How to facilitate hotel employees' work engagement: The roles of leader-member exchange, role overload and job security

Purpose This study aims to explore the mediating effects of role overload and job security on the relationship between leader-member exchange and work engagement and simultaneously examines the impact of role overload on employees' job security. Design/methodology/approach By means of telephone and email, the study inquired eight international tourist hotels' willingness, and questionnaires were distributed to employees of these hotels in 2014. The hotel employees were asked to participate, and they have the right to agree or not. After discarding unusable responses, 310 individual surveys ratings were collected from a total of 500 self-administrated questionnaires were distributed (a 62.0 per cent response rate). Findings The result indicates that role overload and job security have mediating effects on the relationship between leader-member exchange and work engagement. Also, role overload can positively influence job security. Originality/value To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the mediating roles of role overload and job security between LMX and work engagement, as well as the influence of role overload on job security. This study attempts to make contributions to human resource management literatures of hospitality and tourism.