Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management

First Advisor

Fang Meng

Abstract

Persistent labor shortages and elevated voluntary turnover define the hospitality industry. High-intensity service interactions increase workload, emotional labor, and time pressure for non-management employees. The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model predicts engagement and retention when job resources offset job demands. Existing research has not specified which operational conditions reliably predict this balance in dynamic service work. This study evaluates whether adapted Agile philosophy serves as a heuristic framework for specifying JD-R constructs in hospitality. The study maps Agile values and principles to validated psychological constructs through Psychological State Matching: Self-Organization to Psychological Empowerment (PE), Regular Reflection to Perceived Team Learning Behavior (PTLB), and Interactions over Processes to Perceived Psychological Safety (PPS). Deviation from Simplicity maps to Hindrance Stressors (HS); deviation from Sustainable Pace maps to Quantitative Workload (QWL). This mapping is subjective and isolated to theory-building; the empirical measurement relies on validated scales. A cross-sectional survey collected data from 386 non-management hospitality employees. Covariance-based structural equation modeling with robust maximum likelihood estimation tested the model. The data supported 5 of 13 hypothesized relationships. PE dominated both pathways: it showed a large positive association with Employee Satisfaction (β = .861) and a large negative association with Burnout (β = −.814). PPS and PTLB showed large bivariate associations with outcomes but contributed no unique variance after controlling for PE; the three resources formed a correlated cluster  whose effects concentrated in PE. HS predicted Burnout (β = .158). Employee Satisfaction and Burnout both predicted Turnover Intentions. The model explained 80.2% of variance in Employee Satisfaction, 81.0% in Burnout, and 53.2% in Turnover Intentions. Agile philosophy functions as a valid but imprecise heuristic: it correctly identified the dual- pathway structure but overestimated the independence of team-level constructs relative to individual empowerment.

Rights

© 2026, Albaraa Mesawi

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