The Portman Hotel Company was a relatively small hotel with only 348 rooms and 21 floors located in San Francisco’s booming hotel district. It was influenced with Asian philosophy of services, to provide high quality hospitality to its guest at affordable rates. On paper, the hotel sounded like a great success, one that would definitely flourish amongst the competition. However, even with this philosophy, there were numerous problems that plagued the Portman Hotel. A few examples of these problems are the common mistake of fundamental attribution error (FAE), expectancy theory, as well as operant conditional theory. This essay will explain how these three things can potentially bring down an entire company very quickly. First we …show more content…
In this specific case, the guests are the external environmental forces that are causing the behavior. If Scott had realized that his employees were just doing their job, then his opinion of them would be a lot different and would begin to realize that he might need to change something about the companies’ day-to-day processes. Next we will discuss the Expectancy Theory (ET) and how it relates to this case. Again, first we must define what exactly ET is before we can know how it relates to this case. ET proposes that a person will decide to behave or act in a certain way because they are motivated to select a specific behavior over other behaviors due to what they expect the result of that selected behavior will be. Now that we have defined what ET is we can relate it to the case. Due to the social and environmental forces pushing down on certain PVs, they tend to engage in “shirking”. An example of this act is when a few PVs began to be lazy and not do their fair share of the work, other PVs had to begin picking up the slack of their colleagues. After a while of doing this, they began to wonder why they were working twice as hard and getting paid the exact same. The PVs that were picking up the slack for the others then became less motivated to perform which lead to all of the valets lost their sense of responsibility. So to go back to the original definition, the PVs that were originally working harder than the others began to work less hard
At the same time this was happening, a handsome and wealthy young man, who went by the name H. H. Holmes, arrived in Chicago in 1886 searching for work as a doctor or pharmacist. He established his pharmacy, but later bought a small land across the street and built a construction that was perfect for his practice of disposing of the bodies he murdered. The first floor was for his pharmacy, along with retail shop fronts. The top two floors had apartments for rent with secret hallways and passages to the basement to make the disposal of bodies convenient. Holmes decided to turn his building into the World's Fair Hotel when he found out the Fair site was near him. The building underwent another construction project and he added a kiln in the basement
2. Data/Information Resources: Tendem Nonstop; Enscribe DBMS; Sun Microsystems UNIX; Intel Windows; Reducdant leased lines (WAN).
Webster’s Dictionary defines an archetype as a “a perfect example of something.” Mrs. Pettus defines a questr as a character in literature who engages on a quest to ultimately find self-knowledge (Pettus Lecture). There are certain elements that must be present in literature for a quest to occur. There must be a questr, and the questr must have a place he or she is going. There will be a stated reason for going, and a real reason for going, which is always for the questr to gain self-knowledge. Finally, the questr must also face obstacles along the journey.
The case revolves around the Regal Carnation Hotel, located in Guam. Partly narrated by Steve McKenzie, he described his experience with the Regal Carnation Hotel. In his description of the situation, the “me too” approach to hotel management led to poor service, false representation, and a pricing plan that does not match the value of the hotel. The hotel industry in Guam has important statistical information that will lead to an effective analysis.
After 15 years has passed, the general manager decided to retire and decided to sell this magnificent place to a large American hotel chain that was somewhat similar to what they have experience with their hotel thus far. The new American chain hotel decided to keep all 700 employees and promoted a few people in different positions. One of the spots filled was an American man named John Becker. He was promoted to general manager over this hotel because of his prior experiences. The hotels that John previously worked at was underprivileged, and in horrible shape when John took over. Then later he made it a successful hotel.
The cost of capital for contract services is 7.59%. We can estimate the equity cost by using the numbers provided in the case and calculating the beta for each division. (Appendix 3)
Cindy is the director of human resources. She has been a working member of the
The Portman Hotel sought to maximize service while minimizing management overhead; therefore, they cut some middle management, such as the manager of food and beverages. Because of this strategy, some top level managers had many more employees reporting to them directly. For example, Spencer Scott, the director of room services, had over 60 personal valets reporting to him directly when the hotel first opened. Exhibit 2 in the case study shows that the position of the executive assistant manager was vacant. Some PVs and their supervisor blamed Scott for lack of supervision because they thought he was too busy to know answer for every little question.
A doorman can please the customer with a smile and a few words of welcome, but one surly waiter can kill the effect. Or if we keep an executive waiting in his suite in his underwear for his only suit to come back from a one-hour pressing, we could lose a lifetime customer worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. No hotel, however splendid, looks good to someone whose day it has ruined. For example, lodging manager usually work long and irregular hours including weekends, evenings and most public holidays, usually works indoors, and from an
This paper describe Stamford Plaza Hotel Auckland. It is a five star hotel located in Auckland City center. Stamford Plaza as a multinational company owned by Stamford Land Corporation Limited, has strong market position in New Zealand and Australia. Its target market focus on luxury and top level travelers. By using effective 4P’s marketing instruments, Stamford Plaza Auckland attracts loyalty customers and develop new potential guests. We also use SWOT analysis to demonstrate the competitive advantages and disadvantages the hotel is facing with. Via analyzing threats and opportunities, we can give some recommendations on hotel market strategies. Finally, we get the conclusion on hotel outlook.
The Portman Hotel executives were committed to keeping both their guest and employees happy. The vision that would separate The Portman from the competition was “personal valets” (PVs). These PVs were responsible to every need of a guest. This included everything from cleaning and restocking the rooms, to more personalized services like pressing the guest’s clothes, preparing the guest’s drinks, or drawing a guest’s bath. As long the requests from the guests were legal and moral it was the PVs
Q1. TAKING ACCOUNT OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT, WHAT ARE THE PARTICULAR HUMAN RESOURCING CHALLENGES OR ISSUES THAT WILL NEED TO BE ADDRESSED IN SETTING UP A NEW HOTEL OF INTERNATIONAL FIVE-STAR QUALITY?
For a long time researchers are trying to find the perfect recipe for success, however it is very hard to predict the response of the market to a new product and its adaptation to the environment. The Ice Hotel and the Travelodge are two ventures established in the end of 20th century both in the travel and hospitality sector but each one with its own unique business strategy. In evaluation of their success the decisions made throughout the development of the above mentioned ventures can be categorized as effectual and causal, as explained by Sarasvathy (2010). G.Sanvikarja suggests that causational logic is more rational and based on prediction where as the effectual strategy is more creative and is control orientated. Each of these approaches implies different strategies and reasoning behind both individual decisions and responsiveness to the environment. Furthermore, most enterprises follow a set of common principles that are key for building a business strategy including defining means, setting affordable loss, leveraging contingencies and forming partnerships (S. et. al, 2010). These four aspects are crucial for understanding how is a business created and what is its approach. However, it should be noted that most of the businesses are not strictly effectual or causal, rather a mixture of both with a tilt towards one. Every business is individual and should be treated like one. This paper will examine the business strategies behind the Ice Hotel and the
As we discussed in class, every business is faced with these issues and they are important to managers making strategic decisions. One of the first things learned about business is that if there is no demand for a good or service, the firm that provides it will not continue to exist. Over time the hotel industry has continued to change with market conditions and make itself attractive to business
The effects of how children experience divorce mostly depends on their age, though can also depend on how the parents themselves react after their divorce and if there is no hard feelings between them. Currently, we do not know the rate of divorces because “The National Center for Health Statistics stopped publishing numbers of divorce and remarriage in 2000 because some states no longer count them” (Berns, 2013, p.83). The effects on children are drastically different based on their age at the time of the divorce. A child that is a teen will understand that the divorce is not their fault, though at the same time come to resent one parent for tearing apart the family, while a young child might feel that they are the reason for their parents'