Hospitality employees and digital transformation: The mediating roles of alienation and motivation

Digital transformation (DT) brings disruptive changes to organizational structure, customer experience, and operational processes. Limited information is available on employee work status and performance. We used job demands-resources model to discuss the influence of job characteristics on work engagement through employee work status. Employee work status in DT was defined by alienation and motivation, and the mechanism of job characteristics influence job performance was delineated. We collected 425 valid questionnaires taking Taiwanese hospitality employees as the research object, and conducted path analysis by structural equation modelling. Job demands of service recovery awareness and digital competence at work and job resources of job support, perceived psychological empowerment, and training significantly affect employee alienation and motivation, respectively. Alienation and motivation significantly affect work engagement, and mediate the relationships between job characteristics and work engagement fully. This study proposes specific suggestions for talent training and retention of the hospitality industry in DT era.