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Keywords:
Humble leadership, Self-efficacy, Employee agility, Hospitality industry.
JEL Classification:
M10
ABSTRACT
While employee agility has recently gained increased attention, there is a notable lack of research on its antecedents. This study investigates the impact of humble leadership on employee agility within the context of Egypt's hospitality industry. Utilizing survey data collected from 320 frontline employees within Egypt's travel agencies, the findings reveal a positive and significant impact of humble leadership on employee agility. Notably, the study identifies employees' self-efficacy as a partial mediator in this relationship, shedding light on the underlying mechanisms through which humble leadership shapes employee agility. These insights enrich the existing body of knowledge by providing a nuanced perspective on the influence of humble leadership on employee agility and offer practical implications for leaders and organizations seeking to enhance workforce agility in the dynamic setting of the hospitality industry.
© 2024 by the authors. Licensee SSBFNET, Istanbul, Turkey. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Introduction
In a fast-paced work environment, organizations must enhance their employees' agility to navigate market shifts and seize emerging opportunities (Salmen and Festing, 2022). Employee agility (EA) has emerged in the literature as a crucial component of an agile organization (Naim et al., 2023). Agility signifies an employee's capacity to swiftly perceive and adeptly respond to external changes, encompassing the acquisition, interpretation, and application of relevant information (Alavi et al., 2014). Pitafi et al. (2018) defined EA as "the ability of an employee to rapidly and appropriately respond to unexpected changes and leverage those changes as opportunities." This concept unfolds through three main dimensions: proactivity, adaptability, and resilience (Sherehiy, 2008; Alavi et al., 2014; Cai et al., 2018). Proactivity involves initiating activities that positively impact the evolving environment, adaptability entails adjusting or modifying behavior to align with the new circumstances, and resilience refers to an individual's ability to bounce back from challenges, setbacks, or adversity in the workplace (Cai et al., 2018).
Recent studies have revealed a relationship between employee agility and several positive outcomes, including effectively addressing customer needs, handling uncertainty, organizational learning, and enhancing firm performance (Braun et al., 2017; Alavi et al., 2014; Das et al., 2023)....