This chapter addresses how candidates with dark personalities manage to excel during selection interviews and current best practices in selection processes that may reduce the risk of hiring candidates with dark personalities. Theory: In this section of the chapter, I present Impression Management (IM) tactics used by individuals with dark personalities to enter organizations. I also explain how organizations increase their chances of hiring candidates with dark personalities by only using unstructured interviews. Practice: In this section of the chapter, I offer a step-by-step guide to best hiring practices that include: Job posting, Job analysis, Competency framework, Creating valid interview questions, Conducting an effective interview, Psychometric testing, Reference check, Scoring candidates, and Decision-making. This chapter's practice section also includes an exercise on creating a selection process for different types of positions and a case study.
The timeshare sector has grown substantially over the past decade in both size and product configuration. Focusing on the concept of customer-derived value, group interviews were conducted with owners of timeshare holiday products to assess the dimensions of customer value in timeshares. Twelve such dimensions of value emerged from the interviews, most notably knowledge enhancement. Six detractors of derived value were identified. With a better understanding of the sources of value for timeshare owners, managers can recruit new owners, develop products, and enhance the levels of satisfaction and loyalty among existing owners.
Excerpt] If, as Billy Joel once sang, “life is a series of hellos and goodbyes,” then this issue represents nothing more than the next step in a series of expected changes. I do believe, however, that even though hellos and goodbyes are an accepted part of life, they are not always mundane and are often the cause for reflection, sadness, and excitement. That is the case here, as this issue marks the end of Mike Sturman’s term as editor of the Cornell Quarterly and the beginning of Linda Canina’s term.
T he Spring 2007 Roundtable season at the Center for Hospitality Research was a strong one, with research presentations and discussion that is absent at conferences elsewhere.This past May we held the first annual Real Estate and Finance Roundtable, the third annual Marketing Roundtable, and the seventh annual Labor and Employment Law Roundtable.While each Roundtable differed in substance and style, there was one constant: that is, industry professionals, faculty, and students were able to spend one concentrated day in an informal atmosphere to learn from each other.The most common parting comment from our participants was the best one: "See you next year."Below is an overview of some of the key discussion points from the Spring 2007 Roundtables.
An assessment of how hotel guests view in-room technology compared the importance of those technologies to how they perform. Based on 265 responses, this importance-performance analysis indicates that important basic technologies like in-room temperature controls and alarm clocks fail to perform in the way guests want, while relatively new technologies like plasma screen TVs and in-room printers and faxes are less important but perform well when they are in place. In addition, the study finds that internet access is an integral part of the lodging product.
Restaurant operators who seek to increase table turns during peak periods may want to speed up the meal's pace. However, excessive speed may make customers feel rushed. A survey of 218 respondents found that too fast a pace does affect customer satisfaction with the meal experience, with fine-dining customers more sensitive to pacing issues than customers in casual or upscale casual restaurants. Regardless of restaurant type, too fast a pace during the meal itself diminishes customer satisfaction, but speed during check settlement is often appreciated. The effects on customer satisfaction of the pace of welcome, seating, and taking drink orders depend partly on the type of restaurant and on the meal type. Guests at fine-dining restaurants do not want these preprocess events to be rushed. Additionally, a faster pace during these preprocess events at dinner diminished satisfaction ratings as compared to lunch.
Excerpt] The Center for Hospitality Research, publisher of this journal, is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary this year. Though we will note this occasion at the Cornell Hotel Society’s annual New York Hotel Show Reception, I wanted to offer a progress report to the readers who cannot be in New York in November. The Center began in 1992 when a young professor, Steve Carvell, now the Hotel School’s associate dean, brought the idea to the faculty. After the initial angst associated with all new ideas, the faculty agreed to endorse the idea and selected Professor Jack Corgel as the Center’s first director. Jack got the Center going by bringing in a number of partners and organizing a conference. After Jack stepped down in 1994, however, the Center struggled. By 2000 the Center had no partners, no conferences, and no research. Professor Cathy Enz took over the Center in fall 2000. With a goal of revitalizing the Center, she hired a small staff, including our director of corporate relations Joe Strodel, created an advisory board, began bringing in partners and data providers, developed the concept of Cornell Hospitality Reports, began funding summer research fellows, and began sponsoring the Center’s roundtables. In addition, under Cathy’s leadership the Center engaged Sage Publications to manage this journal, which we have just renamed the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly (CQ). Since Sage became our journal manager, CQ has increased its readership, decreased its acceptance rate (due to a stronger field of article submissions), and is now listed in the Thompson Scientific Journal Citation Index (as explained elsewhere in this issue by editor Linda Canina).
In this article, the authors demonstrate how to use optimization combined with Monte Carlo simulation to model an investment decision by means of a case study of a hotel considering the converting a portion of its inventory to allergy-friendly rooms (by applying a proprietary method). Using survey data on consumer demand and hotel occupancy data, the model considers the random nature of occupancy to determine the optimal number of rooms to convert and the corresponding price to charge. In setting up the model, the authors demonstrate the limitations of traditional approaches using average occupancy data.
Excerpt] Springtime in Ithaca means the snow may melt, graduating seniors may leave Ithaca, and the Center for Hospitality Research will hold three Industry Roundtables. The Center’s Roundtables are forums that enable faculty, industry leaders, and students to link academic theory to practical application by presenting relevant research and discussing, contemplating, and analyzing other issues important to the hospitality industry.
The newsvendor model is a classic approach to determining how to set appropriate inventory levels for products whose value is perishable. While the newsvendor analysis does not yield the richness of data found in a simulation-based model, newsvendor analysis provides a relatively simple way to determine inventory levels.
Marketing the Quarterdeck may be a matter of touching on the emotions of current and potential customers.
A study of 153 travelers in three airports (Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Ithaca) found that respondents held a generally negative view of hotel companies' pricing policies. The respondents were asked specifically about their reaction to best available rate pricing, as compared to the common practice of quoting a single rate for a multiple-night stay. Compared to the single-rate policy, respondents judged that being charged the lowest possible rate for each night is more fair, more acceptable, more reasonable, and more honest, even if the room rate changes from night to night. In particular, infrequent travelers (those staying in hotels twenty nights per year or less) judged best rate pricing most favorably. In contrast, frequent travelers were essentially indifferent to the two pricing approaches.
Dining in a table-service restaurant is a multilayered experience that involves at least three types of clues. Although food quality is basic, the ambience and service performance greatly influence a customer's evaluation of a particular establishment. Diners use the following types of clues to judge a restaurant experience: functional-the technical quality of the food and service; mechanic-the ambience and other design and technical elements; and humanicthe performance, behavior, and appearance of the employees. While customers' perceptions of mechanic clues are positively related to their expectations of the service, humanic clues dominate the influence of mechanic clues. Ideally, managers should orchestrate both humanic and mechanic clues to deliver a consistent service message.
When hotel firms expand internationally, they must determine the ownership strategy and the management strategy that will best maintain the firm’s competitive advantage. Those decisions are made separately from each other and depend on the expanding company’s own strengths and the strengths found in the local market. That interplay between the company’s strengths and local resources drives the type of partnership or affiliation arrangement that the company uses to enter the foreign market. The decision regarding who controls management and marketing, for instance, depends to a large extent on whether the expanding company can rely on local interests to maintain the firm’s customer service standards. If the firm does not use customer service as a competitive advantage, it can make more use of third-party interests to operate the hotel. If the hotel facility is itself a point of competitive advantage, the decision on the extent of equity investment by the firm rests on whether local interests have sufficient resources to build and maintain the property.
Allergy-friendly rooms carry a compelling marketing story, combined with a solid return on investment, provided a hotel’s management follows the complete program.
The application of survival analysis to create a revenue management scheme for a casino’s table games is illustrated. Although logic suggests that table games revenue can easily be increased by manipulating minimum wagers, the matter is complicated by the nature of games, which allow “partial sales” (i.e., any number of hands) but do not allow a bet of zero, and in which actual demand is censored (when people are waiting to play). Survival analysis accommodates the time-played parameter while recognizing an inherent issue with capacity constrained supply. Optimization is then achieved by using traditional revenue-management tools, as demonstrated using a simulated data set.
