Quantitative Data analysis
Aim of the Research
The aim of this research is to explore the nature of relationship between internal communication and team performance in Australian five-star hotels that host business events.
In order to determine the importance of internal communication practice of five-star hotels in Australia, it is crucial to measure the effectiveness of internal communication and its influence on event team productivity and customer satisfaction in hotels. Therefore the study will survey staff and management to examine internal communication in the different departments involved in event organisation in hotels, and the outcome of that communication on team performance.
To thoroughly explore this idea, the following research objectives were developed to be used as a guideline for the research:
Research questions
The following research questions that will be addressed in this research:
- How does team communication influence the team working environment?
- How does team communication influence teamwork effectiveness?
- How does team role clarity influence problem-solving and decision-making processes?
- How does team communication affect interdepartmental working?
- How does role clarity affect interdepartmental working?
Objectives
The research objective of this research is to explore the nature of relationship between internal communication and team performance in Australian five-star hotels that host business events. In order to achieve the research objectives and answer the research questions, a structured approach will be followed.
The quantitative data sample of 345 participants has been already collected and analyzed. In addition to this, the researcher will interview hotel departments heads involved in event organization of various Australian Hotels. The interviews objective is to explore the role of internal communication in different departments of the hotel along with exploring the relationship of internal communication on team performance. Further, a literature review will also be conducted so as to gain an overview of the internal communication and team performance in event management. The relationship between the variables will be further investigated with a help of conceptual model.
The study aims to investigate aspects of internal communication within five-star hotels and its relationship with team performance in business events management. The objectives investigated here included; establishing how the team communication influences the team-working environment, how team roles clarity influenced problem-solving and decision-making processes. Additionally, the study sought to establish how team communication influenced teamwork effectiveness, interdepartmental working and finally, how role clarity affected interdepartmental working.
Quantitative Research Method
Administration of the quantitative data collection
CQU Human Research Ethics approval has been obtained prior to finalizing and administering the research survey. All respondents were aware of the purpose of the survey. Anonymity and confidentiality were strictly ensured throughout the conduct of the research. Questionnaires were distributed to various five-star hotels in Australia, through a third party online Web Survey company.
Hotels were selected according to the following criteria:
- Hotels must have 100 guests room or more.
- Hotels must organize events such as meetings, conferences and weddings.
The reason for choosing large hotels is that it is expected to be more people employed, and therefore a larger amount of questionnaires to be distributed and thus completed. To obtain permission to conduct the study, the survey company, on behalf of the researcher, sent a formal letter containing an introduction to the research study and its purpose to senior management and the human resources department of participating hotels. After acceptance of participation in survey by hotel management, the survey company sent an email containing a link to the survey to the human resources department of the hotel. The HR department of each hotel was required to forward this email to employees and departments managers. The completed questionnaires were then returned to the survey company, and shortly after that to the researcher for analyzation.
Questionnaire development
The researcher was aware that the survey needs to be specific and well-defined, and the information must be defined precisely. Therefore a pilot test were conducted, and survey questions were tested on 25 participants from various hotels in different English speaking countries, before its final distribution in Australia.
Internal communication questionnaire
The survey instrument were distributed to event team participants during March - May 2016. Survey responses were anonymous and rated with the following levels of agreement:
- Strongly Disagree
- Disagree
- Neither Disagree nor Agree
- Agree
- Strongly Agree
The following dimensions of internal communication were surveyed:
- Communication mode/channel
- Team communication
- Role clarity
Communication mode is important because people understand and interpret messages differently, which is vital to understand when deciding on the communication method (Downs & Adrian, 2004), and chosen channels can make a real difference in how the message is received (Westmyer, DiCioccio & Rubin 1998).
Team communication is a critically important dimension, and is related to the flow of information and the volume of information that people have to do their job.
The dimension of role clarity will aim to evaluate whether each member of the team is clear about where each team member contributes and how collectively they hold and deploy the right blend of skills, as it is an important foundation stone for effective team work (Ancona & Caldwell 1992).
Team performance questionnaire
The purpose of team performance questionnaire were to obtain information about the relative performance of the teams involved in the event organisation. The questionnaire is based on the work by Downs and Hazen (1977), Hackman (1990), Maltz (2000), Johlke and Duhan (2000; 2001), Bateman, Wilson and Bingham (2002), Gibson, Zellmer-Bruhn and Schwab (2003), Salas, Sims and Burke (2005), and was appropriately adjusted for this research project. The questionnaire (Appendix 1) consists of questions covering different aspects of team performance, such as:
- Team working environment
- Teamwork effectiveness
- Problem solving and decision making
- Interdepartmental working
For the purposes of this research the following discussion briefly describes each of the aspects of team performance to be investigated in this research:
- Team working atmosphere or culture is defined by how it feels to be in the team through sharing information quickly and freely, listening, asking questions, and providing feedback.
- Teamwork effectiveness looks at how the team works together in order to achieve what needs to be done.
- Problem solving and decision making will aim to examine how teams face problems daily, and their ability to deal effectively with issues to ensure continued progress.
- Interdepartmental working will examine how well different departments in hotels work together during business events organisation.
The survey also included demographic questions. Participants were asked to respond to questions about their gender, age, level of education, and time in current position. The purpose of these questions were to gather demographic information about the participants, the nature of their employment, and their current workplace.
Limitations
Similar to other research, this study included several limitations. Given the fact that this was a cross-sectional study design, the results present the findings only at one particular time, that is, during the time the study was carried out and might not present what happened after and before. Another limitation was getting the right number of required sample, which was very difficult since most employees feared giving information related to their companies to strangers. The study also faced budgetary and time constraints hence limiting it to a small sample size. The respondents’ freedom to withdraw from the study at will also resulted in other challenges of reaching out to the required number of sample participants. The above challenges were however overcome as specific interventions were adopted to eliminate each challenge one by one.
Results of quantitative study
Questionnaire response rate
This section presents the response rate of the study respondents. Table 1 below shows the respondents who were targeted, the number who were obtained and the response rate of the study
Table 1: Response rate to online survey
| Respondents | Targeted | Percentage |
| Targeted responses | 516 | 100% |
| Obtained responses | 345 | 66.8% |
| Refused to participate | 140 | 27.1% |
| Invalid responses | 31 | 6.0% |
The study targeted a total five hundred and sixteen employees and departmental managers of the five-star hotels in Australia as the study sample. 66.8% of the participants responded well to the survey, 27.1% of respondents refused to participate while the remaining 6% did not complete the survey because of time issues.
Survey Respondents Demographics
The demographic profile of respondents included age, gender, work experience, education level and the work status of the respondents (see Table 2). The survey had 57.8% female and 42.2% male respondents. In terms of education level, 6.1% of respondents possessed an advanced diploma, 48.7% were bachelor degree holders, 37.1% had graduated with a certificate while the rest 7.2% were masters graduate. On employment status, the majority of the survey participants were employed on a full-time basis, 9.9% were part time employees, 5% were casual employees while the rest 2.0% were interns in the hotels. The survey also sought to establish work title of the respondents. The findings pointed out that majority of the sampled employees (64.1%) were team members, 20.3% were team leaders, 15.1% were managers while senior managers formed less than 1%.
Table 2: Demographics of the survey respondents
| Demographic | Frequency | Percentage | |
| Gender | Males | 145 | 42.2% |
| Females | 199 | 57.8% | |
| Education Level | High school certificate | 3 | 0.9% |
| Diploma/Advanced diploma/ Associate degree | 21 | 6.1% | |
| Bachelor degrees | 168 | 48.7% | |
| Graduate certificate/ Graduate diploma | 128 | 37.1% | |
| Master’s degree | 25 | 7.2% | |
| Work Status | Internship | 7 | 2.0% |
| Casual | 17 | 4.9% | |
| Part Time employment | 34 | 9.9% | |
| Full time | 286 | 83.1% | |
| Work title | Team member | 221 | 64.1% |
| Team leader/ supervisor | 70 | 20.3% | |
| Manager | 52 | 15.1% | |
| Senior manager | 2 | 0.6% | |
Figure 1 shows the age of the respondents. The youngest respondent was 19 years old with the oldest being 61years. The average age of the participants was 35 years with the standard deviation of 7.3. The majority of respondents were aged between 31 and 43 years. However, one respondent did not mention his age and was treated as a missing value.
Fig 1: Age distribution of the respondents
Additionally, the researcher sought to establish the work experience of the surveyed subjects (see Figure 2). The study established that the majority of the respondents had been employed for a period of 1 and 6 years. There were respondents who had been employed for few months and others who had 12 years work experience. It is evident that the study comprised of employees with different work experience and therefore understood how team communication could influence team performance.
Fig 2: Work experience in years
Results addressing study objectives
The purpose of this study was to determine the importance of internal communication practice of five-star hotels in Australia. It anticipated that the effectiveness of internal communication improves staff productivity and satisfaction. The first objective of the study was to investigate how team communication influences the teamwork environment. A chi-square test and correlation analysis was conducted and the findings are presented in Table 3 and 4 below.
Table 2: Chi square test between team communication and working environment
| Chi-Square Tests | |||
| Value | df | Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) | |
| Pearson Chi-Square | 1366.797a | 805 | .000 |
| Likelihood Ratio | 509.625 | 805 | 1.000 |
| Linear-by-Linear Association | 87.816 | 1 | .000 |
| N of Valid Cases | 343 | ||
From the analysis, χ² (1, N=343) = 1366.80, p = .000, this indicates a significant association between team communication and working environment.
Table 3: Correlation analysis between team communication and working environment
| Correlations | ||||
| Team communication | Working environment | |||
| Spearman’s rho | Team communication | Correlation Coefficient | 1.000 | .479** |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | . | .000 | ||
| N | 343 | 343 | ||
| Working environment | Correlation Coefficient | .479** | 1.000 | |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | .000 | . | ||
| N | 343 | 345 | ||
| **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). | ||||
Spearman’s correlation coefficient, rs, is 0.479, and that this is statistically significant (p = .000). The Spearman’s correlation suggests that team communication had a moderately strong influence on the working environment.
The study then sought to find out how team communication influenced teamwork effectiveness. A chi-square and correlation analysis was conducted to establish if a relationship existed. The findings of the analysis are presented below.
Table 4: Chi square test between team communication and teamwork effectiveness
|
Chi-Square Tests |
|||
| Value | df | Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) | |
| Pearson Chi-Square | 2019.972a | 1435 | .000 |
| Likelihood Ratio | 736.061 | 1435 | 1.000 |
| Linear-by-Linear Association | 85.241 | 1 | .000 |
| N of Valid Cases | 343 | ||
From the analysis, χ² (1, n = 343) = 2019.97, p = .000, this suggests that there is a relationship between team communication and teamwork effectiveness.
Table 5: Correlation analysis between team communication and teamwork effectiveness
| Correlations | ||||
| Team communication | Teamwork effectiveness | |||
| Spearman’s rho | Team communication | Correlation Coefficient | 1.000 | .471** |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | . | .000 | ||
| N | 343 | 343 | ||
| Teamwork effectiveness | Correlation Coefficient | .471** | 1.000 | |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | .000 | . | ||
| N | 343 | 345 | ||
| **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). | ||||
Spearman’s correlation coefficient, rs, is 0.471, and that this is statistically significant (p = .000). The Spearman’s correlation suggests that team communication has a moderately strong influence on teamwork effectiveness.
The next objective of the study was to establish if the team role clarity had any influence on problem-solving and decision-making processes. A chi square test and correlation analysis was conducted on the two variable to establish if a significant relationship existed between the two. The results of the findings are presented in the tables below.
Table 6: Chi square test between role clarity and problem-solving
| Chi-Square Tests | |||
| Value | Df | Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) | |
| Pearson Chi-Square | 528.784a | 340 | .000 |
| Likelihood Ratio | 342.930 | 340 | .445 |
| Linear-by-Linear Association | 68.282 | 1 | .000 |
| N of Valid Cases | 345 | ||
From the analysis, χ² (1, n=344) = 528.78, p = .000, indicating a significant association between role clarity and problem-solving.
Table 7: Correlation analysis between role clarity and problem-solving
| Correlations | ||||
| Role clarity | Problem-solving process | |||
| Spearman’s rho | Role clarity | Correlation Coefficient | 1.000 | .407** |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | . | .000 | ||
| N | 345 | 345 | ||
| Problem solving process | Correlation Coefficient | .407** | 1.000 | |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | .000 | . | ||
| N | 345 | 345 | ||
| **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). | ||||
Spearman’s correlation coefficient, rs, is 0.407, and that this is statistically significant (p = .000).
The Spearman’s correlation suggests that role clarity has a moderately strong influence on the problem-solving process.
Table 8: Chi square test between role clarity and decision-making
| Chi-Square Tests | |||
| Value | df | Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) | |
| Pearson Chi-Square | 741.485a | 360 | .000 |
| Likelihood Ratio | 346.563 | 360 | .685 |
| Linear-by-Linear Association | 38.583 | 1 | .000 |
| N of Valid Cases | 345 | ||
From the chi-square analysis, χ² (1, n=345) = 741.49, p = .000, this suggests a significant relationship between role clarity and decision-making process.
Table 9: Correlation analysis between role clarity and decision-making
| Correlations | ||||
| Role clarity | Decision-making process | |||
| Spearman’s rho | Role clarity | Correlation Coefficient | 1.000 | .308** |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | . | .000 | ||
| N | 345 | 345 | ||
| Decision making process | Correlation Coefficient | .308** | 1.000 | |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | .000 | . | ||
| N | 345 | 345 | ||
| **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
|
||||
Spearman’s correlation coefficient, rs, is 0.31, and that this is statistically significant (p = .000). The Spearman’s correlation suggests that role clarity has a weak influence on the decision-making process.
The last objective of the survey was to determine if team communication affected the interdepartmental working. The results of the analysis are presented in the tables below.
Table 10: Chi-square test on team communication and interdepartmental working
| Chi-Square Tests | |||
| Value | Df | Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) | |
| Pearson Chi-Square | 93.022a | 105 | .792 |
| Likelihood Ratio | 99.705 | 105 | .628 |
| Linear-by-Linear Association | .258 | 1 | .612 |
| N of Valid Cases | 343 | ||
From the chi-square analysis, χ² (1, n=343) = 93.022 p = .792, indicating that there is no significant association between team communication and interdepartmental working.
The next objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between role clarity and interdepartmental working. A Chis-square test was run and results presented in table 11 below
Table 11: Chi square test between role clarity and interdepartmental working
| Chi-Square Tests | |||
| Value | df | Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) | |
| Pearson Chi-Square | 84.111a | 60 | .022 |
| Likelihood Ratio | 90.471 | 60 | .007 |
| Linear-by-Linear Association | .341 | 1 | .559 |
| N of Valid Cases | 345 | ||
The chi-square analysis, χ² (1, n=345) = 84.11, p = .022, suggests a relationship between role clarity and interdepartmental working.
Table 12: Correlation analysis between role clarity and interdepartmental working
| Correlations | ||||
| Role clarity | interdepartmental working | |||
| Spearman’s rho | Role clarity | Correlation Coefficient | 1.000 | -.118* |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | . | .029 | ||
| N | 345 | 345 | ||
| interdepartmental working | Correlation Coefficient | -.118* | 1.000 | |
| Sig. (2-tailed) | .029 | . | ||
| N | 345 | 345 | ||
| *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
|
||||
Spearman’s correlation coefficient, rs, is -.118, and that this is statistically significant (p = .029). The Spearman’s correlation suggests that role clarity has a weak influence on interdepartmental working.
The next item to be investigated was to compare the various communications indicators across the various respondents’ work positions, a Kruskal Wallis Test was run and findings presented in the table below.
Table 13: Kruskal Wallis Test between the work position groups and Communication indicators
| Test Statisticsa,b | |||||||
| MODE OF COMM | TEAM COM | ROLE CLARITY | ENVIRONMENT | EFFECT | DECISION MAKING | CROSS FUNCTIONAL WORK | |
| Chi-Square | 9.880 | 4.919 | 6.104 | 0.538 | 0.245 | 13.583 | 1.436 |
| Df | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Asymp. Sig. | 0.020 | 0.178 | 0.107 | 0.911 | 0.970 | 0.004 | 0.697 |
| a. Kruskal Wallis Test | |||||||
| b. Grouping Variable: Work Position | |||||||
A Kruskal-Wallis H test indicated that a statistically significant difference in mode of communication score amongst the diverse work positions of the employee groups, χ²(3, n = 344) = 9.88, p = 0.02. Besides the mode of communication, decision-making was also found to be statistically significant within the different ranks of the employees χ² (3, n = 344) = 9.88, p = 0.004. However, other aspects such as team communication, role clarity, teamwork effectiveness, team working environment, team effect and cross-functional work were not statistically significant.
To establish any differences between the two gender groups and the various communication indicators, a Mann-Whitney U test was run and results presented below.
Table 14: Mann-Whitney U Test between the gender and communication indicators
| Test Statisticsa | |||||||
| MODE OF COMM | TEAM COM | ROLE CLARITY | ENVIRONMENT | EFFECT | DECISION MAKING | CROSS FUNCTIONAL WORK | |
| Mann-Whitney U | 13680.000 | 13865.0 | 13699.5 | 14356.0 | 13963.0 | 13785.5 | 13329.5 |
| Wilcoxon W | 33580.000 | 24305.0 | 24284.5 | 24941.0 | 33863.0 | 33685.5 | 33229.5 |
| Z | -.827 | -.44 | -.80 | -.081 | -.511 | -.71 | -1.21 |
| Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) | .408 | .66 | .42 | .936 | .609 | .48 | .23 |
| a. Grouping Variable: Gender | |||||||
From the data above, the gender of the respondents was not statistically significant to the communication indicators as shown in Table 14 above.
Discussion.
The findings of this study show that effective team communication had an influence on the working environment. This is in line with Proctor & Doukakis (2003) findings that explained how effective team communication bred loyalty among working colleagues, created a team identity and positive team atmosphere as well as building a collaborative working climate that helps restore a strong sense of self-belief and confidence among the staff.
The research further established a moderately strong relationship between team communication and teamwork effectiveness. This illustrated that effective communication enabled the working staff to adhere to set work ethics and rules, focus on service delivery, accountable, measure achievement and progress of their colleagues as well as celebrate team success. When all these are adhered to, teamwork effectiveness will improve. This concurs with Salas and Fiore (2004) and Salas and Wildman (2009) findings, which established that hotels would increasingly benefit from team-based work structures to accomplish set organizational objectives and goals. Accordingly, it is noted as a team an organizational has a high likelihood of achieving success with individuals preferring to work alone. As such, communicating effectively and reaching out to consumers positively requires a foundation that supports communication. Lack of communication may derail many functions of an organization (Proctor & Doukakis, 2003).
Additionally, the findings evidently illustrate a relationship between role clarity and decision-making processes. When the employees have clearly defined roles and responsibility, understand each other’s duties and are able to step up and lead when the need arises, they will be able to resolve internal differences without blames. Moreover, the staff will be able to make effective decisions while involving appropriate people in the process. According to Wasmer and Brunner (1991) who concluded, that for a hotel business to improve their performance through a higher level of customer satisfaction needed to incorporate role clarity, decision making, and problem-solving actions. Teamwork can significantly improve performance, effectiveness, efficiency, morale, and job satisfaction, the unity of purpose, communications, innovative thinking, quality, and how ways activities are done swiftly. On the other hand, when team spirit does not exist in a workforce, an organization fails to achieve required objectives and harness their performance and may continue to experience negative consequences (Warrick, 2014).
It was observed that different work position groups embraced different modes of communication, decision-making, team communication and role clarity. However, gender had no statistical significant with the team or mode of communications. Lynn and Kalay (2015) discussed vision components and role clarity, and explored their impacts on team performance. The research demonstrated that vision clarity had a positive effect on team performance. However, vision support and role clarity were not significantly related to team performance as illustrated by Lynn & Kalay (2015).
Different departments in the organization were interdependent and needed to work together for better service delivery and work performance. Positive relationships between the departments is only possible if there was effective team communication according to Varey (1995). The role clarity of the employees was very important since it brought promoted effective team communication between the stakeholders of the hotel industry.
Summary and Conclusion
From the findings, the survey established that effective team communication had an influence in the working environment. It explained how effective team communication bred loyalty among working colleagues, created a team identity and positive team atmosphere as well as building a collaborative working climate that helps restore a strong sense of self-belief and confidence among the staff.
The research established a moderately strong relationship between team communication and teamwork effectiveness. This illustrated that effective communication enabled the working staff to adhere to set work ethics and rules, focus on service delivery, accountable, measure achievement and progress of their colleagues as well as celebrate team success. When all these are adhered to, teamwork effectiveness will improve.
The study also discovered that when the employees have clearly defined roles and responsibility, understand each other’s duties and are able to step up and lead when the need arises, they will be able to resolve internal differences without blames. Moreover, the staff will be able to make effective decisions while involving appropriate people in the process.
All these factors combined would improve service delivery to customers seeking hotel services and therefore better the performance in event management.
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