How to influence hospitality employee perceptions on hotel brand performance?

Purpose - This paper aims to understand employees' perceptions of human resources management functions and how these affect brand performance, and the indirect influence of human resources management functions when mediated by job satisfaction in branded hotels in China. Hotel human resources functions, specifically organizational career management, and internal branding in hotels in mainland China were examined. The mediating effect of job satisfaction on the relationship between organizational career management and internal branding on brand performance was also examined. Design/methodology/approach - A survey of hotel supervisors and middle managers in mainland China yielded 510 valid questionnaires for data analysis. Structural equation modeling was used to empirically test the relationships between human resources management functions (organizational career management, internal branding and job satisfaction) and brand performance in four- and five-star hotels in China. Findings - The structural equation modeling results showed strong support for the mediating effect of job satisfaction on the relationships between organizational career management, internal branding and brand performance. Interestingly, although internal branding significantly affected brand performance, organizational career management alone did not. Research limitations/implications - The main limitation was the use of a convenience sampling method, which means respondents may not represent a sufficiently broad sample of hotel employees. Future studies are encouraged to explore internal branding and hotel career management using a probability sampling method. Practical implications - The findings offer new insights and directions for hotel human resources managers to improve brand performance, either through promoting internal branding itself, or by enhancing organizational career management, internal branding and employees' job satisfaction to achieve brand performance. Originality/value - This is the first empirical study to analyze hotel management employees' perceptions of the relationships between hotel human resources management, employees' job satisfaction and hotel brand performance in China. The findings demonstrate the usefulness of applying human resources management functions to hotel branding.