Antecedents of Service Recovery Performance in 3 and 4 Star Hotels in Douala, Cameroon

ABSTRACT: In addition to the external environment challenges, the aspect of unjust practices in hiring, promotion and rewarding at the organizational level has recently received a great deal of attention for influencing the performance of frontline employees in service recovery (Yavas et al., 2003) by causing dissatisfaction (Babakus et al., 2003) and reducing their level of affective commitment. The tourism industry in Cameroon and in the Sub-Sahara Africa is infested by all sort external challenges such as corruption (Kimbu, 2011), abject poverty, job insecurity, long hours of work and meager wages (Aryee, 2005). The nation lies in wait of a general solvent of the number of problems, including ethnic discrimination and tribalism that falls next to corruption. Owning to this situation, corrupt practices are carried out in both large and small sizes organizations; unfairness and unjust systems rules the order for hiring, rewarding and promotion. It is assumed in this study that this situation could be more serious exclusively for hospitality organizations than other industries, because it is human-oriented incline. In a manner that behaviors, emotions and attitudes play an utmost role, under climatic conditions characterized by team-work (Valle & Witt, 2001). This could easily be paralyzed by nepotism (Arasli et al., 2006) and favoritism. According to Arasli et al (2006), nepotism weakens human resource practices and affects employee’s level of satisfaction. Also, this study is the first to link nepotism and favoritism with service recovery performance via job satisfaction and affective commitment in service literature as a whole. As regard the Sub-Sahara and Cameroon, it is the first time service recovery performance is given this special attention in relation with nepotism and favoritism among frontline hotel employees. For the first time in Cameroon literature, the public is being made aware of the pervading dangers underlying nepotism and favoritism that has never been related before in the nation’s literature with the hospitality industry. The study aims therefore to explore the role and influences upon the service recovery performance of frontline employees from job satisfaction and affective commitment as mediators of nepotism, favoritism; directly or indirectly in 3, 4 and 5 star hotels in Douala the Littoral Province of Cameroon. This study examines the effect of selected constructs that influence the service recovery performance of frontline employees using data collected from frontline staffs of 3, 4, and 5 star hotels in Cameroon. The following result from the path analysis revealed that nepotism, favoritism, job satisfaction and affective commitment are significant antecedents of frontline employees’ service recovery performance. The report of the linkages indicated that favoritism and nepotism have insignificant relationship with frontline employee’s job satisfaction. Results of another hypothesis did not correspond with the general notion that high level of affective commitment has no significance with frontline employees’ service recovery performance (Boshoff & Allen, 2000); rather a significant relationship was detected in this case. Limitations of the study, managerial implication and implications for future research are discussed. Keywords: Frontline employees, Dissonance, Nepotism, Favoritism, Job Satisfaction, Affective Commitment and Service Recovery Performance. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………