| The purpose of the study was to investigate the linkage between MO capabilities, KM strategies, and hotel performance. This study focused on the investigation of hotels in Taiwan at a property level. The study not only aimed at the development of a KM measurement scale for hotel use, but also empirically examined whether or not KM strategies were an essential function of enhancing a firm's performance by properly aligning MO capabilities. Therefore, objectives of the study were to: (1) develop and validate an instrument for the assessment of KM strategy implementation in the hotel industry; (2) examine the implementation of KM strategies in the hotel industry; (3) revalidate an existing MO scale in a hotel context; and (4) examine the relationships between MO, KM, and hotel performance.; This study employed a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods. Two stages of a qualitative research, focus group discussions and expert reviews, were involved, followed by a quantitative survey research. The study mainly followed the procedures suggested by Churchill (1979), Gerbing and Anderson (1988), and Hair, Anderson, Tatham, and Black (2002) in scale development and measurement purification. The final KM measurement model contained 24 items for hotel use. The 20-item MARKOR scale was also re-validated in the hotel context, with a total of 15 items being retained in the final scale. It was found that the surveyed hotels possessed superior MO capabilities over implementation of KM strategies.; The proposed model included only one exogenous variable: MO capabilities. The two endogenous variables were KM strategies and hotel performance. Three hotel performance models were investigated: overall hotel performance, a hotel's room performance, and a hotel's food and beverage performance. Both subjective and objective measures of hotel performance were obtained. Subjective measures were obtained through the survey, while objective measures were obtained from secondary data.; Findings of the study gave clear indications that would allow interested parties such as hotel operators, consultants, students, and scholars to understand more about the implications of KM strategy implementation and MO capabilities on hotel performance. |
