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Organizational change in tourism industry (Master thesis)

Παληκάρη, Ειρήνη/ Palikari, Eirini

In recent years, the tourism industry has been called upon to face many changes, including climate change, economic crises, and unexpected events such as the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, there have been several instances where tourism industries have had to undergo organizational changes to survive and gain a competitive advantage in their field of activity. The purpose of this research is to study organizational change in the tourism sector of Greece, through the creation of a research model that explores the factors of transformative leadership, communication, participation, and education, which influence attitudes towards change and hotel resilience, through the factor of perceived organizational change. The measurement of research factors was carried out using an online questionnaire in which 103 top executives working in various hotel departments participated. The statistical analysis of the results was performed using SPSS 25 and showed that transformative leadership and education had a positive influence on organizational change, which in turn positively influenced both employees' attitudes toward change and hotel resilience. Furthermore, the results indicated that the factors of participation and communication are not correlated with the perceived organizational change. The research concludes that transformative leadership and education play a significant role in implementing organizational changes, which, in turn, can significantly influence employees' attitudes towards change and hotel resilience.