School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing
This paper offers a theoretical model explaining whether and when investment in employee development by hospitality organizations in Lebanon, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia enhances job engagement. Drawing from Social Exchange Theory (SET) we first investigate direct relationships between perceived investment in employee development (PIED) and overall job engagement, then the relationship with its dimensions- cognitive, emotional, and physical engagement. We specifically interrogate whether these relationships hold up for gender, age, job experience, and job level. Second, we investigate the moderating effects of work intensity and irregular working hours on these direct relationships and whether these contingencies result in organizations losing the value of employee development investments. We utilize data from hotels in Lebanon, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia involving 729 front-line employees and managers. Our results show that PIED is positively associated with overall job engagement and its three dimensions. We found that these relationships are stronger for male and older employees, those with less job experience, and managerial employees. Work intensity negatively moderates the relationships between PIED, job engagement, and its dimensions whereas irregular work hours positively moderate the PIED - job engagement relationship and both cognitive and physical engagement. We discuss implications for theory and practice.
