Browsing by Author "Oliveira, Margarida"
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- The Offer of Tourist Routes to Increase Tourist Stay in HotelsPublication . Rodrigues, Susana; Santos, Eulália Maria Mota; Oliveira, MargaridaTourism has an important economic, social and cultural impact. There has been an increasing number of tourists and offer of touristic places and accommodation. According to the World Tourism Organization there were 1235.2 million of international tourists’ arrivals around the world in 2016, representing an increase of 3.9%. In Portugal in particular, where this study took place, the number of guests have increased 9.8% from 2015 to 2016. Within the tourism sector, hotels need to innovate their product/services offer, to remain competitive. This is particularly important in the context of a highly seasonal tourism, like the religious tourism in Fátima, Portugal. Driven by faith, tourists visit Fátima, mainly on the festivity days. Though, the rest of the year, there are few tourists. In order to respond to the religious tourism seasonality, hotels in Fátima, in an effort to enrich tourists’ experience and knowledge about the region and to lengthen tourists’ stay, might offer, as a complement to their core product-service, tourist routes, e.g. heritage, nature, living culture, and gastronomic experiences. The aim of the current research is to understand whether the offer of hotels’ tourist routes, as a complement to their main product-service, would lead to increase the stay of tourists at the hotel and therefore, the hotel turnover. Quantitative data were collected. A survey instrument was applied in 2016 to tourists accommodated at four and three star hotels, in Fátima, Portugal. Thirty valid questionnaires were collected (77% from foreign tourists and 23% from Portuguese tourists) and analysed through descriptive and inference statistics. The results showed that: a) hotels should offer tourist routes as a complement to their core product-service, mainly those of churches/sanctuaries, museums, monasteries and castles, nature, culture, heritage and gastronomy; b) there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between the hotels’ tourist routes offer and the increase length of tourists stay. The results contribute to the knowledge as well as provide important insights for hotel managers in seasonal religious accommodation, suggesting that the offer of tourist routes can increase hotels’ turnover.
- Psychological empowerment for the future of work: Evidence from PortugalPublication . Oliveira, Margarida; Andrade, José Ricardo; Ratten, Vanessa; Santos, E.In the competitive global marketplace, it is becoming important for organizations to empower employees for productivity reasons. One of the organizational empowerment models with greater support and consistency in the various studies in which it has been used is Spreitzer's Model of Psychological Empowerment in the Workplace, published in 1995. The model is composed of four dimensions that allow the measurement of the components of meaning, competence, self-determination and the impact of work on individual empowerment. The present study aims to evaluate the psychometric properties, in the Portuguese context, of the referred model. After the translation and adaptation of the psychological empowerment scale, the questionnaire was applied to a sample of 545 workers from Portuguese industrial organizations. The results of the application of structural equation modeling allow identifying the same components defined by the Spreitzer model, so it can be considered a reliable and valid instrument to measure organizational empowerment in the Portuguese context. However, we consider that complementary studies are necessary to analyze the psychometric properties of the scale and to further advance the research. The results obtained allow us to affirm that empowerment will be a basic strategy to improve the organizational transformations that companies constantly face. It is therefore important for Portuguese organizations to analyze the level of psychological empowerment of their employees, in order to find solutions to problems such as turnover, talent attraction, performance, work demotivation and improve human resource management practices. This is particularly important following the COVID-19 pandemic in which the psychology of employees was tested due to working from home and social distancing requirements.