How does job rotation combat the adverse consequences of task specialization?

In today’s dynamic and competitive job market, organizations are applying various techniques for career development. One recognized career development method broadly used in many organizations in recent years is job rotation (Ranjbar and Gorji, 2018) that is a vital tool by which employees are improved through exposure to diverse roles and responsibilities within the same organization (Linge, 2019, Mello, 2015). Job rotation has been carried out in several settings including refuse collecting (Kuijer et al., 1999), technology industry (Hsieh and Chao, 2004), nursing (Ranjbar and Gorji, 2018), software engineering (Santos et al., 2019), and banking (Mohsan et al., 2012). The vast majority of the research pertaining to the consequences of job rotation in organizations unanimously affirms the positive consequences of this career development technique such as elevated level of job involvement and organizational commitment (Mohsan et al., 2012), firm and specific job learning (Wang et al., 2010), employee motivation (Linge, 2019), job satisfaction (Ho et al., 2009), and skill development (Baro, 2010). The importance of job rotation has been identified in almost every corporate setting all around the world (Fernando and Dissanayake, 2019). More specifically, the application of job rotation is decidedly appreciated by tourism and hospitality organizations (Emam et al., 2019). In fact, some tourism and hospitality organizations benefited from the distinguished staffs that have the capability to perform additional responsibilities and rotate them between diverse jobs (Al-Romeedy, 2019) which yielded positive results namely increased level of employee performance, organizational commitment, and job involvement (Emam et al., 2019). Experts believe that hotels should provide job rotation opportunities for employees that yields high motivation and can help them develop, and prepare for promotion in the future (Lam et al., 2001, Norbu and Wetprasit, 2020). Ogaji (2019) also debated that management of hotels should adopt job rotation technique to equip employees with essential competence to perform at whichever unit they may find themselves. The importance of the application of job rotation in the case of frontline hotel employees has been also debated by other scholars (Bustamam et al., 2014). They clearly specified that lack of implementation of job rotation by management will lead to employee boredom and demotivation in the long term, thus reducing job satisfaction and performance.

However, there are always two sides to every coin. Although very limited, the negative consequences of job rotation have also been debated in the literature. As contested by Casad (2012), “Job rotations have demonstrated negative consequences associated with decreases in productivity due to negative employee perceptions, lost knowledge, poor person-job fit, and workplace inequalities” (p. 33). Shah et al. (2014) argued that some staff does not prefer to be rotated in their jobs since when they are allotted to a single job, they know precisely where to report and what is expected from them. Malinski (2002) also claimed that skilled employees showed resentment towards job rotation. In another inquiry, it was witnessed that nurses who experienced job rotation indicated hindrance stress which resulted in a decreased level of their psychological well-being (Lee et al., 2017).

In line with the mentioned discussions and drew upon Hobfoll (1989) conservation of resources (COR) theory, this empirical study would bear several contributions to the existing knowledge and tourism and hospitality literature by proposing a novel conceptual model. To begin with, traditionally, job rotation is usually addressed at an organizational level (Huang, 1999). From the employers’ point of view, they see rotation as a way of acquiring skills needed for promotion and enables employees to acquire best practices from a number of different tasks and it is a good way to build one’s career (Baro, 2010, Fernando and Dissanayake, 2019). Job rotation enables human resource managers to decide who can be replaced by whom and creates an appropriate and valuable fit. Further, the practices of job rotation give the support for the managers to displace employees conditionally and regularly in various positions with different incentives (Mir Sepasi, 2012). Surprisingly, job rotation is barely viewed from the perspective of employees. Specifically, an overview of the prevailing inquiries remarkably reveals that this topic is largely unexplored with the focal focus in the case of hotel frontline employees. This is a remarkable gap that needs to be addressed. The hotel industry is a service and people-oriented business (Lam et al., 2001). Hotel Frontline employees are important actors in the hospitality setting because they have direct and frequent contact with the end customers (Safavi and Bouzari, 2020) and have a great impact on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty (Sumaneeva et al., 2019). In order to be successful in a competitive market, it is vital that hotel managers understand employees' perceptions and feelings towards managerial practices.

Moreover, the model would examine the effect of job rotation on two common forms of hindrance stressors witnessed among tourism and hospitality employees (Madera et al., 2013, Yeşiltaş, 2014) namely role ambiguity and role conflict. Indeed, backed up by the existing evidence, the effects of job rotation as a common managerial method are multifaceted and possibly could create contradictory results (Santos et al., 2019). Therefore, a deeper perception of its application could enhance our knowledge regarding the possible unexpected and undesirable outcomes. Besides, the model will examine the impact of the mentioned hindrance stressors on several negative outcomes (job-related anxiety, anger and sabotage behavior). Conferring to the existing literature, the presence of the two mentioned hindrance stressors lessens service quality (Garg and Dhar, 2014), organizational commitment (Lin and Ling, 2018) and teamwork performance (Peratanasumran, 2017), while increases depression, anxiety and emotional exhaustion (Fried et al., 2008, Örtqvist and Wincent, 2006). To date, there is not a single indication of examining the effects of hindrance stressors on the stated negative outcomes. In addition, according to Tharmmaphornphilas and Norman (2004), if poorly designed, job rotation can actually intensify stress and anxiety among individuals. The proposed model will suggest the mechanism through which job rotation will potentially affect employees’ job-related anxiety, anger and sabotage behavior. Last but not least, the practical implications offered by this study will allow hotel managers to appropriately design, plan, and implement job rotation so they can benefit from this strategy as an appealing factor for employee development.

Job rotation and hindrance stressors

Research about psychological stress in organizations during the last 2 decades indicates that stressors form a serious aspect of the work environment; and therefore received vast attention in the literature (Hwang and Han, 2019). Proposed by Cavanaugh et al. (2000) stressors are classified into challenge and hindrance stressors. Challenge stressors are perceived as having the potential to promote personal growth or gain, whereas hindrance stressors are defined as “job demands viewed as

Sample and data collection

The study was conducted in four and five-star hotels in Tehran, the Capital of Iran, with the focus on front-line employees by using judgmental sampling technique. There were 28 four-star and 5 five-star hotels in Tehran at the moment of data collection (between November 2019 and February 2020). The research team contacted the management of each hotel in advance via email, explaining in detail the purpose of this study and the nature of this research. Seventeen hotels agreed to participate in

Data analysis

Lisrel 8.30 software was used for data analysis. All measures were exposed to confirmatory factor analysis. A two-step approach was applied to analyze the data (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). Four items due to low standardized loading were discarded. The remained items used in the study loaded under their construct. The results showed an agreeable fit (χ 2 = 565.15 df = 369; χ 2 /df = 1.77; CFI = 0.94; PNFI = 0.79; RMSEA = 0.052; SRMR = 0.063). All loadings and the rest of the parameters ranged

Discussion and conclusion

Using data collected from hotel front-line employees in Iran, the study examined the effect of job rotation on several negative employee outcomes through the mediating effect of hindrance stressors. This study drew on Hobfoll’s COR theory (1989) and used previous and current literature to expand the associations in the research model. The empirical data supported all of the relationships proposed in this study. That is to say, the application of job rotation as a technique and method for career

Theoretical Implication

The current research offers numerous significant insights into the contribution of the impacts of job rotation on frontline employees’ anger, anxiety, and sabotage behavior and the underlying mechanism linking job rotation to mentioned outcomes. The following theoretical approaches would make contributions to the extant literature in tourism and hospitality settings.

To begin with, as yet, except handful of studies (e.g., (Casad, 2012); (Lee et al., 2017), research on job rotation has mainly

Limitations and future research directions

This study bears several limitations that open doors to further research investigation. Firstly, this study only investigated anger, anxiety and service sabotage as the outcomes. Understanding the effect on different outcomes like emotional exhaustion, turnover intentions, service sabotage and counterproductive work behavior is beneficial. Additionally, hindrance stressors were the mediator in the aforementioned relationships. Understanding other potential mediators such as burnout, work-family

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