversational interaction in groups. This provides a new baseline to improve upon for future integration of multimodal sensor data for the purpose of HBPE.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Pattern Recognition and Bioinformatic
3D Printed Soft Fluidic Actuator for an Assistive Hand Exoskeleton Device
No full textIn the following study, a new concept of an assistive hand exoskeleton device for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients is presented. Due to the nature of this disease (causes progressive muscle degeneration from a young age of five years old), the requirements for such a device are very demanding, with extreme space and weight limitations, as well as high generated forces. The idea that is presented, is a 3D-printed soft hydraulic actuator that can be used to actuate such a demanding device. Different actuator prototypes have been prepared and tested, with a maximum generated force of around 0.4N. The outcome force does not fulfill the functional requirements that is 1-3N, but space, range of motion (ROM) and weight requirements have been met. In addition, the author demonstrates a complete design of a single-part, 3D-printed assistive hand exoskeleton device, with both the hydraulic circuit and the soft hydraulic actuators embedded in it. Despite the functional requirements that haven’t been fulfilled, the idea of a single-part 3D-printed hand exoskeleton device is beneficial in simplicity, required space, cosmetic appearance, as well as the overall weight that was estimated to be no more than 150gr. Finally, there is a discussion regarding the future steps that the author suggests to increase the maximum generated force of the soft actuators and therefore the development of the first single-part, 3D-printed hand exoskeleton.Mechanical Engineering | BioMechanical Desig
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