Investigation of the effect of social intelligence on organizational socialization and service orientation: A research on hospitality business employees

Accommodation enterprises need a qualified workforce to compete in difficult market conditions and achieve their goals. In this context, to meet this need and to ensure the provision of a qualified workforce, businesses pay attention to both the physical and mental characteristics of the individual and make choices accordingly. Therefore, the concept of social intelligence, which is closely related to these characteristics, has gained importance in recent years, and attracted the attention of researchers and has been investigated in various ways. Especially in the tourism sector, it is considered that it is closely related to the concepts of "organizational socialization" when evaluated from an enterprise point of view; "service orientation" when evaluated from an individual point of view. This research was carried out on 4- and 5-star accommodation business employees operating in Trabzon to examine the effect of social intelligence on organizational socialization and service orientation. In this direction, data were collected from 401 employees working in 4- and 5-star accommodation establishments in Trabzon with the help of a questionnaire. Whether the opinions of the employees involved in the study regarding the concept of social intelligence, organizational socialization and service orientation differed significantly according to their individual characteristics was tested by t-test and variance (one-way ANOVA) analysis for an independent sample. In addition, the relationship between the social intelligence, organizational socialization and service orientation was examined by correlation and multiple linear regression analysis. As a result of the results obtained, it was found that the opinions of the participants regarding social intelligence differed significantly only according to the age group. It was found that their views on organizational socialization and service orientation differed significantly according to other individual characteristics, except for gender. In the study, there was no statistically significant relationship between social intelligence and organizational socialization, but it was determined that there is a statistically significant relationship between the social information process and the dimension of social awareness with organizational socialization and its sub-dimensions. In addition, it was found that there is a statistically significant relationship between social intelligence and service orientation. At the same time, according to the results of regression analysis, the dimension of "ability to meet needs" affects social intelligence the most. Keywords: Social intelligence, Organizational socialization, Service orientation, Hospitality business employees, Trabzon.