Journal of Tourism & Hospitality
Open Access
ISSN: 2167-0269
+44 1300 500008
ISSN: 2167-0269
+44 1300 500008
Short Communication - (2021)Volume 10, Issue 4
Strategic talent management in the healthcare tourism industry is facing new challenges in this post-covid 19 era. The so called “Digital Revolution” intensified due to the pandemic, namely, bringing new organizational dynamics, more and more knowledge-based organizations and functions, greater demand for high-quality professionals, and a global shortage of qualified and talented professionals. The existing literature has been essentially focused on organizations and what they perceive as crucial and expect from their employees. In contrast, this study aims to identify which employer branding dimensions are perceived to be the most impactful by the professionals themselves and how that affects the levels of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intent to stay and turnover intentions. For this purpose, an online questionnaire (N=300) was distributed to medical, engineering, management, and ICT (Information and Communications Technology) professionals in the healthcare tourism sector, which have shown greater difficulty in attracting and retaining qualified professionals. Based on results, we conclude that all the employer branding dimensions demonstrate a positive correlation towards job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intent to stay and an inverse correlation towards turnover intentions.
Employer branding; Strategic talent management; Job satisfaction; Organizational commitment; Turnover intentions
Health and wellness tourism is now an international trend set by health-conscious consumers seeking to enhance their well-being trough travel experiences [1]. In the other hand, the use of web technologies and new developments in ICTs led the way for new kinds of commitment and relationships in organizations. Technology is gaining traction in the tourism and travel industry [2].
The damaging effect caused by the pandemic in the health tourism industry forced all stakeholders in the sector to rethink their focus. Innovation, reinvention, and disruption have become mandatory paths throughout the industry, in which technology will play a fundamental role in the recovery of the market and its transformation [3]. There are six innovation trends forming for 2021 [4]:
1. End-to-End Touchless Journeys.
2. For Real Recovery, Digitization Is a Must.
3. Health and Immunity Passports: Can Travel Get It Right?
4. Traveller Health and Safety: Tech to the Rescue.
5 Artificial Intelligence in Travel: Separating Reality from Rhetoric.
6 DeFi, DApps (databases and Apps) and New Directions in Travel.
Therefore, intellectual capital and intangible assets represent strategic value creation elements for organizations. Researchers in the tourism industry are focusing on the best ways to attract, retain, and transform intellectual capital into financial return for organizations, to ensure its sustainability and competitive advantage [5].
Thus, the study follows the general objective of identifying which employer branding dimensions are perceived as most impactful on the job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intent to stay and turnover intention levels of employees, therefore, it only aims at the universe of individuals in the internal environment of organizations. Considering this problem, the following research question was raised: “Which employer branding dimensions, implemented by organizations, are perceived as most impactful on of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intent to stay and turnover intentions levels of employees?
This research aims to identify the employer branding dimensions with greater impact on the healthcare tourism professionals in medical, engineering, management, and ICT (Information and communications technology) positions, which are evidencing higher cases of shortages.
The hypotheses were raised, and the research model was developed based on the literature review of each construct: employer branding, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intent to stay and turnover intentions. As for the approach and the methodological framework applied to this study, it is a quantitative research effort, characterized as a field research study. Data was collected with the application of a questionnaire with sociodemographic questions, an employer branding scale [6], and a JOIT (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intention to stay and turnover intentions) scale [7]. The sampling process was non-probabilistic. The online questionnaire link was placed using the snowball sampling method. This research included only the healthcare tourism sector in Portugal. The sample consisted of employees from medium and large organizations from the private healthcare sector. The sampling process was non-probabilistic and convenient. The online questionnaire link was distributed using the snowball sampling method, whereby the link was sent to several people who work in organizations where the concepts of employer branding, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intent to stay and turnover intentions are wellknown.
Initially, a pre-test was carried out on eight individuals from different work areas and functions, to detect possible gaps. The questionnaire was then perfected and, with nothing to add, it was then applied.
The aim of this study was to identify the employer brand elements that produce the greatest impact on levels of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intent to stay and inversely on turnover intentions on the professionals from the medical tourism industry, working in positions, which are evidencing higher cases of shortages.
This research, as well as other similar research items, represents an important contribution to medical tourism Management, both in periods of economic expansion and recession. The postpandemic era we are living in, presents many difficulties to the travel and tourism industry. It is even more important to implement talent management strategies capable of retaining and engaging talented professionals, increasing their levels of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intent to stay and reducing their turnover intentions, as they represent a critical element for competitiveness and success.
Based on the theoretical framework, it was expected that some characteristics of a successful employer brand would be more prominent than others, namely the identification with the “mission, vision, and values” of the organization, the perception of support and justice in the “managerial processes”, identification with the principles and values of “organizational culture”, and a good “reputation and communication” of the organization, therefore, it should be on these dimensions that talent management practices should focus [8].
Results of this research evidence that it is still important to offer a good and fair tangible compensation in form of salary to attract talents, although, findings have revealed that no appreciable differences among employer branding dimensions could be designated.
The findings also allowed us to conclude that the employer branding dimensions have a positive correlation with the dependent variables, when analyzed globally, and also between each of the employer branding dimensions individually towards job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intent to stay, and a negative correlation with turnover intentions.
This research received no external funding.
The author declares no conflict of interest.
Citation: Alves P (2021) High Impact Employer Branding Dimensions for Strategic Intellectual Capital Management in the 4.0 Digital Revolution: Challenges Facing the Healthcare Tourism Industry. J Tourism Hospit. 10:471.
Received: 19-May-2021 Accepted: 02-Jun-2021 Published: 09-Jun-2021 , DOI: 10.35248/2167-0269.21.10.471
Copyright: © 2021 Alves P. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.