Evidence from an emerging country Van Thac Danga, Mai Nguyen Lisovichb, Tan Vo-Thanhc, Jianming Wangd,*, Ninh Nguyene aDepartment of Business Administration, Business School, Shantou Un
Trang 1TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CÔNG NGHỆ ĐỒNG NAI
BÀI BÁO ĐĂNG TRONG TẠP CHÍ QUỐC TẾ
THUỘC DANH MỤC ISI
JOURNAL OF HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM MANAGEMENT
ISSN: 1447-6770 (Print); 1839-5260 (Online), SSCI
Impact Factor: 5.959 (2020)
Published online: 27 August 2021
Research Article:
HOW CAN FRONTLINE MANAGERS’ CREATIVITY IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY BE ENHANCED? EVIDENCE FROM AN EMERGING COUNTRY
Vo-Thanh Tan, Tourism Department, Economics – Management Faculty, Dong Nai Technology University, Dong Nai, Vietnam
Địa chỉ tra cứu bài báo:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S144767702100139X
Địa chỉ tải bài báo: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2021.08.018
Đồng Nai - Năm 2021
Trang 2Available online 27 August 2021
1447-6770/© 2021 The Authors
How can frontline managers’ creativity in the hospitality industry be
enhanced? Evidence from an emerging country
Van Thac Danga, Mai Nguyen Lisovichb, Tan Vo-Thanhc, Jianming Wangd,*, Ninh Nguyene
aDepartment of Business Administration, Business School, Shantou University, Guangdong, China
bFaculty of Business Administration, Van Lang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam
cDepartment of Tourism Management, Dong Nai Technology University, Bien Hoa, Viet Nam
dSchool of Business Administration, Zhejiang University of Finance & Economics, Hangzhou, China
eCharles Darwin University, Asia Pacific College of Business and Law, Darwin City, Australia
A R T I C L E I N F O
Keywords:
Workplace learning
Knowledge sharing
Cognitive flexibility
Creativity
Hotel
A B S T R A C T
On the basis of social cognitive theory, social interaction theory, and cognitive flexibility theory, this study investigates the relationship between workplace learning and frontline managers’ creativity in the hospitality industry, with the mediating roles of knowledge sharing and cognitive flexibility This study uses structural equation modeling to test hypotheses using a three-wave time-lagged sample data of 307 frontline managers in the hospitality industry in Vietnam Results show that workplace learning is positively related to frontline managers’ creativity Furthermore, knowledge sharing has a positive mediating effect in the relationship be-tween workplace learning and frontline managers’ creativity In addition, cognitive flexibility positively medi-ates the relationship between workplace learning and frontline managers’ creativity Cognitive flexibility also positively mediates the relationship between knowledge sharing and frontline managers’ creativity These findings provide implications for both academics and practitioners in the hospitality industry regarding enhancing frontline managers’ creativity through workplace learning, knowledge sharing, and cognitive flexibility
1 Introduction
The hospitality industry often requires a high level of creativity and
innovation (Romero & Tejada, 2020) One of the competitive
advan-tages of hospitality companies is rooted in creativity (Kitsios &
Grigor-oudis, 2020), because creativity helps hospitality companies improve
service quality that meets customer demands (Romero & Tejada, 2020)
Frontline managers in a hospitality company are people who are directly
responsible for managing, supervising, and training frontline employees
Frontline managers also need to understand the job of all frontline
employees and the whole service process of a hospitality company (Lee,
Townsend, & Wilkinson, 2020) For example, a frontline manager may
often deal with customer complaints, and hence understand customers’
problems better than other types of managers in their company He/she
may also understand what is wrong with service process that cannot
meet customer demands In this case, if a frontline manager has a new
idea to improve frontline employees’ skills and service process, service
quality of a hospitality company can be improved to meet customer demands (Nasution & Mavondo, 2008) Therefore, frontline managers’ creativity could help frontline employees better accomplish their jobs, satisfy customer demand, and boost hospitality company’s competi-tiveness (Romero & Tejada, 2020)
Although frontline managers’ creativity is very important to a hos-pitality company (Baradarani & Kilic, 2018), to our best knowledge, very few studies have determined frontline managers’ creativity in the hospitality industry For example, in reviewing the hospitality literature,
Hon and Lui (2016) and Kitsios and Grigoroudis (2020) concluded that most of prior studies have mainly focused on frontline employees’ creativity and service innovation The possible reason is that frontline employees are people who often directly interact with customers; their creativity has a direct impact on improving customer’s experience (Kitsios & Grigoroudis, 2020) However, given the important role of frontline managers’ creativity in improving frontline employees’ job performance and service quality (Romero & Tejada, 2020), it is worthy
* Corresponding author
E-mail addresses: wshdang@stu.edu.cn (V.T Dang), mai.nq@vlu.edu.vn (M.N Lisovich), vothanht@excelia-group.com (T Vo-Thanh), sjwjm@zufe.edu.cn
(J Wang), ninh.nguyen@cdu.edu.au (N Nguyen)
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhtm
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2021.08.018
Received 15 April 2021; Received in revised form 4 August 2021; Accepted 21 August 2021
Trang 3to determine frontline mangers’ creativity in the hospitality industry
In the hospitality industry, frontline managers need to possess
knowledge, skills, and experiences on both micro and marco level (Wong
& Pang, 2003) On a micro level, an individual frontline manager need
to have necessary knowledge and skills to perform a specific job before
he/she is promoted to a manager position (K¨oseoglu et al., 2020) On a
macro level, an individual frontline manager need to have knowledge
and understanding of all job of each frontline employee and the whole
service process of a hospitality company, because he/she is responsible
for managing, supervising, and training all frontline employees
(K¨oseoglu et al., 2020) In order to possess knowledge, skills, and
ex-periences at both micro and macro levels, frontline managers need to be
trained and educated in their workplace (Theodosiou et al., 2012) In
this case, workplace learning provides necessary knowledge, skills, and
experiences for frontline managers to succeed in their job position
(Kellner et al., 2016) Furthermore, when frontline managers learn rich
knowledge and skills from different training and learning programs,
they tend to be more creative in their work (Cohen, 2013) Therefore,
workplace learning may enhance frontline managers’ creativity
Furthermore, knowledge sharing is identified as an important factor
that contributes to service innovation in the hospitality industry (Chen &
Cheng, 2012) A frontline manager often has to work directly with both
customers and frontline employees He/she needs to be more creatitive
to fulfill high demand from customers and complex requirements from
frontline employees (Yang, 2010) Advanced knowledge from sharing
activities in the workplace may increase frontline managers’ creativity
to improve service quality and meet high demand from customers (Chen
& Cheng, 2012; Swanson et al., 2020) Thus, knowledge sharing may
play an important role in affecting frontline managers’ creativity
In addition, the work of frontline managers in the hospitality
in-dustry often requires high flexibility (Baradarani & Kilic, 2018)
Unex-pected events and constantly changing demand of customers often
require quick responses from frontline managers Specifically, frontline
managers need to think and deal flexibly with different perspectives to
solve problems (Dajani & Uddin, 2015) In other words, cognitive
flex-ibility is an important factor that helps frontline managers deal with
complex problems in work environment (Theodosiou et al., 2012)
Cognitive flexibility may play a role in affecting frontline managers’
creativity, because it helps to enhance frontline managers’ ability to
think and act flexibly (Ou et al., 2018)
Given the aforementioned, this study aims at investigating the
rela-tionship between workplace learning and frontline managers’ creativity
in the hospitality industry, with the mediating roles of knowledge
sharing and cognitive flexibility This study will contribute to the
cur-rent literature in several ways First, anchored on social cognitive theory
(Bandura, 1986; Miller & Dollard, 1941), this study sheds a new light on
the issue of frontline managers’ creativity in the hospitality industry
Second, drawing on the theoretical foundation of social interaction
theory (Bales, 2000; Turner, 1988), this study infers and helps clarify the
mediating mechanism of knowledge sharing in the link between
work-place learning and frontline managers’ creativity Third, based on
cognitive flexibility theory (Spiro et al., 1987, 1988), this study enriches
current knowledge about the mediating role of cognitive flexibility in
the effects of workplace learning and knowledge sharing on frontline
managers’ creativity Finally, this study’s findings provide valuable
implications for developing frontline managers’ creativity through
enhancing workplace learning, knowledge sharing, and cognitive
flexibility
2 Literature review and hypotheses
2.1 Theoretical background
This study is underpinned by social cognitive theory (SCT), social
interaction theory (SIT), and cognitive flexibility theory (CFT) SCT
states that learning is a mental process of gaining knowledge and
understanding through sensation and thinking process (Bandura, 1986;
Miller & Dollard, 1941) Specifically, people observe and receive in-formation from the external environment, which is turned into new knowledge through cognitive processes, in which people’s brain works
to comprehend and memorize the information (Solomon, 2018; Ten-nyson, 1990) Consequently, people may apply what they have learned
to solve problems in current and future situations (Tennyson, 1990), as well as increase their work performance (Sternberg & Zhang, 2014) SCT has been successfully used to explain learning behavior and its outcomes
in the fields of psychology, organizational management, and education (Solomon, 2019) Hence, SCT informed this study to explain the rela-tionship between workplace learning and frontline managers’ creativity SIT refers to the interaction among people in a society where people learn and form attitudes and behavior through social interaction process (Bales, 2000; Turner, 1988) In a social context, people can learn knowledge, skills, and experiences because people obtain and integrate information through communication and interaction (Turner, 1988) SIT has been widely used to explain leaning and sharing behavior in physical and virtual environments (Dang, 2021) The present study therefore based on SIT to investigate the mediating mechanism of knowledge sharing in the relationship between workplace learning and frontline managers’ creativity
CFT was first proposed by Spiro et al (1987, 1988) to clarify the role
of cognitive process in affecting the success of advanced knowledge transfer in problem solving and decision making Essentially, cognitive flexibility triggers individuals to switch between different perspectives and strategies, which allow them to effectively process information and deeply understand different concepts (Spiro et al., 1988) Furthermore, cognitive flexibility works to break cognitive persistence and make in-dividuals sensitive to alternatives (Eslinger & Grattan, 1993) Through a process of flexible adaptation and internal state change, cognitive flex-ibility helps individuals obtain advanced knowledge and transfer it to comprehend and solve problems (Ritter et al., 2012) Thus, the current study used CFT to infer the mediating role of cognitive flexibility in the link between workplace learning and frontline managers’ creativity, and that between knowledge sharing and frontline managers’ creativity
2.2 Workplace learning and individual creativity 2.2.1 Workplace learning
Workplace learning is defined as “the processes and outcomes of learning that individual employees and groups of employees undertake under the auspices of a particular workplace” (Holliday & Retallick,
1995, p 7) Particularly, workplace learning refers to training, teaching, and learning activities that occur in the work environment where em-ployees can obtain knowledge, skills, and experiences that enhance their productivity and work performance (Dang & Chou, 2019) Workplace learning is a multidimensional construct that includes three dimensions, namely, informal, incidental, and formal learning (Watkins & Marsick,
1992) Informal learning does not occur in the classroom or educational institution with formal educational programs It occurs in the workplace
as a results of interaction, teamwork, or problem solving among em-ployees and with supervisors (Kyndt et al., 2013) Incidental learning often occurs as a byproducts of interaction in the workplace or as a result
of a trial-and-error process and organizational supports (Rowden, 2002) Formal learning refers to formal training programs that are officially designed for employees with formal supports from organizations and leaders (Rowden, 2002) These dimensions of workplace learning make employees learn new knowledge, skills, and experiences in their work environment effectively (Billett, 2020) In the hospitality industry, the concept of workplace learning is viewed as the training, teaching, and learning activities that occur in a service context in which frontline managers can obtain knowledge, skills, and experiences Similarly, workplace learning in the hospitality industry also includes formal, informal, and incidental learning activites in a service context
Trang 42.2.2 Individual creativity
Creativity is often viewed as an important source of firms’ innovation
and competitive advantage (Gong et al., 2009) The difference between
creativity and innovation has been discussed in piror literature (Gong
et al., 2009) The former refers to the action of new idea generation
whereas the latter refers to the convertion of new idea into an end
product (Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2015) At an individual level,
crea-tivity refers to “activities undertaken by individuals within an
organi-zation to enhance their capability for developing something, which is
meaningful and novel within their work environment” (Bharadwaj &
Menon, 2000, p 425) Individual creativity is often treated as a single
construct in prior literature It reflects the use of knowledge and ability
to generate useful and novel ideas (Gong et al., 2009)
2.2.3 The relationship between workplace learning and creativity
In a working environment, creativity is often viewed as a source of
competitive advantage for organizations, because creativity creates new
products and services that meet customer demands (Orfila-Sintes &
Mattsson, 2009) However, creativity often requires the creation of new
and useful ideas, and individuals are one of the most important sources
of new idea generation (Armstrong et al., 2018) From formal learning,
informal learning, and social interaction in the workplace, individuals
can gain new knowledge and skills These knowledge and skills will help
individuals prepare new abilities and use their new knowledge to
generate ideas for innovation (Orfila-Sintes & Mattsson, 2009) For
example, a formal learning program about service innovation with
professional experts designed by a hospitality company may help
in-crease frontline managers’ new knowledge and motivate them toward
service innovation (Vladimirov & Williams, 2018) Furthermore, an
interaction with coworkers and customers may help frontline managers
understand their customers and implement innovation in improving
service process to satisfy customer needs (Enz & Siguaw, 2003)
On the basis of SCT, when frontline managers participate in
work-place learning, they will obtain new knowledge and experiences through
cognitive process Consequently, frontline managers may use their new
knowledge and experience to engage in creative activities (Nooteboom,
2000) That is, mental processes help frontline managers obtain new
sources of information in the workplace Through comprehension and
integration of new information and knowledge, they can generate new
ideas and be creative by combining new information and knowledge
into their current knowledge base (Nieves & Diaz-Meneses, 2018)
Therefore, workplace learning will enhance frontline managers’
crea-tivity because they gain new ideas from various sources of information
in the workplace (Nooteboom, 2000) Thus, the following hypothesis is
developed
H1 Workplace learning is positively related to frontline managers’
creativity
2.3 Knowledge sharing and its mediating role
2.3.1 Knowledge sharing
Knowledge sharing is a core concept in knowledge management of
organizations (Weathersby, 1999) It refers to “the provision of task
information and know-how to help others and to collaborate with others
to solve problems, develop new ideas, or implement policies or
pro-cedures” (Kim & Lee, 2013, p 327) Specifically, knowledge sharing
reflects the exchange of advanced knowledge, skills, and experiences
between employees through the entire organization (Kim et al., 2013)
That is, individuals may learn knowledge from different sources and
they share it with coworkers after knowledge has been absorbed,
pro-cessed, and refined in their brains (Shah et al., 2020) Knowledge
sharing is known as a key factor that helps organizations gain higher
effectiveness, better competitiveness, and greater performance (Kim &
Yun, 2015)
Carmeli et al (2013) suggested that knowledge sharing increases
employees’ problem-solving capacity De Clercq and Pereira (2020)
found a positive effect of knowledge sharing on employees’ creative behavior Lee, Malik, et al (2020) found a positive relationship between knowledge sharing and employee performance Poleacovschi et al (2017) reported a positive effect of knowledge sharing on employees’ time savings Salehi-Kordabadi and Zad-Doosti (2020) found that knowledge sharing among employees enhances team performance These studies have provided evidence for the important role of knowl-edge sharing in affecting employee behavior and performance in an organization Thus, findings from these studies may provide basis to clarify that knowledge sharing is also important in the context of the hospitality industry, because it may help frontline managers obtain advanced knowledge and skills that are useful for their work (Chen & Cheng, 2012; Yang, 2010)
2.3.2 The mediating role of knowledge sharing
In a working environment, SIT can be used to explain the relation-ship among workplace learning, knowledge sharing behavior, and in-dividual creativity Accordingly, learning and training in a working environment is a social interaction process that occurs in different di-rections (Dang & Chou, 2019) That is, when individuals learn new knowledge and skills from formal learning programs and informal interaction with their coworkers, they may share these knowledge and skills with other coworkers as a result of discussion, meeting, and interaction in the workplace (Manuti et al., 2015) Particularly, when individuals engage in learning activities, they will also engage in knowledge sharing activities, because both learning and sharing activ-ities often occur in interaction and discussion in a working environment (Wang, 2018) For example, a local manager may learn how to operate a machine through a formal training program and then he/she may teach
a new foreign worker to operate that machine based on what he/she has learned (Dang et al., 2020) Thus, when individuals learn new knowl-edge and skills, they tend to share with other coworkers, because they automatically and forcibly engage in social interactions in which learning and sharing behavior may occur intentionally or unintention-ally in the workplace (Wang, 2018) In other words, workplace learning enhances knowledge sharing as a result of interaction and discussion in a working environment (Wang, 2018)
Furthermore, as individuals learn and share knowledge with one another in the workplace, they will also obtain new knowledge, skills, and experiences (Manuti et al., 2015; Rowden, 2002) As a result, a rich knowledge base will enhance individuals’ capability and creativity, because they can develop various new and useful ideas when they have rich information and knowledge (Shah et al., 2020) That is, knowledge sharing helps to increase individuals’ creativity, because knowledge sharing activities enrich individuals’ knowledge base with useful in-formation and ideas (Harel et al., 2020; Zohoori et al., 2013) Several studies have found a positive relationship between knowledge sharing and creative behavior For example, Yeh et al (2012), Zohoori et al (2013), and Harel et al (2020) found that knowledge sharing helps create new knowledge that improves individuals’ creativity and orga-nization innovation
In the context of the hospitality industry, a frontline manager is often responsible for the works of all frontline employees He/she is also responsible for solving customer problems (Theodosiou et al., 2012) The requirements of the work of a frontline manager require him/her to have rich knowledge and skills in their positions (Romero & Tejada,
2020) In accordance with SIT, frontline managers can obtain knowl-edge and skills through workplace learning and interaction Specifically, formal and informal learning activities provide opportunity for frontline managers to gain new knowledge and skills (Rowden, 2002) Moreover,
to ensure high service quality for customers, frontline managers must train and educate frontline employees This can be done through social interaction and training activities, where frontline managers provide and share what they have learned with frontline employees (Wang,
2018) These knowledge sharing activities also enable frontline
Trang 5managers to gain new information and useful ideas from other
co-workers and frontline employees (Bales, 2000; Turner, 1988), since such
activities are social interaction which often occurs in different directions
(Kandampully & Suhartanto, 2000) As a result, knowledge sharing
ac-tivities enhance frontline managers’ ability to create new ideas, based on
the knowledge obtained through social interaction with other coworkers
and frontline employees (Chen & Cheng, 2012) Thus, it is expected that
workplace learning enhances knowledge sharing, which in turn
in-creases frontline managers’ creativity Thus, the following hypothesis is
developed
H2 Knowledge sharing positively mediates the relationship between
workplace learning and frontline managers’ creativity
2.4 Cognitive flexibility and its mediating role
2.4.1 Cognitive flexibility
Cognitive flexibility refers to individuals’ “(a) awareness that in any
given situation there are options and alternatives available, (b)
willing-ness to be flexible and adapt to the situation, and (c) belief that one has
the ability to be flexible” (Martin & Anderson, 1998, p 4) In other
words, cognitive flexibility is defined as a person’s ability to think and
deal flexibly with different perspectives (Ou et al., 2018) Specifically,
cognitive flexibility reflects individuals’ ability to “break old cognitive
patterns, overcome functional fixedness, and novel associations between
concepts” (Ritter et al., 2012, p 961) In the hospitality industry, due to
frontline managers often deal with complex problems (e.g., customer
complaints, service failure, employee conflicts), cognitive flexibility
may be an important factor that helps frontline managers come up with
new solutions for their problems Thus, cognitive flexibility is
consid-ered as important factor in our research model
2.4.2 The mediating role of cognitive flexibility
According to CFT (Spiro et al., 1987, 1988), conceptual complexity
and ill-structuredness of concepts restrict knowledge acquisition In the
case of lack of cognitive flexibility, people cannot understand and obtain
knowledge, because people do not engage in deep mental processes
(Dajani & Uddin, 2015; Moore & Malinowski, 2009) By contrast, people
who engage in cognitive flexibility will easily “attain a deeper
under-standing of content material, reason with it, and apply it flexibly in
diverse contexts” (Spiro et al., 1988, p 2) That is, people use deep
mental processes to promote multiple alternative systems of linkage
among knowledge elements This process will help people generate new
ideas and be creative, because cognitive flexibility is a dynamic process
that helps people obtain new and advanced knowledge (Martin &
Anderson, 1998) In other words, through deep mental processes, people
process information, obtain new knowledge, and integrate it into their
current knowledge base With rich and advanced knowledge acquisition,
people may be more effective and flexible in transferring their
knowl-edge into creative behavior (Ou et al., 2018) Thus, according to CFT,
cognitive flexibility can enhance creativity
Furthermore, according to CFT, cognitive flexibility is a mental
process in which individuals mentally acquire and process information
and knowledge from external contexts (Spiro et al., 1987, 1988) In the
context of the hospitality industry, workplace learning is inputs for
frontline managers’ cognitive process, because they acquire and
comprehend content materials from formal and informal learning
ac-tivities (Rowden, 2002) As a result, learning activities help frontline
managers create new knowledge through mental processes (Kim & Yun,
2015; Lee, Legood, et al., 2020) In other words, learning in the
work-place provides rich sources of information and knowledge base for
frontline managers who will engage in cognitive processes to acquire
advanced knowledge in the workplace (Yeh et al., 2012) Consequently,
frontline managers may find it flexible to apply their obtained
knowl-edge to problem solving and decision making (Ritter et al., 2012) Thus,
workplace learning increases frontline managers’ cognitive flexibility
because workplace learning provides rich materials and information for frontline managers to dynamically engage in cognitive processes (Kim & Yun, 2015)
According to CFT, workplace learning enhances frontline managers’ ability to think and deal flexibly with different perspectives, because frontline managers can obtain new knowledge and skills from learning activities through cognitive processes (Moore & Malinowski, 2009) As a result, frontline managers may depend on a rich knowledge base and system of linkages among knowledge elements to engage in new idea development and creative behavior (Martin & Anderson, 1998; Ou et al.,
2018) Therefore, workplace learning increases cognitive flexibility, which in turn enhances frontline managers’ creativity The following hypothesis is developed
H3 Cognitive flexibility positively mediates the relationship between
workplace learning and frontline managers’ creativity
Similarly, knowledge sharing is another way for frontline managers
to involve in cognitive processes When frontline managers engage in knowledge sharing activities, they participate in social interaction and discussion (Kim & Lee, 2013) Due to knowledge sharing provides advanced knowledge and useful information, frontline managers can engage in mental processes to deal with different alternatives This is because knowledge sharing provides rich information and useful ideas that trigger cognitive processes to interpret, integrate, and combine new information and ideas into current knowledge base in an individual’s brain (De Clercq & Pereira, 2020) That is, knowledge sharing increases frontline managers’ ability to deal flexibly with information and ideas from sharing activities Thus, knowledge sharing increases frontline managers’ cognitive flexibility
According to CFT, cognitive processes help an individual successfully transform knowledge into problem solving and decision-making (Martin
& Anderson, 1998) When knowledge sharing drives frontline managers engaging in a cognitive process, frontline managers may flexibly and dynamically deal with different information and useful ideas from sharing activities (Dajani & Uddin, 2015) As cognitive flexibility works
in a dynamic way to interpret, integrate, and combine information and knowledge obtained from sharing activities, frontline managers are more likely to be creative, because cognitive flexibility helps them come
up with different alternatives in problem solving (Eslinger & Grattan,
1993) In other words, knowledge sharing enhances frontline managers’ cognitive flexibility, which in turn increases creative behavior Thus, the following hypothesis is developed
H4 Cognitive flexibility positively mediates the relationship between
knowledge sharing and frontline managers’ creativity
Fig 1 shows the research model of this study
3 Methods
3.1 Research design
The current study employed a hypo-deductive quantitative research design (Saunders et al., 2019) Accordingly, the research model and hypotheses were developed on the basis of relevant theories and studies
in the literature, and then tested using quantitative data obtained from a survey Specifically, the survey questionnaire was developed using a backward translation technique Next, a pilot test was conducted to ensure the quality of this questionnaire This was followed by a formal survey aimed at collecting sample data Finally, the data were analyzed using advanced statistical techniques and software
3.2 Sample procedure
Following McGorry’s (2000) method, a backward translation was adopted to design the questionnaire Particularly, a professional trans-lator was invited to translate the questionnaire from English to
Trang 6Vietnamese and translated back into English by another translator A
third translator rechecked the questionnaire between English and
Viet-namese Furthermore, three doctoral students were invited to check the
wordings and meanings of each item in the questionnaire After that, this
study conducted a pilot test with a sample of 20 hotel frontline managers
in Vietnam These managers reported a good understanding and
clari-fication of the wordings and meaning of the measurement items Hence,
no modifications were made to the questionnaire Finally, a formal
survey was conducted to collect data
The target sample was frontline managers from hotels in Vung Tau
City Vung Tau City is one of the largest tourism cities in Vietnam, which
attracts several domestic and foreign tourists yearly It is qualified as one
of the best regional tourism cities in Asia-Pacific Through a Facebook
hotel community, a list of more than 12,000 hotels was obtained Based
on their websites, a target sample of 600 three-to five-star hotels was
randomly selected The frontline managers of these hotels were
con-tacted via telephone and face-to-face to request their participation This
study only focused on managers of departments that directly deal with
customers because these departments need high levels of service
inno-vation (Baradarani & Kilic, 2018) To ensure selecting qualified
re-spondents (i.e., frontline managers), a filter question – “Are you
manager of a customer service department?” – was employed A sample
data of 310 questionnaires was obtained, and 307 questionnaires were
valid with a response rate of 51.17% Only three questionnaires were
invalid with some missing values and excluded from the final sample
Table 1 presents the demographic characteristics of the respondents
3.3 Measures
Variables in this study were measured using existing measurement
scales from previous studies These measurement scales were adopted because they have been widely used in extant literature with high reli-ability and validity (Dang & Chou, 2019; Gong et al., 2009; Yu et al.,
2010; Zhang & Bartol, 2010) The reliability values for these measure-ment scales were 0.90 for “workplace learning”, 0.80 for “knowledge sharing”, 0.80 for “cognitive flexibility”, and 0.81 for “creativity” The survey was conducted in a three-wave time-lagged period Each stage was lagged 30 days In the first stage (January 2021), workplace learning and respondents’ demographic characteristics were completed
by the frontline managers In the second stage (February 2021), the frontline managers completed the measures of knowledge sharing and cognitive flexibility In the final stage (March 2021), frontline managers’ creativity was measured by their direct supervisor All items were measured using a five-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) Table 2 shows the variables, items, and sources of each measurement scale
3.4 Ethical consideration
Since the research design involved human subjects, ethical standards should be considered in this study Because there are no formal ethical standards for social sciences research in Vietnam, this study followed the ethical standards suggested by the American Psychological Association
to conduct the survey design Respondents voluntarily participated in the survey and they were announced that their anonymity were guar-anteed and that the survey was for academic purpose only
3.5 Analysis methods
To analyze data and test hypotheses, this study used SPSS 20 and structural equation modeling with AMOS 20 statistical software First, SPSS 20 was used to screen data and analyze descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation, and reliability of variables Second, Amos 20 was adopted to perform confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and test the validity of variables and hypotheses in the research model
Some variables were controlled in the analysis due to their potential impact on the dependent variable These control variables were re-spondents’ gender, age, education, marital status, and tenure
4 Results
4.1 Results of descriptive statistics
Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlations between the variables in this study Workplace learning was positively
related to knowledge sharing (r = 0.50, p < 0.01), cognitive flexibility (r
=0.54, p < 0.01), and creativity (r = 0.57, p < 0.01) Furthermore,
knowledge sharing was positively related to cognitive flexibility (r =
0.55, p < 0.01) and creativity (r = 0.53, p < 0.01) In addition, cognitive flexibility was positively related to creativity (r = 0.58, p < 0.01) Given
that the Pearson’s correlations between variables were slightly high, we
Fig 1 Research model
Table 1
Demographics of respondents
Variable Frequency Percent
Gender
Male 235 76.5%
Female 72 23.5%
Age
25 or below 4 1.3%
26–35 95 30.9%
36–45 107 34.9%
46–55 79 25.7%
56 or above 22 7.2%
Education
High school or below 260 84.7%
University or college 46 15.0%
Graduate or above 1 0.3%
Marital status
Single 84 27.4%
Married 223 72.6%
Tenure (months) Minimum = 1, Maximum = 70, Average = 23.40
Note: n = 307
Trang 7conducted a multicollinearity test The results of this test indicate that the VIF values of variables raged from 1.51 to 1.97, which were less than
a threshold value of 10 (Kutner et al., 2005) Thus, multiculinearity between variables may not be a serious problem in our data
4.2 Results of CFA
This study performed a CFA According to Kline (2011), a good model fit is indicated when the Chi-square/degree of freedom is less than 3, comparative fit index (CFI) and goodness of fit index (GFI) are greater than 0.90, and root mean square of error of approximation (RMSEA) is less than 0.08 The results of CFA showed a good model fit between the sample data and the hypothesized model in this study (Chi-square/degree of freedom = 1032.642/356 = 2.90, CFI = 0.91, GFI = 0.91, and RMSEA = 0.07)
4.3 Results of reliability and validity
In this study, the variables’ reliability was tested using Cronbach’s alpha (Hair et al., 2010) As indicated in Table 4, the Cronbach’s alpha
of all variables were 0.80 (informal learning), 0.75 (incidental learning), 0.83 (formal learning), 0.80 (knowledge sharing), 0.80 (cognitive flex-ibility), and 0.81 (creativity) These values were all greater than the suggested cutoff value of 0.60 (Hair et al., 2010) Thus, the reliability of
Table 2
Measurement items
Constructs Items Sources
Workplace
learning Informal learning: My boss helps identify what to do to avoid
making the same mistake
Dang and Chou (2019)
When the company buys new equipment or
system, someone is asked to show us how to use
it
I often work with coworkers who show me the
ropes
Sometimes I have opportunity to work closely
with my coworkers
Incidental learning:
The company encourages coworkers to share
work experience with me
I often learn my job as consequences of doing
and keeping busy
The company supports professional
associations related to my work
We can get enough information to do a good
job
Formal learning:
There is support from the top management for
formal training
I have opportunity for cross training to learn
skills from others
Company provides support if I want further
formal education
Training funds are available for our formal
education if I need it
Knowledge
sharing I have contributed advanced knowledge to this company Yu et al (2010)
I usually actively share my advanced
knowledge with coworkers
I have contributed advanced knowledge to
other coworkers that resulted in the
development of new insights
I have tried to share my educational and
training expertise with other coworkers in
more effective ways
Cognitive
flexibility I explore creative ideas from broad and different perspectives Zhang and Bartol (2010)
I use free association to consider creative
alternatives
I come up with creative ideas by thinking in
many different directions
I make novel connections among seemingly
unrelated ideas
I think out of the box to explore unconventional
approaches
I switch perspectives flexibly to generate novel
ideas
Creativity This person often develops creative custom-
made service packages for clients Gong et al (2009)
This person often uses creativity to develop
new clients through different means and
channels
This person often uses creativity to increase
service forces in different ways
Table 3
Descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlations
Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 Workplace learning 3.43 0.56 1
2 Knowledge sharing 3.30 0.64 50** 1
3 Cognitive flexibility 3.35 0.60 54** 55** 1
4 Creativity 3.20 0.68 57** 53** 58** 1
5 Gender – – 27** -.05 12** 08 1
6 Age – – 15** -.10 -.04 -.04 -.13** 1
7 Education – – 10 01 06 11** 06 -.13** 1
8 Marital status – – -.03 04 04 19** 06 13** -.18** 1
9 Tenure – – -.01 -.01 11** 05 -.16** 30** -.01 13** 1
Note: n = 307, **p < 0.01
Table 4
Results of measurement model
Constructs Items Factor
loadings CR AVE Cronbach’s α Informal learning (IFL) IFL1 0.85*** 0.81 0.52 0.80
IFL2 0.72***
IFL3 0.74***
IFL4 0.55***
Incidental learning (INL) INL1 INL2 0.72*** 0.73*** 0.80 0.51 0.75
INL3 0.60***
INL4 0.79***
Formal learning (FOL) FOL1 0.77*** 0.83 0.55 0.83
FOL2 0.72***
FOL3 0.77***
FOL4 0.69***
Knowledge sharing (KS) KS1 KS2 0.68*** 0.67*** 0.82 0.53 0.80
KS3 0.73***
KS4 0.83***
Cognitive flexibility (CF) CF1 CF2 0.70*** 0.73*** 0.86 0.51 0.80
CF3 0.66***
CF4 0.70***
CF5 0.69***
CF6 0.81***
Creativity (CR) CR1 0.76*** 0.81 0.59 0.81
CR2 0.78***
CR3 0.78***
Note: n = 307, ***p < 0.001
Trang 8all variables was acceptable
Following Hair et al (2010) and Kline (2011), convergent validity
was tested using composite reliability (CR) and average variance
extracted (AVE) Accordingly, CR values must be greater than 0.70, and
AVE values must be above 0.50 The results in Table 4 indicate that all
AVE and CR values met the requirements Thus, the convergent validity
of all variables was satisfactory
To test the discriminant validity, this study followed Hair et al.’s
(2010) method and conducted a series of CFA to compare the
hypoth-esized model with different models Mathieu and Farh (1991) suggested
that construct with multi-dimensions can be operated as averaging
scores of items into their corresponding dimensions, which can be
treated as indicators of their corresponding construct This study
aver-aged scores of items of each dimension of workplace learning and
treated these dimensions (i.e., informal learning, formal leaning, and
incidental learning) as indicators for workplace learning Thus, the
hy-pothesized model was composed of four constructs: workplace learning,
knowledge sharing, cognitive flexibility, and creativity Results of
models’ comparison in Table 5 indicate that only the hypothesized
model shows a good model fit Thus, discriminant validity of the
vari-ables was satisfactory in this study
4.4 Results of common method bias
To avoid common method bias that may occur when using survey
questionnaire to collect data, each questionnaire was completed from
two sources (frontline managers and their supervisors) Furthermore,
the sample procedure was conducted in three stages This study also
followed Podsakoff et al (2003) to conduct a Harman’s single-factor
test The results of unrotated solution showed 6 factors with 68.32%
of variance, and the first factor accounted for only 28.02% of variance
Furthermore, the results of the single-factor model of CFA showed an
extremely poor model fit (Chi-square/degree of freedom =
1703.203/275 = 6.19, CFI = 0.64, GFI = 0.69, and RMSEA = 0.13)
Thus, common method bias may not be serious in the study’s sample
data
4.5 Results of hypotheses testing
This study adopted SEM-AMOS to test the hypotheses The results in
Fig 2 show that among the control variables, only education (β = 0.076,
p < 0.05) and tenure (β = 0.173, p < 0.001) were significantly and
positively related to creativity Thus, the frontline managers who have
high level of education and long tenure would have more creativity,
because they have more knowledge and experiences in their jobs
The results in Fig 2 show that workplace learning was positively
related to frontline managers’ creativity (β = 0.290, p < 0.001) Thus,
H1 was supported
Furthermore, results show that workplace learning was positively
related to knowledge sharing (β = 0.501, p < 0.001), which in turn was positively related to creativity (β = 0.263, p < 0.001) The results of
bootstrap analysis with 1000 samples and 95% confidence interval (Hayes, 2017) also showed that the indirect effect of workplace learning
on creativity through knowledge sharing was statistically significant (β
=0.132, p < 0.001; Table 6) Thus, H2 was supported That is, knowl-edge sharing mediated the relationship between workplace learning and creativity
Fig 2 also shows that workplace learning was positively related to
cognitive flexibility (β = 0.506, p < 0.001), which in turn was positively related to creativity (β = 0.231, p < 0.001) The results of bootstrap
analysis showed that the indirect effect of workplace learning on crea-tivity through cognitive flexibility was stistically significant (β = 0.117,
p < 0.001; Table 6) Thus, H3 was supported That is, cognitive flexi-bility mediated the link between workplace learning and creativity
In addition, as indicated in Fig 2, knowledge sharing was positively
related to cognitive flexibility (β = 0.295, p < 0.001), which in turn was positively related to creativity (β = 0.231, p < 0.001) The results of
bootstrap analysis showed that the indirect effect of knowledge sharing
on creativity through cognitive flexibility was stistically significant (β =
0.068, p < 0.001; Table 6) Thus, H4 was supported That is, cognitive flexibility mediated the link between knowledge sharing and creativity
Fig 2 also shows the results of R2 for knowledge sharing (R2 = 0.251), cognitive flexibility (R2 =0.493), and creativity (R2 =0.474)
5 Discussion, implications, and future research
5.1 Discussion of findings
This study aims at investigating the relationship between workplace learning and frontline managers’ creativity in the hospitality industry, with the mediating roles of knowledge sharing and cognitive flexibility The findings provide evidence to support hypotheses in the research model
5.1.1 The link between workplace learning and frontline managers’ creativity
The current study found that workplace learning had a positive direct influence on frontline managers’ creativity This finding is consistent with the viewpoints of Mumford and Todd (2020) and Wang (2018) These authors suggested that learning activities in the workplace
Table 5
Results of model comparison analysis
Constructs/model χ2 df △χ2 χ2/df GFI CFI RMSEA
Thresholds < 3 >0.90 >0.90 <0.08 Hypothesized model 1032.642 356 2.90 0.91 0.91 0.07 Three-factor model 581.608 101 478.97*** 5.76 0.82 0.80 0.13 Three-factor model 539.130 101 493.51*** 5.34 0.82 0.83 0.12 Three-factor model 625.895 101 406.75*** 6.21 0.80 0.78 0.13 Two-factor model 696.882 103 335.76*** 6.77 0.68 0.75 0.14 Two-factor model 658.178 103 374.65*** 6.39 0.79 0.77 0.13 Two-factor model 736.256 103 296.39*** 7.15 0.77 0.73 0.14 One-factor model 764.773 104 267.87*** 7.35 0.76 0.72 0.14
Note: n = 307, **p < 0.01, GFI = goodness-of-fit index, CFI = comparative fit index, RMSEA = root-mean-square error of approximation
One-factor model: combine all constructs
Two-factor model: combine workplace learning and knowledge sharing, cognitive flexibility and creativity
Two-factor model: combine workplace learning and cognitive flexibility, knowledge sharing and flexibility
Two-factor model: combine workplace learning and creativity, knowledge sharing and cognitive flexibility
Three-factor model: combine workplace learning and knowledge sharing
Three-factor model: combine knowledge sharing and cognitive flexibility
Three-factor model: combine cognitive flexibility and creativity
Hypothesized model: include workplace learning, knowledge sharing, cognitive flexibility, and creativity
Trang 9provide new and useful knowledge and skills for individuals in
completing their tasks and enhancing their creative behavior in
orga-nizations As indicated in this study and prior literature (Mumford &
Todd, 2020; Wang, 2018), the work of frontline managers is complex
and requires a high level of creativity because they are responsible for
not only training and developing frontline employees but also the
ser-vice quality of a hospitality company Creativity helps frontline
man-agers improve service quality, secure the accomplishment of frontline
employees’ job, and enhance competitive advantage of a hospitality
company (Romero & Tejada, 2020) The finding of this study implies
that through formal training programs and informal interactions with
coworkers in the workplace, frontline managers can obtain new
infor-mation and useful knowledge and skills, providing basis for frontline
managers to engage in generating novel and useful ideas (Rowden,
2002) This finding underlines the importance of workplace learning in
enhancing frontline managers’ creativity in the context of the hospitality
industry
5.1.2 Role of knowledge sharing
The study also found that knowledge sharing played a mediating
mechanism in the relationship between workplace learning and
front-line managers’ creativity This finding is in front-line with the results of Harel
et al (2020) and Ritala et al (2015), who suggested that sharing
knowledge in the workplace plays an important role in enhancing
in-dividuals’ creative behavior One of the reasons is that knowledge
sharing provides rich information and knowledge that increase an
in-dividual’s ability to engage in new idea generation behavior Knowledge
sharing often occurs intentionally or unintentionally in the workplace
because individuals automatically participate in social interactions in
the working environment (Carmeli et al., 2013) The finding suggests that when frontline managers obtain new knowledge and skills from learning activities, they tend to share what they have learned to other coworkers when they participate in social interactions and discussion in the workplace (Lee, Malik, et al., 2020) This is because sharing knowledge helps frontline managers ensure the transfer of learned knowledge to frontline employees and the improvement of service quality in a hospitality company (De Clercq & Pereira, 2020) Knowl-edge sharing activities also enable frontline mangers to obtain rich in-formation and useful ideas from coworkers, enhancing their creative behavior (Chen & Cheng, 2012) Thus, in the context of the hospitality industry, workplace learning positively influences knowledge sharing which, in turn, positively affects frontline managers’ creativity
5.1.3 Role of cognitive flexibility
Cognitive flexibility was found to have a mediating effect in the link between workplace learning and frontline managers’ creativity In addition, it also appeared to have a mediating effect in the link between knowledge sharing and frontline managers’ creativity These findings are consistent with the works of Dajani and Uddin (2015) and Ou et al (2018), who argued that cognitive flexibility is a learned process that requires a high level of information sharing and knowledge acquisition, and it needs to be educated and nurtured with great time and efforts This study’s findings indicate that deep mental processes increase frontline managers’ ability to gain new and useful knowledge from learning and sharing activities in the workplace Through the deep cognitive processes, frontline managers can be flexible to deal with different perspectives and concepts (Kim & Yun, 2015) Frontline managers also flexibly come up with new and useful ideas when they obtain advanced knowledge through deep mental processes (Yeh et al.,
2012) In other words, workplace learning and knowledge sharing work
as two parallel ways that provide inputs and trigger deep mental pro-cesses (Harel et al., 2020; Mumford & Todd, 2020) Consequently, cognitive flexible processes make frontline managers more flexible in dealing with different alternatives to come up with new and novel ideas (Ou et al., 2018) That is, cognitive flexibility can be viewed as a transfer process that converts information and knowledge obtained from learning and sharing activities into creative behavior Thus, the findings further emphasize the important role of cognitive flexibility in trans-forming knowledge and experiences from learning and sharing activities into creativity in the context of the hospitality industry
Fig 2 Results of hypothesis testing
Note: n = 307, ***p < 0.001, *p < 0.05
Table 6
Results of bootstrap analysis
Indirect Path Standardized
estimate Lower Upper p- value Workplace learning→knowledge
sharing→creativity 0.132*** 0.097 0.228 0.000
Workplace learning→cognitive
flexibility→creativity 0.117*** 0.075 0.220 0.000
Knowledege sharing→cognitive
flexibility→creativity 0.068*** 0.038 0.117 0.000
Note: Bootstrap analysis with 1000 samples and 95% confidence interval, ***p
<0.001
Trang 105.2 Implications
5.2.1 Theoretical implications
This study contributes to extant literature in several ways In this
study, SCT (Bandura, 1986; Miller & Dollard, 1941) is used to explain to
direct relationship between workplace learning and frontline managers’
creativity It is argued that workplace learning is a mental process that
helps frontline managers understand and obtain knowledge On the
basis of information and knowledge received from workplace learning,
frontline managers become more creative because they have rich
knowledge base to engage in new idea generation Thus, this study
ex-tends SCT (Bandura, 1986; Miller & Dollard, 1941) and contributes to
the current literature by investigating the issue of frontline managers’
creativity and clarifying the impact of workplace learning on frontline
managers’ creativity in the hospitality industry Its findings therefore
provide implications for future researchers who may be interested in
examining the role of workplace learning in enhancing creative behavior
in the hospitality industry
In addition, this study adopts SIT to clarify the mediating mechanism
of knowledge sharing in the link between workplace learning and
frontline managers’ creativity Accordingly, social interaction is a
necessary part of human life Through social interaction in working and
social environments, individuals simultaneously engage in learning and
sharing activities (Bales, 2000) Thus, SIT can be used to infer that
workplace learning and knowledge sharing are social interaction which
occurs in the working environment This social interaction helps
front-line managers obtain and share information and knowledge with their
coworkers, which help increase their ability to engage in creative
behavior Therefore, this study extends SIT and contributes to the extant
literature by providing empirical evidence on the mediating mechanism
of knowledge sharing in the relationship between workplace learning
and frontline managers’ creativity The study will benefit future
re-searchers who are interested in studying the role of knowledge sharing
in improving creative behavior in the hospitality industry
Furthermore, CFT suggests that deep mental process helps
in-dividuals acquire and transfer advanced knowledge into problem
solv-ing and new idea development (Spiro et al., 1987, 1988) By applying
CFT, this study suggests that workplace learning and knowledge sharing
provide inputs to trigger deep mental processes, which increases
front-line managers’ ability to gain new and useful knowledge from learning
and sharing activities in the workplace Through the deep cognitive
processes, frontline managers can be flexible to deal with different
perspectives and concepts (Kim & Yun, 2015) Frontline managers also
flexibly come up with new and useful ideas when they obtain advanced
knowledge through deep mental processes (Yeh et al., 2012) Thus, this
study extends CFT and contributes to the existing literature by shedding
a new light on the mediating mechanism of cognitive flexibility The
study is therefore helpful for future hospitality research that determines
the role of cognitive flexibility in explaining how workplace learning
and knowledge sharing affect managers’ creative behavior
5.2.2 Practical implications
The present study provides important implications for enhancing
frontline managers’ creativity in the hospitality industry Creativity
serves as an important source of service innovation and competitive
advantage for hospitality firms (Kitsios & Grigoroudis, 2020) Many
firms have therefore sought to encourage creativity in the workplace
(Chien et al., 2021), especially among frontline managers who are
responsible for increasing employees’ job performance, dealing with
customer demands, and improving service quality First, the findings
suggest that workplace learning triggers and facilitates frontline
man-agers’ creativity; hence, workplace learning should be effectively
designed and implemented Specifically, hospitality companies should
plan formal training courses and invite professional experts to teach new
knowledge, skills, and experiences for frontline managers Informal
learning activities should be also implemented in the workplace to
motivate social interactions among frontline managers and their co-workers For example, work rotations, seminars, meetings, and discus-sions should be encouraged in the workplace These formal trainings and informal social interactions collectively will provide frontline managers with new knowledge and experiences to engage in creative behavior Second, knowledge sharing is also an important source of frontline managers’ creativity Given the importance of knowledge in an orga-nization, some individuals may hide their tacit knowledge and keep it as private resources (Chen & Cheng, 2012) Thus, hospitality companies should plan and implement strategies to encourage frontline managers
to share explicit and tacit knowledge to other coworkers For example, since rewards were found to have an important role in reaching extra-task performance behaviors (Chiang & Birtch, 2008), hospitality companies may build a compensation system that provides attractive bonus and rewards for frontline managers who are willing to share knowledge to help other coworkers Rewards and compensations can be monetary (e.g., tips) and non-monetary (e.g., training, recognition, time-off)
Third, cognitive flexibility plays an important role in transferring knowledge from learning and sharing activities into advanced and useful knowledge that provides basis for creativity Frontline managers should make every effort to build and develop their cognitive flexibility In this regard, they should pro-actively initiate and engage in workplace learning and knowledge sharing activities, which appeared be motiva-tors of cognitive flexibility in this study Furthermore, frontline man-agers should interact with co-workers from different departments and train themselves to evaluate and solve problems from different per-spectives, which may help to increase cognitive flexibility Hospitality companies should also support frontline mangers in the development of their cognitive flexibility For example, it would be beneficial to orga-nize regular training and learning programs focusing on sharing knowledge between different departments Furthermore, focus groups that require frontline managers from different departments to solve a real-world problem can help to increase these managers’ ability to think differently and do their tasks flexibly
In short, hospitality organizations and leaders, including those in emerging markets like Vietnam, should consider frontline managers who have high cognitive flexibility and creativity as key resources They should therefore design and follow appropriate selection procedures to successfully recruit applicants who are creative and cognitively flexible For example, cognitive flexibility and creativity should be clearly indi-cated as key selection criteria in job descriptions for the position of frontline managers Hospitality firms should make every effort to pro-vide frontline managers with constant support, for example by investing money and effort to optimize their workplace learning, training pro-grams, human resource management and support systems
5.3 Limitations and future research
Few limitations are acknowledged in this study and should be overcome in future research First, cross-sectional data has its own limitation in testing the causal relationship among variables Although the sample data were collected in three stages, common method bias may not be completely avoided Given this limitation, future research should opt for a longitudinal design to better understand the causal relationship among the variables in this study Second, one of the dis-advantages of survey data is its capability to reflect causal relationships because several exogenous and situational variables cannot be controlled effectively Thus, future research should use other methods, such as experiments, to validate the relationships among the variables in this study Third, this study only collected data from hotel companies, which may limit the generalizability of its results Future research should collect data from other sectors in the hospitality industry (e.g., restaurants, pubs, bars) to determine the issue of creativity Further-more, although Vietnam is an emerging market in the Asia-Pacific re-gion, findings from a single country may limit their generalizability