Workplace Innovation and Organizational Performance in the Hospitality Industry

: Change has become continuous, and innovation is a primary approach for hospitality, i.e., hotel companies, to become or remain economically viable and sustainable. An increasing number of management researchers are paying more attention to workplace rather than technological innovation. This study investigates workplace innovation in the Dutch hotel industry, in three- and four-star hotels in the Netherlands, by comparing them to other industries. Two samples were questioned using the Workplace Innovation survey created by the Dutch Network of Social Innovation (NSI). The ﬁrst was conducted in the hospitality industry, and these data were compared with data collected in a sample of other industries. Results suggest that greater strategic orientation on workplace innovation and talent development has a positive inﬂuence on four factors of organizational performance. Greater internal rates of change, the ability to self-organize, and investment in knowledge also had positive inﬂuences on three of the factors—growth in revenue, sustainability, and absenteeism. Results also suggest that the hospitality industry has lower workplace innovation than other industries. However, no recent research has assessed to what degree the hospitality industry fosters workplace innovation, especially in the Netherlands. Next to that, only few studies have examined management in the Dutch hotel industry, how workplace innovation is used there, and whether it improves practices.


Workplace Innovation in the Hospitality Industry
Between 50% and 80% of economic growth is the result of innovation and knowledge [1][2][3]. Innovation relates to renewal, change, and doing things differently, with the purpose of improving processes, goods, and services. According to a McKinsey Global Survey of over 1400 corporate leaders worldwide, more than 70% listed innovation as a topthree priority in their organizations [4,5]. Tourism and hospitality literature characterizes innovation as the development of goods and services, or the implementation of processes, that differ from business-as-usual to achieve competitive advantages [6][7][8]. In comparison to other hospitality sub-industries, hotels were found to be the least innovative [9], and in comparison to other service-industry firms, Dutch hotels had the lowest percentage of innovation [10]. Hotel innovations consist primarily of technological innovations, such as digital applications, and hardware innovations, such as wellness areas [6,11,12]. Many organizations excel at technological innovation and knowledge development [13,14], but they fail at identifying, distributing, and applying such knowledge among employees [15,16]. An increasing number of management researchers suggest greater focus on workplacerather than technological innovation [17][18][19][20]; the emphasis should be on employees and their competences, who are often forgotten among managerial processes because the major concerns are economics and technology [2,21,22]. Volberda et al. [9] argue that investment in workplace innovation should be given greater priority, because 77% of innovation success derives from workplace innovation. Workplace innovation represents an approach allocated to organizational change that encourages participative practices and leads to better performance [23,24]. During the past decade, the topic has garnered increased attention and arisen frequently during discussions on innovation [25][26][27].
In the last decade, it was apparent that technological innovation requires workplace innovation [18,20,28], and although the relevance of the concept has been recognized, research suggests that Dutch organizations do not exploit opportunities fully [16,27,29]. The hotel industry is not very innovative; a firm's size, its employees' level of education, and its structure influence innovation, and thus a firm's characteristics affect innovation [30]. Barriers to innovation that entrepreneurs experience in the Dutch hospitality industry include low awareness of innovation's importance, too great a focus on technological innovations, and insufficient attention given to innovation in other sectors/industries that serve innovation inspiration [10]. Workplace innovation differentiates organizations from competitors and makes them more effective [18,31]. Heezen [32] found that businesses that continued workplace innovation remained innovative, becoming more productive, improving competitiveness, and increasing performance [33]. Oostdam [34] reported that only 2% of employees in hospitality organizations are motivated by managers to think innovatively. Workplace innovation has thus become a research topic among researchers, companies, hospitality management schools, and the hospitality industry [23,35]. However, few studies have examined management in the Dutch hotel industry, how workplace innovation is used there, and whether it improves practices. Research that addresses these gaps supports the traditional hotel industry by connecting it with a contemporary concept such as workplace innovation, making such research suitable in hotels that experience difficulties remaining innovative and competing with innovative companies such as Airbnb [36].
In the literature review, workplace innovation and components of workplace innovation are discussed. This study assesses the relationship between workplace innovation and organizational performance, and differences between the hospitality and other industries regarding workplace innovation. Two samples were questioned using a Workplace Innovation survey created by the Dutch Network Social Innovation's (NSI) in 2012. Since 2012, the survey has been conducted annually, with six components of workplace innovation remaining the same throughout the years.
The next section includes an overview of the literature on the relationship between workplace innovation and organizational performance. Differences between hospitality and other industries regarding workplace innovation are then discussed, followed by the hypotheses tested in this study. Methods are outlined and results of preliminary analyses are reported. Two samples are examined, findings are discussed, and practical implications of the study are identified. Limitations of the study and future research directions are discussed.

Literature Review
Change has become continuous, and innovation is a primary method for hospitality companies to become or remain economically viable and sustainable because innovative companies develop new products, deliver better quality, and consequently operate more efficiently [10,37]. However, in many cases, firms in the hotel industry are small-and medium-sized family firms characterized as traditional companies [11]. Clarke et al. [38] argue that remaining innovative is challenging, but Heezen [32] suggests that involving employees in management creates engagement, understanding, and enthusiasm. Li and Hsu [39,40] found that employee innovative behaviors are paramount to improving the quality of both service and customer satisfaction. A lack of skilled employees, and a lack of employee engagement, represent primary barriers to hotel service innovation [41]. By listening to the ideas of others, innovation regarding the organization of work and labor relationships leads to improved organizational performance and the development of talent [22,42,43]. Hotel chains have more financial resources to invest in innovation and professionalization than independent hotels [44]. HRM in the hotel industry affects innovation positively [45], and enhancement of human capital is critical to the readiness to adopt innovations and the acceleration of innovation [46]. Workplace innovation thus requires cocreation, during which managers and employees must work together [47,48].

Workplace Innovation and Organizational Performance
Workplace innovation became a topic of interest in the Netherlands during the early 21st century. Volberda et al. [16] (p. 31) define workplace innovation as the "development of new management skills (dynamic management) to make use of flexible organization principles (flexible organizing) and to realize high-quality forms of labor (smart working) to increase competitiveness and increase productivity". Workplace innovation represents innovative ways of how production and work are designed, and thus stresses new ways of deploying people [49]. Another approach to workplace innovation is including innovation in the work process to increase labor productivity and participation [50] by organizing work differently, introducing health policies, working to create knowledge and employability, and modernizing employment creation by linking social policy to business objectives; investing in both people and the organization is essential [48]. Volberda and Van den Bosch [48] divide workplace innovation into three components-dynamic management, flexible organizing, and smart working-and combined, these components result in workplace innovation. Stoffers et al. [51] (p. 11) define workplace innovation as changes to organizations and new ways of cooperation that result in better development and use of employees' competences to increase organizational performance and enhance other organizational, societal, or employee goals. Stoffers et al. [51] distinguish six components of workplace innovation-strategic orientation on workplace innovation, speed of internal change, the ability to self-organize, development of talent, investment in knowledge, and sustainable employment. Combined, these components result in workplace innovation.
Workplace innovation is garnering increasing attention, creating organizational performance [33,[52][53][54][55]. Volberda and Van den Bosch's [48], Stoffers et al.'s [51], and Black and Lynch's [56] theories and models result in increased organizational performance. Stoffers et al. [51] analyzed organizational performance concerning revenue growth, new product development, sustainable development, and yearly absenteeism. Therefore: Hypothesis 1 (H1). Workplace innovation has a positive relationship with organizational performance. [51] models consist of various components of workplace innovation. The current study assesses the six components that Stoffers et al. [51] suggest. Organizations that have clear strategic orientations perform better economically, according to Porter [57]. Rizan et al. [58] argue that strategic orientation correlates positively with organizational performance, and Stoffers et al. [51] represent strategic orientation on workplace innovation as the extent to which such innovation is embedded strategically in an organization, arising from underlying indicators of social orientation, cost awareness, networking, knowledge absorption, and open innovation. Grimmer et al. [59] assess various strategic orientations (i.e., prospector, defender, analyzer, and reactor) and organizational performance, finding those prospector strategies which focus on innovation, being a pioneer, and launching new products, have the strongest positive relationship with organizational performance. Therefore:

Both Volberda and Van den Bosch's [48] and Stoffers et al.'s
Hypothesis 2a (H2a). Strategic orientation on workplace innovation has a positive relationship with organizational performance.
Stoffers et al. [51] argue that if organizations want to remain innovative, they must create a work structure in which employees at all levels are able to make quick decisions and have the freedom and responsibility to perform as they perceive necessary. The second component of workplace innovation, self-organization, can be measured using leadership, entrepreneurship, transparency, trust, policy flexibility, trust, and cocreation between departments and teams [60,61]. Phills et al. [62] argue that the most effective and efficient ideas for complex situations and operational problems are created in the operations of an organization, because those employees know exactly what is happening. When employees have sufficient freedom to act, the result is motivation, creativity, commitment, and entrepreneurship [61]. Ibua [63] and Kariuki and Kiambati [64] argue that employee empowerment through autonomy, involvement in decision-making, access to information, and management support, among others, have a positive influence on organizational performance. Trust also has a positive relationship with organizational performance [65]. Therefore: Hypothesis 2b (H2b). The ability to self-organize has a positive relationship with organizational performance.
Volberda et al. [16] suggest that organizations that want to be innovative need a flexible way of organizing, and such organizations are characterized by a high internal speed of change. Stoffers et al. [51] corroborate Volberda et al. [16], suggesting that it is important for organizations to adjust their business routines and competences constantly and adapt to changes in the market to remain competitive, because change is continuous. An organization's internal speed of change indicates ability and flexibility regarding managing human resources [51,66]. The degree of workplace innovation is measured using indicators of decentralized decision-making, flexibility with customizing procedures, goals, cooperation, flexible organization of work (e.g., flexible contracts), self-scheduling, and flexible work hours. This does not mean that maximum flexibility is best. According to Abad [67] and Heezen [32], freedom should remain inside the boundaries of its function to avoid negative results. Several studies found a positive relationship between organizational flexibility through flexible work arrangements and organizational performance [63,[68][69][70]. Therefore: Hypothesis 2c (H2c). Internal speed of change has a positive relationship with organizational performance.
Employability enhances individual innovative behaviors in the workplace [51]. Employability is 'the continuously fulfilling, acquiring or creating work through the optimal use of competences' [71] (p. 453). Employability or sustainable employment therefore influences not only the employee, but has a positive effect on the adaptability organization as well. In this research, we focus on older employees, because aging of the working population is a societal concern in the Netherlands [72,73]. Physical and cognitive aging is inevitable, but it can be accelerated or delayed by work quality [74]. Organizations should invest in the sustainable employment of aging personnel. Besides keeping employees' knowledge and skills updated, a firm should give employees sufficient chances and motivation to do work that is not yet part of their tasks, enhancing sustainable employment and their chances for development [73], because these actions, adjusted to the age of employees, have a positive influence on employees' competences and attitudes and thus on organizational performance [75]. Therefore: Hypothesis 2d (H2d). Sustainable employment has a positive relationship with organizational performance.
Routine activities are increasingly replaced with knowledge-intensive work under the influence of technology. Such work thus becomes dominant, requiring combining and interpreting information to resolve new, daily problems in cocreation with others [76]. This type of work is characteristic of learning, generating, and applying knowledge. Work then becomes a primary source of learning [77], requiring the continuous development of knowledge and new ways of learning [78]. Investing in knowledge represents a willingness to invest in the development of employees' knowledge, reflected in policies and investment in knowledge inside a company, which, in turn, indicates increasingly knowledge-intensive processes [76,79]. Organizations must thus invest in employees' knowledge, which requires self-initiation from employees and stimulating their capacities to be innovative during learning. This leads to the optimal use of talent, creating new energy for the firm and employees, and good corporate results [32,80]. Therefore: Hypothesis 2e (H2e). Investment in knowledge has a positive relationship with organizational performance.
Knowledge circulation and talent development are crucial for creating innovation in an organization [79]. Employees need to have the ability to build on the knowledge and skills of others and help them develop and achieve their potential to succeed and grow [81]. When employee expertise is not improved or broadened, talents cannot be developed or used fully, either for employees or the firm [82]. Talent development occurs largely on the job by challenging employees and giving them more authority, power, and duties, and involving them during decision-making [61]. Research suggests a positive effect of talent development and organizational learning climate on organizational performance [83][84][85]. Therefore: Hypothesis 2f (H2f). Talent development has a positive relationship with organizational performance.
Workplace innovation does not occur randomly; it must be encouraged through strategic orientations on workplace innovation, speed of internal change, self-organization, talent development, investment in knowledge, and sustainable employment. Using these components, workplace innovation can be recognized as changes to organizational structures that have a positive effect not only on the organization, but also on employees and society [86]. Organizations are experiencing increased competition, especially those in hospitality, and they must remain innovative to compete [87]. The hospitality industry must be able to attract and retain new customers by satisfying demands to acquire new, unique experiences [88]. Innovation is essential to meeting these demands, but only the effective use of employees allows continuous improvement [89]. People and their competences thus become the most important resource, which must be managed effectively [90,91]. The literature is clear that the hospitality industry cannot survive without innovation, specifically, workplace innovation, and calls have been made for more research related to innovation in the industry [92]. Extant studies suggest that workplace innovation in hospitality remains underdeveloped [34,93]. Therefore:

Hypothesis 3 (H3).
The hospitality industry has lower workplace innovation than other industries have.

Methodology
In this quantitative study, two samples were questioned using a Workplace Innovation survey created by the Dutch Network of Social Innovation (NSI) in 2012. The current study used the survey to examine workplace innovation and test several hypotheses related to the topic. The survey measures six components of workplace innovation-strategic orientation on workplace innovation, speed of internal change, the ability to self-organize, development of talent, investment in knowledge, and sustainable employment. The survey also collects information regarding organizational performance, including revenue growth, new product development, sustainable development, and annual absenteeism percentage [51]. Items pertaining to the six components of workplace innovation remained the same throughout the years (see [51,94,95] for applications of the survey). The ques-tionnaire was originally administered in Dutch so that respondents were able to answer the questions accurately and with full comprehension. Appendix A of this publication identifies the six components of workplace innovation, with example questions for each component. For use in this current study, the questions were translated into English. The translation-back translation method was used to guarantee linguistic quality [96]. The six components of workplace innovation were translated into English by Translator A and then back-translated into Dutch by Translator B. A dialogue then occurred between the translators to ensure that the components and items reflected the original content and meaning of the questions.
This study was conducted in two parts. The first was conducted among executive staff members in the hospitality, i.e., hotel industry in the northern part of the Netherlands. Sampling criteria included a geographical representation of the 3-4-star hotel firms in the northern part of the Netherlands. The hotels were approached through the researchers' personal contacts, in association with the Academy of International Hospitality Research of NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences (i.e., non-probability, convenience sampling). These data were compared with data collected among executive staff members of other industries in the southern part of the Netherlands. Sampling criteria included a geographical representation of the other industries in the southern part of the Netherlands. The organizations were approached through the researchers' personal contacts, in association with the Limburg Employers Association (i.e., non-probability, convenience sampling).
Organizations, especially those in hospitality, must remain innovative to compete [87], and therefore a comparison between hospitality and other industries was conducted. Three-and four-star hotels were chosen because they represent the majority of hotels in the northern part of the Netherlands.
All items were scored using a 5-point, Likert-type scale that ranged from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree." Using this method, subjectivity was possible due to the self-scoring of organizations, and participants might have chosen middle scores, thereby influencing final scores. However, research using the survey has been reproduced for several years, and each year scores were comparable, contributing to the reproducibility of the study. Hypotheses were analyzed statistically using regression and independent t-tests.

Results
Two samples were questioned; the first was conducted in the hospitality, i.e., hotel industry (108 executive staff members participated), and additionally, 201 executive staff members of other industries participated in this research. The samples were combined before analysis and were assessed for outliers, additivity, linearity, normality, homoscedasticity, and homogeneity of variance [97]. Data were assessed for internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The strategic orientation on workplace innovation subscale consisted of 28 items (α = 0.83), internal speed of change consisted of 11 items (α = 0.80), ability to self-organize 12 items (α =0.73), talent development 9 (α = 0.84), investment in knowledge 6 (α = 0.77), and sustainable employment 4 (α = 0.53). All subscales were internally valid, except for sustainable employment. The scale of workplace innovation thus consisted of 70 items (α = 0.93) and was valid to use in this study. Thirty-five percent of organizations operated in the hotel industry, and the remaining 65% were from other industries. The companies came from the manufacturing industry (13%), commercial services (79%), and non-commercial (8%) industries (governmental, hospitals and educational institutions). The extent to which organizations reported their own organizational performance predicted and explained significant variance in workplace innovation and its six components is shown in Tables 1 and 2.  Workplace innovation and organizational performance had a positive relationship. Workplace innovation also had a positive relationship with the extent to which the organizations assessed their revenue growth, in comparison to similar organizations, the number of new products introduced in the market during the past year, and the extent to which the organizations assessed themselves as leaders of sustainability. Thus, when workplace innovation increased, growth in revenue, the number of new products, and sustainability also increased. Workplace innovation had a negative relationship with absenteeism, which means that when workplace innovation increased, absenteeism decreased. Results suggest a positive relationship between workplace innovation and organizational performance, supporting H1.
For H2, organizational performance was tested against subscales of workplace innovation, except for sustainable employment, because its Cronbach's alpha coefficient was too low. All components of workplace innovation had positive relationships with the extent to which the organizations assessed their own growth in revenue in comparison to similar organizations, and the extent to which the organizations assessed themselves as leaders in sustainability. Strategic orientation on workplace innovation and talent development had positive relationships with the number of new products introduced in the market during the past year. Self-organization, internal speed of change, and investment in knowledge did not correlate with the number of new products introduced in the market during the past year. All components of workplace innovation had negative relationships with absenteeism during the last year.
Results suggest that greater strategic orientation on workplace innovation (a), and talent development (d), correlated with four factors of organizational performance. Greater internal speed of change (b), ability to self-organize (c), and investment in knowledge (e) correlated with three factors of organizational performance-growth in revenue, sustainability, and absenteeism-supporting H2a, H2b, and H2f. H2c and H2e were partially supported because organizational performance was significant, except for new products. H2d could not be tested; therefore, it was not supported.
An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare workplace innovation across hospitality and the other industries, during which a difference was found for workplace innovation between hospitality (M = 3.15, SD = 0.26) and other (M = 3.51, SD = 0.33; t(319) = 9.93, p < 0.001) industries. Hospitality scores were lower for workplace innovation than in other industries, supporting H3.

Discussion
This study found a positive relationship between workplace innovation and organizational performance, corroborating extant studies conducted on the topic [16,33,54]. The subscales of workplace innovation were correlated positively with indicators of organizational performance, except for absenteeism, which had a negative relationship, as hypothesized. Self-organization, internal speed of change, and investment in knowledge did not correlate with the number of new products introduced in the market. The number of new products introduced in the market is an indicator representing the concept of innovation [98]; therefore, this result is unexpected because extant research reports a positive effect of self-organization [61], internal speed of change [31], and investment in knowledge [99] on innovation. One explanation for this result is that the participating organizations varied greatly in the number of new products introduced into the market because of the different industries they represented. The literature is clear on the importance of innovation in hospitality [88][89][90]93]; the hospitality industry cannot survive without innovation, specifically, workplace innovation. The current study demonstrates that the hospitality industry has lower workplace innovation than other industries.

Theoretical Implications
Results suggest that the hospitality industry has lower workplace innovation than other industries. Innovation in Dutch hotels is less formalized, less often budgeted, and less explicitly managed than, for example, innovation in manufacturing firms [10]. Gehrels [35] argues that workplace innovation has become a research topic of interest to researchers, companies, hospitality management schools, and the hospitality industry. However, few studies have examined management in the Dutch hospitality industry, and more research should be conducted to build grounded theoretical models on workplace innovation for the hospitality industry. Models from Volberda and Van den Bosch [48] and Stoffers et al. [51] suggest an increase in organizational performance, and the current study suggests a positive relationship between workplace innovation and organizational performance. Therefore, investment in workplace innovation components, especially strategic orientation on workplace innovation, internal speed of change, the ability to self-organize, talent development, and investment in knowledge, increases organizational performance. Future research should assess the relationship between sustainable employment as a subscale of workplace innovation and organizational performance [100]. In the current study, the sustainable employment subscale comprised only four items, and thus represented only a small portion of the total scale. Another factor that should be studied is innovation indicators in the context of an organizational performance measure [101], because the number of new products varies greatly across organizations, limiting in-depth research. Additionally, the findings of this study cannot be generalized and applied to the entire hospitality industry because the study sample included only 3-4-star hotel firms in the northern part of the Netherlands.

Practical Implications
This study suggests that organizations should invest more in workplace innovation to increase organizational performance. As several studies discuss, workplace innovation makes it possible to enhance technological innovation in an organization [33,54]. Hospitality should especially invest in workplace innovation because the industry demonstrates a need for innovation to keep up with innovative competitors [36]. Njoroge et al. [102] and Kavoura [87] argue that the ability to innovate in hospitality represents a necessary business capability to derive long-term economic value, especially technological innovation.
The six components of workplace innovation from Stoffers et al. [51] can guide organizations regarding workplace innovation. For example, the current results suggest that greater strategic orientation on workplace innovation and talent development influence four organizational performance measures. Grimmer et al. [59] argue that the prospector strategy has the strongest positive relationship with organizational performance. Strategic orientation on workplace innovation is a sound place to start for organizations that want to improve their performance.

Conclusions
The results of this study suggest that greater strategic orientation on workplace innovation and talent development has a positive influence on four factors of organizational performance, including revenue growth, new product development, sustainable development, and annual absenteeism percentage. Greater internal rates of change, the ability to self-organize, and investment in knowledge also had positive influences on three of the factors-growth in revenue, sustainability, and absenteeism. The results of this study also suggest that the hospitality, i.e., hotel industry has lower workplace innovation than other industries.

Conflicts of Interest:
The authors declare no conflict of interest. In my organization, the following applies to older employees (over 60 years of age): older employees are highly employable

Appendix A
In my organization, the following applies to older employees (older than 60 years): the job content of older employees is geared to any physical or mental disabilities Table A1. Cont.

Component Question
Organizational performance My organization is seen as a leader in the field of sustainability Compared to other organizations in the industry, the revenue growth of my organization in YEAR is higher How many new products or services did your organization introduce to the market in YEAR?
What was the absenteeism rate in YEAR for your organization?