Original Scientific Article
The Differences in Perceptions of Organisational
Values in the Hospitality Sector:
What Do They Tell Us?
Mitja Gorenak
University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia
mitja.gorenak@um.si
Organisational values have been in the focus of management for several years.
Knowing that strong values can help organisations stay on the right course in the
fast-changing working environment has proven to be a solid basis for their prosper-
ity. However, organisations are nothing without their employees; this led as to the
question of what the differences in the perception of organisational values between
employees of different ages and genders are.We have conducted research in the hos-
pitality sector; based on a paper-pencil survey among a representative sample of 388
employees, we have determined that there are six predominant organisational values
within the sector. In the second part, we have identified that two out of six identified
organisational values are statistically significantly more highly evaluated in terms of
importance by women in comparison to men. There were no statistically significant
differences found regarding the age of employees.
Keywords: values, organisational values, hospitality, demographics, perception
https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.12.73-82
Introduction
In our rapidly changing world, the importance of
understanding organisational values is becoming in-
creasingly critical for every organisation. In the ser-
vice sector, including hospitality, this is even more
critical since this is a sector with steady economic
growth (Prevolšek, Rozman, Pažek, Maksimović, &
Potočnik Topler, 2017; Rangus & Brumen, 2016). The
hospitality sector, known for its high turnover of em-
ployees (Brown, Bosselman, & Thomas, 2016), due to
the high-paced and very demanding working envi-
ronment (Hsieh, Sönmez, Apostolopoulos, & Lemke,
2017) that is continually changing with the arrival
of new phenomena, such as the sharing economy
(Turnšek & Ladkin, 2017), will need to pay particu-
lar attention to its organisational values and how em-
ployees perceive them. Researchers (Hofstede, 1998;
Rokeach, 1968) have been researching the field of val-
ues, both on the individual and organisational levels,
for decades. There is a rather common consensus that
organisational values evolve from individual values
(Collins & Porras, 2005), while at first organisational
values are very much related to the individual values
of founding members of the organisation, later they
are influenced by all the members of the organisation.
Organisational values are an inseparable part of the or-
ganisational culture (Schein, 1985) and represent rela-
tively (Rokeach, 1973) permanent, motivational, emo-
tionally positive categories, for which people believe
that they are worth aspiring to (love, peace, friendship,
health, etc.). The answer to the question of why val-
ues are so important has been provided by Rokeach
and Ball-Rokeach (1989), who have identified values
as ‘one of the very few social psychological concepts
that have been successfully employed across all social
science disciplines.’
Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019 | 73
Mitja Gorenak The Differences in Perceptions of Organisational Values
There is no question that organisational values
serve many purposes. Hassan (2007) sees these pur-
poses in the way the organisational values set the
tone of the environment within the organisation, bind
people together, facilitate work behaviour, and help
achieve shared goals of the organisation. There is also
a theory about managing by values (Dolan & Garcia,
2002; Dolan, Garcia, & Richley, 2006) that promotes
the use of values and organisational values in manage-
ment of the organisation with the concept of reducing
formal control through trust gained through shared
values. Some research (Dearlove & Coomber, 1999)
published before the work of Dolan, Garcia, and Rich-
ley indicates that value-led companies outperform
others in both growth and revenue being up to four
times faster, creation of new jobs up to seven times
higher, growth in stock price up to twelve times higher
and profit performance up to seven and a half times
higher. Dearlove and Coomber (1999) also found that
those same organisations experienced significantly
lower employee turnover when they valued respect
and teamwork. Kač, Gorenak, and Potočan (2016) de-
termined that shared values influence trust within the
organisation in a meaningful way. With the evidence
that there is a significant influence of organisational
values on company performance, we were interested
in seeing how some general demographic differences
influence the perception of organisational values and
subsequently the performance of the individual within
the organisation. For this reason, we have set ourselves
the main research question; What are the differences
in the perception of organisational values between (a)
gender and (b) age group?
Theoretical Background
Values
Values are most commonly perceived as beliefs upon
which individuals perform their tasks (Allport, 1961)
in accordance with their personal preferences. Influ-
enced by the upbringing the individual had, the soci-
ety in which they grew up, and people with whom they
have interacted values are relatively permanent (Eng-
land, 1967). Unknown to the person, values present
their perception frames that shape and influence the
very core of individuals’ behaviour. Rokeach (1968)
sees this as representing an individual’s attitudes to-
wards how someone should or should not behave. In
his opinion, values are types of beliefs that are cen-
trally located in individuals’ system of beliefs and in-
fluence individuals’ behaviour (Rokeach, 1968). In the
field of social psychology, extensive research has also
been conducted regarding human values (Schwartz &
Bilsky, 1987), in which values are seen as beliefs or con-
ceptualisations about desired end states or behaviours
that exceed specific situations. In this sense, values di-
rect the evaluation of behaviour based on the rate of
relative importance to the individual.
The most commonly recognised classification di-
vides values into two groups (Rokeach, 1973). The first
group presents so-called instrumental values; these
are values linked to the way people work. The second
group are the so-called terminal values; these are re-
lated to the desired end state in contrast to the opera-
tional performance that is seen in instrumental values.
Within each of the two basic types of values (instru-
mental and terminal), we find two sub-categories: the
first sub-category of terminal values is personal termi-
nal values; the second sub-category is social terminal
values. This division is linked to the importance of a
value, whether it is important to the individual (salva-
tion, peace) or society (world peace, fraternity). In the
set of instrumental values, we divide these into moral
values and competence-based values. This division is
linked to the individual’s feelings, so moral values are
linked to self-perception (sense of guilt), while com-
petence values are linked to self-actualisation (logical
reasoning). Both of them can come into conflict with
themselves or between groups. Thus, an example of a
conflict of two moral values is loving behaviour and
sincere behaviour, an example of the conflict of two
competence values is imaginative and logical think-
ing, and the example of the conflict between moral
and competence values is polite behaviour and well-
founded criticism. Meglino and Ravlin (1998) have
indicated that, from an organisational perspective, a
greater focus on instrumental values as modes of be-
haviour is seen opposed to end-states of existence (ter-
minal values).
Values are also changing due to changes in the en-
vironment; in many cases, we can see changes based
74 | Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019
Mitja Gorenak The Differences in Perceptions of Organisational Values
on the changes in the economic sphere, as well as in
the social and technical spheres (Freeman,Herriges, &
Kling, 2014). Values are also highly linked to genera-
tional differences, although as Parry and Urwin (2011)
point out, the results of research focusing on differ-
ences in values based on generation are at best mixed:
some studies show obvious differences, while others
find none. We believe that, in this case, differences are
more related to the intensity of the values than the val-
ues themselves.
Personal values are the basis upon which concepts
of organisational values are presented, individuals are
the founding blocks of any organisation, and without
their personal values, there is no means of organisa-
tional values to evolve.
Organisational Values
Many authors (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Chatman &
Cha, 2003; Judge & Cable, 1997; Kenny, 1994) have
been exploring the field of organisational values in
attempts to reach a consensus about the definition of
such values. Themost common view of organisational
values is that they evolve from organisational culture;
this is generally the philosophy that an organisation
follows (Pfeiffer, Goodstein, & Nolan, 1985). Kenny
(1994) claims that just as any person or community
has his/her/its set of values the same is true for every
organisation. Given the fact that organisational cul-
ture defines expectations regarding behaviour, modes
of conduct, modes of decision-making, and styles of
communication, we can perceive organisational values
through this (Simerly, 1987).
Organisational values emerge at the beginning of
the existence of any organisation; although at the be-
ginning they may seem a bit unclear, it can be said
that they are very closely related to the personal values
of the founding members of the organisation (Pfeif-
fer et al., 1985). It is not uncommon that further in
the life of an organisation, members (usually manage-
ment) decide to define organisational values. We have
to understand that organisational values may be re-
lated to the foundingmembers at first, but later, several
things influence their evolution, such as dynamic of
growth of the company, new employees, business suc-
cess of the company, etc.Musek Lešnik (2008) explains
the need for wide-ranging and open discussion about
what the organisational values within the company
really are so that they can be identified and that the
‘trap’ of management-defined organisational values be
avoided. This was also emphasised by Cha and Ed-
mondson (2006) warning about the potential hazards
young organisations face, especially regarding organ-
isational values: when an organisation is young and
growing, ill-defined organisational values can hinder
its growth and potentially endanger its development.
Organisational values and the long-term perfor-
mance of organisations has been studied and estab-
lished by many authors (Chatman & Cha, 2003; Col-
lins, 2001; Collins & Porras, 2005; Peters,Waterman, &
Jones, 1982). More precisely, Collins and Porras (2005)
have determined that organisations with clearly stated
organisational values, which are internalised by em-
ployees, reach significantly higher performance results
in comparison to organisations with values that are
less clearly stated or not stated at all.
To understand the positive influence of organisa-
tional values on organisational performance, it is es-
sential to understand how the fit of values is achieved.
Five different theories predominate. The first is the so-
called personality-environment fit theory that evolved
from interactional theory (Lewin, 1951), in which the
fit between personal values and environmental values
is sought. The second is the theory seeking fit between
person and job (personality-job fit theory) (Holland,
1985), while the third theory focuses on the fit be-
tween the person and the organisation (personality-
organisation fit theory) (Judge & Cable, 1997); the
remaining two theories are the theory that exam-
ines the fit between a person and his or her vocation
(personality-vocational fit theory) (Hoerr, 1989) and
the theory that examines the fit between a person and
a group (personality-group fit theory) (Guzzo & Salas,
1995).
The most critical finding in this sense came from
Posner, Kouzes, and Schmidt (1985), who have empiri-
cally proven that the higher level of fit between organ-
isational and personal values is clearly shown in in-
dividuals’ positive approach to work as employees are
more satisfied when they are performing their tasks.
However, themodernworking environment is rais-
Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019 | 75
Mitja Gorenak The Differences in Perceptions of Organisational Values
ing yet another issue when it comes to organisational
values: although we are creating working environ-
ments that are more and more flexible, and allow peo-
ple to work from home or while travelling, we are cre-
ating work that is increasingly complex and requires
greater cooperation, as indicated by Lee, Olson, and
Trimi (2012). Globalisation itself, carried over from
the 20th century, along with new technological ad-
vantages, and changing demographics, is leading to
changes in the industry, thus opening paths to new
innovation paradigms that can help organisations cre-
ate value through convergence, collaboration, and co-
creation. However, as indicated by Ye (2012), organ-
isational values can still be seen as the core of or-
ganisational culture, thus affecting a number of key
or pivotal values concerning organisation-related be-
haviours and states-of-affairs, which are shared by
members of an organisation. This is why organisa-
tional values define the acceptable that which govern
the behaviour of individuals within the organisation.
Knowledge about values and specifically organisa-
tional values has led us to the question of how vari-
ous demographical difference influence the perception
of the importance of organisational values; this is pre-
sented in the next part of this article.
Values, Organisational Values and Demographics
The question about differences in perception of values
betweenmen andwomen as well as the question about
differences between older and younger people has
been a subject of discussion in the research commu-
nity for quite some time. Prince-Gibson and Schwartz
(1998) have determined that theories of gender-based
value differences provide ambiguous results. Dietz,
Kalof, and Stern (2002) have done extensive research
on values, determining that there are no substantial
differences in value factor structures, although they
did find differences in value priorities, with women
ranking altruism as more important than men did.
Therefore, we can say that women value responsibil-
ity towards others as being more important than men
do. This is vital knowledge with regards to hospitality,
in which the well-being of others is at the core of ev-
ery operation. Beutel and Marini (1995) have similar
findings in their research, determining that females
are more likely than males to express concern and
responsibility for the well-being of others, less likely
than males to accept materialism and competition,
and more likely than males to indicate that finding
purpose and meaning in life is extremely important.
This leads to the question of how individuals chose
their occupation The link between individual val-
ues and organisational values is very well established
(Kenny, 1994; Pfeiffer et al., 1985; Simerly, 1987); based
on this,Marini, Fan, Finley, and Beutel (1996) have de-
termined that individuals choose occupations on the
basis of internalised interests and work values. Marini
et al. (1996) have further determined that choosing an
occupation involves finding the maximum highly val-
ued occupational characteristics while minimising the
loss of other enjoyable or necessary ones. This further
strengthens the relationship between individual and
organisational values.
Regarding organisational values, various studies
have produced highly diverse results. Rudman and
Phelan (2008) have determined that research on gen-
der stereotypes generally shows that women are per-
ceived to be more communal (e.g., caring and inter-
dependent) than men are. Kite, Deaux, and Haines
(2008) determined that women, for example, are vie-
wed as more emotional, gentle, understanding, and
devoted, whereas men are seen as more active, com-
petitive, independent, and self-confident. Kwun (2011)
claims that women tend to evaluate the importance of
quality higher than men are. Interestingly, Jin, Line,
and Goh (2013) have determined that while service
quality is important for both males and females, the
impact of aesthetics on relationship quality is only im-
portant for males.
In contrast, Posner (2010) says that are no differ-
ences that were found betweenmen and women in his
study, while previously significantly lower levels of val-
ues congruency had been reported by women. Parry
and Urwin (2011) did extensive work on the question
of generational differences and work values; their con-
clusion is that whilemany studies have foundmore ar-
eas of similarity between generations than differences,
some that do find that differences have produced sig-
nificant findings of only a small magnitude and have
found differences in the opposite direction from that
76 | Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019
Mitja Gorenak The Differences in Perceptions of Organisational Values
predicted by the commonly held generational stereo-
types. Thus, it can only be concluded that some studies
have found differences in work values between gener-
ations, while others have not.
Methodology
Research Question and Hypothesis
The research aimed to test how various groups of em-
ployees perceive the importance of organisational val-
ues in the hospitality sector. For that purpose, we have
set the following research question: What are the dif-
ferences in the perception of organisational values be-
tween (a) genders and (b) age groups?
In order to answer this research question, the fol-
lowing research hypotheses were set up:
h1 There is no statistically significant difference in
the perception of organisational values between
male and female employees.
h2 Older employees evaluate the importance of
organisational values statistically significantly
higher than younger employees do.
Sample
Thepopulation of the selected sector (travel and leisure
industry) was based on the data of the Statistical Office
of the Republic of Slovenia regarding a total of 9,117
people (see http://pxweb.stat.si). In order to obtain a
relevant representation of this sample, we asked ran-
dom organisations within the sector for permission to
survey their employees; we were granted the consent
of several organisations, which employ a total of 2,762
people. We distributed 1100 paper-pencil questioners
among randomly selected employees; for this purpose,
we used the simple random sampling method.Within
the 60-day period set for the survey, 388 out of 1100
questionnaires were returned, representing 35.27 of
all questionnaires sent out, which is 4.26 of the pop-
ulation. The questionnaire comprised several parts,
but only a part of the results are used for this study:
25 questions relating to organisational values and 5
questions regarding respondents’ details (age, gender,
number of working years, level of education, etc.).
To be able to generalise the results to the entire
population, we first performed tests to establish the
validity of the sample. For this step, we performed the
chi-square test of significance on the demographic in-
formation for the population as well as the sample
(gender, education, and age). For the variable gen-
der, chi-square was calculated at 0.598 and signifi-
cance level at p = 0.434m for the variable education,
the chi-square test value was calculated at 9.296 with
significance level at p = 0.054m the final variable age
provided a value of 13.971, and the level of significance
was at p = 0.052.
The values of chi-square distribution at signifi-
cance 0.05 or 5 are 3.8415for variables with a single
degree of freedom (variable gender), 9.4877 for vari-
ables with four degrees of freedom (variable educa-
tion), and 14.0671 for variables with seven degrees of
freedom (variable age). Based on these findings, we
can conclude that the research sample could be gener-
alised to the whole population (Hannan & Freeman,
1977).
The sample that has been used for this paper con-
tained 133 (38.4) male respondents and 213 (61.6)
female respondents. The average age of respondents
was calculated at 38.17 years. The sample contained 34
(9.6) respondentswith elementary school level of ed-
ucation or less, 83 (23.5) respondents with vocational
high school 121 (34.3) respondents with high school,
80 (22.9) respondents with college degrees, and 35
(9.9) respondents with university degree or more.
Results
First, we tested the validity of the questionnaire using
Cronbach’s alpha test, calculating the coefficients for
the set of variables. We performed this test on vari-
ables that measured values and obtained the value of
0.859, which indicates the high reliability of measure-
ment (Cronbach, 1951) and, with regard to the compo-
sition and characteristics of the sample, we believe that
it is representative.
Factor Analysis
With a larger number of variables in the survey, we
have decided to conduct the factor analysis in order to
create a smaller number of more manageable factors.
When creating a survey, we intentionally formed some
Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019 | 77
Mitja Gorenak The Differences in Perceptions of Organisational Values
Table 1 Factor analysis of variables that measured organizational values
Variable Factor
ovq ovi ove ovem ovc ovr
Quality of work is important in our organization. .
Within our org. we are focused on successfully completing our tasks. .
Encouragement of positive examples is rare in our organization. .
Inhibition of innovative ideas is frequent in our organization. .
Adaptation to different business situations presents a problem for our org. .
Immoral behaviour at work is acceptable in our organization. .
In our organization we respect each other. .
Employees in our organization interact. .
In our organization we try to satisfy the needs of our customers. .
Practices in our organization are focused on our costumers/guests. –.
At work in our organization we behave responsibly towards others around us. .
To achieve the objectives within our organization we are working persistently. .
variables with a negative statement; these were re-
coded before the factor analysis was performed. How-
ever, we left the statements in their original form with
regard to the text. Once we performed the factor anal-
ysis, we calculated six different factors with suitable
weights. Factor analysis was performed with the ex-
traction method principal axis factoring.
Within these six factors, 12 variables positioned
themselves, while eight variables did not position them-
selves clearly in any of the factors and had weights in
two or more factors with values of the weight being
below the suppress point which was set at 0.200. As
a result, we decided to remove them entirely. Some
might argue that the suppression point is low but, as
indicated by Child (2006), this is acceptable for large
enough samples. With the help of factor analysis, we
were able to explain 67.76 of the variability of organ-
isational values with these 12 variables in six factors;
since all of the variables are latent variables, we de-
cided to allow only two variables per factor based on
the recommendation of Bollen (1989); the results are
shown in Table 1. The six factors represent various val-
ues; we decided to name each of them in accordance
to some common organisational values that are ex-
pressed in the sector (travel and leisure) in which con-
ducted our research. Through the factor analysis, we
also merged the variables that have positioned them-
selves in individual factors into new variables, thus
we have a new variable we have labelled ovq – Or-
ganisational value quality for the first factor, ovi –
Organisational value innovation for the second factor,
ove – Organisational value ethics for the third fac-
tor, ovem – Organisational value employees for the
fourth factor, ovc – Organisational value customers
for the fifth factor and ovr –Organisational value re-
sponsibility for the final sixth factor. The second vari-
able in the last factor has a relatively low weight, being
just above the cut-off point, but since it is the second
variable and it is in the very last sixth factor, we have
decided to use it.
We have further tested the validity of newly formed
factors with Cronbach’s alpha test, calculating the co-
efficients for each of newly formed factors. ovq – Or-
ganisational value quality showed the value of 0.891;
ovi – Organisational value innovation showed the
value of 0.647; ove – Organisational value ethics
showed the value of 0.591; ovem – Organisational
value employees showed the value of 0.792; ovc –Or-
ganisational value customers showed a value of 0.765;
ovr – Organisational value responsibility showed a
value of 0.769. Although the values were lower than
the values for all variables together, as expected, they
78 | Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019
Mitja Gorenak The Differences in Perceptions of Organisational Values
Table 2 Independent Sample t-Test
Variable t p Mean
Male Female
ovq – Organizational value quality –. . . .
ovi – Organizational value innovation –. . . .
ove – Organizational value ethics –. . . .
ovem – Organizational value employees –. . . .
ovc – Organizational value customers –. . . .
ovr – Organizational value responsibility –. . . .
are still within the acceptable range based on (Cron-
bach, 1951). With factor analysis, we have also calcu-
lated the value of kmo at 0.870, which indicated that
sampling was adequate; furthermore, the p-value with
Bartlett’s test showed a value of 0.000, which again
confirms that factor analysis on the selected variables
is appropriate for further use.
Gender Differences Analysis
Further, we have decided to see if there are any differ-
ences betweenmale and female respondents regarding
their perception of the importance of organisational
values. For this stage, we decided to use an indepen-
dent sample t-test; this text is based on the presump-
tion that the two averages between groups are equal.
For the sampled data, experimental value statistics are
calculated, and, based on the result, the presumption is
either confirmed or rejected; statistically significant or
statistically insignificant differences between the two
groups are thus obtained (Hodges & Lehmann, 1956).
The results are shown in Table 2. For variable ovq –
Organisational value quality, there is a statistically sig-
nificant difference (t = –3.048; p = 0.003). Male re-
spondents evaluated this variable lower (mean value
4.14) than female respondents did (mean value 4.45).
For the variable ovr –Organisational value responsi-
bility, there is also a statistically significant difference
(t = –2.313; p = 0.022); male respondents evaluated this
variable lower (mean value 3.97) than female respon-
dents did (mean value 4.40).
With all the other variables, it can be seen that
there is no statistically significant difference, although
with all variables it is apparent that female respondents
Table 3 Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient
Variable Age
ovq – Organizational value quality –.
ovi – Organizational value innovation –.
ove – Organizational value ethics –.
ovem – Organizational value employees –.
ovc – Organizational value customers –.
ovr – Organizational value responsibility –.
evaluated all the variables more highly than male re-
spondents did.
Age Differences Analysis
In the next step, we decided to see if there is any cor-
relation between organisational values and the age of
the respondents. In this stage, we have calculated Pear-
son’s correlation coefficient. This coefficient represents
the size of linear correlations between variables X and
Y. The coefficient is defined as the sum of all prod-
ucts of standard deviations of both values in relation
to the degrees of freedom, or as the ratio of the co-
variance and the product of two standard deviations.
The result obtained is one of the square roots (can be
negative or positive); the correlation coefficient is the
ratio of the explained variance and the total variance.
The value of the Pearson correlation coefficient can be
between values –1 and 1. The value –1 represents a per-
fect negative correlation between variables; conversely,
the value of 1 indicates a perfect positive correlation
(Huck, 2015). The results for Pearson’s correlation co-
efficient are shown in Table 3.
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Mitja Gorenak The Differences in Perceptions of Organisational Values
There is no statistically significant correlation be-
tween the variables representing organisational values
and the age of the respondents. All the correlations are
negative and veryweak. Furthermore, these same vari-
ables were tested with the help of anova based on
a comparison to eight different age groups: up to 24
years of age, 25 to 29 years of age, 30 to 34 years of age,
35 to 39 years of age, 40 to 44 years of age, 45 to 49
years of age, 50 to 54 years of age, and 55 years of age
or above. anova did not discover any other statisti-
cally significant differences among age groups.
Practical Implications of Findings
Today’s working environment, especially in the hospi-
tality sector, is very competitive and very demanding
towards employees. For that reason, as much as possi-
ble about the relationship between organisational val-
ues and the demographics of employees must be un-
derstood in order to help managers organise work in
a way that will simultaneously provide the maximum
satisfaction of both guests and employees. Values of in-
dividuals, as well as organisational values, can be at the
core of human resources management. This supports
the idea of transforming the management style from
Management By Objectives (mbo) (Drucker, 2012) to
Management By Values (mbv). Although mbv was
previously discussed by others (Blanchard, O’Connor,
& Ballard, 1997), it was the contribution of (Dolan &
Garcia, 2002) and their further work (Dolan et al.,
2006) that developed the theory as it is known today.
Putting values at the forefront of management style
can be a variation of management style, but it is essen-
tial to know who different (by gender and age) people
perceive these same values.
Through our research, we have determined that
gender does influence the perception of selected or-
ganisational values. Women evaluated the organisa-
tional value quality statistically significantly higher
than their male counterparts did, which is congruent
with the finding of (Kwun, 2011) and is a significant
finding formanagement since it can be directly applied
to the training of employees (giving male employees
more training focus on attention to details), as well as
the regular working environment (e.g., letting women
oversee the quality of work). This will also directly af-
fect the experience of customers, thus improving their
satisfaction.
The secondorganisational value that showed statis-
tically significant differences betweenmen andwomen
was that of responsibility; other researchers had sim-
ilar findings (Kite et al., 2008; Rudman & Phelan,
2008). This is a significant finding for managers since
quality assurance must always be one of their top pri-
orities in the fast-paced and highly competitive hospi-
tality sector.
Further, we have analysed whether there are any
statistically significant differences between different
age groups; our findings show that there is no statisti-
cally significant difference; we contribute this finding
to the relevant congruent population regarding the
age distribution of our sample; thus, this could be a
specific solely to Slovenia.
Service industries, such as hospitality, need to em-
phasise the quality of their product (Augustyn & Ho,
1998) and responsibility towards customers (Holjevac,
2008) in order to achieve success. Knowing what we
can do to help our employees achieve success is es-
sential knowledge formanagers that can be applied di-
rectly to working environments.
Conclusion
Knowledge of how organisational values are perceived
by men and women, or how they are perceived by
younger or older employees, can be used to achieve
better organisational effectiveness, thus also increas-
ing the satisfaction of the end customer – tourists.
There is no clear answer about whether there are dif-
ferences between men and women or younger and
older in all the cases; it seems increasingly apparent
that it is a case-by-case scenario. However, for the hos-
pitality sector, where our research was conducted, the
results that we have found are of great significance.
The importance of quality and responsibility as or-
ganisational values are statistically significantly more
highly evaluated by women in comparison to men.
Given the fact that women are perceived as more al-
truistic, this is relatively expected. Although women
represent over 60 of the entire population working
in hospitality, they still face the so-called glass ceiling,
not being found in higher executive positions within
80 | Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019
Mitja Gorenak The Differences in Perceptions of Organisational Values
the industry, although this cannot be attributed to dif-
ferences in education, hours worked, or occupational
crowding (Sparrowe & Iverson, 1999). Hospitality is
focused on the nurturing of guests, providing them
with the best possible experience. With this in mind,
we can say that women have a gender-based predis-
position that is beneficial for achieving precisely that.
Managers should increase the involvement of women
in duties that are marked by the need for quality as-
surance and responsible behaviour.
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