Essay: Creativity And Innovation In Hospitality - Key Factors For Success!

Importance of Creativity and Innovation in Organizations

Question:

Discuss the alternative approaches and perspectives on how organisational creativity and innovation might be promoted or blocked in practice across multiple levels.

Innovation and creativity are important for the sustainability of an organization. Irrespective the industry the organization operates creativity and innovation can be brought into the products and services of the organization. Every organization has the scope for creativity and innovation. The readers of the report will learn about the theories of creativity and innovation required in an organization and how it will be applied in the selected organization. The organization selected for this report is Hotel Majestic of Ruwi, Muscat. It is a three star hotel. The aim of this report is to evaluate the organization in terms of the creativity and innovation and provide recommendations required to make the services of the Hotel more creative and innovative.  Creativity is important in an organization because it helps the organization to grow and have a competitive advantage. Sustainability is another important reason for which companies are required to be innovative (Carlborg, Kindström and Kowalkowski 2014). Hospitality industry is based on the services it provides to its guests. Innovation in the services can help Hotel Majestic to gain competitive advantage, as there are many hotels in Muscat.

Creativity and innovation are very important as they add value to the ever-changing environment that has become a major challenge for the organizations. Lack of commitment and capability create problems for the organization. This creates a need for effective training in creative thinking. Creative problem solving helps the organization in overcoming lot of hurdles in the organization.  Building an innovative culture in the organization is important for innovation and creative. Culture is the collection of the programming of the mind.  Some of the writers believe that culture is stable, deep and reinforcement by the history of decisions, learned strategies and use of power (Morrar 2014). Organization culture can be described as shared mental programming. The culture of the organization has long-term impact on the economic condition of the organization. For innovation and creativity one of the essential elements is a climate that supports innovation and creativity. In an organization climate is defined as the repeating behavior, attitudes and feelings that are characterized as life in the organization (Loewenberger 2013). A climate for creativity and change encourages generation, consideration of various products, services and the methods of production of the various products and services.  A number of the factors support the climate for creativity and innovation.

Factors affecting climate for innovation (Source: Loewenberger 2013)

Leaders have an important role to play in creating a climate for creativity. Organizational encouragement is very important as it helps the employees to come up with new ideas. Managers are required to motivate their employees to give their input by providing new ideas. Leaders have to create intentionally a climate for innovation and creativity. Leaders with the help of different levers that exist within the organization create an atmosphere for innovation (Qu, Janssen and Shi 2015). Communication of mission and strategy to the employees is one such lever through which climate of the organization can be transformed towards a specific goal. The leaders influence the culture within the organization. They also influence the structure, generation, and implementation of ideas within the organization. Leaders are the ones who are responsible for the development and they reward the creativity of the employees. The leaders change, creativity and innovation than a single leader or style of leadership. Leaders are required to train their employees to adapt to the new environment (Tushman and O’Reilly 2002).  Culture is important determinant of creativity and innovation, which only the leaders can, transforms as per the objectives of the organization. Effective leaders have to be ability to balance autonomy and control, direction and space, through integration and alignment of a range of organizational variables. Leading change, creativity and innovation requires more than a single leader or style of leadership. It involves a many people and approaches that are required to be adapted and transform over time (Rosing, Frese and Bausch 2011).

Case Study: Hotel Majestic, Muscat

Creativity means to create something new and different. It can be said that creativity is that process that transforms or combines it with other phenomena, objects or things (Bilgihan and Nejad 2015). Creativity is also creating something in a new way that it is appropriate and useful so that it can solve the problem. Innovation means to use new ideas of creativity. In an organization innovation can be applied on a product or services or in the methods used for delivery of products and services (Zien and Buckler 2004).

Social barriers to creativity and innovation in an organization can be resistance from the social environment that surrounds the organization. Social environment of any organization should encourage innovation and creativity. Social environment can exist within the organization or ca even exist outside the organization (Salazar and Lant 2017). Communities often do not cooperate in the change process of the organization. Some change and innovation require cooperation of the community (Dawson and Andriopoulous 2014). Suppose Majestic Hotel wants to expand their hotel business that would require some land but if the community or the people living next to the hotel were not willing to sell their lands to the hotel then the plan of hotel would not be successful.

Lack of motivation and trust- For creativity, innovation or any development mutual trust is very important, so is motivation level. If the motivation level of employees working in Hotel Majestic is low then they would always refrain the new changes or development in the organization (Asikainen 2015)

Lack of acceptance and tolerance- If there is too much conflict between interest and ideas of the employees and they fail to accept the ideas of each other then it would be difficult to have a change in the organization.

Lack of resources- If the resources are not adequate then innovating new products, services or methods will become difficult. Hotel Majestic needs to have resources like, funds and manpower so that new services can be offered to the guests. In hotels the management can be innovative by providing new and unique services (Robbins and Coulter 2002).

Structure of Organization- The structure of the organization often becomes a hurdle for the employees for implementing any new changes. 

In an organization often the managers do not encourage their subordinates to provide new ideas. Often Autocracy becomes hindrance for innovation (Alagaraja 2013). If the employees hesitate to express their view then it would be difficult to get new ideas

Conclusions

The aim of this report was to focus on mobilizing innovation and creativity in an organization. The selected organization in this case was Hotel Majestic of Ruwi, Muscat. Innovation and creativity in hospitality can be brought through new and unique services. Certain characteristics of human creativity and innovation are because of the idea humans are different from each other. Creating climate that supports innovation and creativity is very important. Unless the atmosphere encourages innovation, new ideas it is not possible to be innovative or to be different in the industry. Ideas are required to be encouraged for effective utilization of the diverse capability the organization. Every individual within the organization have different thoughts, perceptions and attitude. It is the duty of the leader to encourage their staffs to come up with new ideas. If the employees are discouraged or too much autocracy exists within the organization then innovation would be difficult. Climate that supports innovation can only be created when the leaders within the organization take an active role. The culture of the organization needs to be supportive towards innovation. Innovative culture is required. Innovative culture can be created when all the employees of the organization share values, attitudes and behaviors that induce innovation. Innovative culture will also reduce those barriers of innovation that usually occur from the side of the employees like resistance to change. Hospitality industry is completely dependent on the human resource in such case creating an innovative culture that helps in providing new and unique services will help the Hotel create competitive advantage and attain sustainability.

Factors Affecting Climate for Innovation

Hotel majestic can provide innovative services to their customers so that they can gain competitive advantage over the other hotels in Ruwi, Muscat. The services provided by the hotel are very generic as most of the other hotels are providing similar kind of services.

Customer service- the employees are required to be trained so that they provide excellent services to their guests. Providing authentic services and not taking it as a protocol can help a lot in providing excellent services.

Innovative culture- By developing a innovative culture within the organization can help the hotel management to have innovative idea. They should motivate their staffs to provide innovative ideas and encourage suggestions. Employee participation is very important for developing a creative and innovative culture.

Pickup services- Pickup services are unique service that they can provide their guests services like paid pickup from Airport or site seeing. Two free pickup services.

Guided site seeing- The hotel can provide their guests guided site seeing services or guided tour to the city and the market places.

Souvenir to guests- If the guests are given souvenir it would be a unique idea and it would pleas they customers and make them visit the hotel again.

Wide variety of cuisines- If the food and beverage department provides their guests unique cuisines to try it would be new and innovative in the industry.

Concerts and shows- Shows and concerts should be held in various festivals. The shows should be organized to surprise and entertain the customers.

Front office competency- Staffs at the front office needs to provide authentic service to the guests. Greeting them with a genuine smile and their conversation should not be rehearsed.

References

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Asikainen, A.L., 2015. Innovation modes and strategies in knowledge intensive business services. Service Business, 9(1), pp.77-95.

Bilgihan, A. and Nejad, M., 2015. Innovation in hospitality and tourism industries. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, 6(3).

Carlborg, P., Kindström, D. and Kowalkowski, C., 2014. The evolution of service innovation research: a critical review and synthesis. The Service Industries Journal, 34(5), pp.373-398.

Dawson P. and Andriopoulous C. 2014 Managing Change, Creativity and Organisation. London: Sage.

Loewenberger, P., 2013. The role of HRD in stimulating, supporting, and sustaining creativity and innovation. Human Resource Development Review, 12(4), pp.422-455.

Morrar, R., 2014. Innovation in services: A literature review. Technology Innovation Management Review, 4(4), p.6.

Oukil, A., Channouf, N. and Al-Zaidi, A., 2016. Performance evaluation of the hotel industry in an emerging tourism destination: The case of Oman. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 29, pp.60-68.

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Robbins, S. and Coulter, M. 2002. Management. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall

Rosing, K., Frese, M. and Bausch, A., 2011. Explaining the heterogeneity of the leadership-innovation relationship: Ambidextrous leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 22(5), pp.956-974.

Qu, R., Janssen, O. and Shi, K., 2015. Transformational leadership and follower creativity: The mediating role of follower relational identification and the moderating role of leader creativity expectations. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(2), pp.286-299.

Salazar, M.R. and Lant, T.K., 2017, January. The Role of Leader Multidisciplinary Expertise in Facilitating Team Innovation. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2017, No. 1, p. 14970). Academy of Management.

Somech, A. and Drach-Zahavy, A., 2013. Translating team creativity to innovation implementation: The role of team composition and climate for innovation. Journal of Management, 39(3), pp.684-708.

Tushman, M.L. and O’Reilly, C. 2002. Winning through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Zien, K.A. and Buckler, S.A. 2004 ‘Dreams to market: crafting a culture of innovation’, in R. Katz (ed.), The Human Side of Managing Technological Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press