Hotel employees' beliefs on unethical behavior

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore the beliefs of employees who work in different positions in the hotels in Edirne, Turkey regarding unethical applications. Design/methodology/approach – The survey method was used to determine the hotel personnel’s unethical behaviors in the process of the service operation in hotels. The questionnaire was mainly developed from a Varinli study which was applied to the employees’ job-related ethics. Findings – The findings have been evaluated and analyzed using the SPSS 11.5. The mean value and the t-test were applied for the analysis. It was aimed to determine the beliefs of the hotel personnel’s about unethical behaviors according to the 20 statements related to the topic. It was understood that the respondents significantly did not accept unethical behaviors that were scaled with 20 statements. Research limitations/implications – Some statements in the questionnaire were either changed or extended, considering all the hotels in Edirne. The questionnaire was applied in 15 hotels from 9-13 March in 2009 and excluded employees who were not on the premises during the process. After a week 160 valid questionnaires were either collected from or posted by those concerned. Practical implications – The research aims to investigate the job-related unethical beliefs of hotel employees. The housekeeping, food and beverage, and front-office departments are mainly studied from the perspecive of the unethical applications. Nevertheless, the answers represented only the personnel’s ethical beliefs. Whether they would ‘‘actually perform in such a way’’ in real life is difficult to verify. It is not possible to verify the employees’ actual behavior compared with their answers in the questionnaire. Originality/value – The paper is based on a Varinli study which was applied to the employees’ job-related ethics. In 2004 Varinli studied the hotel employees’ beliefs regarding unethical applications in 3- and 4-star hotels in Capadocia.