Date of Conferral

2017

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Management

Advisor

Robert E. Levasseur

Abstract

The tourism industry dominates the Bahamian national economy. While seaport visitor arrivals continue to rise, stopover visitor arrivals continue to decline due to a recurring theme of negative front-line hotel staff attitudes. Eliminating negative staff attitudes toward stopover visitors is important for hoteliers, the government, and all stakeholders of the Bahamian tourism industry. Guided by servant leadership theory, the purpose of this research was to investigate the servant leadership dimensions that motivate Bahamian front-line hotel workers. This quantitative cross-sectional study involved the use of the Servant Leadership Survey (SLS) developed by Dierendonck and Nuijten. There were 8 specific servant leadership dimensions measured against 7 sociodemographic attributes to answer 2 research questions (RQ). A random sample of 646 front-line hotel workers participated in the study. For RQ1, independent t-tests and one-way analysis of variance produced significant results for the union, region, and department demographic groups. For RQ2, k-means cluster analysis generated a 2-cluster model with significant F-statistic value contributions across all 8 composite variables. Based on the final cluster centers, the 8 SLS composite variable average mean results equate to cautious support for the acceptance and application of servant leadership. The research findings may lead to positive social change by supporting the creation of a new leadership model in the Bahamian tourism industry that enables hoteliers to increase Bahamian front-line hotel workers' motivation and thereby decrease negative staff attitudes manifested in the workplace.

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