THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMMUNICATION EFFECTIVENESS AND

MULTICULTURAL EMPLOYEES’ JOB OUTCOMES

A master’s thesis submitted to the

Kent State University College
of Education, Health, and Human Services
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master of Science

By

Abdulelah Ali Al-Tokhais

December 2016
 Thesis written by

Abdulelah Ali Al-Tokhais

B.S., King Saud University, 2011

M.S., Kent State University, 2016

Approved by

______________________________________, Director, Master’s Thesis Committee

Ning-Kuang Chuang

______________________________________, Member, Master’s Thesis Committee

Andrew Lepp

______________________________________, Member, Master’s Thesis Committee

Mei-Chen Lin

Accepted by

______________________________________, Director, School of Foundations,

Kimberly S. Schimmel Leadership, and Administration

______________________________________, Interim Dean, College of Education,

Mark A. Kretovics Health and Human Services
ii
AL-TOKHAIS, ABDULELAH, M.S. December, 2016 HOSPITALITY AND
TOURISM MANAGEMENT

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMMUNICATION EFFECTIVENESS AND

MULTICULTURAL EMPLOYEES’ JOB OUTCOMES (197 pp.)

Director of Thesis: Ning-Kuang Chuang, Ph.D.

The impact of effective communication by managers has become a topic of

interest in the literature because of the way it impacts both the employee experience and

organizations. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between effective

communication and multicultural employees’ job outcomes in Saudi hospitality and

tourism organizations. Mix-methods, non-experimental, and exploratory survey was used

in this study. Hotel employees working in Saudi hospitality and tourism organizations

were surveyed. The results show that effective communication can predict employees’

job satisfaction, job engagement, and turnover intention. The finding of this study suggest

that more effort is needed from human resources to encourage and reinforce a change in

attitude among managers to promote effective communication.

 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my committee members, Dr. Andrew Lepp and

Dr. Mei-Chen Lin. Their insightful comments and valuable support were instrumental in

assisting me in conducting a more precise and in-depth study.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Ning-Kuang Chuang, my

thesis committee director for her continuous support of my study and research, for her

patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and wealth of knowledge. Dr. Chuang played a major

role in the success of my thesis. She gave me a considerable amount of encouragement

and helped me become more resourceful throughout the process of this study. This thesis

would not have been possible without her help. What I learned from her is not only

hospitality- and tourism-related academic knowledge, but also her positive attitude as a

scholar. Thank you very much, Dr. Chuang.

Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my parents, my family, and

my friends for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement

throughout my study journey and especially throughout the process of researching and

writing this thesis. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................ iii

LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... vi

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................1
Significance of the Study .....................................................................................7

II. LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................ 11

Theoretical Foundations ..................................................................................... 11
Social Identity Theory .................................................................................. 12
Job Characteristic Theory ............................................................................. 15
Leader-Member Exchange Theory ............................................................... 17
Background: Workforce in Saudi Arabia ...................................................... 19
Hospitality and Tourism Industry ................................................................. 30
Hospitality and Tourism Management Practices ........................................... 32
Communication in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry .............................. 34
Effective Communication ............................................................................. 37
Cross-Cultural and Cross-Generational Communication Interaction ............. 50
Self-Esteem .................................................................................................. 58
Information Seeking ..................................................................................... 64
Job Satisfaction ............................................................................................ 67
Job Engagement ........................................................................................... 71
Turnover Intention ....................................................................................... 75
Research Propositions and Hypotheses ............................................................... 80

III. METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................. 82

Human Subject Review ...................................................................................... 82
Participants ........................................................................................................ 82
Procedure ........................................................................................................... 83
Instrument Design .............................................................................................. 84
Effective Communication ............................................................................. 84
Self-Esteem .................................................................................................. 85
Information Seeking Scale ............................................................................ 86
Job Satisfaction ............................................................................................ 86
Job Engagement ........................................................................................... 87
Turnover Intention ....................................................................................... 87
Background and Career Related Information ................................................ 88
Data Analysis ..................................................................................................... 88
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IV. RESULTS ............................................................................................................... 89
Sample Profiles .................................................................................................. 89
Measurement Quality ......................................................................................... 92
Communication Factors ..................................................................................... 93
Factors Impacting Career Path............................................................................ 95
Independent Samples t-Tests .............................................................................. 97
Hierarchical Multiple Regression ....................................................................... 98
Open-Ended Questions ..................................................................................... 104
Qualitative Findings ......................................................................................... 105

V. DISCUSSION........................................................................................................ 111
Open-Ended Questions ..................................................................................... 111
Comparison Between Saudi Nationals and Foreign Workers ............................ 115
Effective Communication and Job Satisfaction ................................................. 116
Effective Communication and Job Engagement................................................ 118
Effective Communication and Job Turnover Intention ...................................... 119
Implications ..................................................................................................... 120
Limitations ....................................................................................................... 122
Future Research ............................................................................................... 124

APPENDIXES ............................................................................................................ 126

APPENDIX A. CONSENT FORM .................................................................. 127
APPENDIX B. QUESTIONNAIRE ................................................................. 129

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 136

v
 LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1. Organizational Communication Studies.............................................................. 39

2. Respondents’ Demographic Profile .................................................................... 90

3. Summary Scale Statistics of Communication Effectiveness and

Employees’ Job Outcomes Variables ................................................................. 93

4. Perceived Barriers Hinder Participants’ Career ................................................... 96

5. Ethnicity Differences on Communication Factors and Job Outcomes

Related Variable ................................................................................................ 98

6. Summary Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression ....................................... 99

7. The Predictors of Job Satisfaction .................................................................... 100

8. Summary Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression ..................................... 101

9. The Predictors of Job Engagement ................................................................... 102

10. Summary Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression ..................................... 103

11. The Predictors of Turnover Intention................................................................ 104

12. Summary Table of Participants’ Responses to Open-Ended Questions ............. 109

vi
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The impact of effective communication by managers has become a topic of

interest in the literature because of the way it impacts both the employee experience and

organizations. Communication is a “basic function of all managers’ jobs” (Greenberg,

2010, p. 22) because managers spend 80% of their daily duties communicating with

others in order to drive the organization’s success (Dasgupta et al., 2012; Lolli, 2013).

Voinea, Busu, Opran, and Vladutescu (2015) point out managerial communication is a

tool to understand information and management decisions in order to achieve

organizational objectives. Failures in effective communication have direct and indirect

impacts on individuals and organizations (Pretorius & Roux, 2011; Moncarz, 2007; Rudd

& Mills, 2015). For this reason, an appropriate communication model is critical for

effective organizational behavior due to the use of open communication in leader and

member interaction to increase the level of engagement (Hsiung, 2012), particularly

when managers have an influence over subordinates’ expected outcomes (Lolli, 2013).

Communication has been found to influence employee satisfaction and

engagement. As such, a number of studies have indicated that there is a need to examine

effective communication in the work environment and its impact on the workforce as

lack of job satisfaction and engagement can influence employee intention to leave

(Aburge, 2011; Fragouli & Ibidapo, 2015; Hsiung, 2012; Sanchez, 2006). Along with the

need to study effective communication in general, further studies that focus specifically

on effective communication in multicultural work environments are required because it

1
 2

has been found that it is more challenging for managers to communicate effectively with

multicultural teams of employees than teams that are less diverse (Cooren, Cornelissen,

& Clark, 2011; Tran, 2016). Little research has been done to determine the impact

effective communication has on such employees’ job outcomes (Jain, 2015). Looking

specifically at the hospitality and tourism industry, it has an increasingly diverse

workforce. The transmission of information can be impeded in multicultural workforces

such as the ones found in this industry due to differences in individuals’ cultural norms,

values, beliefs and religion, education, and attitudes and behaviors (Samovar et al., 2015).

Managers are recommended to pay close attention to cultural aspects of an organization

to promote efficient management when working with a diverse workforce (Vasquez,

2014). According to and McJannet (2005), ineffective communication can lead to the

failure of even the best ideas. In order to break through the barriers of managing a

diverse workforce, effective communication should be thoroughly investigated in order to

improve employees’ outcomes that lead to positive impact on organizational outcomes.

In addition to the general problems caused by lack of effective communication,

there are factors related to communication that are perceived as limiting an employee’s

ability to perform their duties. When managers fail to clearly communicate, their

employees often feel they cannot appropriately perform their duties (Puni, Agyemang, &

Asamoah, 2016). Schijins and Schroder (1996) and Gudykunst (2005) have suggested

that behavioral and psychological factors have to be measured to assess effective

communication and determine its impact on employees’ attitude and behavior. For

example, managerial feedback practices may impact an employees’ self-esteem.

 3

Self-esteem has been found to moderate job performance and satisfactory relationships

(Judge & Bono, 2001). Within the feedback practices of managers, information seeking

has been described as a meditating variable between effective communication and

turnover (Crommelinck & Anseel, 2013). Thus, the study will examine the mediating

effects of self-esteem and information seeking between effective communication and

three types of job outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction, engagement and turnover rate).

Understanding employees’ attitude and behavior will help promote a healthier workplace

and positive organizational culture.

The negative consequences of a lack of effective communication can also impact

employees’ well-being, which has been found to be the most reliable indicator of

employees’ attitude and behavior in the workplace (Heponiemi et al., 2011). Well-being

is perceived as “indicators of mental and physical well-being, such as anxiety,

depression, tension, and somatic health” (Edwards & Shipp, 2007, p. 225). Also,

workplace well-being refers to subjective health and depressive symptoms that include

employee job satisfaction and engagement (Stengård, Bernhard-Oettel, Berntson,

Leineweber & Aronsson, 2016), all factors that may impact employee performance.

When employees are satisfied, they tend to be more engaged and thus perform

their job better. Job engagement is associated with the success of an organization

business as it contributes to productivity, profitability, and boost employees performance

(Takeuchi et al., 2007; Karatepe, 2013). Kahn (1990) defined engagement as “the

simultaneous employment and expression of a person’s preferred self in task behaviors

that promote connections to work and to others, personal presence (physical, cognitive,
 4

an emotional), and active, full performances” (p. 700). Hence, employees who are

engaged in their workplace have a desire to stay with their current employers

(Christensen et al., 2008). On the other hand, disengaged employees found to experience

negative emotion and overall well-being concerns (Hart, 2016). According to Gerst

(2013), communication between managers and employees is a major driver of employee

engagement in the workplace. Managers perceive employee engagement as a major

challenge for organizational leadership (Christian, Garza, & Slaughter, 2011; Ling, Liu,

& Wu, 2016). Meanwhile, disengaged employees often do not perceive their direct

managers as effective communicators (Neves & Eisenberger, 2012). This disengagement

affects organizations and may lead to negative outcomes.

Keeping employees satisfied has become a priority for many organizations

because firms benefit when they have a satisfied workforce. Lee and Moreo (2007) have

indicated employee satisfaction is a key factor to a company’s success. Organizations

experience significant business costs related to the loss of employees (Huang et al.,

2016). The estimated cost of employee turnover is between 90% and 200% of the

employee’s annual salary (Mitchell et al., 2001). Organizations have reported the cost

due to the lost investment in training and developing their employees who eventually

leave regardless of the efforts (Almalki, 2012; Mello, 2011; Wolvin, 1994). Holtom and

Burch (2016) noted that employee turnover is disrupting the workflow structure and trust

among organizational members making work environment complex.

With so much to be gained by retaining employees, issues of job satisfaction and

engagement are becoming increasingly important in the field of hospitality and tourism
 5

and managers play an important role in improving the situation. According to the World

Trade Organization (2015), the hospitality and tourism industry is one of the world’s

largest employers with 9.1% of the population working in this area and one in eleven of

all available jobs being a result of this sector. Despite its size, the industry is considered

to be one in which employees have a high intention to leave (AlBattat & Som, 2013;

Hendi & Nasardin, 2006; Mwilu, 2016; Jagun, 2015). Many researchers consider

intention to leave to be the most significant indicator of employee turnover (Brown &

Peterson, 1993; Dasgupta, Suar, & Shilpee, 2012). There are some reasons for employee

turnover such as unhealthy working conditions, low wages, work stress, burnout,

perceived injustice, and lack of career advancement (AlBattat, & Som, 2013; Banet,

2005; Hemdi, Omar & Azmi, 2012; Lam, Baum & Pine, 2003; Pathak, 2012; Sharma,

Verma, Verma & Malhotra, 2010). Improper supervisory practices have also been

reported to be one of the most common reasons influencing employee turnover in the

industry (Haven-Tang & Jones, 2012; Kusluvan et al., 2010) with ineffective managerial

strategies such as poor communication practices found to be a key predictor of employee

job dissatisfaction (Buzeti, Klun, & Stare, 2016; Tiwari, 2015), job engagement (Neves

& Eisenberger, 2012), and leaving job (Buzeti et al., 2016; Puni, Agyemang, & Asamoah,

2016).

Environmental complexity requires great deal of interaction, two-way

communication, stronger social networks, and more interdependence among members

(Nyberg & Ployhart, 2013). Appropriate managerial communication practices cultivate

powerful emotional relationships between managers and subordinates within

 6

organizational context (Dasgupta, Suar, & Shilpee, 2012), boost organizational success

(Greenberg, 2010), and foster effective worker decision making (Mayfield & Mayfield,

2015). By contrast, negative emotions among hospitality and tourism employees are

often a result of ineffective management practices (Shani & Amir, 2014). According to

Herzberg’s two factor theory, motivational sets such as reward systems, salary,

interpersonal relations, organizational climate, and communication determine employees’

job satisfaction or dissatisfaction (Herzberg, 1966; Herzberg et al., 2005; Lundberg,

Gudmundson & Andersson, 2009).

Though turnover has been investigated in many contexts, little research has been

done that is specific to the Middle East. Iqbal (2010) stated that employee turnover

within Middle-East organizations is a serious issue to human resource managers.

Numerous studies have stressed the key predictor of employee turnover intention is the

degree of satisfaction in their workplace (Bhuian & Al-Jabri, 1996; Al-Kahtani, 2002;

Iqbal, 2010; Al-Malki, 2012). However, in Saudi Arabia, the key factors leading to job

dissatisfaction have been minimally studied (AlBattat & Som, 2013; Jehanzeb et al.,

2013). Furthermore, because effective communication has been found to be vital to job

satisfaction in other contexts, measuring effective communication in the Saudi hospitality

and tourism industry will provide leaders with a better understanding of the impact their

communication behaviors have on employees’ job satisfaction and engagement, which

may in turn lead to improvements and a reduction in the high level of turnover rate in the

industry. As a result of a lower turnover rate, organizational productivity will improve as

well, along with the costs associated with it. There is a need to examine the
 7

characteristics of the Saudi hospitality and tourism workforce in terms of the direct

relationship between managerial communication and employee job outcomes as Saudi

nationals are considered to be one of the minorities within the industry workforce,

representing only 27% of the total labor force (SCTNH, 2016). Furthermore, the results

of this study aim to identify factors of ineffective communication and provide solutions

or suggestions for organizations to improve the issues impacting job outcomes.

Improving employees’ job outcomes will reduce turnover rates and achieve the Saudi

government’s national unemployment policy regulations. Sequentially, organizational

effectiveness can possibly improve which will significantly boost economic activities

thus diversifying income sources in the Kingdom.

Significance of the Study

Although there has been extensive research conducted in the hospitality and

tourism industry concerning a number of functional areas, such as service quality (Tsang,

Lee & Qu, 2015), employee incentive strategies (Kshirsagar & Mhashilkar, 2015),

organizational innovativeness (Binder, Mair, Stummer & Kessler, 2016), job

performance (Sturman & Park, 2016), customer loyalty (Suhartanto & Triyuni, 2016),

brand image (Papadimitriou, Apostolopoulou & Kaplanidou, 2016), social

entrepreneurship (Chen, et al., 2016), and productivity (De Jorge & Suárez, 2014), the

investigation of communication effectiveness is relatively incomplete. All of these

human resources management practices aim to improve workplace sustainability.

However, organizations neglect the importance of managers’ communication practices

that determine the employees’ behaviors and attitudes. There is a serious communication
 8

problem affecting the homogeneity of culturally diverse workforce, which negatively

reduce achievement of organizational goals (DA, 2014). White (1999) stated that

“Communication is the weak link in diverse organizations and research needs to focus on

facilitating both external and intra organizational communication” (p. 485).

Having a multicultural workforce raises concerns regarding their job satisfaction,

engagement, and overall well-being (Avey et al., 2011; D’Annunzio-Green et al., 2008;

Dawkins et al., 2013; Dawson, Madera, Neal, & Chen, 2014; Jain, 2015; Loosemore &

Lee, 2002). However, there is little known about the impact of effective communication

on a multicultural workforce (Dawson, Madera, Neal, & Chen, 2014; Fragouli & Ibidapo,

2015). It is important for hospitality and tourism managers and organizations to

acknowledge the impact of effective communication in the multicultural workforce. As

is has been established that communication is an important issue affecting the

relationship of leadership, organizational culture, and employees’ job outcomes

(Alshanbri et al., 2015; AlGassim, Barry, & McPhail, 2012; Qubaisi, Elanain, Badri &

Ajmal, 2015), all of which determine the success of each organization, leader, manager,

supervisor, and employee (Bambacas & Patrickson, 2009; Erickson, 2016). For this

reason, this study aims to advance the understanding of the impact of effective

communication on employees’ job outcomes, especially when the industry is a multi-

diverse workforce. There is a genuine need to examine the impact of communication

practices on the hospitality and tourism industry. This need is increased in Saudi Arabia

due to an insufficient number of Saudi employees working in the industry accompanied

by a high level of turnover.

 9

This paper examines the relationship between effective communication and

multicultural employees’ job outcomes. The research purposes of this study are to (a)

explore factors that could improve effective communication, (b) examine mediating

effects of two job factors (self-esteem and information seeking) on then communication

and job outcomes, and (c) investigate if effective communication has a relationship with

employee overall wellbeing (i.e., job satisfaction, engagement) and intention to leave.

This research study aims to provide insight into the workplace with respect to

people’s interactions within organizations and to offer timely information about the

recent communication issues that have emerged. This research will assist hotel

organizations within the hospitality and tourism industry, government agencies, human

resource practitioners, and senior or top managers to implement and manage

communication approaches that promote the sustainability of employees’ performance

and improve the quality of employee behaviors, both of which have direct impact on

employees’ well-being. Maintaining employees’ well-being is important to improve their

job satisfaction, reduce turnover, and enhance productivity which in turn will create a

healthy work industry (Albrecht, 2012; Bonet, 2007; Karatepe, 2013; Lu et al., 2016;

Luthans et al., 2007; Pak, 2007; Takeuchi et al., 2007). Having a healthy workplace is

vital to the development of the industry in order to become one of the essential drivers for

the kingdom’s future economy.

Enhancing what is known about well-being and reducing turnover among Saudi

hospitality and tourism workers will add to the body of knowledge in the hospitality and

tourism industry. Furthermore, this study has potential to serve as a facilitator for further
 10

studies examining the work behavior from a Saudi hospitality and tourism industry

perspective. The contribution of this study may help achieve the Saudi government’s

newly launched vision objectives of lowering the unemployment rates from 11.7% in

2016 to 7% in 2020, and increasing the average life expectancy from 74 years to 80 years

(Saudi Vision 2030, 2016). Implementation of effective communication strategies with

the needed skills will give a better outlook for the hospitality and tourism industry along

with any organization itself. Understanding communication behaviors in daily work

practices not only provides trainers with better vision to coach employees to be more

focused on their work, but also improves organizational effectiveness (Brown et al.,

2010).
 CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

The chapter is organized to first provide a discussion of the theoretical

foundations that have guided the objectives of this study. Second, to provide overview of

current factors impacting workforce in Saudi Arabia, followed by background

information of the Saudi hospitality industry. In addition, studies addressing the key

variable, communication in the hospitality industry and its relationship with

(a) self-esteem, and (b) information seeking as well as wellbeing variables (c) job

satisfaction, (d) engagement, and (e) intention to leave will be included and discussed.

Within the communication in the hospitality industry section, an overview of the

importance of effective communication, cross-cultural communication, and managerial

leadership practices within organizations are discussed. The purposed research questions

and hypotheses of this study are addressed in the end of this chapter.

Theoretical Foundations

Since there was no single theory to completely illustrate the theoretical foundation

for this study, a combined theoretical model consisting of Social Identity Theory, Job

Characteristic Theory, and Leader-Member Exchange Theory were used as the guiding

theoretical framework.

The role of effective communication in organization management has recently

exceeded its normal actions or basic functions of managing employees, planning,

recruiting, or policy making (Cooren, Kuhn, Cornelissen, & Clark, 2011). Currently

strategic planning involves multiple disciplines such as leadership, political science,

11
 12

psychology, and sociology to formulate the way organizations manage their business and

deal with internal issues affecting human resources. As a result, communication which is

made up of interactions where both the supervisor and the subordinates have an influence

on each other as they interact within the realms of organizational culture context, appears

on top of skill list employers seek. Employers expect employees to be effective

communicators and rate employees for their communicative performances or related

competencies, and vice versa. Thus, this study used social identity theory, job

characteristic theory, and leader-member exchange theory to highlight employees’ work

related attitudes such as work satisfaction, and to examine its impact on employees’ well-

being and turnover.

Social Identity Theory

Social Identity Theory (SIT) is a well-established theory developed by Tajfel and

Turner (1979) used to facilitate an understanding of individual identity and identification

in organizational contexts. The SIT has been reviewed by a number of authors (e.g.,

Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Brown, 2001; Hogg & Terry, 2000, 2001; Tajfel & Turner,

1986), and refers to the degree to which an individual belongs and perceives him/herself

based on membership in certain group in terms of in-groups or non-membership in out-

groups (Scott, 2007). SIT is not only applicable to the proposed study but also has

capacity to explicitly explain differences in employee behaviors due to their diverse

background (e.g., Richard et al., 2004; Tajfel, 2010; Thomas, 1999; Van et al., 2004).

According to Hogg and Terry (2001), there are two sociocognitive processes within the

SIT that characterize group boundaries and self-enhancement where individuals favor
 13

their own in-group. The Social Cognitive Theory considers self-efficacy control

behavioral intensity (Bandura, 2012), and hypothesizes that individuals experiencing

increases in anxiety and fear will not be able to develop self-efficacy because of the

negative emotions (Bandura, 1977). Self-efficacy refers to “beliefs in one’s capabilities

to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources, and courses of action needed to meet

given situational demands” (Wood & Bandura, 1989, p. 408). Thus, individuals’ belief

about their ability influences their actions (Ng & Lucianetti, 2015).

Although the SIT has been applied to and guided the understanding of how

cognitive and social factors contribute to individual behavior in organizations.

Researchers have linked SIT with communication in an organizational context studying

the use of language, interaction styles, and cross-cultural circumstances in order to

examine other variables and to predict and explain behavior attitude (e.g., Fortman, 2003;

Fox, Giles, Orbe, & Bourhis, 2000; Grainger, 1995; Harwood, Giles, & Ryan, 1995).

Several studies have been formulated to integrate communication constructs into SIT

(Kuhn & Nelson, 2002; Scott, 1999; Scott, Corman, & Cheney, 1998). In-group behavior

also has examined issues such as crowd behavior, ethnic attitudes, racial prejudice,

fascism, social conflict, and social influence (Turner & Giles, 1981).

Scott et al. (1998) noted that social identities are created by language expressed in

our interactions with others. Within this realm, Scott (2007) emphasized how

communication is shaped through varied identities in different groups. On the other

hand, disidentifications occur with various groups during team meetings. For example,

Scott’s (2007) study further addressed the importance of examining how active
 14

information processing and active listening influence in-group or out-group status, which

might shape identification. Although identity and identification issues are based on

communication, expressing one’s belongingness to various collectives is a key to

measure reputation and image of those collectives (Scott, 2007).

Communication in in-group contexts within international organizations involves

out-group communication as well. There is a relationship between member identity and

social distance, “members seek close relationships with those of the same nationality to

increase their sense of security” (Suzuki, 1998, p. 176). Hence, Suzuki (1998) stated,

“one important factor that may differentiate intergroup communication from intragroup

communication is individuals’ awareness of their group memberships” (p.156). Suzuki

(1998) uses the social identity theory to test boundary conditions within the cultural

membership of groups from Japan and the US. Suzuki (1998) noted groups in

international organizations were aware of their group categories based on national

cultural labels; the cognitive process of the awareness will have an impact on the

motivational process. The study found that Japanese individuals ranked low on identity

and they feel insecure regarding their own group’s statues because they hold a minority

status.

Social identity theory will support this study by understanding individual’s

identity within group’s context. Individuals during information processing and

interaction with ingroup or outgroup might shape their identities; thus, they may only

seek information or communicate with their in-group instead of managers. Hence,

multicultural workforce may favor their own in-group, which will build boundaries
 15

affecting their attitudes and behavior. Also, the theory will support how minorities such

as the Saudi nationals workforce in the tourism industry may not be motivated to seek

information due to the low identity and negative emotions.

Job Characteristic Theory

Job Characteristic Theory (JCT), a well-developed framework by Hackman and

Oldham (1975), is used to study certain job characteristic factors that affect employees’

job outcomes, such as job satisfaction, mitigating absenteeism, and the turnover rate

(Bartlett, 2007; Kusluvan, Kusluvan, Ilhan, & Buyruk, 2010). The job characteristic

design involves five job characteristics. These are skill variety, task identity, task

significance, autonomy, and feedback provided to the employee to process work in

organizations. These factors influence employees’ psychological states including

experiencing meaningfulness and responsibility for outcomes, and knowledge of the

actual results (Hackman & Oldham, 1975). The psychological states play an important

role in influencing employees’ personal and job outcomes in terms of motivation,

satisfaction, performance, low absenteeism, and turnover rates (Hackman & Oldham,

1980).

Based on the framework, skill variety is the degree to which employees are

required to use different task activities in everyday work life. The second dimension is

task identity, which refers to the amount of involvement of completion of a task in the

entire process. Thirdly, task significance is known as the degree to which the job impacts

other people’s lives. Autonomy is the fourth dimension in the job characteristic model

and is the degree to which employees obtain freedom, independence, and discretion to
 16

work plan and determine the procedures in workplace. Finally, the feedback refers to the

degree to which employee receive information regarding to individual’s effective job

performance; if workers receive clear and actionable information from their supervisors,

they will be able to analyze knowledge to improve their productivity (Hackman &

Oldham, 1975).

Furthermore, communication impacts job satisfaction and organizational

commitment (e.g., Anderson & Martin, 1995; De Nobile, 2016; Jacobs et al., 2016; Park

et al., 2015; Pettit, Goris, & Vaught, 1997; Pincus, Knipp, & Rayfield, 1990). Thus,

maintaining positive employee and manager relationships is a major key to increasing

employees’ job satisfaction and reducing turnover intention (Tutuncu & Kozak, 2007).

Ozturk, Hancer, and Im (2014) used the JCT to investigate the relationship between job

characteristics and effective commitment and job satisfaction in the hospitality and

tourism industry. They indicated that both affective commitment and overall job

satisfaction were affected by feedback. As the feedback from supervisors and managers

is much valued by employees (Elanain, 2009; Kochanski & Ledford, 2001), feedback is a

process of delivering information that is carried by particular communicative interaction

(Brownell, 1992).

As the JCT works as guidance for employees to maintain their psychological

states that influence employees’ personal and job outcomes, the theory can answer the

question regarding factors that affect job outcomes. The theory can justify the reason

behind employees’ job satisfaction and turnover intention in the hospitality and tourism

industry, as to why and how employees are influenced by the feedback from supervisors.
 17

Employees who are satisfied with the clear feedback and necessary information from

managers are expected to be satisfied with their workplace, which also can lead to lower

their intention to leave the organization.

Leader-Member Exchange Theory

The leader-member exchange theory (LMX) is a relationship approach theory

focused on the development of relationships between managers and members in the same

team. LMX theory proposed that there are relationships developed by a leader with

followers, and the quality of the relationship determined by employee competence,

dependability, and interpersonal compatibility (Duchon, Green, & Taber, 1986; Graen &

Cashman, 1975; Graen & Scandura, 1987). Duarte, Goodson, and Klich (1994)

illustrated these elements of the relationship between leaders and followers with the

following: “an employee can be categorized as a member of a leader’s in-group and the

relationship as a high-quality one, characterized by trust, or as an out-group member in a

low-quality exchange relationship characterized by distance” (p. 500).

While the LMX implicates interaction between supervisor and subordinate,

feedback is an essential part of the social context (Steelman, Levy, & Snell, 2004). As

the feedback is based on information provided, employees might not take action or

communicate with their supervisors as a result of the credibility and characteristics of the

information source (Robson & Robinson, 2013). Subordinates have been found to be

more eager in seeking information from supervisors who are perceived to be

transformational leaders (Crommelinck & Anseel, 2013). Thus, a high quality

 18

relationship between the supervisor and the subordinate enhances the exchange of

information.

The development of supervisor–subordinate exchange has been found to increases

a subordinate’s performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and commitment

(Dulebohn, Bommer, Liden, Brouer, & Ferris, 2012); thus, having a sense of

empowerment influences work engagement. At the same time, information seeking is

associated with higher job satisfaction, satisfaction with supervisors, empowerment, role

ambiguity, and role conflict, while behavioral intentions that avoid seeking information

are significantly linked to intention to leave and increased turnover (e.g., Dulebohn et al.,

2012; Duarte et al., 1994).

Based on the previous discussion on SIT, JCT, and LMX, these theories provide

insightful guidance building the framework of this study. The discussion assist linking

the relationship between the proposed variables that is mainly based on the relationship

between managers’ practices and employees’ job outcomes. The impact of managers and

subordinate relationship on employees’ job satisfaction, engagement, and turnover

intention is complex (e.g. Morrell et al., 2008; Chen et al., 2011). The relationship

influenced by a number of moderating variables such as self-esteem and information

seeking. Thus, the psychological mechanisms of the employees and work-related

outcomes attitudes and behaviors influenced employees’ job outcomes have been

justified by the proposed theories. Based on the theories, the individual’s relationship

with his or her in-group/out-group and the source of information predict individual’s

behavior and attitude determining employees’ job outcomes (Ilies et al., 2007). Overall,
 19

as the industry experience multicultural workforce differing in ethnic attitudes, racial

prejudice, and social influence, the study referred to SIT, JCT, and LMX theory to

explicate the how managers and employees behave in such a way influencing employees’

job outcomes.

Background: Workforce in Saudi Arabia

Over the past decade, the Saudi government has led initiatives to employ Saudi

nationals in the private sector through a comprehensive legal framework (Mellahi, 2007).

These initiatives are called Saudization, which aim to reduce foreign workers and replace

them with Saudi nationals as the country experiences high unemployment levels among

the rapidly expanding of young population (Looney, 2004). The Saudization Act’s goal

is to categorize private sector organizations based on the number of Saudi employees in

each firm with respect to its size. Failure to employ the stipulated number of Saudi

nationals in an organization will result in a reduction of the number of foreign worker

visas granted by the ministry of labor (Sadi & Henderson, 2005). Nonetheless,

organizations in the private sector favor expatriates over Saudi employees because of the

level of performance and the variety of qualifications required; which brought the idea of

promoting Saudization and reduce the bias as if the Saudi employees do not meet the

necessities of local labor market (Al-Ahmadi, 2002).

The Saudization policy was instituted to address the unemployment crisis that

occurred in the Kingdom after the discovery of the oil industry (Alotaibi, 2014). The

discovery of oil during the 1970s shifted the focus of the economy leaving behind the

main employers, which were agriculture, fishing, and safe trades. A large number of
 20

foreign workers were brought overseas to work in the industry because Saudi nationals

were not qualified with essential skills (Al-Ahmadi, 2002). As the country has

flourished, its population has grown dramatically due to improvements in the healthcare

sector with birth growth rate by 141.8% in 1992 compared to 1970 (Ministry of Economy

and Planning, 2012). The population growth and dependence on foreign employees

generated the unemployment crisis. Along with the high turnover rate, the

unemployment rate in 2012 has increased to 12.1% compared to 10.5% in 2009

according to the Saudi Central Department of Statistics and Information (CDSI, 2013).

Alotaibi (2014) reported that the educational system does not consistently equip

students with knowledge nor competencies and qualifications to work in the Saudi

market, which ushered in private human resources management training for Saudi

nationals in the necessary skills fearing of staff leaking to another jobs. Sadi and

Henderson (2005) stated that the hospitality and tourism industry in Saudi Arabia are

affected by the Saudization policy as the industry heavily relies on expatriate workers at

both the management and the front line level. Therefore, human resources face

challenges in hiring and retaining Saudi nationals to work in certain departments that

only foreigners are either willing to do at a lower wage or are often trained for top-level

management jobs.

Organizations attempt to employ expatriates to overcome staffing and

management expertise shortages as this will successfully drive their business. The idea

of hiring expatriates provokes interesting consequences as it can affect locals’ chances in

the job market. In some countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom, job priority
 21

is given to locals over migrants to ensure there is a balance of demographic diversity

among all workers (Sadi & Henderson, 2005). Problems can occur when there is an

imbalance. For example, in the United States, there was the lack of Americans prepared

to work in the hospitality and tourism industry to preform some duties (e.g., food and

beverage service); thus, workers from Mexico, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and China

are hired to do so (Longley, 2004). This reliance on expatriate workers led to a staffing

crisis in 2004 in American resorts when certain temporary visa applications by law

enforcement after 9/11 events were eliminated (Longley, 2004).

Job localization issues have drawn attention in the literature (e.g., Al-Waqfi &

Forstenlechner, 2010; Ewers & Dicce, 2016; Harry, 2007; Rutledge & Shamsi, 2016),

especially in the counties in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that heavily depend on

expatiate labors. Examples of those countries include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,

Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates being subject to the most investigation

(Ewers & Dicce, 2016; Sadi & Henderson, 2005). Billions of dollars are transferred by

expatriate employees to their home counties harming the economy of GCC countries

(Sadi & Henderson, 2005). Beside the remittance issue, unemployment increases among

young generations is considered to be another factor encouraging a focus on the

development of nationals (Al-Qassimi, 1988). The development of locals promotes

economic growth and reduces economic leakage (Sadi & Henderson, 2005).

Within this realm, Mellahi (2007) conducted a study examining the effect of

government regulations on managerial functions of human resource management in

private sector organizations in Saudi Arabia. Face to face interviews with Saudi
 22

managers in the private sector were conducted to help understand if the new government

regulations that have reformed HRM policies in the private sector support reduced

unemployment levels. In response, the HRM policies force private sector organizations

to employ Saudi nationals and regulate the management of both local and foreign

workers by improving the work environment to make it more attractive. Mellahi (2007)

suggested that there are four factors that shape the structure of the Saudi market: “high

population growth; heavy reliance on foreign workers; negative stereotype of local

workers; and social perceptions towards work in the private sector” (p. 88). There has

been tremendous growth in the population in the Kingdom with an estimated birth rate of

4% each year making it one of the highest birth rates in the world, and most of the

population is young (Mellahi, 2006). Previous studies indicated that the influx of large

numbers of foreign workers is one of the obstacles to employing Saudi nationals because

managers believe that national employees are more expensive than foreigners (Alsahlawi

& Gardener, 2004; Mellahi & Al-Hinai, 2000). In addition, there are stereotypes that

Saudi employees do not show discipline compared with foreign employees (Mellahi &

Wood, 2002). Studies further disclose that turnover among expatriates does not exist

(Bhuian & Al-Jabri, 1996; Mellahi & Wood, 2002).

The conducted interviewees by Mellahi (2007) revealed that organizations

reshaped their human resource management practices in order to fulfill the ministry of

labor requirements of reaching a 75% Saudi workforce. Consequently, there is a need to

adjust and innovate different management styles to manage employees in the private

sector as the diversity of the workplace has been transformed. Organizations attempted
 23

to follow the rules regarding the employment of Saudi nationals; however, some

organizations recruit Saudis but fail to effectively involve them in workplace (Mellahi,

2007).

The hospitality and tourism industry in Saudi Arabia is steadily growing and

diversifying the economy of the country (Ageli, 2013; Nusair, 2016). The Saudi

Commission for Tourism & National Heritage (SCTNH) was established in 2000 as a

governmental agency responsible for promoting sustainable strategic planning and policy

regulation for the hospitality and tourism industry in the country. During the fifteen

years after the establishment of the SCTNH, dramatic shifts have been noticed in the

development of the hospitality and tourism industry especially with financial incentives

and subsidiaries from the government and banking sectors to encourage the

implementation of new projects for those who are willing to invest in the market due to

its economic growth in the last decades. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil expert

and its economy is oil-based (Ministry of Finance, 2010); hence, the government

encourages the growth of the private sector industries in order to diversify its economy

and provide job opportunities to Saudi nationals.

Even though oil prices have dropped below $30 per barrel causing a 367 billion

riyal ($97.9 billion) deficit in the 2015 budget, the Saudi government cuts in spending to

shrink the deficient did not involve the hospitality and tourism subsidizations as it

believes in the future of this sector (Saudi Vision 2030, 2016). According to SCTNH

(2016), the number of hospitality accommodation facilities in the Kingdom has increased
 24

from 4,400 properties in 2000 to 8,000 properties in 2016. Meanwhile, the total amount

of investment in the hotel industry by 2020 is SR143.9 billion (US$38.3 billion).

Along with the development of the hospitality and tourism industry, there are also

academic and professional programs that have been developed to supply the industry with

highly trained and educated employees to assist the fast growing development in this

sector. The number of educational and training institutions that offer hospitality and

tourism certificates have increased from only two academic institutions in 2000 to 44

public and private institutions in 2016 (SCTNH, 2016), ranging from a diploma that can

be earned in two-years to bachelor degrees obtained mostly within four-year programs

taught in the Saudi institution. Surprisingly, none of institutions provide a higher

education degree. In addition, the ministry of education provides scholarship

opportunities for those who are interested in pursuing a bachelor and master degree in the

hospitality and tourism discipline.

The hospitality and tourism industry is a vital source of employment in Saudi

Arabia. The industry is considered as the second largest employer of Saudi citizens after

the banking industry (SCTNH, 2016). However, recent studies have shown that the

number of direct jobs generated from the industry reached 897,000 in 2016 with only

27% of the total jobs occupied by Saudi employees compared to foreign workers

(SCTNH, 2016). According to Aldosari (2013), “Saudis acquire social status from their

position title” (p. 43); therefore, most of Saudi workers in the industry occupy clerical

and supervisor positions. This is a trend in many industries as the number of foreign

workers in the country is about seven million, with the overall population of Saudi Arabia
 25

being 31.5 million. This means they play an important role in driving the economy of

Saudi Arabia.

As the Saudization policy aims to increase the number of national workers and

retain their employment status in the private sector, the Saudi government has provided

human resource development funds (HRDF) to attract foreign investments to establish

new businesses in the Saudi workplace. The HRDF contribute 50% of a national private-

sector worker’s salary in order to encourage the private sector to employ Saudi nationals

(Al-Dosary & Rahman, 2009). Even though the government has provided these

incentives to the private sector, studies show that domestic workers cause a high turnover

rate (Bosbait & Wilson, 2005). In addition, because private organizations need to have

governmental approval to issue visas to hire foreign workers according to the Saudization

policy, foreign investors may lack the motivation to invest in Saudi Arabia due to the

obligatory governmental requirements. However, Sadi and Henderson (2005) indicated

that within the existing literature, the Saudization policy is not the best initiative to

resolve the unemployment crisis.

Even though the private sector experienced employment growth accelerated form

13.5% in 2013 to 14.18% in 2014, the increase in employment associated with policies

applied by the Ministry of Labor to improve employment in the Saudi labor market

(SECOR, 2015). Labor improvement included wage benefits, incentives to Saudi worker

who continue to work in the private sector, and adjusting work hours in the private sector.

As a result, the number of Saudi nationals increased in the private sector. In recent report

conducted by the General Authority for Statistics (2016) shows that the number of Saudi
 26

nationals working in the private sector increased from 1.09 million in 2013 to 1.25

million in 2014. Despite the success of increasing the number of nationals in the private

sector, unemployment continued to be at 11.7% in 2013 and 2014. The CDSI (2016)

reported that unemployment in 2015 decreased slightly into 11.5%.

While there have been policies applied to attract Saudi nationals to work in the

private sector such as wage, work hours, incentives, there are other factors that have

impeded the labor nationalization policies from reaching its goals. There is a small

increase in female nationals participation rates in the labor market even though they are

seen mostly as human resources potential (Rutledge & Shamsi, 2016). Alongside with

small females ration in the labor market, nationals perceived private sector as unattractive

working environment with respect to compensation and public image compared to the

public sector (Harry, 2007; Jemielniak, 2014; Rutledge & Shamsi, 2016). On the other

hand, private sector employers attribute the issue of avoiding employing nationals

because they are not qualified, lack of work ethics, and their wage demands are more

than expatriates (Salih, 2010). Moreover, visa restrictions slow the growth of expatiate

workers result from reforming the Saudi’s labor market (SECOR, 2015). Public opinions

concerned with the unemployment rates, which is perceived as a complicated issue. For

one reason, there is a major concern regarding the substantial amount of growing number

of graduates with university certificates as it expected to increase the unemployment rate.

The number of labor force in 2015 reached 12 million (n = 12,164,832) persons, 6.54

million of whom are non-Saudis and 5.62 are Saudis taking into consideration about 66%

of the Saudis are working in the government sector (General Authority of Statistics,
 27

2016). Meanwhile, the number of Saudis who are in working age is 13.5 million. The

difference in the number of new entrants to the labor market and those left the labor force

in 2014 is remarkable. The number of Saudis who are working in the hospitality sector

increased by 79,988 workers. On the contrary, the number of non-Saudis increased by

108,715 workers (SECOR, 2015). About 237 thousand Saudi entered to the labor market

in 2014. On the other hand, 99 thousands left the labor force during the year of 2014.

The number of Saudi females labor force is 1.2 million while the Saudi males are 4.4

million (General Authority of Statistics, 2016).

The hospitality and tourism industry face challenges to employee Saudi nationals,

females in particularly. Alkhaldi, Burgess, and Connell (2015) attributed the low ration

of Saudi females in the labor market especially in the hospitality industry is due to the

negative stereotype working in hotels (e.g., negative public image). Moreover, Alkhaldi,

Burgess, and Connell (2015) conducted a study examining the transfer of human resource

management policies and practices of United States in Saudi Arabia. The finding of the

study revealed, “Female workforce participation in Saudi Arabia is limited due to Saudi

social traditions and expectations” (Alkhaldi et al., 2015, p. 160). When recruiting

females in the private sector, organization must comply with the labor law to facilitate

specific workplace environment such as sex segregation (Ministry of Labour, 2013).

Although certain incentives to attract Saudis have been set in place, research has

found that a large number of Saudi hospitality graduates decide not to pursue a career in

this industry because of unmet expectations (Sadi & Henderson, 2010). In addition,

organizations face other challenges resulting from employee turnover, such as disruptions
 28

in operations, work team dynamics, and unit performance (Iqbal, 2010). As a result, a

range of concerns over the impact of turnover rates has caused an imbalance between the

Saudi nationals and foreign workers in organizations (Iqbal, 2010). The imbalance

regarding job employment causes conflicts between organizations’ strategies and the

government’s regulations; thus, the future of the industry is perceived to be unpromising

to Saudi nationals in the long term. Within this realm, large numbers of employers in the

Kingdom do not recognize the reasons behind employees’ turnover or retention rates nor

do they place an effort to overcome this issue due to unawareness of turnover

consequences that may be devastating to the productivity of their organizations (Iqbal,

2010).

Achoui and Mansour (2007) indicated that companies in Saudi experiencing a

substantial amount of employee turnover, especially in the private sector. Therefore,

companies compete for a limited number of qualified Saudi employees working in the

industry; thus, employee recruitment is at the expense of the other companies in the same

sector. The high demand for workforce and high turnover rates does not solely occur in

Saudi Arabia, but is also perceived and reported worldwide in other countries such as the

US (Dickerson, 2009), Australia (Richardson, 2009), and the UK (Jenkins, 2001).

Jehanzeb et al. (2013) and Al-Ahmadi (2002) reported that previous studies

indicated the importance of training as a major key to overcome employees’ retention and

turnover challenges in Arab organizations and third world countries. On the contrary,

researchers do not perceive the idea that training employees is an absolute solution to

develop their citizens because organizations lack of recognition of the strategic

 29

organizational function (Murrell, 1984). For example, Tessema and Soeters (2006)

indicated that human resource practices in Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia

do not have standards to promote effective performance; despite the fact that the human

resource management (HRM) is becoming a critical component in the development

process of many developing countries (Budhwar & Debrah, 2013). Furthermore, training

and development in Arab organizations has been seen as driven by a social structure not

based on professional manner “in which family and friends plays a significant role”

(Jehanzeb et al., 2013, p. 81). Employee training and development recognized to be a

leisure activity and break offered for certain groups of workers (Jehanzeb et al., 2013).

There are concerns regarding how the training and development strategies within the

organizational culture context should be implemented (Abdalla & Al-Homoud, 1995;

Alattas & Kang, 2016). Even though there are training and development programs

developed in Arab organizations based on theoretical approaches, a lack of assessment

and evaluation exists due to ineffective execution of plans, which may means these

programs may not have an impact on employees (Abdalla et al., 1995). Meanwhile,

Linton et al. (2016) suggested that effective communication between supervisor and

subordinate solves issues regarding to employee’s desired outcomes and significantly

improves self-report that cannot be accomplished by training program alone.

Jehanzeb et al. (2013) stated that most researchers acknowledge and admit the

complexity of training and developing employees to fulfill the future aspirations of the

organization. The process of training and development of employees relies on high level

of communication and share information between managers and employees (Nataraja &
 30

Alamri, 2016). Whereas, Saudi organizations involve employees bring about different

cultures such as values, beliefs and customs that affect the quality of effective

communication and information sharing among employees in working environment

(Alattas & Kang, 2016). Hence, effective multicultural communication by staff from

different cultures stand out significantly to organizations “who want to inroads into

international markets, take advantage of multiculturalism, and avoid possible side effect”

(Tran, 2016, p. 63). Possible side effects include psychological and cognitive factors that

drive employees’ attitude and behavior (Tran, 2016).

Hospitality and Tourism Industry

The hospitality and tourism industry aims to provide outstanding service and an

excellent customer satisfaction experience (Crick & Spencer, 2011), and the quality of

the service is influenced by employees (Tiwari, 2015). The industry requires a sufficient

number of qualified employees, and organizations rely on expatriates from overseas to

function adequately (Sadi & Henderson, 2005). The work environment in the hospitality

and tourism industry is competitive and challenging for employees who are interested in

advancing their careers (Tiwari, 2015). Within the hospitality and tourism industry, there

are various issues encountered by practitioners, some of which are retaining employees’

wellbeing and control turnover (Connolly & McGing, 2006; Lee & Moreo 2007; Sadi &

Henderson, 2005).

According to Sadi and Henderson (2005) and Khizindar (2012), western-style

tourism in Saudi Arabia is perceived to be in conflict with Islamic values and its ways of

life. Islamic values, social norms, and cultural context of the community of Saudi
 31

Arabia, such as segregation of the sexes, dress codes in public, restrictions on the

consumption of alcohol, intimate social contacts, and physical relationships (Khizindar,

2012). However, the hospitality and tourism industry is rapidly growing and is expected

to reach 66 million inbound tourism arrivals and domestic tourism trips in 2015 (SCTH,

2016). In addition, the forecasting of tourism indicators report from the Saudi

Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (2016) reveals that the spending from

tourists was expected to be SR118.4 billion ($31.5 bn) with 446.6 thousand hotel rooms

and furnished apartments. The tremendous growth of the hospitality and tourism industry

has generated 897 thousand jobs (SCTH, 2016), and the number of jobs is expected to

rise to 1.5 million jobs by 2020 (Sadi & Henderson, 2005). In addition, the growth of the

industry is set to attract 10.9 million arrivals by 2020 based on the twenty-year tourism

plan designed by the Supreme Commission for Tourism. Therefore, the number of

accommodation properties is increasing as well.

Saudi employees working in the hotel industry represent only 17% of hotel staff

members. Employers attributed the low number of nationals to many positions being

low-paid and lacking prestige, such as working in the housekeeping, kitchen, restaurants,

uniformed services, or as a concierge are not being preferred (AlGassim et al., 2012; Sadi

& Henderson, 2005). On the other hand, a lack of training and development regarding

the Saudi nationals has been reported (Bhuian & Al-Jabri, 1996; Jehanzeb, Hamid, &

Rasheed, 2015; Sadi & Henderson, 2005). All of which make working in the private

sector, especially in the hospitality industry, undesirable to nationals alongside the

improper management practices and work related attitude have negatively affected
 32

employee overall job satisfaction (Jehanzeb, Hamid, & Rasheed, 2015). Yet the

hospitality tourism industry appears to be far from highring enough Saudi nationals, it is

difficult to follow the government’s Saudization goals (Sadi & Henderson, 2005).

Sadi and Henderson (2005) conducted a survey among hospitality managers to

elicit an in-depth understanding of the shortage of Saudi workers in the Saudi Arabian

hospitality and tourism industry. Participants reported the importance of involving more

nationals in the industry, and most of them agreed with the principles of Saudization.

Managers addressed concerns regarding a decline they believed may take a place in

service standards in the industry as a result of Saudization. Nevertheless, participants

indicated that organizational structures should be considered for revision so that

organizations can boost productivity and be able to compete globally. The dominant

work culture in hospitality and tourism organizations sought to be an obstacle of success

of an organization, Saudi men do not like to be under women’s supervision as an

example. In addition, academic education has inadequately prepared graduates working

in the industry; and one of the issues challenges human resources is to increase

employees’ English proficiency (Sadi & Henderson, 2005).

Hospitality and Tourism Management Practices

There are a limited number of studies examining the management practices in the

hospitality and tourism management industry in Saudi Arabia. Reflecting the

multicultural workforce and multinational corporation hotels experienced by the

hospitality and tourism industry in Saudi Arabia, AlGassim, Barry, and McPhail (2012)

studied the human resource management practices in Saudi within hotels sector. The
 33

study took place in four Saudi cities, which are Makkah, Jeddah, Al Madinah and Riyadh

and twelve general managers as well as human resource directors were interviewed.

Managers reported common practices in Saudi hotels used to promote employees’

performance, and the employees’ preferred practices centered on the following: training

and development, recruitment and selection, orientation program, performance

evaluation, job description, motivation, salary and wages, and empowerment and

communication. Among all, most managers indicated that communication is the most

important practice. AlGassim et al. (2012) affirmed that communication cited by

employees as one of the most favored practices. Managers also addressed concerns

regarding the Saudi government’s regulations as they affect their human resources

development programs. Furthermore, because the government wants to transform its

economy from relying on oil exports to relying on human resources, training and

development are perceived as major factors for the success of the hospitality industry

(AlGassim et al., 2012).

In recent times due to the high development of the hospitality industry, customers

have increased their demand for excellent service provided by employees (Connolly &

McGing, 2006). Because of this, there is a demand for improved performance; on the

other hand, human resource management has raised concerns regarding the difficulties in

reducing the turnover rate rather than maintaining or increasing employees’ performance.

Not only does employees’ satisfaction play an important role in reducing turnover rates,

but it also reflects on the employees’ performance, which in turn determines customer

satisfaction (Lee & Moreo, 2007). As the hospitality industry is a service industry,
 34

employee satisfaction found to be a profitability indicator in hospitality organizations

(Lee, 1988).

Communication in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry

Communication in the hospitality and tourism industry is a vital issue of an

organization as it determines its continuity and efficiency (Seyitoglu & Yüzbaşioglu,

2015). The sensitivity of communication in the hospitality and tourism industry linked to

the deal with a large amount of workers running the business; therefore, communication

affects workforce’s daily activities (Seyitoglu & Yuzbasioglu, 2015). The role of

communication in the hospitality and tourism industry has been discussed in the literature

as a significant construct. Examples of these studies such as hospitality and tourism

managers’ communication practices (Brownell, 1992; Dawson et al., 2014; Lolli, 2013),

the development of communication during education (Connolly & McGing, 2006;

Flaherty & Choi, 2014; Steed & Schwer, 2003), communication for leadership and

managerial positions (Breiter & Dlements, 1996; Zach, 2016), and managers’ skills and

competences (Kay & Rusette, 2000; Liu & Mattila, 2016; Moncarz, 2007; Rudd & Mills,

2015). The American Hotel and Lodging Association (1999) identified communication

as a two-way process in which individuals transfer ideas or feelings to each other. Verbal

and non-verbal interacted messages among workers are compulsory to complete the

process (Dawson et al., 2011).

In the 21st century, organizations acknowledge the significance of effective

communication both internally and externally to improve quality and productivity to

compete in a global marketplace (Wolvin, 1994). Communication is critical in

 35

management in hospitality and tourism sector, where reaching effective communication

is an ongoing change. Grunig (2013) stated, “Internal communication is the catalyst if

not the key to organisational excellence and effectiveness” (p. 569) as it can impede

organizational change and development. In addition, poor internal communication

perceived to be the reason behind negative feelings (Proctor & Doukakis, 2003). Hotel

managers addressed the most common communication types occurring when

communicate with their subordinates, which are downward communication and upward

communication (Stevens & Hisle, 1996). Stevens and Hisle (1996) addressed the most

common problems faced by hotel managers when communicating downward as they face

layers of management structure are a lack of feedback, and with cross-cultural obstacles.

Also, the concerns managers expressed when communicating upward are having hard

time to reach their executive managers as well as the communication issues with

executives and owners who do not understand the hotel business (Stevens & Hisle, 1996).

Antwi, Opoku, Seth & Margaret (2016) conducted a study examined the human resources

management practices and their impacts on employees’ job outcomes. Five HRM

practices were selected and assessed their impact which are training & development,

motivation, performance appraisal, internal communication, and reward/remuneration.

Internal communication reported to be the strongest relation with employees’ outcomes.

Meanwhile, performance appraisal came in as the second significant HRM practice that

contributes to individuals’ organizational outcomes (Antwi et al., 2016).

Effective internal communication channels have shifted from the traditional form

of downward communication to the involvement of employees in sharing their concerns

 36

to enable upward communication (Wolvin, 1994). Wolvin (1994) illustrated upward

communication as an important characteristic of quality organizations where employees

are given the time to address work-related issues. By providing opportunities for

employees to discuss their ideas and information, the result will be a “commitment that

translates into greater satisfaction and greater productivity in the work they do” (Wolvin,

1994, p. 196). Therefore, the involvement of each employee in the organization

planning by communicating effectively with peers and top management should be taken

seriously.

Implementing a communication plan and skill training will be beneficial to

employees, managers, and executives in order to communicate effectively. Brownell

(1991) conducted a study on hospitality middle managers where they addressed concerns

regarding their daily tasks, especially communication tasks that include encouraging

information and providing clear messages to subordinates. Nowadays, the industry

experiences more communication challenges as it becomes internationalized through the

involvement of multinational employees; thus, the need for effective communication to

interact with each other, the ability to empathize, and an understanding of others’

viewpoint are essential to improve cross-cultural communication (Brownell, 1992).

Rudd and Mills (2015) noted if the complexity of communicative interactions

between the sender and receiver is not understandable, the information might not be

adequately processed. There are different forms of communication defined to deliver a

message, some of which include verbal or non-verbal, formal or informal, letters, memos,
 37

billboards, body language, and meetings. In addition, the most common communication

type used is face-to-face communication.

In terms of effective communication, communication skills are perceived as

benchmarks of hospitality and tourism leadership (Kay & Russette, 2000). Cichy,

Sciarini, and Patton (1992) illustrated key competences for effective leaders as having the

ability to “(1) develop and provide a compelling vision, (2) earn and return trust, (3)

listen and communicate effectively, and (4) persevere when others give up” (p. 50).

Brownell (1992) asserted that effective service is synonymous with effective

communication, where managers not only make their messages clear but also develop

and maintain good relationships with their guests and employees, thus improving

individual and organizational performance. Bass (1991) describes transformational

leaders as able to gather organizational information, develop commitment and trust, and

facilitate organizational learning and development, all of which can be achieved through

communication.

Effective Communication

Communication can be defined as an exchange of messages performed between

individuals in order to obtain expected outcomes (Craig, 1999; Lolli, 2013).

Furthermore, communication satisfaction is the degree of satisfaction with

communication experienced by employees within their work setting (Redding, 1978). In

a fast growing industry, organizational communication is critical for maintaining

productivity and profitability (Mishra, Boynton, & Mishra, 2014) and is essential for

business success (Hargie, Tourish, & Wilson, 2002). Communication is a major

 38

challenge for organizations because of the difficulties they face when providing

information or promoting strategies, and as such it has received increased attention

examining its impact on work behavior (Keyton et al., 2013), managerial skills (Suh et

al., 2012), generational differences (Fu & Mount, 2002), and cross-cultural interaction

(Bell & Roebuck, 2015; Lauring, 2011). Difficulties include a lack of information

sharing and relational maintenance, and expressing negative emotion that impact

members’ engagement in the organization (Keyton et al., 2013).

Managing behavior in organizations has evolved over time. The study of

communication is a critical aspect of organizational settings, ranging from the study of

humans’ attitudes in the workplace (e.g., Sager, Wallace, Jarrett, & Richey, 2015) to

relational maintenance behaviors among employees in the same working environment

(e.g., Qubaisi, Elanain, Badri, & Ajmal, 2015). The recent organizational communication

studies are shown in Table 1.

 39

Table 1

Organizational Communication Studies

Authors Title Factors Theme Method

Aritz, J., & Cognitive organization Observes communication International Qualitative

Walker, R. C. and identity maintenance practices in intercultural Business
(2010) in multicultural teams decision-making meetings

Askehave, I. Communicating Explores the relationship Leadership Qualitative

(2010) leadership: A discourse between recruitment
analytical perspective on needs (whom to recruit)
the job advertisement and recruitment
communications

Bisel, R. S., Supervisor-subordinate Proposes nine function Leadership Literature

Messersmith, communication: and effects of supervisor- Review
A. S., & Hierarchical mum effect subordinate Based
Kelley, K. M. meets organizational communication to
(2012) learning encourage business
communication

Christensen, Communication as a Develops a set of Strategic Literature

M. (2014) strategic tool in change organizational Planning Review
processes communication factors Based
for use in an
organizational-change
setting

Clifton, J. Discourse perspectives on Analyzing transcripts of Leadership Quantitative

(2012) organizational naturally occurring talk-
communication in-interaction

Dixon, M. A., Managing the multiple Reports the meaning of Organizational Case Study
& Dougherty, meanings of word may be differ Behavior
D. S. (2010) organizational culture in
interdisciplinary
collaboration and
consulting

Downing, J. Linking communication Addresses knowledge International Qualitative

R. (2011) competence with call skills of salespeople gap Business
center agents’ sales in the literature
effectiveness

(table continues)
 40

Table 1 (continued)

Organizational Communication Studies

Authors Title Factors Theme Method

Ehrenreich, S. English as a business Explores role of English International Mixed

(2010) lingua franca in a German and other languages as Business Methods
multinational corporation perceived by members of
upper management

Gómez, L. F., Communication for the Proposes two Strategic Literature

& Ballard, D. long term information communication practices Planning Review
I. (2013) allocation and collective help develop a firm’s Based
reflexivity as dynamic long-term viability
capabilities

Hart, Z. P. Message content and Examines the nature of Organizational Quantitative

(2012) sources during message content and Behavior
organizational message sources
socialization

Hastings, S. Expressions of dissent in Explores the role of email Strategic Mixed

O., & Payne, email: Qualitative insights in organizational Planning Methods
H. J. (2013) into uses and meanings of
organizational dissent

Kankaanranta, Belf competence as Explores internationally International Mixed

A., & business knowledge of operating business Business Methods
Planken, B. internationally operating professionals’ perceptions
(2010) business professionals of BELF communication

Kassing, J. Dissent expression as an Evaluates the level of Organizational Quantitative

W., Piemonte, indicator of work engagement and intention Behavior
N. M., engagement and intention of employees to quit their
Goman, C. C., to leave work
& Mitchell, C.
A. (2012)

(table continues)
 41

Table 1 (continued)

Organizational Communication Studies

Authors Title Factors Theme Method

Keyton, J., Investigating verbal Examines which Organizational Mixed

Caputo, J. M., workplace communication communication behaviors Behavior Methods
Ford, E. A., behaviors occur at work
Fu, R.,
Leibowitz, S.
A., Liu, T.,
Polasik, S. S.,
Ghosh, P., &
Wu, C. (2013)

Ki, E., & The effects of crisis Investigates the effects of Strategic Quantitative
Brown, K. A. response strategies on crisis response strategies Planning
(2013) relationship quality
outcomes

Kupritz, V. Productive management Examines employees’ Strategic Case Study

W., & Cowell, communication perceptions about the Planning
E. (2011) types of information
management
Kupritz, V. The impact of the Examines the impact of Strategic Case Study
W., & physical environment on workplace design features Planning
Hillsman, T. supervisory
(2011) communication skills
transfer

Lauring, J. Intercultural Argues that the local International Quantitative

(2011) organizational organizational context has Business
communication: The to be taken into account
social organizing of
interaction in international
encounters

Madlock, P. The influence of power Examines the influence of International Quantitative

E. (2012) distance and cultural congruency Business
communication on between micro- and
Mexican workers macro-cultures

(table continues)
 42

Table 1 (continued)

Organizational Communication Studies

Authors Title Factors Theme Method

Madlock, P. The influence of relational Examines the prevalence Organizational Quantitative

E., & Booth- maintenance strategies of relational maintenance Behavior
Butterfield, among coworkers behaviors between
M. (2012) coworkers
Madlock, P. The effects of Examines the association Leadership Quantitative
E., & supervisors’ verbal between supervisors’
Kennedy- aggressiveness and mentoring and verbal
Lightsey, C. mentoring on their aggression
(2010) subordinates

McWorthy, Looking at favorable and Explores forces that Leadership Quantitative

L., & unfavorable superior- influence subordinates’
Henningsen, subordinate relationships impressions of their
D. D. (2014) through dominance and superiors
affiliation lenses

Mishra, K., Driving employee Explores culture Strategic Qualitative

Boynton, L., engagement: The transparency between Planning
& Mishra, A. expanded role of internal management and
(2014) communications employees

Pazos, P., Instant messaging as a Investigates the use of IM Strategic Mixed

Chung, J. M., task-support tool in as a communication tool Planning Method
& Micari, M. information technology to support task
(2013) organizations completion

Pollach, I., & Appearing competent: A Examines a sample of Leadership Quantitative

Kerbler, E. study of impression CEO profiles
(2011) management in U.S. and
European CEO profiles

Rogers, P. S., Language options for Identifies language International Case Study
Gunesekera, managing: Dana components managers Business
M., & Yang, Corporation’s philosophy may use
M. L. (2011) and policy document

Rogerson- “Can you spell that for us Investigates the role of International Qualitative
Revell, P. nonnative speakers?” speech accommodation Business
(2010)

(table continues)
 43

Table 1 (continued)

Organizational Communication Studies

Authors Title Factors Theme Method

Russ, T. L. The relationship between Examines the relationship Organizational Quantitative

(2012) communication between communication Behavior
apprehension and learning apprehension and learning
preferences in an preferences
organizational setting

Scott, C., Ambiguity and freedom Discusses after-action Strategic Quantitative

Allen, J. A., of dissent in post-incident review (AAR) technique Planning
Bonilla, D. L., discussion
Baran, B. E.,
& Murphy, D.
(2013)

Veil, S. R. Mindful learning in crisis Bridges a theoretical gap Strategic Quantitative

(2011) management by connecting current Planning
crisis management
literature to rhetorical
theories

Communication behaviors are defined as consisting of interactions and actions or

multiple combinations of these collective activities implemented in an appropriate way to

enable an informal and formal conversation with certain objectives (Fisher & Ellis,

1980). These behaviors help to establish bonds between individuals’ actions in an

organization and to engage them in communication designs (Keyton et al., 2013). In

particular, there is an emphasis on the importance of information seeking and the

communication of information (Järvelin & Ingwersen, 2005). Furthermore, Keyton et al.

(2013) stated that communication behaviors are “used to engage in relationships with

other members of the organization, and link micro actions of individuals to macro

communication patterns and collective structures” (p. 2). Bisel (2010) asserted that
 44

communication is critical in organizations, pointing out that not every associated

interaction is considered as good communication. In addition, Keyton et al. (2013) have

suggested that better communication in the workplace should be based on sets of

behaviors that are used to accomplish efficient communication. They argue that viewing

communication behavior as a model can provide better predictions for desired training

programs and for performance evaluations.

Business schools invest heavily in business communication courses that serve a

vital function in undergraduate education (Maes, Weldy, & Icenogle, 1997). Russ (2009)

highlights the importance of communication courses among undergraduate students in

business disciplines in order to boost skills that are necessary for contemporary

managerial position. Moreover, communication is one of the essential competencies for

future hospitality and tourism managers (Suh, West, & Shin, 2012). Lack of

communication practice among managers plays an important role in the career

development deficit of hospitality and tourism employees by not providing them with

necessary constructive feedback and communication guidance (Lolli, 2013).

In the service industry, Brownell (1992) claims the effective managerial

communication must be a priority to control turnover and enhance the quality of

employees. Brownell and Chung (2001) and Kay and Russette (2000) argued that

university educators demonstrate a high emphasis on the instructional outcomes that are

competency-based to improve managers’ qualifications in graduate business education.

During the learning process, most of the graduate students prove managerial effectiveness

practices based on the implementation of communication competences and behavioral

 45

flexibility within the context of management curriculum. To illustrate that, Brownell and

Chung (2001) conducted a study that examine the development, implementation, and

assessment of a competency-based management development component that has been

integrated into the Master of Management in Hospitality program at the School of Hotel

Administration at Cornell University. Brownell and Chung (2001) demonstrated the

development of the master program by surveying industry executives, faculty members,

alumni, and current graduate students to seek their perceptions to develop a competency-

based approach in their graduate studies. All the stakeholders agreed communication and

leadership skills are the most important component to graduate hospitality and tourism

industry leaders.

Although findings of these studies agree communication and leadership skills are

important component, researchers did not address critical issue on how to improve

effective communication based on managing diverse workforce or enhance individual’s

communication behavior and attitude. Hospitality managers’ communication activity and

its impact need to be explored due to the substantial amount of information that managers

carry to report to other organizational members (Brownell, 1992). Lang (1991) indicated

in a career burnout report that hospitality managers perform nearly 97 tasks in their

managerial position, whereas managers working in other industries perform half that

number or even less. Brownell (1992) noted, one of the important factors impacting

effective communication and effective management practice “is the accuracy of

individuals’ perceptions regarding their own and others’ communication behaviors”

(p.125). In fact, it is essential for perceptions to be accurate because managers must

 46

deliver accurate and detailed feedback information to their members in spite of the

hospitality managers’ workload (Brownell, 1992).

Dawson, Madera, and Neal (2011) indicated the high involvement of foreign

workers in the hospitality and tourism industry requires initiatives to implement effective

techniques to communicate in a diverse population. Although the employee

demographics change managers’ practices, organizations should establish strategies to

adapt to global and domestic competition. Rudd and Mills (2015) examined

communication, climate, and culture in the hospitality and tourism industry, and they

stated that:

In a world filled with detailed relationships, effective communication is critical to

“Success.” Essentially, managers must be able to articulate expectations and listen

effectively to discover the expectations of employees. They must also be able to

persuade others to behave in desired ways. Employees must be convinced to

work toward clear and concise goals that fulfill the company’s long-term strategic

goals. (p. 11)

Communication is a desired and appreciated skill. “Skills are what people

perform as behaviors (or not); tasks are what people are paid to do” (Keyton, et al., 2013,

p. 2). Furthermore, when a communication skill is utilized at work, it then becomes a

work task that plays a role during new employee socialization (Hart, 2012). In specific,

Hart (2012) claimed that communication is key to organizational socialization in order to

“inform new employees of organizational and unit practices, familiarize them with

relationships within the organization, and instill the values of the organization” (p. 191)
 47

and that it will drive the firm in a competitive market by shaping its employees into

individuals who thrive in a creative and healthy workplace environment. In addition to

that, Keyton et al. (2013) conducted a study of 127 participants who responded to a

questionnaire consisting of 163 communication tasks in order to identify and determine

the most common communication behaviors that occur in the workplace. The results of

the study revealed the ten most common verbal communication behaviors in the

workplace: listening, asking questions, discussing, sharing information, agreeing,

suggesting, getting feedback, seeking feedback, answering questions, and explaining.

Although relational maintenance is vital to organizational socialization, the

importance of relational maintenance behaviors among coworkers and their impact on

employees’ job outcomes cannot be overlooked (Hart, 2012; Madlock & Booth-

Butterfield, 2012). According to Sias, Krone, and Jablin (2002), relational maintenance

behaviors represent relationships among coworkers and are “any relationship one has

with a coworker, such as a supervisor-subordinate, peer, or mentoring relationship” (pp.

489-490). Madlock and Booth-Butterfield (2012) conducted their study by using Shutz’s

(1966) interpersonal needs theory, which indicates the nonfulfillment of interpersonal

needs resulted in emotional and motivational disorders. The results showed the most

common interpersonal relationships among coworkers are conflict management, shared

tasks, and positivity; all of which tend to have positive impacts on employees’ job

outcomes and work-related attitudes including job satisfaction, organizational

commitment, communication satisfaction, and work alienation (Madlock & Booth-

Butterfield, 2012).
 48

Along with relational maintenance behaviors, Kassing, Piemonte, Goman, and

Mitchell (2012) examined how disagreement expressions have an impact on employees’

self reports of work engagement and intention to leave. Their study used the

Organizational Dissent Scale (Kassing, 1998) to measure how employees express their

opinions about workplace policies and practices they find annoying. Employees who see

their workplace as having a dissatisfying environment due to barriers that they feel they

cannot express were found to have a high level of work disengagement and have an

intention to leave the organization (Kassing et al., 2012).

According to Russ (2012), employees with high communication apprehension

were linked with reflective observation modes and assimilating learning styles.

Communication apprehension (CA) was defined by McCroskey as (1977) “an

individual’s level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated

communication with another person or persons” (p. 78). Russ (2012) reported,

“employees with high CA may prefer to learn by working independently, carefully

listening to and observing others to ascertain a holistic perspective of a problem or issue”

(p.327), and that may have developed from communication training in business

curriculums. On the other hand, Dixon and Dougherty (2010) involved themselves in a

case study to interact with cultural assessment to see if the reaction to using the same

word will differ in different audiences. The authors mentioned the meaning of messages

could not be underestimated by communication scholars (Dixon & Dougherty, 2010).

Another matter associated with effective communication implemented in

organizations is internal communication strategies to achieve management effectiveness.

 49

Internal communication is based on communicational interaction between managers and

employees (Mishra, Boynton, & Mishra, 2014), and a manager’s internal communication

with employees influences subordinates’ engagement with customers (Lowenstein,

2006). Mishra et al. (2014) stated that “internal communication is important for building

a culture of transparency between management and employees, and it can engage

employees in the organization’s priorities” (p. 183). Managers seek many ways to

communicate with employees, and the most common is face-to-face communication.

Kupritz and Cowell (2011) supported the use of effective face-to-face

communication among managers and subordinates as being more desired, leading the

productivity of the employees to increase. Moreover, organizational-change setting has

been studied by Christensen (2014) to identify which factors were used within the

settings. The study revealed five categories that could have an impact within any change

process: social contact, central leadership, information, influence, and barriers to

improvement. Christensen (2014) reported, “Communication is a part of an

organization’s everyday life, but in many cases it can be problematic to uphold because

the management can easily forget the special importance it has during a change situation,

as a result of the financial, technical, and operational demands of the change process” (p.

382).

It is not surprising that employers rank oral communication skills among the most

valued applied skills. Communicating effectively with others in daily life at work is a

key factor to ensure that the meaning of the message is received without ambiguity.

However, workplace facility aspects such as architecture design, light, temperature,

 50

airflow, layout of walls, and size of cubicles, have been found to be a factor “impeding

communication skills transfer in face-to-face interaction with employees” (Kupritz &

Hillsman, 2011, p.148). Additionally, organizations facilitate the use of instant

messaging such as e-mail and teleconferencing as a channel (communication tool) to

quickly disperse information among workers, and it appears that instant message is more

likely to be used for collaboration tasks than cognitive conflict tasks (Pazos, Chung &

Micari, 2013).

Meanwhile, technological advancements implemented to facilitate

communication such as using emails to exchange information between managers and

subordinates will lead to a collaborative work environment (Hastings & Payne, 2013).

Hastings and Payne (2013) addressed some of the issues that employees should take into

account when sending emails. Sending proper emails for the right people to prevent

ambiguity that receivers may experience, and provide suggestions to act in a professional

manner, which results in efficient and effective productivity in organizations (Hastings &

Payne, 2013).

Cross-Cultural and Cross-Generational Communication Interaction

Cross-cultural communication refers to the socioeconomic, gender, religious,

ethnic, and cultural background of an individual and how this influences the efficiency of

communication among workers (Dawson, Madera, Neal, & Chen, 2014). Lauring (2011)

examined intercultural communication in organizations where messages have

implications that can be interpreted differently by various groups. Notwithstanding its

impact on individuals, cross-cultural communication has been found to be an essential

 51

strategy for boosting an organization’s business internationally and for promoting

solutions to contemporary issues that can affect an organization’s relationships with its

stakeholders and other corporate organizations (Lauring, 2011).

Lee and Moreo (2007) discussed one of the human resources obstacles within a

multicultural hospitality workforce. Their results revealed that the industry faces

challenges in employee satisfaction for those working in teams because employees’

perceptions of work environment vary depending on regions and countries. Most

recently, Madera and Kapoor (2011) indicated that there are complex management issues

facing human resources and researchers regarding communication matters because of the

diverse workforce found especially in the hospitality and tourism industry. Examples of

diversity, such as gender, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnic origins, and

cultural backgrounds shift the understanding of communication (Madera & Kapoor,

2011). It is because people’s identities enhance or cause conflict regarding work

responsibilities. Skills for managing diverse backgrounds workforce are needed to

positively enhance supervisors and coworkers relationships, understanding work

assignment and company policy, respect for social and moral values, and respect for

cultural diversity (Lee & Moreo, 2007).

Based on a fieldwork study conducted by Lauring (2011) in a Saudi Subsidiary

with more than 400 employees from 14 different nationalities (e.g., India, Egypt, and

Philippines), the impact of different cultural communication practices between workers

was analyzed. The findings of the study noted different communication perceptions in

organizations can lead to poor decision-making and poor working processes that in turn
 52

affect social relations. Training regarding international and intercultural aspects of

organizational communication is an essential strategy to boost an organization’ s business

internationally and promote solutions for contemporary issues that might affect an

organization’s relationship with its stakeholders or other corporate organizations. To

illustrate this further, intergroup identity issues in communication practices that occur in

meetings have been studied (Aritz & Walker, 2010). Using dialogue analysis of observed

meetings between groups of US-born native English speakers and East Asian citizens, it

was observed that the differences contributed to decreased performance were lack of

team identity, and increased relational conflict. Differences in dialogue resulted in

distinctions between the group members, and thus the importance of group status was lost

amid the dominant culture. Training members of groups how to come together and adapt

certain conversational patterns is important in order to elevate levels of satisfaction.

Likewise, Rogerson-Revell (2010) demonstrates the function of communication

among native and nonnative speakers of English in international business meetings in

order to reveal some of the obstacles faced by international businesses. She suggests that

realistic examples should be used to create business communication training resources in

order to facilitate the efficiency of communication interactions among native and

nonnative speakers in international contexts. This issue is crucial, as about 40% of

organizations in the US send their managers overseas to conduct a business or activity

without training them in aspects of the new culture (Windham International & National

Foreign Trade Council, 1996). Madlock (2012) has also provided strong support for the
 53

role that cultural congruency plays in both macro and micro cultures (i.e., social culture

and organizational culture).

To further emphasize the impact of communication practices in international

settings, Ehrenreich (2010) examined the use of English in multinational firms applying

the practice Business English as a Lingua Franca (BELF) in a study that appears to

contain linguistics research and business communication concepts. BELF refers to

“English used as a ‘neutral’ and shared communication code. BELF is neutral in the

sense that none of the speakers can claim it as her/his mother tongue; it is shared in the

sense that it is used for conducting business within the global business discourse

community, whose members are BELF users and communicators in their own right – not

‘non-native speakers’ or ‘learners’” (Louhiala-Salminen et al., 2005, p. 403). The

researcher interviewed 24 participants to observe them in different meeting settings. The

use of BELF indicated that speaking English in international communication purposes

within international business do not imply the same intended meaning when the native

speakers speak it. In fact, Kankaanranta and Planken (2010) supported the previous

study and stated, “BELF can be characterized as a simplified, hybridized, and highly

dynamic communication code. BELF competence calls for clarity and accuracy of

content (rather than linguistic correctness) and knowledge of business-specific

vocabulary and genre conventions (rather than only “general” English)” (p. 380).

Nowadays, BELF practices are widely appreciated by business professionals due to their

high level of success in multinational organizations.

 54

In addition, Downing (2011) highlights the importance of providing new

employees with proper training techniques and offering knowledge tools to facilitate their

duties in an effective manner. Cross-cultural communication understanding that is

offered in accordance with the sensitivity of a particular subject relates to employees’ job

satisfaction and organizational commitment. Power distance, avoidance messages,

communication apprehension, and communication satisfaction are the variables most

associated with instances where a sense of communication understanding is not cultivated

(Madlock, 2012).

By the same token, a study by Rogers, Gunesekera, and Yang (2011) included a

comparative analysis of management’s skillful manipulation in terms of the use of

language on organizational communication understanding in a firm from 1987 to 2004.

Rogers et al. (2011) suggested “language options—thematic devices, modifiers, verbs,

and sentence subjects—that managers should consider when formulating messages about

the strategic changes they envision” (p. 256). Furthermore, Dawson et al. (2011)

investigated communication across cultures, and found that it has a major impact on

management effectiveness and work productive. Also, the effectiveness of the feedback

from leaders associated with non-verbal communication techniques intended to have

positive reinforcement, to increase productivity, and overall quality. Dawson et al.

(2011) added, integrating interactive multicultural workforce into a team improves

satisfaction and reduces turnover intentions within the environment of the workplace.

Rudd and Mills (2015) pointed out the climate of a workplace such as philosophies,

ideologies, values, assumptions, beliefs, expectations, and attitudes implemented within

 55

organization structure shape the organization’s culture, and that organizational culture

significantly impacts the organization and its employees.

Not only cross-cultural communication, but also cross-generational

communication is important. Demographic changes appear to predict labor shortages in

the future due to changes in the various generations employed in the hospitality and

tourism industry, with older workers representing more than half of the industry’s

workforce (Fu & Mount, 2002). Moreover, the millennial generation has shown an

increasing intention to leave the industry mainly due to job conditions (Park & Gursoy,

2012). These factors, along with labor shortages and high turnover problems in the

industry, have drawn attention to the need to attract older workers and elevate their

satisfaction with the job (Fu & Mount, 2002).

Managing generational differences among workers is challenging in the

workplace due to different perceptions among the different generations. It is sometimes

suggested that older workers are likely to be physically incapacitated, unintelligent,

inflexible, and hard to train, as well as less motivated, less productive, and less able to

adapt (Fu & Mount, 2002). On the other hand, organizations prefer older workers due to

the advantages they hold, including reliability; carefulness, responsibility; stability; a

deep sense of work ethic; and loyalty (Fu & Mount, 2002). To retain older workers,

researchers have highlighted the importance of good communication in this area, showing

that communication satisfaction affects older workers’ job satisfaction and helps keep

them in the organization (Fu & Mount, 2002). Job conditions that organizations can
 56

implement or improve to retain older workers include effective vertical communication

and a sense of work cooperation.

As organizations work to retain older workers, they should also acknowledge the

younger generations’ requirements and attempt to increase their job satisfaction by

understanding their psychological and communication needs. In particular, younger

generations are heavily dependent on technology and prefer email communications,

unlike older workers who favor face-to-face communications (Gursoy, Maier, & Chic,

2008). Chiang et al. (2008) indicated that hotel workers who are acquiring high level of

effective and satisfied communication are more likely to preform better and motivated

toward their workplace. Although factors that contribute to retain older employees’ job

satisfaction have been identified, factors used to retain young are not sufficient (Mao &

Hale, 2015). Some factors that have been discovered contributing to younger employees’

job satisfaction are the use of effective downward communication and corporate

information (Fu & Mount, 2002). Mao and Hale (2015) indicated that younger

generation workers are in need of sufficient information about their job and organization

to be satisfied with their communication. Avery et al. (2009) and Dawson et al. (2014)

suggested carefully examining and paying attention to the effective communication with

a multiculturally diverse workforce in the hospitality and tourism industry will help retain

young generation and identify factors influencing job satisfaction.

Leadership in organizational communication is a sensitive issue for top

management as well as for all people working in the supervisory positions.

Communication has been found to play a role in shaping the leadership traits within an
 57

organization (Clifton, 2012). Communication skills and behaviors are desired and

appreciated, and they enhance performance (Keyton et al., 2013). Strategic and effective

communication by leaders satisfy followers as it positively linked to operational

effectiveness, as well as increased overall effectiveness of the organization (Seyitoglu &

Yüzbaşioglu, 2015). Operational effectiveness is influenced by cultural elements of

communication and organization adapted by managers (Seyitoglu & Yüzbaşioglu, 2015).

Moreover, Madlock and Kennedy-Lightsey (2010) have addressed how positive

relationships and subordinates’ organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and

communication satisfaction are affected by negative communication behaviors delivered

by supervisors.

Wolvin (1994) conducted a study that examined communication in the hospitality

industry and findings illustrated how the educational background of graduates such as

speaking, listening, and interaction significantly impact internal communication in

hospitality organizations. Thus, organizations should acknowledge the importance of

communication training so that employees, managers, and executives can communicate

effectively (Wolvin, 1994). Hospitality managers’ success is determined by the

effectiveness of interaction with employees, which is influenced by communication

skills. On the contrary, poor communication creates negative attitudes, high turnover and

absenteeism, and increase stress (Thomas, 1991).

The significance of effective communication in multicultural workforce is to

boost employees’ contribution to the work effort. Culturally diverse members face

obstacles to contribute in a creative and innovative environment due to serious

 58

miscommunication with their managers (DA, 2014). According to DA (2014)

multicultural employees “have different norms and beliefs may also have different values

and work ethics” (p. 323), such a differences increase the managers’ practices challenges

due to ambiguity, complexity, and confusion while communicating with them. The

negative consequences of diversity can hurt feelings, low group cohesion and morale, and

even bullying (DA, 2014).

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem has been defined as one of the dimensional constructs of an individual,

an individual’s overall self-evaluation of his or her competencies, and general sense of

worth (Rosenberg, 1965; Wu, Birtch, Chiang & Zhang, 2016). In addition, self-esteem is

an evaluation of what people perceive about themselves, Korman (1970) pointed out that

self-esteem reflects the degree to which an individual “sees him [her]self as a competent,

need-satisfying individual” (p. 32). Kessler, Price, and Wortman (1985), view

self-esteem as an individual’s component of coping capacity; thus, self-esteem is

correlated with positive psychological outcomes, such as psychological adjustment,

positive emotions, and prosaically behavior (Bajaj, Robins & Pande, 2016; Leary &

MacDonald, 2003). An individual with high self-esteem tends to have a favorable

personal sense and like their component as if he or she is capable, accepted, and valued

by others (Korman, 1966; Pelham & Swann1989; Reitz, Motti-Stefanidi & Asendorpf,

2016; Rosenberg, 1986; Stets & Burke, 2003).

Numerous studies have examined the role of self-esteem in the context of

organization. It has been found that self-esteem provides individuals with the ability to
 59

manage and tolerate and uncertainties (Hodson, Hogg, & MacInnis, 2009; Thau et al.,

2007); whereas, uncertainty threatens individuals’ sense of self-coherence (De Cremer &

Sedikides, 2005). Thus, Campbell (1990) indicated that a person with high self-esteem

has the ability to define the concept of self, whereas uncertainty has an impact on his or

her self-concept or sense of self-coherence (Campbell, 1990). Individuals with high

levels of self-esteem tend to be capable of managing their ability to overcome issues

threatening their selves (Greenberg et al., 1993; Reitz et al., 2016). Furthermore, these

individuals do not perceive that it is possible to lose their organizational membership

(Callero, 2003). Individuals with high self-esteem are less likely to experience anxiety,

stress, or other negative emotions affecting their well-being because high self-esteem

enhances the capacity for coping and promotes physical and mental health (Bajaj et al.,

2016; Greenberg et al., 1992; Taylor & Brown, 1988). Well-being was found to be a key

factor that is correlated to self-esteem (Bajaj et al., 2016; Kong, Zhao, & You, 2013;

Krieger, Hermann, Zimmermann, & Grosse, 2015; Lin, 2015).

In contrast, low self-esteem is more likely to drive a person to perceive his or her

competency negatively as if he or she does not have access to personal and external

resources to resolve uncertainties (Baumeister, 1993; Greco & Roger, 2001; Reitz et al.,

2016). A person may avoid seeking personal and external resources because they fear

negative feedback (Dandeneau & Baldwin, 2004). Within this realm, low self-esteem

was found to diminish an individual’s ability to use cognitive skills and external

resources to cope (Dandeneau & Baldwin, 2009; Danielsson & Bengtsson, 2016).

Nahum-Shani, Henderson, Lim, and Vinokur (2014) and Dandeneau and Baldwin (2009)
 60

noted that a high level of self-esteem provides an individual with the ability to focus his

or her attention on positive information, to manage uncertainty, and to consider the

availability of external resources, such as social support.

Scholars who contributed to research on the enhancement of self-esteem such as

Randal, Pratt, and Bucci (2015) conducted a study examining mindfulness and

self-esteem. Results revealed a strong, positive relationship between mindfulness and

self-esteem; individuals with higher mindfulness appeared not to absorb the negative

feelings and thoughts that contribute to low self-esteem (Pepping, O’Donovan, & Davis,

2013). Negative feelings and critical thoughts are associated with low self-esteem (Rhee,

Chang, & Rhee, 2003; Wu et al., 2016). Within the organizational context, Pierce and

Gardner (2004) in their conducted review of self-esteem for the past decades indicated

that an individual’s self-esteem in the workplace plays an important role in his or her

motivation, attitude, behavior, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, citizenship

behavior, role performance, and turnover intention.

Pierce and Gardner (2004) addressed several factors determine self-esteem,

including the following:

(1) the implicit signals sent by the environmental structures to which one is

exposed, (2) messages sent from significant others in one’s social environment,

and (3) the individual’s feelings of efficacy and competence derived from his/her

direct and personal experiences. (p. 593)

Within work environments, developing social systems reduces employees’

self-esteem because people develop mistrust beliefs (Kashyap & Rangnekar, 2016;
 61

Korman, 1971). The attitude and behavior toward others attributed to sense of self and

cognitive consistency (Latham & Cummings, 2000). Korman (1970) and Reitz et al.

(2016) noted that individual with high self-esteem tend to have a positive attitude toward

organization involvement which can enhance individual evaluation of the self. Another

important factor that determines self-esteem is the social messages received (Baumeister,

1999; Brockner, 1988; Khan, Gagné, Yang & Shapka, 2016). Receiving messages and

internalizing them through social construction communicative ways by the person who

evaluate the individual’s work will impact an individual’s evaluation of his or her

self-concept (Khan et al, 2016; Pierce & Gardner, 2004). Moreover, successful people

tend to see themselves positively based on personal experience; this can boost an

individual’s self-esteem (Khan et al, 2016; Pierce & Gardner, 2004).

Tan and Peng (1997) and Culbertson and Jackson (2016) investigated the

relationship between job complexity and self-esteem. They found a positive relationship

between job complexity (such as complex feedback, task identity, and job significance)

and an employee’s self-esteem. When an employee receives positive feedback regarding

to outstanding performance in the organization, individual will “experience a sense of

achievement” that impacting self-esteem positively (Tan & Peng, 1997, p. 378).

In addition, self-esteem is found associated with organizational culture,

specifically, in the message process in the organization (Baumeister, 1999; Brookover et

al., 1964; Reitz, Motti-Stefanidi & Asendorpf, 2014); thus, the source of the message

(trusting relationships, supportiveness, leader–member relationship, and workplace

discrimination) also is a key factor shaping self-esteem (Huang, Wang, Wu & You, 2016;
 62

Pierce & Gardner, 2004). Low self-esteem is associated with high oral-communication

apprehension (Richmond & Falcione, 1977; Wu, Birtch, Chiang & Zhang, 2016), making

an individual unwilling to engage in self-disclosure and causing feelings of isolation and

ineffective social interaction (Heston & Andersen, 1972; Wu et al., 2016). Ineffective

communication practices from supervisors toward employees tend to be damaging to a

person’s self-esteem because it plays a significant role in information sharing (Enz &

Siguaw 2000; Hughes 2003; Richmond & Falcione, 1977; Srivastava & Vyas, 2015).

Information and knowledge are essential elements to empower, motivate, aspire

employees at work. On the contrary, lack of information and knowledge resulted from

ineffective communication cause decrease in employee’s level of trust, freedom,

innovation, and sense of belonging to the organization (Srivastava & Vyas, 2015).

Several studies examined the impact of self-esteem on organization, which can

affect employees’ attitudes in terms of job satisfaction (Bowden, 2002; Gardner & Pierce,

2001; Kashyap & Rangnekar, 2016; Pierce & Gardner, 2004; Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004)

and also play a key role in an individual’s organizational identification (Bowden, 2002;

Shamir & Kark, 2004), and job coping with organization (Kashyap & Rangnekar, 2016;

Staehle-Moody, 1998). Covin et al.’s (1992) study reported a significant relationship

between self-esteem and aspects of job satisfaction, such as the kind of work an

employee performs, supervision, pay, and general satisfaction. Similarly, Bowden (2002)

and Kashyap & Rangnekar (2016) found the correlation between self-esteem and job

satisfaction plays a positive role in employee’s personal feelings of fulfillment. Along

with the impact of self-esteem on employees’ job satisfaction, researchers investigated

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the relationship between self-esteem and employees’ commitment. A positive

relationship between self-esteem and commitment was found in the literature, where

individuals with high self-esteem were more likely to be committed to their job than

individuals who reported low self-esteem (Gardner & Pierce, 2001; Kashyap &

Rangnekar, 2016; Lee, 2003; Tang, Singer & Roberts, 2000; Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004).

In addition, researchers reported a positive relationship between self-esteem and

feedback-seeking behavior (Brockner, 1988; Van Dyne et al., 1990; Whelpley &

McDaniel, 2016). The findings suggested that individuals with high self-esteem tend to

have positive feedback-seeking behavior, using the information to cope and perform

better. Korman (1970) indicated that an individual who is motivated to perform better at

work was found to have a positive self-image and self-cognition, leading to engagement

in positive behaviors and controlled attitudes. High self-esteem was observed to be

correlated with self-enhancement; therefore, researchers found that individuals with high

self-esteem had strong self-efficacy, which in turn elevated their level of performance

(Gardner et al., 2000; Gardner & Pierce, 1998; Marion-Landais, 2000; Pierce et al., 1989;

wu et al., 2016). Meanwhile, studies predicted that self-esteem can influence turnover

and turnover intention (Bowden, 2002; Gardner & Pierce, 2001; Kashyap & Rangnekar,

2016; Norman, Gardner, & Pierce, 2015; Phillips & Hall, 2001; Vecchio, 2000). These

studies suggested that individuals with high self-esteem feel that they are valuable to their

organizations and do not attempt to leave their workplace.

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Information Seeking

Managing behavior in organizations has evolved over time, and communication

behaviors within organizations reveal critical aspects of organizational settings, ranging

from human attitudes in the workplace to relational maintenance behaviors among

employees in the same working environment. Keyton et al. (2013) have identified ten

common communication behaviors that occur in the workplace, two of which are sharing

information and seeking feedback. The communication of information as part of the

human behavior of organizations is complicated for a variety of reasons including:

context, demographics, expertise, psychological factors, information users’ needs,

information providers’ needs, motivating and inhibiting factors, features of the

information seeking process, characteristics related to the information, and source factors

(Robson & Robinson, 2013).

Information seeking is an activity that engages employees and managers in the

workplace and takes place when employees seek or need information regarding a

knowledge gap with respect to their task duties (Robson & Robinson, 2013). If

subordinates seek feedback and information in their work environments, this tends to

help them cope better and learn as it enhances their performance as a result of their ability

to understand their duties more clearly (Crommelinck & Anseel, 2013; Dawson et al.,

2011). Furthermore, satisfaction with the information provided is associated with

employees’ job satisfaction and reduces intention to leave (Crommelinck & Anseel,

2013). Chen, Lam, and Zhong (2007) assert that improved performance based on
 65

information seeking correlates with the development of a higher quality leader-member

exchange relationship.

However, there are concerns that some individuals may not be motivated to

communicate with their superiors for a variety of reasons. Cognitive avoidance from

subordinates is a key factor affecting the communication process with respect to seeking

information (Crommelinck & Anseel, 2013). The avoidance of information seeking is

attributed to the fact that it might affect employees’ self-esteem and indicate their

weakness, especially in the case of seeking negative feedback (Ashford, Blatt, &

VandeWalle, 2003).

Another factor related to information seeking is the source of the information;

employees might not take action or communicate with their supervisors because they

question the credibility and characteristics of the information source (Robson &

Robinson, 2013). In such cases employees may dismiss the new information and stick

with the existing information. In addition, some subordinates may not wish to seek or

develop better relationships in order to avoid being involved and to contribute more

effectively to teamwork and to the organization; therefore, managers perceive them as

unfavorable and undesirable workers and fail to provide them with adequate information

for future tasks (Chen et al., 2007). Organizational members may seek information

directly or indirectly from their immediate managers, or seek information from third

party such as colleagues. Direct information-seeking reveals the strength relationship

between leaders and members that provide accurate information. On the other hand,
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indirectly asking for information can indicate the level of discomfort between manager

and subordinate (Lee et al., 2007).

In seeking information, a perceived transformational leadership style has been

found to lead subordinates to be more eager to seek information from supervisors

(Crommelinck & Anseel, 2013). Moreover, a high quality relationship between the

supervisor and the subordinate enhances the exchange of information. Leaders should

therefore promote better quality supervisor–subordinate relationships to overcome these

information seeking issues (Chen et al., 2007). Transactional relationship processes

foster levels of trust and help to maintain knowledge, skills, and abilities by influencing

people based on communication and information. Furthermore, individuals need to

overcome the obstacles to seeking information in order to become trustworthy and to

avoid being seen as part of the out-group. They are able to develop their career and

enhance the organization’s performance by focusing on behaviors such as

self-assessment, self-improvement, self-enhancement, and self-verification

(Crommelinck & Anseel, 2013).

In this research study, the source of the information will be under investigation

due to the critical role that managers play in the hospitality and tourism industry. When

managers are the source of information, they can encourage information and provide

clear messages to subordinates (Brownell, 1991) or they can control scarce resources,

such as decision processes, boundaries, and knowledge and information (Morgan, 1986).

In addition, abusive managers may withhold critical information from their employees in

order to practice their power (Crommelinck & Anseel, 2013).

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In addition, this study will examine the information seeking acting as a mediator

of the relationship between effective communication and job satisfaction, engagement,

and turnover. A mediator variable is known as a variable that explains the relationship

between dependent variable and independent variable (Baron & Kenny, 1986). The

independent variable influence the mediator variable, then the mediator influences the

dependent variable. Studies on the influence of information seeking on communication

and on the relevance to fostering job satisfaction, engagement, and turnover intention

provided a basis for the consideration of information seeking as a mediating variable in

the job outcomes linkage. Some scholars assume that individuals who are motivated to

seek information lead to more satisfaction with their jobs and engaged more in workplace

and lower employee turnover (Butler, 1993; Morrison, 1993; Santosa, Wei & Chan,

2005; Venkatraman, 1990).

The hospitality and tourism industry involves multinational employees, and the

quality of the information is based on the source if he or she able to empathize and

understand others’ viewpoint to overcome cross-cultural communication (Brownell,

1992). Because of the special characteristics and high context culture of the Saudi

nationals such as indirect communication style and hierarchy sensitivity, especially

female workers, the study will explore whether the source of information influence

employees to seek information because of status differences or not.

Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction is an essential element determining the work quality of life of an

employee (Karatepe & Karadas, 2015). Organizations strive to overcome any obstacles
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that might affect employees’ well-being to achieve optimal performance that can be

affected by feelings and emotions generated from workplace (Pak, 2007). Hoppock

(1935) addressed the psychological and environmental conditions, and how they fit in the

organization and play a role in an individual’s satisfaction with a job (Ellickson, 2002).

Job satisfaction refers to “an attitude that individuals have about their jobs, results from

their perception of jobs, and the degree to which there is a good fit between individuals

and organization” (Ivancevich, Olekalns, & Matteson, 1997, p. 91). Employees’ job

satisfaction builds upon the perceptions of job aspects along with whether the job has met

the expectations that have been determined by the ideas, beliefs and values of the

individuals (Chan, Pan, & Lee, 2004; Locke, 1969). Although job satisfaction has been

long confirmed as outcome factor, it is considered as the most reliable indicator of

employee’s well-being (Faragher, Cass & Cooper, 2005; Stengård et al., 2016).

Numerous studies have investigated job satisfaction in the workplace (e.g., Hoppock,

1935; Karatepe & Karadas, 2015; Lester, 1987; Wanous & Lawler, 1972; Lu, Lu,

Gursoy, & Neale, 2016; Sun, Gergen, Avila, & Green, 2016), and its impact on job

performance (e.g., Fitzgerald, 1972; Iaffaldano & Muchinsky, 1985; Mangione & Quinn,

1975; McGuigan, McGuigan & Mallett, 2016; Saputro, Paramita, & Gagah, 2016),

absenteeism (Clegg, 1983; Saputro, Paramita, & Gagah, 2016; Steers & Rhodes, 1978)

and turnover (Coomber & Barriball, 2007; Lu, Lu, Gursoy, & Neale, 2016; Mobley,

Griffeth, Hand, & Meglino, 1979; Tongchaiprasit & Ariyabuddhiphongs, 2016).

Researchers investigating job satisfaction vary in their attitudes and values based

on aspects of job satisfaction (Lester, 1987). Other researchers have conducted studies
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that have indicated job satisfaction as both an independent and dependent variable

(Wanous & Lawler, 1972). Within the hospitality and tourism industry, job satisfaction

has been examined from different perspectives. Some investigations have been focused

on the role of leader–member relations (George & Hancer, 2004; Liao, Hu, & Chung,

2009; Wang et al, 2016); leadership (Kim & Brymer, 2011; Mohamed, 2016); job

characteristic (Ozturk, Hancer & Im, 2014); employee empowerment (Domínguez-Falcón,

Martín-Santana, & De Saá-Pérez, 2016; Elbeyi, Yuksel, & Yalcin, 2011; Gazzoli, Hancer,

& Park, 2010); stress (Kim, Murrmann, & Lee, 2009; Tongchaiprasit &

Ariyabuddhiphongs, 2016; Zhao & Ghiselli, 2016); emotional labor (Han, Bonn, & Cho,

2016; Lam & Chen, 2012); and turnover intention (Cheung & Wu, 2012; Han, Bonn, &

Cho, 2016; Kim & Brymer, 2011; Lu & Gursoy, 2016; Tongchaiprasit &

Ariyabuddhiphongs, 2016).

Lee and Moreo (2007) conducted a study examining job satisfaction and attitude

toward the workplace from seasonal employees working in the lodging industry. Lee and

Moreo (2007) asserted that management and personal feelings were significant factors

that influence job satisfaction more than the difficulty of the job and work environment.

Results indicated that employees who were satisfied with their managers’ practices

scored higher job satisfaction and that supervisory position holders must have leadership

skills, especially regarding the use of feedback. Dierendonck, Haynes, Borrill, and Stride

(2004) also affirmed that providing feedback is a significant leadership skill that

essentially enhances employees’ well-being. In addition, the ability to communicate with

co-workers and supervisors within the culturally diverse setting was found to be another
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factor employees mentioned as vital to a healthy work environment (Lee & Moreo,

2007).

As previously discussed, personal control and feelings of helplessness were found

to be significant predictors of well-being (Spector, 2002). Personal control is related to

the well-being broadax which is displeasure pleasure, anxiety comfort, and depression

enthusiasm (Warr, 2007). Also, personal control has been linked to another well-being

category containing subjective well-being, workplace well-being, and psychological

well-being (Page & Vella-Brodrick, 2009). Subjective well-being at work refers to “the

degree to which one’s satisfaction with their job contributes to their overall life

satisfaction” (Page & Vella-Brodrick, 2009, p. 446). Scholars claim that life satisfaction

is correlated with job satisfaction, while others consider job satisfaction as contributing to

overall life satisfaction (Rode, 2004). Workplace well-being within organization

structures promotes healthy organizational behavior (Page & Vella-Brodrick, 2009) and

organizational scholarship (Cameron & Caza 2004; Cameron et al. 2003). Page and

Vella-Brodrick (2009) proposed that “subjective and psychological well-being should be

viewed as core components of employee mental health and represent positive feelings

and positive functions respectively” (p. 443). Furthermore, mental health can be defined

as the presence of psychological well-being rather than the absence of illness (Keyes

2006; Page & Vella-Brodrick, 2009). Organizational health necessitates preserving and

promoting mental health as it affects turnover and performance (Cotton & Hart, 2003;

Page & Vella-Brodrick, 2009)

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A study by Spector (2002) suggested that personal control is beneficial to handle

workplace stressors where personal control of employee well-being is the key. Spector

and Fox (2002) indicated that high self-control increases positive behavior that in turn

increase individual’s self-esteem, and vice versa. Another study suggested that personal

control is valuable for well-being due to the ability personal control provides to an

individual to achieve the desired goals. Some of the desired goals will increase

employee’s well-being, such as having access to work-related and performance-related

information (Sparr & Sonnentag, 2008). Deprivation of such work related information

decreases job satisfaction causing stress and worry (Sparr & Sonnentag, 2008), which

negatively impact an employee’s well-being (cf. Spector, 2002). In spite of the negative

consequences resulting from information deprivation, it also generates helplessness,

which can be linked to feelings of depression, anxiety and physical illness (Peterson et

al., 1993; Seligman, 1975).

Job Engagement

Christensen, Hughes, and Rog (2008) have pointed to the importance of human

resource strategic management as a means of paying more attention to employee

engagement beyond a focus on recruitment and retention of employees. Employee

engagement is defined as “a heightened emotional and intellectual connection that an

employee has for his/her job, organization, manager, or co-workers that in turn influences

him/her to apply additional discretionary effort to his/her work” (Gibbons, 2006, p. 5).

Schaufeli et al. (2002) have defined work engagement as “a positive, fulfilling,

work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption” (p.
 72

74). According to Hewitt and Associates (2004), an individual’s high level of

engagement contributes to the success of an organization or business in ways such as

service quality, customer satisfaction, productivity, sales, profitability, and employee

performance (Karatepe, 2013; Takeuchi et al., 2007). Thus, employees have a desire to

remain in their workplaces, which in turn reduces turnover (Christensen et al., 2008).

Studies have confirmed that employees with high levels of enthusiasm are able to apply

learned expertise during work, which also increases organizational commitment (Ahmad

& Bakar, 2003; Bartlett, 2001; Facteau et al., 1995).

Previous studies have identified factors that influence work engagement in the

hospitality and tourism industry. These include career growth, workplace pride,

coworkers’ attitudes, employee development, nature of the job, personal relationships

with managers, trust and integrity, feedback from managers, and managers interacting

with subordinates (Gibbons, 2006). In addition, Gibbons (2006) claims that managers are

expected to behave with integrity, treat employees with respect, communicate effectively,

and foster personal relationships with direct reports in order to elevate employees’

involvement in the workplace. Other studies show that training, empowerment, and

rewards are indicators of employee engagement (Boselie et al., 2005; Pfeffer, 1994) and

leadership quality (Christensen et al., 2008; Day & Lord; 1988; Morton, 2005).

Perrin (2005) indicated that the level of engagement varies from organization to

organization based on the size and cultural background of the organization; the global

average engagement rate is 14 percent. The results showed that employee engagement

differs among nations, such as Mexico (40%), Brazil (31%), the US (21%), Belgium
 73

(18%), and Canada (17%). Perrin (2003) also reported that 66% of engaged employees

aim to stay in their organizations. In addition, hospitality and tourism firms are facing

obstacles with high turnover and engaging employees (Christensen et al., 2008; Karatepe,

2013). That is, work environments in hospitality and tourism organizations require

employees to serve customers in a challenging and competitive market (De Jong & De

Ruyter, 2004). Whereas, employee engagement at workplace can determines customer

satisfaction (Moliner et al., 2008).

A multicultural workforce has raised concerns regarding language fluency’s

effects on job engagement and commitment (Sanchez, 2006). This impacts employees’

morale, productivity, and quality (Loosemore & Lee, 2002). Also, language fluency

causing frustration maximizing employees’ sensitivity with different cultural

backgrounds (Christensen-Hughes, 1992), as employees are reluctant to communicate

with managers. Balhs (1998) reported that lost productivity caused by workers with

limited English skills cost $65 billion annually. Misunderstanding the cultural

differences can result in ineffective directing, motivating, communicating, and rewarding

of employees (Lee & Chon, 2000).

Ten, Brummelhuis, Bakker, Hetland, and Keulemans (2012) examined the effects

of new ways of working on work engagement and exhaustion. The new ways of working

involve diversifying communication interactions in the workplace, and the study found

engagement positively correlated with communication. In addition, the relationship with

daily exhaustion was influenced by effective and efficient communication. Effective and

efficient communication boost work engagement and provide employees with more
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control over their work processes (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007). Further, fast-paced

information sharing and constant connectivity facilitate effective communication among

coworkers (Katz & Aarhus, 2002). At the same time, continuous connectivity and

interruptions can cause work disengagement (Spiegelman & Detsky, 2008). Work

engagement and effective communication can prevent employees from being isolated

(Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Walther, 1992). Russel (2003) indicated that work

engagement and exhaustion are sub-dimensions of burnout, which affects well-being.

Burnout is the state of emotional, physical, and cognitive exhaustion, which is also

associated with poor health (Hock, 1988; Maslach & Jackson, 1984; Maslach, Jackson, &

Leiter, 1996; Maslach et al., 2001; Pines & Aronson, 1981). To prevent low levels of

work engagement and exhaustion, effective communication in the work environment is

needed to help employees feel enthusiastic, energized, and motivated in their jobs

(Christensen et al., 2008). Shuck et al. (2013) pointed out that measuring employee

engagement is based on employee’s active psychological state unlike the measure of

employee job satisfaction which focuses on work attitude and general employee

sentiment.

Previous research has investigated the relationship between burnout and

engagement (Schaufeli et al., 2002). Pienaar and Willemse (2008) examined the

relationships between burnout, engagement, coping, and general health of employees in

the hospitality industry of a South African city. It was found that employees’ well-being

was influenced by their avoidant coping strategies and personal feelings, which refers to

emotional labor. Face-to-face communication with customers involves emotional anxiety

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(Sandiford & Seymour, 2007). Within the hospitality and tourism industry, employees

who have emotional labor are experiencing high level of stress, frequent turnover, and

low levels of satisfaction (Pizam, 2004). Researchers have identified an increase in

occupational stress in the hospitality and tourism industry during the last 15 to 20 years

(Murray-Gibbons & Gibbons, 2007).

Turnover Intention

Organizations worldwide identify employee turnover as a serious issue that

human resources management has to deal with. Academics and professionals have been

heavily involved in attempts to control turnover (Cascio, 2003; Cotton & Tuttle, 1986;

Hongvichit, 2015; Mowday et al., 1982). High employee turnover rate has been

identified as a common factor associeated with reducing the overall productivity of

hospitality and tourism organizations and increasing the costs associated with replacing

and recruiting new employees (Abbasi & Hollman, 2000; Cascio, 2003; Iqbal, 2010;

Niode, 2011; Tiwari, 2015). High level of turnover not only affects the organization

itself; it can also influence other employees working in the same environment to leave

their jobs (Louden, 2012). The cost of employee turnover can reach between 1.5 and 2.5

times the current employee’s annual salary (Cascio, 2003). Moreover, losing employees

is linked to a loss of business revenue (Tiwari, 2015).

The hospitality and tourism industry has acknowledged concerns regarding the

high costs of replacing and recruiting employees as a result of high turnover of staff

(Carbery, Garavan, O’Brien, & McDonnell, 2003; Denvir & McMahon, 1992; Madera,

Dawson, & Neal, 2014). According to the U.S. Department of Labor (2013), turnover is
 76

50% higher in the leisure and hospitality industries (4.8% per month) compared to other

industries with overall turnover rates of 3.3% per month. From an economic point of

view, the average cost of employee replacement is $13,996 (O’Connel, 2007). When

replacing an employee after two or more years of employment costs an organization an

average of $47,000 (Avery et al., 2011). In the United States, the annual employee

replacement is over $25 billion (McKeown, 2010). Meanwhile, organizations lose $300

billion a year in lost productivity because of the dissatisfied employees (James &

Mathew, 2012). This situation is not exclusive to the United States. Employee turnover

in Saudi Arabia is costing its businesses SR35bn ($9.3bn) annually (Al-mansour, 2013).

Not only hospitality organizations show great deals of concerns regarding to the cost of

recruiting and training new employees, but also concerns regarding to the quality service

and the image of the organization have been addressed (Harrington & Keating, 2006;

Tiwari, 2015). New employees cannot perform at the same level of departed employees

(Tiwari, 2015). Thus, the quality of services delivered by new employees can negatively

impact an organization’s image.

Heneman and Judge (2009) show that turnover can be divided into two categories:

voluntary and involuntary turnover. Involuntary turnover includes discharging an

employee due to discipline or job performance issues and downsizing actions by

organizations. Examples of voluntary turnover include psychological contract and the

cognitive ability of employee (Clinton & Guest 2014; Maltarich, Nyberg & Reilly 2010).

Voluntary turnover can be avoided by taking actions such as pay raises and improved

management practices, while unavoidable turnover occurs in out-of-control

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circumstances. Previous studies have identified factors that cause turnover, including a

toxic workplace environment, poor managerial styles, insignificant hiring practices as

well as a lack of a competitive compensation system and recognition (Abbasi & Hollman,

2000).

According to Mor Barak et al. (2001), turnover intention refers to “seriously

considering leaving one’s current job” (p. 633). Turnover intention has been found to be

the most accurate predictor of actual turnover (Brewer, Kovner, Greene, & Cheng, 2009;

Mor Barak et al., 2001). Turnover refers to an individual leaving his or her job

voluntarily or involuntarily, and the replacement cycle for a new employee includes

training (Woods, 1995). Researchers have found that one of the greatest predictors of

employee turnover is a deficiency of job satisfaction (Johnson, Parasuraman, Futrell, &

Black, 1990). Neglecting the importance of employee development leads to poor

performance and a high turnover rate (Mincer, 1988). In addition, managers may not

favor spending more time, money, and effort on the development of employees assuming

they have a high tendency to leave within months (Niode, 2011). A growing body of

evidence attributes employee turnover intention in Saudi Arabia to work attitudes (e.g.,

Alkhaldi, Burgess, & Connell, 2015; Alshanbri et al., 2015; Bhuian & Al-Jabri, 1996;

Jehanzeb, et al., 2015). Examples of work attitudes include insufficient training

programs, lake of supportive working environment, and lack of knowledge sharing

(Alshanbri et al., 2015; Jehanzeb, et al., 2015).

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Wright and Bonett (2007) measured the relationship between job satisfaction,

well-being, and voluntary turnover. It was found that both job satisfaction and

well-being significantly affect employee turnover.

Furthermore, effective management is significantly associated with job

satisfaction, especially in a multicultural work environment (Tran, 2016). Bhuian and

Al-Jabri (1996) claim that managers’ attitudes during job feedback is critical; if

employees are satisfied with timely information about them, they tend to stay in an

organization. Shoenfelt and Battista (2004) indicate that positive job satisfaction reduces

turnover. Moreover, job satisfaction is positively associated with organizational

commitment and negatively associated with employee turnover intention (Almalki,

2012). Similarly, Rahman, Naqvi, and Ramay (2008) suggest that there is a relationship

between negative job satisfaction and turnover intention. In the context of the economic

transformation in Saudi Arabia, organizations that endeavor to maintain a high

international market share are experiencing lower rates of turnover intention and higher

levels of commitment due to the quality of work carried out (Al- Kahtani, 2002). Thus,

employees working in healthy work environments are more likely to remain in their jobs

rather than leave.

In addition, performance appraisal and feedback are reported to be contributors to

turnover in Saudi Arabia (Iqbal, 2010). Most organizations provide a lack of authentic

feedback regarding performance in order not to hurt employees’ self-esteem (Beer,

Spector, Lawrence, Mills, & Walton, 1985). Criticizing employees’ performance as a

part of regular feedback is perceived as hostile in Saudi Arabia (Gopalakrishnan, 2002).

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Saudi employees may take feedback personally when it compares their performance with

that of foreign workers in ways that mostly favor the foreigners (Iqbal, 2010).

Furthermore, ineffective communication by managers in Saudi organizations plays an

important role in employee turnover (Iqbal, 2010). There is a noticeable lack of long-

term planning in Saudi organizations, including the absence of a philosophy for quality, a

vision, or a mission to make the organization communicate effectively with its employees

(Wang, 2008).

Based on a survey of 500 managers and employees in the Gulf Council Countries

(GCC), the Hill and Knowlton company found that a lack of effective communication by

managers makes employees look for needed information from other sources such as

external media and friends (as cited in Iqbal, 2010, p. 278). The study notes that

managers often fail to convey their message. Al-Kinani (2008) asserts that only 53

percent of Saudi Arabian employees see their managers as a useful source of information,

while the rest seek out friends or external resources to get information.

The hospitality and tourism industry has made efforts to retain employees for a

longer period of time in order to achieve business success. However, this has proven to

be very difficult because of the poor image of the industry. Without a doubt, O’Leary

and Deegan (2005) found that hospitality and tourism graduates report a negative image

of the sector due to its high turnover rate. By contrast, an exciting work culture,

professional development, and a friendly management system contribute to employee

retention (Tiwari, 2015).

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Research Propositions and Hypotheses

Based on the discussed studies, the following research questions and hypotheses

were proposed in order to provide a foundation to collect and analyze data examining the

relationship between effective communication and multicultural employees’ job

outcomes. The specific research questions and hypotheses are:

1. What are the most barriers that affect effective communication in the

hospitality and tourism workplace in Saudi Arabia?

2. Are there significant differences between employees’ ethnicity and effective

communication?

Hypothesis 1: There will be a positive relationship between employees’

background information and information seeking behaviors.

3. Are self-esteem and information seeking mediate the relationship between

effective communication and three types of job outcomes (i.e., job

satisfaction, engagement and turnover rate)?

Hypothesis 2: Effective communication will predict job satisfaction while

controlling the background and career related information, self-esteem and information

seeking.

Hypothesis 3: Effective communication will predict job engagement while

controlling the background and career related information, self-esteem and information

seeking.
 81

Hypothesis 4: Effective communication will predict turnover intention while

controlling the background and career related information, self-esteem and information

seeking.
 CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the use of human subjects, and also describes the

participants, procedures, and instrument design that were employed in this research. The

reliability of each scale is discussed as well. The purpose of this study was to examine

the relationship between effective communication and multicultural employees’ job

outcomes (e.g., intention, attitudes, and behaviors). The research objectives of the study

were to (1) explore factors that could improve effective communication, (2) examine the

mediating effects of two job factors (self-esteem and information seeking) on

communication and job outcomes, and (3) investigate if effective communication has a

relationship with overall employee wellbeing (i.e., job satisfaction, engagement) and

intention to leave.

Human Subject Review

The researcher in the study completed human subjects training and is certified by

Kent State University (KSU). The KSU Human Subjects Review Board approved the

proposal application for this study and it met the criteria for Level-1 Exemption under

federal regulation, which means the research had minimal risk to human subjects.

Participants

The sample for the study was obtained from full- and part-time employees from

various hotel operations located in the state of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The reason for

choosing to survey hotel employees in Riyadh was due to the high level of

professionalism in the training and development of hotel employees in the city. Human

82
 83

resources in Riyadh’s hotels are considered to provide advanced management practices

compared to other cities in Saudi Arabia. In addition to that, Riyadh is one of the top

tourism destinations in Saudi Arabia (SCTNH, 2016) so it attracts both local and foreign

workers.

The survey was distributed to employees at both brand and independently owned

hotels that were rated three stars and above. The number of licensed hotels in Riyadh is

85 hotels, and 35 hotels in the center of the city were included for analysis because of

their location in an important business area. Furthermore, the chosen hotels were

considered to be employing a large number of workers, domestic or foreign, which could

provide intended sample size and types of participants. According to the rule of thumb,

the expected sample size to achieve statistically significant results was at least 210

subjects (Knofczynski & Mundfrom, 2007). Van Voorhis and Morgan (2007) indicated

that to determine sample size when using six or more predictors, the number of the

participants should be 30 per variable and the minimum of sample should be 10 per

variable. Because an evaluative study is a descriptive study, the larger the sample size,

the better, so as many subjects as possible were enrolled during the enrollment period.

The literature review revealed no evaluation studies conducted that could help to

determine the exact adequate sample size (Burns & Grove, 2005).

Procedure

Hotel employees were surveyed, and data was collected during Fall 2016. Hotels’

human resource directors were contacted via emails and phone calls to seek their

permission and approval to distribute the survey to employees in their organizations.

 84

Participants returned the survey in a sealed envelope and collected by a research assistant.

The research assistant collected the sealed envelopes and mailed them back to the

researcher. The survey language was English and it was administered using paper-pencil

format. Furthermore, a consent form was provided to the participants to ensure

confidentiality and anonymity.

Snowball sampling was used to gain more participants from employees not

included in the chosen 35 hotels. The purposive and snowball sampling method was

chosen because both enable the identification of participants with the required knowledge

and characteristics that suit the needs of the study (Bailey, 2008).

Instrument Design

Mix-methods, non-experimental, and exploratory survey was used in this study.

The survey included three sections. The first section of the survey used seven scales to

investigate the key variable, communication and job related variables (i.e., effective

communication, self-esteem, information seeking, job satisfaction, engagement, and

intention to leave). The second section of the survey measured effective communication

in multicultural settings and included open-ended questions. The third section examined

employees’ backgrounds and demographic information (e.g. age, gender, membership

status, and ethnicity). The reliability of each scale measured is shown in Table 3.

Effective Communication

Both scales, the Conversational Effectiveness Scale by Spitzberg and Phelp

(1982) and the Communication Effectiveness Scale developed by Jain and Mukherji

(2015), were used to measure the dimensions of effective communication (in

 85

multicultural settings) with the original items modified to reflect the effectiveness of

supervisor–subordinate communication at workplace. The ten items that comprised the

Conversational Effectiveness Scale had a Likert scale that ranged from 1 (strongly

disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) to indicate the perceived level of effectiveness of direct

supervisor communication. The respondents rated how much they agreed or disagreed

with items such as: “The conversations between my supervisor and me are very

beneficial.” The Chronbach’s alpha coefficient of the scale was .91 in a study conducted

by Eichhorn (2009). The Communication Effectiveness Scale was adapted from Jain and

Mukherji (2015), and the original questions were open-ended questions to assess

effective communication in a multicultural work environment. The researcher modified

the questionnaire into a seven-point Likert scale. Participants were asked to indicate their

level of agreement with eight statements based on the scale. The eight statements were

ranked from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). One of the leading questions was

“Do you think cultura‫ـ‬l diversity in teams is a major cause of anxiety and uncertainty?”

The internal consistencies of the scale indicated a coefficient alpha of 0.984 (Jain, 2015).

Self-Esteem

Ten items that were included in the Self-esteem Scale survey developed by Pierce

et al. (1989) were used to measure individual’s self-esteem. The scale items were

responded to by self-assessment. A sample item is “I am taken seriously.” Items were

scored on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree).

Pierce et al. (1989) have used the scale in numerous studies, and the internal consistency
 86

of seven samples was determined by Cronbach’s alpha, which ranged between .86 and

.96 with an average of .91.

Information Seeking Scale

The information seeking items were measured by Miller’s (1996) Information

Seeking Tactic scale. Six direct (α =. 74) and four indirect (α =. 87) items measured the

extent to which participants sought information directly from a supervisor and indirectly

from different information sources in the workplace environment. Participants responded

to statements on a 5-point Likert type scale ranging from 1 (very little extent) to 5 (very

great extent). A sample item of the subscale indirect information-seeking is “I would

indicate curiosity about the topic without directly asking for the information”, and a

sample item of the subscale direct information-seeking “I would identify what I did not

know and ask for the information.” The importance of measuring both direct and indirect

information seeking behaviors is to distinguish between individuals’ behaviors from a

cross-cultural perspective. Also, measuring direct and indirect information seeking

behaviors helps to understand an individual’s high or low status identity (Ashford, Blatt

& Walle, 2003).

Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction was assessed through six items derived from Hackman and

Oldham’s Job Diagnostic Survey. Items were scored on a five-point Likert scale ranging

from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Participants were asked to respond to

statements such as “I’m very satisfied with my supervisor.” The internal consistency of

the Job Satisfaction Scale was demonstrated in several studies (e.g., Zaniboni, Truxillo,
 87

Fraccaroli, McCune & Bertolino, 2014) with the coefficient alpha in Zaniboni et al.’s

(2014) study being 0.94. The Job Diagnostic Survey is related to an extensive range of

important individual and organizational outcomes (e.g. satisfaction), which can predict

work-related wellbeing (Rothmann, 2008).

Job Engagement

The Job Engagement Scale was developed by the Gallup Workplace Audit (1993–

1998). The instrument constituting 12 items was used to measure employee perceptions

about their workplace. The Gallup Workplace Audit has been the most frequently used

for the study of job engagement. In the proposed study, respondents rated aspects of their

engagement on a five-point Likert scale from 1 (extremely dissatisfied) to 5 (extremely

satisfied). The leading statement for employee engagement is “I know what is expected

of me at work.” Avery et al. (2007) have confirmed the reliability and the construct

validity of the scale. The validity coefficient of the Gallup Workplace Audit Scale was

0.88. The scale consists of three psychological conditions promoting engagement, which

are meaningfulness, psychological safety, and availability. The Job Engagement Scale is

an important scale to understand how workers engage differently in their work based on

work-related interactions (Gallup Workplace Audit, 1993).

Turnover Intention

Four items were developed by Suar et al. (2006) to measure turnover intention.

The scale included questions such as “How often do you think of quitting your present

organization?” The items were ranked based on a five-point Likert scale from 1 (never) to

5 (always). The coefficient alpha was .74.

 88

Background and Career Related Information

Questions related to background information were developed based on the

research purpose of this study and from related literature (Jain, 2015). Career related

information was adopted from related studies (e.g., Chuang, 2010; Chuang, Walker &

Caine-Bish, 2009; Shinnar, 2007). Questions concerning career factors (e.g., career

aspiration and intentions, impacting factors of career), and barriers impacting

communication in workplace were included in this section of the survey.

Data Analysis

The data collected were analyzed by the Statistical Package for Social Science

(SPSS). Data was analyzed via the following methods: (a) Descriptive statistics were

used to summarize demographic, background, and career related information; (b)

Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to measure the internal consistency of each measure

used; (c) mean ranking and a t-test were used to summarize communication factors and

investigate the differences in information seeking behaviors between Saudi nationals and

foreign workers; (d) a hierarchical multiple regression was conducted to examine the

mediating impact of self-esteem and information seeking on communication and job

outcomes.
 CHAPTER IV

RESULTS

The main research purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between

effective communication and multicultural employees’ job outcomes. The questionnaire

was distributed by hand. Out of 320 hard copies of the questionnaire that were

distributed among 35 hotels’ employees, 153 valid responses were generated with a

response rate of 48.9%. After the initial response, snowball sampling was used and those

employees represented more than 10 different hotels. A total of 30 responses were

received, 17 of which were usable, resulting in a usable response rate of 50.1%. A total

of 170 valid responses were used in the analysis. Some surveys were invalid due to

missing data.

Sample Profiles

The participants were 97.6% male hotel employees (n = 166) and 2.4% female

hotel employees (n = 4) as shown in Table 2. The study sample included a total of 34.7%

Saudi national workers (n = 59) and 65.3% foreign workers (n = 111). Of the

participants, 25.3% were from India (n = 43) and 21.8% were from Asia (n = 37). Most

participants (32.9%) were between 26 years old and 30 years old, followed by 29.5% in

the age group of 25 and less. Most participants (n = 103 or 60.6%) worked in five star

hotels, with the average hours worked per week being 51-60 (n = 60). The participants

worked in different hotels segments, such as the front desk (n = 77), customer service (n

= 15), and the call center (n = 7).

89
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Table 2

Respondents’ Demographic Profile

Characteristic Frequency Percentage Mean SD

Gender
Male 166 97.6
Female 4 2.4

Age 30 7.15
Less than 25 49 29.5
26-30 55 32.9
31-35 39 22.3
36-40 15 7.8
41-45 5 3.6
Over 46 7 4.2

Marital Status
Never married 71 41.1
Married without kids 40 23.5
Married with kids 44 25.9
Divorced without kids 8 4.7
Divorced with kids 6 3.5
Others 1 0.6

Education Levels
High school (HS) 29 17.1
Association (Asso.) 60 35.3
Bachelor (Bach.) 55 32.4
Graduate School 21 12.4
Others 5 2.9

Ethnicity
Saudi 59 34.7
Middle-Eastern 19 11.2
African 9 5.3
Indian 43 25.3
Asian 37 21.8
European 2 1.2
Others 1 0.6

(table continues)
 91

Table 2 (continued)

Respondents’ Demographic Profile

Characteristic Frequency Percentage Mean SD

Position
Front Office 77 45.3
Customer service 15 8.8
Call Center 7 4.1
Human Resource 5 2.9
Front Office Supervisor 8 4.7
Coordinator 6 3.5
Others 14 8.4
Missing data 38 22.4

Number of years working 4.61 4.24

in the current job
Less than 5 years 94 55.3
5-9 36 21.2
10-15 13 7.6
More than 15 3 1.8
Missing data 24 14.1

Number of years working in 5.68 4.96

Hospitality and Tourism industry
Less than 5 years 82 48.2
5-9 37 21.8
10-15 17 10
More than 15 4 2.4
Missing data 30 17.6

Industry segment
Lodging 127 74.7
Food & Beverage 12 7.1
Travel-Related Business 20 11.8
Others 11 6.5

Hotel rating
Three star hotel 15 8.8
Four star hotel 25 14.7
Five star hotel 103 60.6
Others 12 7.1
N/A 10 5.9
Missing data 5 2.9

(table continues)
 92

Table 2 (continued)

Respondents’ Demographic Profile

Characteristic Frequency Percentage Mean SD

Work hour (per week)

Less than 40 32 18.8
41-50 59 34.7
51-60 60 35.3
More than 60 7 4.1
Missing data 12 7.1

Management experience 5.17 3.92

No managerial experience 128 75.3
Less than 5 years 21 12.4
5-9 16 9.4
10-15 4 2.4
More than 15 1 0.6
Total 42 24.7

Number of employees supervised

0-5 88 51.8
6-10 18 10.6
11-15 24 14.1
16-20 8 4.7
More than 20 7 4.1
Missing data 25 14.7

Note. N=170.

Measurement Quality

The alpha value of the coefficient, the mean, and the standard deviation for each

scale are shown in Table 3.

 93

Table 3

Summary Scale Statistics of Communication Effectiveness and Employees’ Job Outcomes

Variables

Cronbach’s
Measure alpha Mean SD

Self Esteem .86 34.42 5.92

Information Seeking-Direct .78 20.00 4.50

Information Seeking-Indirect .58 12.79 2.35

Job Satisfaction .74 20.46 3.54

Job Engagement .86 42.04 7.17

Turnover Intention .53 13.53 2.33

Communication Conversational Effectiveness .69 32.88 4.89

Effective Communication in Multicultural .81 40.21 7.08

Settings

Note. N=170.

The Cronbach alpha coefficient of the current study ranged from .53 to .86.

Results of reliability tests to measure the internal consistency of each of the scales used

indicated that majority the measurements used in this study were highly reliable with the

exception of the Information Seeking-indirect and Turnover Intention scales. This

suggests good internal consistency reliability for the scale.

Communication Factors

The participants were asked to respond to questions in order to provide a deep

understanding of organizational communication from their perceptions and its impact on

their workplace, and to examine workplace behaviors that were not contained in the
 94

survey instrument (RQ1). The first question aimed to reveal whether there was an

attitude (e.g., job satisfaction) experienced by foreign workers regarding to their

workload and pay. When the participants were asked to what extent they perceived that

they worked much harder than a Saudi employee while being paid significantly less, 15.9%

(n = 27) of the respondents indicated an indifferent reaction, 7.1% (n = 12) of the

respondents indicated a dissatisfaction reaction, and 12.4% (n = 21) of the participants

perceived they were satisfied with this matter. In addition, most participants (n = 68,

40.0%) indicated that they perceived interpersonal communication in the organization

indifferently, and 27.1% (n = 46) of the respondents ranked that they were satisfied. The

third question asked participants whether they perceived any communication problems

existing in their department, company, or organization. Participants’ responses were

28.2% (n = 48) indifferent, 22.4% (n = 38) a minor problem, and 17.1% (n = 29) a

moderate problem. In addition, participants were asked “Does your supervisor’s

communication affect your job performance?” and 27.6% (n = 47) of participants

indicated that supervisor communication had a moderate effect on their job performance,

while 25.3% (n = 43) said they were indifferent, and 15.9% (n = 27) ranked it as having a

minor effect. Meanwhile, participants perceived the appropriateness of the

communication/feedback from their middle management as 30% (n = 51) slightly

inappropriate, 15.9% (n = 27) neutral, and 14.7% (n = 25) inappropriate.

On a management level, participants were asked how they viewed managerial

communication in their department, company, or organization when compared to other

managerial functions (e.g., planning and staffing). Participants’ responses were 21.8% (n
 95

= 37) slightly important and 21.2% (n = 36) neutral, while 18.2% (n = 31) perceived it as

a very important managerial function. The seventh question asked employees’

perceptions regarding the extent to which management communication barriers would

make them want to leave their job. The majority of participants (n = 69, 40.6%) had a

neutral reaction, whereas 24.1% (n = 41) responded with likely and 8.2% (n = 14)

indicated that it was extremely likely they would want to leave their jobs. The eighth

question asked participants about their satisfaction with working under the supervision of

someone from a different ethnic group. Most of the participants (n = 75, 44.1%)

perceived it indifferently and 38.2% (n = 65) responded that they were satisfied. The last

question was about employees’ understanding of intercultural communication.

Participants’ responses were positive, with 51.2% (n = 87) indicating that they had a

good understanding and 31.8% (n = 54) reporting a very good understanding of

intercultural communication.

Factors Impacting Career Path

In order to identify barriers or obstacles (i.e., lack of motivation, lack of

recognition, and stress) that hinder participants’ job intention, attitudes and behaviors or

overall wellbeing in the industry and thus impact Saudi nationals and foreign workers

career paths, participants were asked to specify the top barriers. After identifying each

barrier, participants were asked to indicate to what extent that barrier affected their career

path on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from not at all influential to extremely influential.

Mean scores of the 15 items for the ranked barriers were computed. Table 6 lists

the top career-barriers (highest mean scores). Saudi nationals perceived managers’ ego,
 96

work hours, and lack of opportunities for promotion as having the most impact on their

career paths, whereas foreign workers perceived lack of education, stereotypes and

self-doubt about their career, and lack of recognition in their organization as having a

greater impact on their career path. Although, Saudi nationals did not cite fear of

changing their career at all, these were ranked as the lowest factors affecting foreign

workers’ career path. Furthermore, foreign workers did not cite managers’ ego as a top

concern likely to interfere with their career path. Participants’ responses can be seen in

Table 4.

Table 4

Perceived Barriers Hinder Participants’ Career

Saudi Nationals Foreign Workers

Items Mean Ranking Mean Ranking

Managers’ egob 5.00 1 -- --

Work hours 4.50 2 2.50 8
Promotions 4.25 3 2.00 9
Work-family conflict 4.20 4 1.40 10
Pay and financial problems 4.17 5 3.85 5
Family/friends pressure 4.00 6 3.00 7
Disengagement 4.00 6 3.00 7
Lack of recognition 3.33 8 4.35 3
Public imageb 3.25 9 -- --
Stress 3.00 10 4.25 4
Lack of education 3.00 10 7.60 1
Stereotypes 2.83 11 4.50 2
Lack of support 2.66 12 3.66 6
Fear of changea -- -- 3.00 7

Note: a not ranked by Saudi nationals

b
not ranked by foreign workers
 97

Independent Samples t-Tests

A t-test was conducted to determine if differences existed between Saudis

employees and foreign employees on communication factors and information seeking

behaviors (i.e. direct and indirect information seeking) (RQ2; H1).

There were no statistically significant differences found for the variables with the

exception of management communication barrier lead to leaving job and conversational

effectiveness. The means for Saudi nationals and foreign workers on management

communication barrier lead to leaving job (t = 2.09, p = 0.03) were statistically different.

Results indicated that Saudi nationals showed greater mean scores for management

communication barrier lead to leaving job (M = 3.60, SD = .79) than foreigner workers

(M = 3.32, SD = .76). This result could possibly suggest that when Saudi nationals

perceive management communication, they are more likely to leave job. Also, the means

for Saudi nationals and foreign workers on conversational effectiveness (t = -3.36, p =

0.01) were statistically different. Foreign workers had higher mean score for

conversational effectiveness with their managers (M = 3.33, SD = .53) than Saudi

nationals (M = 3.06, SD = .37). Results of the t-test suggest that foreign employees were

more agreeable with managers’ conversational effectiveness. Table 5 illustrates the

summary of the t-test results.

 98

Table 5

Ethnicity Differences on Communication Factors and Job Outcomes Related Variable

Measure Ethnicity Mean t Sig. (2-tailed)

Working harder than a Saudi employee Saudis 3.60 0.62 0.53

and that you are being paid significantly less Foreigners 3.29
Interpersonal communication in the organization Saudis 3.11 -1.82 0.07
Foreigners 3.36
Communication problems existed in your Saudis 3.28 -0.64 0.52
department /organization Foreigners 3.39
Communication affecting job performance Saudis 3.09 0.16 0.86
Foreigners 3.06
Feedback from middle management Saudis 3.40 -1.27 0.20
Foreigners 3.70
Managerial communication Saudis 4.13 -0.62 0.53
Foreigners 4.30
Management communication barrier lead to Saudis 3.60 2.09 0.03*
leaving job Foreigners 3.32
Working under supervision from different ethnic Saudis 3.40 -0.8 0.42
group Foreigners 3.51
Intercultural communication understanding Saudis 3.42 -0.26 0.79
Foreigners 3.45
Self-esteem Saudis 3.74 0.11 0.90
Foreigners 3.73
Indirect information seeking Saudis 3.30 1.68 0.09
Foreigners 3.14
Direct information seeking Saudis 3.32 -0.07 0.94
Foreigners 3.33
Job satisfaction Saudis 3.32 -1.41 0.15
Foreigners 3.45
Job engagement Saudis 3.40 -1.49 0.13
Foreigners 3.55
Turnover intention Saudis 3.49 1.79 0.07
Foreigners 3.30
Conversational effectiveness Saudis 3.06 -3.36 0.01*
Foreigners 3.33
Multicultural communication effectiveness Saudis 5.04 0.24 0.80
Foreigners 5.01

Note. * p < .05

Hierarchical Multiple Regression

A series of hierarchical multiple regression was performed. A separate one for

each dependent variable: job satisfaction, job engagement, and turnover intention (RQ3;
 99

H2; H3; H4). For each case, the controlling variable (e.g., demographic and background

information) will be entered first in the model. For the dependent variable job

satisfaction, the second model of variables entered in the regression (information seeking

and self-esteem) resulted in a statistically significant increase in explained variable R2 =

.253, F(3, 136) = 15.424, p < .001, as did the third variables (conversational effectiveness

and multicultural communication effectiveness) entered into the regression equation ∆R2

=.082, F(3, 136) = 188.7361, p < .001. The results of this regression analysis indicated

that information seeking and self-esteem can explain 26% of the variance of the

dependent variable. Information seeking, self-esteem, conversational effectiveness, and

multicultural communication effectiveness provided additional 8.2% explanation of

variance on job satisfaction. The results of the analysis are shown in Table 6.

Table 6

Summary Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression

Independent variables R2 ∆R2 ∆F df1 df2 Sig.

Model 1 .021 .021 .978 3 136 .405

Model 2 .274 .253 15.424 3 133 .000***

Model 3 .356 .082 8.307 2 131 .000***

Note. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

A regression coefficient with each independent variable was computed to examine

which independent variable can explain most statistical significant. The value of the

standardized regression coefficient for each entered variable is presented in Tables 7.

 100

Table 7

The Predictors of Job Satisfaction

Independent variables B SE Beta (β) Sig.

Model 1
Age .005 .009 .058 .590
H&T Experience (Work Experiences) .007 .013 .062 .564
Saudi Nationals -.087 .109 -.071 .428
Model 2
Age .008 .008 .097 .301
H&T Experience (Work Experiences) .008 .011 .068 .469
Saudi Nationals -.044 .097 -.036 .654
Self Esteem .224 .079 .223 .006**
Indirect Info Seeking -.099 .082 -.098 .229
Direct Info Seeking .331 .063 .419 .000***
Model 3
Age .006 .007 .073 .413
H&T Experience (Work Experiences) .010 .010 .082 .356
Saudi Nationals .027 .097 .022 .779
Self Esteem .169 .078 .168 .032*
Indirect Info Seeking -.056 .081 -.055 .495
Direct Info Seeking .323 .062 .409 .000***
Conversational Effectiveness .281 .101 .230 .006**
Multicultural Communication Effectiveness .187 .055 .248 .001**

Note. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

The results of the hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed three variables

predicting the dependent variable, job satisfaction, which are conversational

effectiveness, multicultural communication effectiveness, and direct information seeking.

However, the other independent variables are not able to contribute enough to predict

workplace deviant behavior. These findings suggest that conversational effectiveness,

multicultural communication effectiveness, and direct information seeking may indeed be

important for employees’ job satisfaction. Employees who are more likely to seek
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information directly from managers and perceive the conversation effectively, they tend

to have a high level of job satisfaction.

A second hierarchical multiple regression were performed to examine the impact

of independent variables: age, work experience, nationality, direct/indirect information

seeking, conversational effectiveness, and multicultural communication effectiveness on

dependent variable, job engagement. The results of the regression analysis showed that

model two accounted for an additional 23% of the variance in job engagement, ∆R2

=.225, F(3, 133) = 13.211, p < .001, while only 5.6% of variance in the dependent

variable can be explained by the model three ∆R2 .302, F(2, 131) = 5.291, p < .01. The

results of the analysis are shown in Table 8.

Table 8

Summary Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression

Independent variables R2 ∆R2 ∆F df1 df2 Sig.

Model 1 .021 .021 .966 3 136 .411

Model 2 .246 .225 13.211 3 133 .000***

Model 3 .302 .056 5.291 2 131 .006**

Note. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

The regression coefficient analysis showed that self-esteem, direct information

seeking, conversational effectiveness, and multicultural communication effectiveness did

provide statistically significant explanation of variance on job engagement. The results

of the analysis are shown in Table 9. These findings suggest that employees with high
 102

level of self-esteem and seek their information directly found to have a higher level of job

engagement. Also, when the communication and conversation with an individual’s

manager is effective, an employee sought to be more engaged at workplace.

Table 9

The Predictors of Job Engagement

Independent variables B SE Beta (β) Sig.

Model 1
Age -9.607 .009 .000 .999
H&T Experience (Work Experiences) .008 .013 .066 .537
Saudi Nationals -.139 .111 -.112 .211
Model 2
Age .003 .008 .031 .745
H&T Experience (Work Experiences) .008 .011 .067 .483
Saudi Nationals -.117 .101 -.094 .246
Self Esteem .236 .082 .232 .005**
Indirect Info Seeking -.021 .084 -.020 .809
Direct Info Seeking .286 .065 .358 .000***
Model 3
Age .001 .008 .012 .897
H&T Experience (Work Experiences) .009 .011 .077 .402
Saudi Nationals -.044 .103 -.035 .669
Self Esteem .182 .082 .179 .029*
Indirect Info Seeking .027 .086 .027 .750
Direct Info Seeking .272 .065 .340 .000***
Conversational Effectiveness .275 .107 .222 .011*
Multicultural Communication Effectiveness .139 .057 .182 .017*

Note. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

The final hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the

impact of the abovementioned independent variables on turnover intention. The results

of the analysis are shown in Table 10. The first model ∆R2 .050, F(3, 136) = 2.386, p >

.05, and second model ∆R2 .036, F(3, 133) = 1.724, p > .05 did not provide statistically
 103

significant explanation of variance on turnover intention. Only the third model of

variables entered in the regression resulted in a statistically significant increase in

explained variable ∆R2 .199, F (2, 131) = 2.386, p < .001. In this model, the two

communication variables of conversational effectiveness and multicultural

communication effectiveness were entered as a block. As shown in Table 11, these two

variables explained a statistically significant increase in the variance of turnover

intention. The results of this analysis indicated that conservational effectiveness is a

strong predictor of turnover intention. These findings suggest that conversational

communication may indeed be important in employees’ retention. If so, focusing on

effective conversation from managers may be important for maintaining their employees

in the organization.

Table 10

Summary Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression

Independent variables R2 ∆R2 ∆F df1 df2 Sig.

Model 1 .050 .050 2.386 3 136 .072

Model 2 .086 .036 1.724 3 133 .165

Model 3 .285 .199 18.230 2 131 .000***

Note. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

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Table 11

The Predictors of Turnover Intention

Independent variables B SE Beta (β) Sig.

Model 1
Age -.001 .009 -.011 .919
H&T Experience (Work Experiences) .005 .013 .037 .728
Saudi Nationals .297 .114 .228 .010*
Model 2
Age -.002 .009 -.026 .806
H&T Experience (Work Experiences) .003 .013 .024 .817
Saudi Nationals .245 .116 .188 .036
Self Esteem -.025 .094 -.024 .788
Indirect Info Seeking .219 .097 .204 .026
Direct Info Seeking -.028 .075 -.034 .707
Model 3
Age -.003 .008 -.031 .738
H&T Experience (Work Experiences) .005 .012 .036 .701
Saudi Nationals .067 .109 .051 .539
Self Esteem .084 .087 .079 .335
Indirect Info Seeking .071 .091 .066 .433
Direct Info Seeking .064 .069 .077 .351
Conversational Effectiveness -.536 .113 -.415 .000***
Multicultural Communication Effectiveness .171 .061 .214 .006**

Note. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

Open-Ended Questions

The qualitative results for this study were collected through the part of the

questionnaire that specifically targeted qualitative data (RQ1). In particular, the

questions were structured in an open-ended manner so that the respondents could provide

their own perceptions and understandings of the concepts assessed without being limited

or controlled by the form of the questions. The advantage of using qualitative data (e.g.,

open-ended questions) is “to analyze textual data of various kinds and is aimed at

generating detail and depth” (Forman & Damschroder, 2008, p. 6).

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Qualitative Findings

In total, there were eight questions, seven of which were general questions, with

two questions relating to career in the hospitality and tourism industries. The general

questions were related to effective communication, ineffective communication,

communication in multicultural situations, precautions when interacting with people from

other cultures, deviant behaviors due to management’s ineffective communication, and

ways to solve the communication barriers that would improve employee wellbeing.

Due to the fact that the questions were designed in an open-ended manner, the

respondents were able to provide many different answers. This approach was chosen

specifically to enable the participants to add diversity to their responses and introduce

ideas and perspectives that were both common and rare. In that way, when answering the

same question, some of the respondents provided similar or identical answers, and some

mentioned concepts and interpretations that were unique to their particular points of

view.

Results are indicated in Table18. In terms of question one, there were several

common answers with the majority of responses (n = 25, 57 %) indicating that “clarity of

the information” was one of the most common indicators of effective communication.

Basically, respondents treated this question as a request to define effective

communication. The second most common answer was “listening” along with “respect,”

which were both given by 17 respondents. On the other hand, the most commonly named

trait of ineffective communication was “loud” (n=19). One respondent said that: “Yelling

at one another is ineffective.” One more statement for this response was: “When people
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scream, the listening stops and the communication becomes ineffective.” The next cluster

of popular responses involved “ignoring the employees” (n = 17), “lying” (n = 9),

“attitude” (n = 8), and “not paying attention” (n = 5).

The third question asked participants to name scenarios of effective

communication and ineffective communication in multicultural situations. The responses

to this question mainly revolved around one’s understanding of cultural differences or

lack thereof. Some of the common responses involved “speaking different languages,”

“talking politely,” “not being open-minded,” and “when managers communicate with a

high ego.” The statements the respondents supported their answers with included: “It is

important to keep an open mind when talking to different people, and not judge them

according to your own life experience.” In addition, as to the managers’ communication

with the staff, one participant said: “Often, managers can be ignorant and treat workers

with disrespect. When the workers notice this, communication becomes less of teamwork

and more of a conflict.”

Meanwhile, when respondents were asked what precautions must be kept in mind

when interacting with people from other cultures, the majority’s (n = 23) answer to this

question was “respect others’ traditions and culture.” A respondent said: “We meet many

people at work, from all around the world, cultural differences should be respected and

not rejected.” In addition, another common response was “not offending others;” a

participant said that: “a hospitality worker should be educated and mindful as to potential

differences to avoid doing or saying offensive things”.

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The fifth question had responses of two different types – the behaviors that occur

as a response to ineffective communication and the ones that represent it. The answers to

the former were reflected in responses such as “skipping work” and “low productivity,”

and the latter – “stereotype,” “inappropriate behavior,” and “unprofessional work.” A

participant noted that: “ineffective communication leads to stress at work and desire not

to go there.” Furthermore, some respondents stated that: “when feedback is only

negative, it kills the desire to work and improve.”

In addition, participants indicated major reasons why they had considered a career

in the hospitality and tourism industry. The most popular answer was “interacting with

other cultures” (n = 34). The other frequently mentioned reasons include “Job

opportunities and growing industry” (n = 26) and “I like traveling and tourism activities”

(n = 25). In particular, the respondents stated that hospitality was a robust industry, with

one saying “hospitality is never going out of business it offers great growth

opportunities.” In addition, they associated it with travelling and meeting new people,

providing responses such as “I like new experiences, and hospitality is perfect for this –

so many different interesting people, it’s like learning something new about the world

every day.” However, participants indicated some reasons behind not planning to work in

the hospitality/tourism industry in the future. “Too much work (long hours)” (n= 26) was

the most common answer; and the participants also named such reasons as “low

payment” (n = 23) and “low morale among managers” (n = 19). Specifically, some stated

that: “Hospitality looks good on the outside but it’s actually very difficult and not paid
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well.” Besides, some mentioned that “It is discouraging when your work is other

people’s rest, you keep wondering – when am I going to be like them?”

For the last question about things that should be carried out by management to

solve the communication barriers, only a small number of the employees answered. The

participants named “providing sufficient information clearly” (n = 14) and “respect” (n =

12) as some of the primary ways to solve the issues related to communication. They

stated “If only duties were explained better and we had someone to consult when we need

help – it would make things much easier.” Furthermore, they said that “The managers are

unavailable and we’re on our own, they need to show more respect to our work and be

more available for help”.

Based on the literature review, the results of all the questions can be grouped into

six main categories – understanding of effective communication, understanding of

ineffective communication, outcomes of ineffective communication, motivators in the

hospitality and tourism industry, demotivators in the hospitality and tourism industry, and

eliminating ineffective communication. A selection of statements responding to each of

the categories is presented in Table 12 (RQ1).

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Table 12

Summary Table of Participants’ Responses to Open-Ended Questions

Category Statements

Understanding of effective
Communication
Understanding of ineffective
communication
Outcomes of ineffective
communication
Motivators in hospitality
industry
Showing respect while communicating is vital as it affect others’ emotion.
I appreciate my managers when they listen to me with attention.
Body language and eye contact can keep you engaged with the
conversation.
Enthusiasm while interacting increases the level of effectiveness.
Politeness with employees helps to promote comfort and a healthier
working environment.
Speaking inappropriately loud, or yelling at one another is harmful and
hard to follow up with the information.
Lying to your teammates or your workers and untrusting them to share
work related information prevent employees from development.
When the manager is ignoring employees’ requests and complaints.
Not paying attention to what people ask you to help with.
Attitude such as ignorant behavior, as if you are better than everyone else
(about managers).
When someone is being rude, it is not effective, everything can be solved
in a peaceful way.
Lack of relationship between coworkers, no communication, information
gets lost, and people do their work deficiently.
Ineffective communication leads to stress at work and a desire not to go
there.
When feedback is only negative, it kills the desire to work and improve.
Communication becomes less of teamwork and more of a conflict.
New workers are stereotyped as useless and are not educated to be more
helpful.
Sometimes some information is not told to employees that should know it
and its leads to unprofessional work.
When a manager does not know how to communicate, he or she starts
inappropriate behaviors – yelling, disrespect, misusing language – it is
negatively affecting the entire company, not just the manager or the
worker.
I like new experiences, and hospitality is perfect for this – so many
different interesting people, it’s like learning something new about the
world every day.
Hospitality is never going out of business, it offers great growth
opportunities.
I like travelling and tourism activities.
It is a growing industry, you can build a career if you are passionate about
this industry.

(table continues)

Table 12 (continued)
Summary Table of Participants’ Responses to Open-Ended Questions
Category
Demotivators in hospitality
industry
Eliminating ineffective
communication
110
Statements
Hospitality looks good on the outside but it’s actually very difficult and
not paid well.
It is discouraging when your work is other people’s rest, you keep
wondering – when am I going to be like them?
When you are a bottom level employee in this industry – you should not
be counting on a good salary.
Managers often treat their workers with disrespect, do not give adequate
feedback, do not offer help.
It is important to give information clearly and directly and to make sure
that there is no misunderstanding and everyone is clear about their duties.
The managers are unavailable and we are on our own, they need to show
more respect to our work and be more available for help.
I wish we had better training and could ask managers for help without
being judged.
Positive feedback could improve relationships between workers and
managers.
 CHAPTER V

DISCUSSION

The main objectives of this study were to (q) explore factors that could improve

effective communication, (b) examine the mediating effects of two job factors

(self-esteem and information seeking) on the communication and job outcomes, and (c)

investigate if effective communication has a relationship with employee overall

wellbeing (i.e., job satisfaction, engagement) and intention to leave. The results of this

research indicated that Saudi nationals perceive management communication is more

likely to lead to turnover more than foreign workers. The findings revealed that self-

esteem and information seeking mediate the relationship between effective

communication and employees’ job outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction, engagement, and

turnover intention). Results of this research may provide human resource managers

especially those working in the hospitality and tourism industries.

Open-Ended Questions

The analysis of the qualitative data was conducted to explore factors that could

improve effective communication (RQ1). Results indicated that effective communication

factors in Saudi hospitality and tourism industry were identified clearly by hotel

employees. This finding supports Gong’s (2008) conclusion that the hospitality and

tourism industry is one of the spheres that faces the greatest challenges of intercultural

communication. This is partly because, as Grobelna (2015) points out, intercultural

communication does not only refer to the interactions between the employees and their

clients, it also covers many communication concerns that arise between managers and the

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rest of the staff, and due to the seasonal nature of the work, hospitality and tourism

establishments often use the services of contingent workers who may come from abroad.

In addition, Jameson (2007) explains multiculturalism in this industry by the

ongoing growth of the influence of globalization. Overall, the qualitative part of the

questionnaire showed that the respondents fully understood and acknowledged the

challenges of communication between people of diverse cultural backgrounds.

Moreover, the participants knew how to deal with these challenges, including what to do

and what not to do when encountering people from different cultures. Their answers

demonstrated awareness of the importance of understanding, mindfulness, inclusion,

keeping an open mind, and showing respect to the traditions and background of the

others. Managing a culturally diverse workforce is definitely a challenging and

complicated task. Devine, Baum, and Hearns (2009) emphasize that the differences may

be both visible (e.g., ethnicity) and invisible (e.g., religion, language); moreover, the

scholars add that age and gender are also aspects of cultural diversity that need to be

taken into consideration.

The responses from the participants showed they could name the causes and

consequences of ineffective communication and realized how harmful it could be to the

workplace environment (RQ1). This result is consistent with findings of previous

research (Bell & Roebuck, 2015; Keyton et al., 2013; Lauring, 2011). Namely, the

following causes of ineffective behavior were identified: yelling, disrespectful treatment,

lack of clear delivery of information, and failure to offer guidance and help. As for the

consequences of the ineffective communication, the respondents named absenteeism,

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stress, conflict miscommunication of information, and low performance. Goutam (2013)

reported very similar causes and outcomes when researching versatile spheres of

management and career fields. It was not surprisingly that clarity of the information was

the most cited factor identifying effective communication. This finding indicated that the

lack of information and knowledge is a major reason misguiding employees. This

finding of the research did agree with past literature that clarity and accuracy of content

of the information lead to high level of success in multinational organizations (e.g.,

Downing, 2011; Eichhorn, 2009).

Surprisingly, employees reported speaking loudly and yelling while

communicating is one of the fact that named to be ineffective communication. Madlock

and Kennedy-Lightsey (2010) pointed out managers’ behaviors such as speaking loudly

and verbal aggression are associated with employees’ job satisfaction and the relationship

between employees and their supervisors. Managers’ cultural background influence the

way how they speak and they can assume it is acceptable to speak in such way. Madlock

(2012) provided strong support for the role that cultural congruency plays in managers’

behaviors. Participants specifically addressed the issue of managers’ cultural background

and its effect the way how they communicate and deliver information as reflected by one

of the employees “It is important to keep an open mind when talking to different people,

and not judge them according to your own life experience.” In addition, there was a

noticeable indication, which is a lack of educational role in organizations to train

employees about others’ culture and backgrounds to take precautions while interactions

with multicultural employees.

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The findings imply that workers are aware of the problems that need addressing

and are willing to work on the solutions to these issues. Some of the most deviant

behaviors and withdrawal behaviors were skipping work and low productivity resulted

from the challenges of ineffective communication. These results are in accordance with

previous literature. Dawson et al. (2011) pointed out communication across cultures at

workplace had a strong impact on employees work productivity as the information can be

delivered improperly. Moreover, there is a need to know which measures to be taken to

eliminate the existing challenges and create a more pleasurable work environment, thus

stimulating productive performance.

Finally, as shown by the responses to questions regarding reasons why

considering a career in the hospitality and tourism industry, some employees see the lack

of effective communication with management as a serious threat to their future career in

hospitality. That is why the issues need to be addressed as soon as possible and take into

account to improve the Saudi hospitality and tourism industry. More answers were

indicated by Saudi employees are that managers’ arrogance and work hours are the major

reasons affecting their career. Idris (2007) indicated the managers’ cultural background

and attitudes are strong barriers to Saudi employees. Additionally, long workhours duties

were cited (Mellahi, 2007). This finding indicated that the private sector in Saudi Arabia

still employ workers on the maximum work hours compared to public sector, which

Saudi employees perceive the employment in the private sector is undesired. On the

other hand, foreign workers reported education as the major reason hinder their career.

This finding is supported by Chuang’s (2010) study. The majority of the participants
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were holding an associate degree, thus academic advancement is required for promotions

and managerial positions.

Comparison Between Saudi Nationals and Foreign Workers

According to the data, Saudi nationals showed greater mean scores than foreign

workers for the item “To what extent do management communication barriers (or

ineffective feedback) make you want to leave your job” (RQ2; H1). This result may

possibly suggest that Saudi nationals perceive management communication as a more

likely reason to leave their job, and that is consistent with the findings of previous studies

examining possible reasons why Saudis leave their jobs (Iqbal, 2010; Sadi & Henderson,

2005). The above phenomenon can be explained by Alshanbri et al. (2015), which led to

the finding that the work environment in Saudi organizations is not conducive to effective

managerial communication or proper feedback to employees. Meanwhile, an assessment

of employees’ background information in terms of communication and information-

seeking behaviors in multicultural settings revealed that foreign workers perceive their

conversations with managers as more effective than Saudi nationals do. Previous

research suggests that effective employee-manager conversations can reduce employee

turnover (Al-Jabri, 1996; Tran, 2016). In addition, if employees are satisfied with the

communication and the amount of information they are receiving from their managers,

low turnover intentions can be perceived (Bhuian & Al-Jabri, 1996). One of the ways in

which managers can achieve effective communication is through the provision of clear

information (i.e., sending messages, receiving messages, and information feedback),

along with demonstrating a high level of respect for employees. In response to open-
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ended questions regarding effective communication factors (RQ1), it is important to

impart information clearly and directly, and to make sure that there are no

misunderstandings and that everyone is clear about the employees’ duties. In this study,

information clarity alone was not the sole reason to affect managers’ communication

effectiveness; employees’ psychological emotions were also found to be a major factor.

Specifically, it was stated that managers should show respect when communicating, as

failure to do this may affect employees’ emotions. Managers act as an information

resource for employees by sharing knowledge with them and offering guidance. Thus, it

is important for managers to focus on the psychological aspects of communication, so

that clear information can be delivered and better relationships established with

employees. Disrespecting employees, speaking inappropriately loudly, or yelling at

employees is harmful and is unlikely to lead to the communication of information.

Conversely, politeness has been found to be helpful in promoting comfort and a healthier

working environment, which may also address poor relationships between coworkers.

Poor relationships lead to less communication, meaning that information gets lost and

people do their work less efficiently.

Effective Communication and Job Satisfaction

The results of a series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that

effective communication positively influences employees’ job satisfaction (RQ3; H2).

This is consistent with the research of Dawson, Madera, Neal, and Chen (2014).

Employees in the field of hospitality and tourism who perceived effective communication

as a predictor of job satisfaction, were found to have a high level of self-esteem and
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likely to engage in direct information-seeking behavior. Previous studies suggest that

strong and positive supervisor-employee relationships can increase job satisfaction (Lam,

Huang & Snape, 2007; Volmer, Niessen, Spurk, Linz, & Abele, 2011). As suggested in

Lam, Huang, and Snape (2007) research, both conversational effectiveness and direct

information seeking can be used to explain employees’ behavior and supervisor-

employee relationships. According to the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory,

employees who seek information directly and perceive that their direct supervisors

communicate effectively tend to be favored in-group members (Ilies et al., 2007).

In-group members typically experience a higher level of job satisfaction than out-group

members. According to Lunenburg (2010), in-group member “work within the leader’s

inner circle of communication” as they given more attention and responsibilities by the

leader (p.1). Whereas, out-group member works outside the leader’s inner

communication and treated with formal rules and policies (Lunenburg, 2010).

In the current research, direct information seeking and self-esteem were treated as

one controlling block, so that the impact of effective communication on employees’ job

satisfaction could be determined. However, employees who were found to seek

information indirectly did not appear to have any predictive power regarding job

satisfaction. In addition, the influence of direct information seeking and effective

communication on job satisfaction can be explained by the job characteristics theory

(JCT). The JCT implies that a job’s characteristics affect employees’ job outcomes.

Feedback is one of the five job characteristics derived from the theory, and this is an area

in which direct information seeking and effective communication provide employees

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with the necessary information to perform their duties smoothly. In response to open-

ended questions (RQ1), employees identified that such clarity is important in the

provision of clear and direct information, and in the prevention of misunderstandings to

ensure that everyone is clear about their duties. Employees also added that positive

feedback could improve relationships between workers and managers.

Effective Communication and Job Engagement

The results of the current study indicate that perceived effective communication

can predict job engagement (RQ3; H3), and this was consistent with the findings of

previous research (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Walther, 1992). In particular, the results

of the regression analysis showed that self-esteem and direct information seeking were

strong controlling variables predicting the impact of effective communication on job

engagement. Levels of self-esteem and information-seeking avoidance can be

determined by numerous factors (Mauno, Kinnunen & Ruokolainen, 2007). Previous

studies have attributed employees’ low self-esteem and information-seeking avoidance to

emotional and psychological factors (Keyton et al., 2013). The job engagement scale

used in the current study measures engagement based on three psychological conditions,

namely, meaningfulness, psychological safety, and availability.

The open-ended questions demonstrate that speaking inappropriately loudly or

yelling at people is harmful and can rarely be followed up with effective information

exchange, which is likely to impact employees’ emotions. This finding supports those of

previous studies (Keyton et al., 2013). Also, employees indicated that managers’ lack of

attention to their requests for help was at variance with the purpose of the job
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engagement scale, as managers’ availability to provide feedback, address employees’

concerns, and support their progress influences employees’ engagement in the

organization and vice versa.

Effective Communication and Job Turnover Intention

The results of this study indicate that effective communication can predict

turnover intention behavior in employees (RQ3; H4), and this finding supports that of

previous research (Kim & Lee, 2009). When employees experience ineffective

communication, they are likely to exhibit greater intention to leave their jobs (De Vries,

1992). Sager et al. (2015) pointed out that ineffective communication by managers is

perceived to be a common issue facing organizations with regard to retaining their

employees. Specifically, the results of this research highlighted that Saudi national

employees’ mean scores showed they were more likely to quit their jobs because of

ineffective communication. Previous studies have shown similar findings (Iqpal, 2010).

In this study, the Saudi nationals responded to different communication factors that

aimed to assess their perceptions of effective communication.

When asked to what extent ineffective communication by managers would

increase the likelihood that they would leave their jobs, 32.3% of the participating

employees indicated that such ineffective communication would likely cause them to

leave their jobs. In this context, the Saudi employees mentioned managers’ egos, their

own work hours, and lack of opportunities for promotion as having the most impact on

their decision to leave their jobs. On the other hand, foreign workers perceived lack of

education, stereotypes, self-doubt about their career, and lack of recognition in their
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organization as having a greater impact on their career path. These findings, along with

the results from existing literature discussed above, were the main reasons behind the

high turnover level of Saudi employees. Also, Saudi employees typically ranked work

issues, such as being ignored and not being respected, as being serious enough to make

them leave an organization.

Comparing the qualitative and quantitative results indicated that effective

communication is a serious issue affecting employees’ intention to leave. Employees are

the most valuable asset of organization. Ineffective supervisory communication can cost

Saudi organizations replacing employees. Also, Saudi hospitality and tourism

organizations face difficulties maintaining a stable workforce. The results of this study

show that the relationship between managers and employees is a critical relationship as it

influences employee’s decision to leave their jobs. Therefore, hospitality and tourism

organizations are recommended to foster leader and member relationship and implement

strategies to share information in order to provide a healthy workplace.

Implications

More effort is needed from human resources to encourage or reinforce a change in

attitude among managers to promote effective communication. The respondents had

suggestions as to the practices that could help eliminate ineffective communication. In

particular, they named the timely provision of feedback, respectful treatment of the

workers, clear and comprehensive delivery of information, and accessible help and

guidance on the part of the managers. In order to maintain effective intercultural

communication, managers advised to communicate simply. Even though English is

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considered to be the first international language, many employees learned it as a second

language which are limited more than native speakers. It is also important for managers

to learn more than language if they are working abroad.

Based on these findings, managers are recommended to make the following

adjustments in their treatment of the workers: (a) provide better guidance and help to the

workers (especially new ones); (b) be more available for assistance, offer help, and

inquire if the workers are facing any difficulties; (c) provide feedback on staff’s

performance regularly; (d) avoid yelling at workers, getting annoyed, and using a

disrespectful tone; and (e) establish clear communication (explain rules in a

comprehensive manner, repeat and clarify if needed, perhaps create a leaflet with FAQs

and tips, provide employee handbooks, and use reminders).

To increase employee engagement and reduce turnover intention, managers are

recommended to meet the employees half way and practice mutual understanding and

support by means of establishing friendly and trustworthy relations. Namely, the findings

show that workers suffer from exclusion and feel underappreciated by managers, so the

following changes are essential: (a) more frequent communication with employees (for

example, discussions of important work-related issues and allowing the workers to

contribute to solutions and offer ideas); (b) provision of appraisal for good performance

and advice instead of criticism when the performance is low; and (c) daily interactions

with the employees to minimize the division between managers and the rest of the staff.

Managers are encouraged to identify employees’ perceived barriers so that they

can provide career assistance to employees by asking them directly in order to tackle the
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reasons that impede their career interests in the hospitality and tourism industry. Saudi

employees raised a concern regarding to their work hours as a major barrier, thus

managers should take into considerations the commuting time and family obligations to

the Saudi nationals as they are not provided with housing comparable to foreign workers.

In addition, organizations are in need to create personal development plans for both

national and foreigner employees within the context of career, education, and

self-improvement to fulfil employees’ needs, and help them with reaching their

professional goals in the hospitality and tourism industry.

Limitations

Due to the design of this research, this study has some limitations. The main

significant limitation is the sample size for this research, which was small due to

extremely strict organizational policies. Most Saudi organizations where the data set was

collected from the city of Riyadh prevented employees from participating in this study

because permission had to be gained from the human resource department. Thus, the

number of participants gained from snowball sampling is very small. Also, the small

sample size is attributed to some organizations’ decision that they were willing to

distribute as few as two or three surveys or no more than 20 surveys in their organization.

Furthermore, the sample size and the quality of the scales used (e.g., turnover

intention scale and conversational effectiveness) could be the cause for low reliability

value and no significant results found to answer the proposed hypotheses. In addition, it

could be also the participants included in this study perceived these scales differently

from the original intent. The quality of the scales might have been affected by one of the
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instruments (e.g., turnover intention) as it only contained four items, which might be the

reason for the low Cronbach’s coefficient alpha of the scale. The scale should be

modified and include additional items for future research. The turnover intention scale

fell below the .70, that is the recommended level for social science research. Polit and

Lake indicated that: “with multiple predictors, it is unusual to find R2 that is not

significantly different from .00. Moreover, R2 could be significant, yet very imprecise,

especially if the sample size is small” (2009, p. 240).

The used a Likert scale for all measurements can be biased due to self-rating,

which can be noted when comparing the qualitative and quantitative results. Participants’

responses varied in the qualitative analysis where they indicated there are managerial

communication issues, whereas the quantitative results showed no significant

relationship. This research investigated participants’ behavior and attitudes, which may

require participants’ honest responses. As indicated by Kim, Kim, Carlson, and Carlson

(2016), hospitality employees tend to have a higher level of agreement ratings between

employees and supervisors because this “is associated with higher levels of leader-

member exchange (LMX)” (p.721). Thus, participants may under-report their behaviors.

Given the nature of the work environment in Saudi Arabia, the vast majority of

the participants were male employees. This may have produced a less representative

sample for female employees. Future studies should investigate females’ perceptions

about work related to their career. In addition, the estimated time to complete the

questionnaire ranged from 15 minutes to 20 minutes, which might have led to additional
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error or variance in the results for those who took a longer time to complete it as a result

of concentration loss.

Generalizing results of this study might be limited due to sample size and data

collection from one city. Considering different major cities in Saudi Arabia for data

collection will provide better understanding of communication problems affecting the

homogeneity of culturally diverse workforce that negatively reduce achievement of

organizational goals in the hospitality and tourism industry. In addition, collecting data

from different cities can predict more precisely the relationship between multicultural

workforce attitudes and behavior and effective communication. Even with those

mentioned limitations, this study is significant due to the fact that it predicted significant

results indicating the relationship between effective communication and employees’

behaviors and attitudes. Also, the study shed the light on communication factors

influencing managerial effective communication in the Saudi hospitality and tourism

industry.

Future Research

This study was intended to be an important step towards paving the way for future

research on effective communication in multicultural settings and employees’ job

outcomes in the Saudi hospitality and tourism industry. Since many results in this study

indicated that effective communication, self-esteem, and information seeking were

important to employees’ job outcomes, further research can include other determinants

such as self-report and self-efficacy measurements. Moreover, further research is needed

that evaluates a wider range of employee job outcomes (e.g., commitment) and examines
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the role of effective communication in boosting employees’ performance and

commitment, as employees indicated in their qualitative answers in that effective

communication affects their job performance. Moreover, managers’ perceptions (i.e.,

trust) toward each surveyed group should be measured to investigate to what degree the

relationship between employees and their direct supervisors may influence employees’

job outcomes.

The results of this study indicated that female employees reported interpersonal

communication dissatisfaction more often than male employees. However, due to

unequal gender sample size, the results of this report removed from this study. Thus,

there is a need to examine the interpersonal communication of female employees in their

organizations. This study was exploratory and provided preliminary evidence by

examining the relationship between effective communication and multicultural

employees’ job outcomes.

Future research should be conducted examining effective communication that

includes a self-construal scale to measure the strength of an individual’s independent and

interdependent cultural differences, which might make it possible to gain a better

understanding of the impact of effective communication. In addition, further research is

needed to broaden the sample by including hospitality and tourism organizations from

different areas in Saudi Arabia.

APPENDIXES
 APPENDIX A

CONSENT FORM
 Appendix A

Consent Form

Consent Form: “The Relationship between Communication Effectiveness and Multicultural

Employees’ Job Outcomes”

I am conducting research within the hospitality and tourism industry that aims to examine the
relationship between effective workplace communication and employees’ job outcomes. The
information provided will help increase our understanding of managerial communication and its
effects on employees’ well-being and how it influences employees’ turnover.

Findings of this research will provide hospitality and tourism educators and practitioners with
information regarding the effects of managerial communications and how to enhance effective
communication. This information, when applied within a working environment could result in a
healthier workplace, thus reducing employee turnover.

There will no professional or personal risks involved as a result of survey participation. Please
submit the complete survey by Thursday, October 20, 2016. The survey should take
approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.

Participation in this study is completely voluntary and anonymous. The information collected is
for academic research and individual answers will not be shared with anyone including your
employers. To provide managers within the Hospitality and Tourism Industry, a completed
response is sincerely appreciated.

If you have any questions or concerns about completing the survey and want to know more about
this research, please feel free to contact me at aaltokha@kent.edu, or Dr. Chuang at
nchuang@kent.edu. This project has been approved by Kent State University. If you have
questions about your rights as a participant or complaints about the research you may call the IRB
at (001) 330. 672. 2704.

Thank you very much for your support and completion of the survey. Your participation is greatly
appreciated.

Abdulelah Al-Tokhais Ning-Kuang Chuang, Ph.D.,

Graduate Student CHE
Hospitality & Tourism Management Associate Professor
Kent State University Hospitality Management
330-906-2959 Kent State University
Aaltokha@kent.edu 330-672-2303
Nchuang@kent.edu

128
 APPENDIX B

QUESTIONNAIRE
 Appendix B

Questionnaire

Please answer every question to the best of your knowledge by filling in the blank or checking the correct
response. Thank you for your participation in the study.

Section A.

I. Think about communication at workplace (or when you communicate with your managers in your
organization), please indicate your agreement or disagreement with the following statements.

Totally
Disagree Neutral Agree Totally agree
disagree

1. I am taken seriously. 1 2 3 4 5
2. I am trusted. 1 2 3 4 5
3. I am important. 1 2 3 4 5
4. I can make a difference. 1 2 3 4 5
5. I am valuable. 1 2 3 4 5
6. I am helpful. 1 2 3 4 5
7. I count around here. 1 2 3 4 5
8. I am cooperative. 1 2 3 4 5
9. There is faith in me. 1 2 3 4 5
10. I am efficient. 1 2 3 4 5

II. Please circle the response that best reflects the following statements.

Very Very
Little Some Great
little great
extent extent extent
extent extent
Indirect information-seeking
1. Through my nonverbal behavior, I would hint
to my supervisor or coworker that I would like to 1 2 3 4 5
know this information.
2. I would ask questions about the subject in such
1 2 3 4 5
a way that they would not sound like questions.
3. I would let my supervisor or coworker know
indirectly that I would like to know the 1 2 3 4 5
information.
4. I would indicate curiosity about the topic
1 2 3 4 5
without directly asking for the information.
Direct information-seeking
1. I ask my supervisor if I am meeting all my job
1 2 3 4 5
requirements.

130
 131

Very
Very Some Great
great
little Little extent extent
extent
extent extent
2. I ask my supervisor how I am doing. 1 2 3 4 5
3. I would ask specific, straight to the point
1 2 3 4 5
questions to get information I wanted.
4. I would identify what I did not know and ask
1 2 3 4 5
for the information.
5. I would go directly to my supervisor or
coworker and ask for information about the 1 2 3 4 5
matter.
6. I would not beat around the bush in asking for
1 2 3 4 5
information.

III. Please circle the response that best reflects the following statements.

Strongly Disagree Neither Agree Strongly

disagree agree
1. I am generally satisfied with my work. 1 2 3 4 5
2. I am satisfied with my personal growth and
1 2 3 4 5
development in my work.
3. I’m satisfied with my work group. 1 2 3 4 5
4. I’m satisfied with my pay. 1 2 3 4 5
5. I’m satisfied with the amount of job security I have. 1 2 3 4 5
6. I’m very satisfied with my supervisor. 1 2 3 4 5

IV. Please circle the response that best reflects the following statements.
Extremely Extremely
DissatisfiedIndifferent Satisfied
dissatisfied satisfied
1. I know what is expected of me at work. 1 2 3 4 5
2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do
1 2 3 4 5
my work right.
3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I
1 2 3 4 5
do best every day.
4. In the last seven days, I have received
1 2 3 4 5
recognition or praise for doing good work.
5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to
1 2 3 4 5
care about me as a person.
6. There is someone at work who encourages
1 2 3 4 5
my development.
Extremely Extremely
Dissatisfied
Indifferent Satisfied
dissatisfied satisfied
7. At work, my opinions seem to count. 1 2 3 4 5
8. The mission or purpose of my company
1 2 3 4 5
makes me feel my job is important.
9. My associates or fellow employees are
1 2 3 4 5
committed to doing quality work.
10. I have a best friend at work. 1 2 3 4 5
11. In the last six months, someone at work has 1 2 3 4 5
 132

talked to me about my progress.

12. This last year, I have had opportunities at
1 2 3 4 5
work to learn and grow.

V. Please circle the response that best reflects the following statements.
Never Rarely Occasionally Regularly Always
1. How often do you think of quitting
your present organization? 1 2 3 4 5

2. How long do you intend to remain 1 2 3 4 5

in this organization?
3. Would you prefer another ideal job
1 2 3 4 5
than the one you work in?
4. How frequently are you applying 1 2 3 4 5
for jobs in other organizations?

VI. Please circle the response that best reflects the following statements when you communicate with
your managers regarding to work-related conversations.

Strongly Strongly
Disagree Neutral Agree
disagree agree
1. The conversations between my supervisor and me
1 2 3 4 5
are very beneficial.
2. The conversations between my supervisor and me
1 2 3 4 5
are useless.
3. Usually the conversations between my supervisor
1 2 3 4 5
and me are advantageous.
4. Supervisor conversations are ineffective. 1 2 3 4 5
5. Supervisor conversations are unprofitable. 1 2 3 4 5
6. My supervisor is a smooth conversationalist. 1 2 3 4 5
7. I get what I want out of the conversations between
1 2 3 4 5
my supervisor and me.
8. I achieve everything I hope to achieve in the 1 2 3 4 5
conversations with my supervisor.
9. Sometimes, I do not know what is going on in the 1 2 3 4 5
conversation with my supervisor.
10. I am uncomfortable throughout the conversations 1 2 3 4 5
with my supervisor.

Section B: Effective communication- Please circle or answer the best

1. Think if you are working in a multicultural settings, please indicate the level of agreement with the
following statements.
 133

Slightly agree

Strongly agree
Disagree
disagree

disagree
Strongly

Slightly

Neutral

Agree
1. It is necessary to change one’s behavior when interacting
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
with persons from other cultures.
2. It is necessary to prepare in advance when one is away from
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
the host country.
3. Does mindfulness play an important role when
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
communicating with people from other cultures.
4. Do you think cultural diversity in teams is a major cause of
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
anxiety and uncertainty?
5. Does self-concept impact anxiety. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6. It is important to be flexible and open minded when placed
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
in a multicultural environment.
7. Do you think non-verbal communication is important in
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
multicultural settings.
8. It is important to learn the language when operating in other
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
cultures.

2. Name three words when mentioning about “effective communication?”

3. What do you consider as ineffective communications?

4. Name one or two scenarios of effective communication and ineffective communication in multicultural
situations
Multicultural situation involves “substantial numbers of employees of more than one ethnicity or
nationality, diversity in language and cultural values.” (Amason, Allen, & Holmes, 1999, p. 311)

5. What precautions must be kept in mind when interacting with people from other cultures?

6. Name three deviant or withdrawal behaviors that might arise due to management’s ineffective
communication/feedback or communication barriers. (Examples of deviant behaviors such as low morale,
absenteeism, lower productivity, not committed to the company, make fun of others ethnicity, religious, or
race at work, low level of citizenship behavior, etc.)

7. To what extend do you perceive that working under supervision by someone from different ethnic group?
___1. Very dissatisfied ___2. Dissatisfied ___3. Indifferent ___4. Satisfied ___5. Very satisfied
8. To what extend is your understanding of intercultural communication?
__1. Poor ___2. Fair ___3. Good ___4. Very good ___5. Excellent
 134

Section C: Demographic and Background Information

1. Please indicate your gender: ____ Male / ___ Female
2. What is your age? ______
3. What is your marital status?
___A. Never married ___B. Married without Children ___ C. Married with Children
___D. Divorced without Children ___ E. Divorced with Children ___ F Separated
___ G. Widowed ___ H. Other
4. What is the highest educational degree earned?
____A. Elementary ___B. Junior middle school ___ C. High school ___D. Associate degree
____E. Bachelor’s degree ____F. Master’s degree ___G. Doctoral degree
4. What is your race/ethnicity (place check mark)? ____ Saudi / ____ Middle-Eastern /
____ African /____ Indian / ____ Asian / ____ European / ____ Other, please specify ______
6. What is your job title? _______________________
7. How long have you worked at your current company? ________ years
8. How long have you worked in the tourism or hospitality industry? __________ years

9. In what segment of the tourism industry are you currently employed (or have you had employment in the
past)?
______ A. Lodging and other Accommodation
______ B. Restaurants and other Food Service
______ C. Clubs (Private and Public)
______ D. Travel-Related Business (including Attractions)
______ E. Others, please specify: ____________________
______ F. Not employed in the hospitality/tourism industry, please specify: _______________
10.What is the star rating of your hotel?
___ A. One star hotel
___ B. Two star hotel
___ C. Three star hotel
___ D. Four star hotel
___ E. Five star hotel
___ F. N/A
11. The size of the hotel you are currently employed? __________ guestrooms, __________employees
12. On average, how many hours do you work per week?
A. Less than 40 hours B. 41 to 50 hours C. 51 to 60 hours D. More than 60 hours, please
specify_________
13. How many years of experience do you have as a manager? _________ years
14. How many employees do you currently supervised?
___A. 0-5 ___B. 6-10 ___ C. 11-15 ___D. 16-20
___E. More than 20, please specify_________
15-1. Please indicate the major reason(s) why you consider a career in the hospitality/tourism industry?

15-2. Please indicate the reason(s) why you plan “not” to work in the hospitality/tourism industry in the
future:
 135

16. To what extend do you perceive that you are working much harder than a Saudi employee and that you
are being paid significantly less?
___1. Very dissatisfied ___2. Dissatisfied ___3. Indifferent ___4. Satisfied ___5. Very satisfied

17. Do you see any barriers stand in your way in your career path? Please specify the top barriers and circle
to what extend do you feel those obstacles and barriers hinder your career (or satisfaction, engagement,
motivation, performance, or overall wellbeing) in the industry?
(Examples of career barriers such as lack of motivation, lack of recognition, stress, burnout, lack of
support, self doubt, financial problems, fear of change, pressure by family and friends, work-family conflict,
gender related stereotypes, public image, etc.)
________ 1. Not at all influential 2. Slightly influential 3. Somewhat influential
4. Very influential 5. Extremely influential
_________ 1. Not at all influential 2. Slightly influential 3. Somewhat influential
4. Very influential 5. Extremely influential
_________ 1. Not at all influential 2. Slightly influential 3. Somewhat influential
4. Very influential 5. Extremely influential
18. To what extend you perceive the interpersonal communication in the organization
___1. Very dissatisfied ___2. Dissatisfied ___3. Indifferent ___4. Satisfied
___5. Very satisfied
19. Do you perceive any communication problem existed in your department /company /organization.
___1. Not at all problem ___2. Minor problem ___3. Indifferent ___4. Moderate problem
___5. Serious problem. Please specify the problem(s): _________________
20. Does supervisor’s communication affect your job performance?
___1. No effect ___2. Minor effect ___3. Indifferent ___4. Moderate effect
___5. Major effect problem
21. To what extend do you perceive the appropriateness of the communication/feedback from your middle
management.
___ 1. Absolutely inappropriate ___2. Inappropriate ___3. Slightly inappropriate
___4. Neutral ___ 5. Slightly appropriate ___ 6. Appropriate ___ 7. Absolutely appropriate
22. Compared to other managerial functions, how do you view managerial communication in your
department/company/organization.
___ 1. Not at all important ___2. Low importance ___3. Slightly Important ___4. Neutral
___ 5. Moderate important ___ 6. Very important ___ 7. Extremely important
23. To what extend the management communication barrier (or ineffective feedback) will make you want
to leave the job?
___1. Extremely unlikely ___2. Unlikely ___3. Neutral ___4. Likely
___5. Extremely likely
24. Name three things that should be carried out by management to solve the communication barriers which
you feel those methods would improve your satisfaction, engagement, motivation, performance or overall
wellbeing?
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