Frontline employee-driven innovation through suggestions in hospitality firms: the role of the employee's creativity, knowledge, and motivation

Abstract

As most hospitality firms turn to informal processes to create knowledge, employee-driven innovation becomes paramount in the sector, especially the one generated from frontline employees’ suggestions. The work studied creativity, knowledge and motivation as internal aspects of frontline hospitality employees for making innovative suggestions. The study of these three broad aspects leads to the presentation of six research hypotheses after discussing the potential influence of six specific factors on the generation of innovative suggestions; those factors are creativity, work experience and formal education (knowledge), along with internal motivation, direct rewards, and the perception of the validity of the suggestion system (motivation). Those hypotheses are tested with data from 153 front office employees from hotels in Tenerife (Spain). Results show the relevance of frontline employees’ creativity, work experience and perception that suggestions will be analysed and heeded, along with the positive effect of working in leisure hotels (versus business ones).