The effect of proactive personality and job crafting on problem solving skills: A study on tourist guides

Tourist guides are in constant communication and interaction with people during the tour due to working conditions. It is quite natural that problems arise in this working environment where man serves man. However, it is not a tolerant situation to reflect the problems that arise to the customer. The fact that tourist guides perform this profession smoothly and solve the problems encountered effectively by using the right methods will directly affect the success of tourism sector. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the factors affecting the problem solving skills of tourist guides. In this direction, the aim of this research is to determine the effect of tourist guides on proactive personality and problem solving skills of business people. During the application phase, the survey technique was used; 410 tourist guides who are active were reached by simple random sampling method. Validity and reliability analysis, independent samples t-test, one-way analysis of variance and correlation were used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the research, it was concluded that the proactive personality and job crafting of tourist guides affect problem solving skills. Accordingly, it was determined that proactive personality positively affects the approach avoidance dimension with confidence in problem solving ability, while it has no effect on personal control. In addition, it has been found that task crafting positively affects all of the problem-solving skill sub-dimensions, while cognitive crafting and relational crafting have no effect on personal control, but positively affect the problem-solving ability trust and approach-avoidance dimension. Finally, it has been concluded that the opinions of tourist guides on the subject show significant differences according to some demographic variables. Keywords: Tourist Guides, Problem Solving Skills, Proactive Personality, Job Crafting