A review of research about the psychology of hospitality management in three leading hospitality journals

Abstract

This article reviewed research articles published in three leading hospitality journals — Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, International Journal of Hospitality Management and Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research. Sixty published issues (20 issues per journal) with a total of 539 articles were reviewed. The key objective of this review was to identify articles which dealt with the psychology of hospitality management and to analyse key features of those articles. Findings of a content analysis show that approximately 40% of published articles dealt with psychological topics. The most frequently researched psychological issues were clustered into three main categories: customer behaviour, employee behaviour and managerial behaviour. For the analysed psychological articles, most were authored by two or three authors, mostly academics. The most common type of research approach was testing causal models. The majority of articles employed quantitative research designs and analyses. Key implications of this study include the call for stronger diversity in hospitality psychological research and methodological approaches, better linkages between research and practice, as well as the incorporation of hospitality psychology in hospitality management curricula.