Hotel Organization Structures
In a limited-service hotel, the front desk department includes reservations, the front office, housekeeping, and telephone or PBX (Organizational Structure, pg 4). All the departments that exist operate under the general manager to achieve their responsibilities as part of the management of the business. In this type of hotel business therefore, the audit, front office, housekeeping, maintenance, and sales departments, report directly to the general manager of the entity (Organizational Structure, pg 24).
Decentralization involves the distribution of authority throughout an organization, while centralization involves retention of decision-making authority by a high-level manager (Organizational Structure, pg 12). In a decentralized organization, an organization member has the right to make decisions without approval of a high-level manager, while in centralized systems the authority to make decisions remain with the high-level manager. Decentralization helps managers advance carrier-wise, increases job satisfaction and motivation, and at the same time, increases the profitability of the organization. On the other hand, centralized systems deny employees of this ability thus demoralizing them career-wise and also lowering the organization’s profit margins.
The span of control refers to the number of people who report to one manager or supervisor (Organizational Structure, pg 13). Therefore, wide and narrow spans of control results in flat and tall organization respectively. The span can be increased where several employees perform similar tasks and reduced where they perform different tasks, so as to have effective management. Less supervision is required with better skilled subordinate as they can supervise greater number of employees thus a wide span of control is achieved and vice-versa. Where tasks are ambiguous and uncertainty is great, a wide span of control is required. If the supervisor-subordinate relationship requires frequent interaction, the span of control must be narrow, and wide when the interaction is infrequent. Where the supervisor must integrate and coordinate the tasks of subordinates, the span of control narrows. Finally, physical dispersion refers to employee distribution in the organization, and determines the span of control.
Franchised Businesses
Franchising is a system in which the franchisor grants the franchisees the right and license to sell a product of service and possibly use the business system developed by the franchisor. According to the resource scarcity theory, franchising is brought about as a response to a shortage of the necessary resources required for firm expansion e.g. managerial talent and financial capital. The agency theory on the other hand, argues that rational franchisors will act so as to maximize the value of their system of operation. The “unified” theory of franchising combines the two theories of franchising and also, accommodates growth strategies. The business therefore becomes more beneficial.
The relationship between a franchisor and franchisee is known as a partnership or a strategic alliance and this is what differentiates it from other businesses. In this relation ship, the franchisees depends on the franchisor’s business concept while at the same time, the franchisor depends on franchisees for revenues. After getting into the agreement, the franchisor is entitled to a percentage of the profits in terms of royalties or fess. This is a mutually beneficial relationship and if either of the parties is mismanaged or fails for any other reason, both parties will be impaired (Ivey, pg 1). The franchisor has benefits such as capability of achieving rapid growth with minimal investments, overhead costs on labor issues of the franchised business is reduced due to delegation to franchisees, and reduction in personal risks of testing certain markets. On the negative part however, franchisors may be forced to disclose business and personal information that may hinder its ability to sell franchises. The franchisees also benefit from the good track record of the franchisor and also get useful information and ideas from fellow franchisees. The franchisees may lose in cases where the business concept of the franchisor is not as successful as it was advertised (Ivey, pg 8).
Property Ownership and Management
By definition, asset management is the safeguarding of a hotel’s or group of hotels earnings, earning capacity and value through correct product and service definition. Therefore, asset management has an impact on product definition, service & operating standards, and financial supervision. The Mehrabian-Russel Stimulus-Response Model explains the simple and fundamental model of how people respond to environments. It holds that peoples’ conscious and unconscious perceptions and interpretations of the environment influence their feelings in the current environment.
In the Bitner’s Servicescape Model, the final point of interaction between the customer and employee will determine weather the customer will spend his or her money on the available goods. The whole process that led to this scenario comes about as a result of many factors such as environmental dimensions, holistic environment, psychological moderators, internal responses and behavior. The Mehrabian-Russel Stimulus-Response Model however, explains that the response of people to the environment occurs through to the conscious and unconscious perceptions and interpretation of the environment which influence their feeling in that environment.
Works Cited
Organizational Structure. “Overview of organizational Design. ” 1-26. PDF file. Richard, Ivey. “ Franchising (Revised). ” Version : (A) 2002: 1-11. PDF file.