Managing Quality in the Hospitality Industry:

In - Managing Quality In the Hospitality Industry – an observation by W. Gerald Glover, Associate Professor, Hospitality Management Program, Appalachian State University, initially Glover establishes: “Quality is a primary concern in the hospitality industry. The author sees problems in the nature of the way businesses are managed and discusses approaches to ensuring quality in corporate cultures.” As the title suggests, the author wants to point out certain discrepancies in hospitality quality control, as well as enlighten you as to how to address some of these concerns. “A discussion of quality presents some interesting dilemmas. Quality is something that almost everyone wants,” Assistant Professor Glover notes. “Service businesses will never admit that they don't provide it to their customers, and few people actually understand what it takes to make it happen,” he further maintains. Glover wants you to know that in a dynamic industry such as hospitality, quality is the common denominator. Whether it be hotel, restaurant, airline, et al., quality is the raison d’être of the industry. “Quality involves the consistent delivery of a product or service according to the expected standards,” Glover provides. Many, if not all quality deficiencies can be traced back to management, Glover declares. He bullet points some of the operational and guest service problems managers’ face on a daily basis. One important point of note is the measuring and managing of quality. “Standards management is another critical area in people and product management that is seldom effective in corporations,” says Glover. “Typically, this area involves performance documentation, performance evaluation and appraisal, coaching, discipline, and team-building.” “To be effective at managing standards, an organization must establish communication in realms where it is currently non-existent or ineffective,” Glover goes on to say. “Coaching, training, and performance appraisal are methods to manage individuals who are expected to do what's expected.” He alludes to the benefit quality circles supply as well. In addressing American organizational behavior, Glover postures, “…a realization must develop that people and product management are the primary influences on generating revenues and eventually influencing the bottom line in all American organizations.” Glover introduces the concept of pro-activity. “Most recently, quality assurance and quality management have become the means used to develop and maintain proactive corporate cultures. When prevention is the focus, quality is most consistent and expectations are usually met,” he offers. Much of the article is dedicated to, “Appendix A-Table 1-Characteristics of Corporate Cultures (Reactive and Proactive. In it, Glover measures the impact of proactive management as opposed to the reactive management intrinsic to many elements of corporate culture mentality.

World-Class Service

In the discussion - World-Class Service - by W. Gerald Glover, Associate Professor, Restaurant, Hotel and Resort Management at Appalachian State University and Germaine W. Shames, Hilton International, New York, Glover and Shames initially state: “Providing world-class service to today's traveler may be the key for hospitality managers in the current competitive market. Although an ideal, this type of service provides a mandate for culturally aware managers. The authors provide insight into several areas of cultures in collision.” Up to the time this essay is written, the authors point to a less-than-ideal level of service as being the standard in the hospitality industry and experience. “Let's face it - if we're ever to resurrect service, it will not be by going back to anything,” Glover and Shames exclaim. “Whatever it was we did back then has contributed to the dilemma in which we find ourselves today, handicapped by a reactive service culture in an age that calls for adaptiveness and global strategies,” the authors fortify that thought. In amplifying the concept of world-class service Glover and Shames elaborate: “World-class service is an ideal. Proactive and adaptive, world-class service feels equally right to the North American dignitary occupying the Presidential Suite, and the Japanese tourist staying in a standard room in the same hotel.” To bracket that model the authors offer: “At a minimum, it is service perceived by each customer as appropriate and adequate. At its best, it may also make the customer feel at home, among friends, or pampered. Finally, it is service as if culture matters,” Glover and Shames expand and capture the rule of world-class service. Glover and Shames consider the link between cultures and service an imperative one. They say it is a principle lost on most hospitality managers. “Most [managers] have received service management education in the people are people school that teaches us to disregard cultural differences and assume that everyone we manage or serve is pretty much like ourselves,” say Glover and Shames. “Is it any wonder that we persist in setting service standards, marketing services, and managing service staff not only as if culture didn't matter, but as if it didn't exist?!” To offer legitimacy to their effort Glover and Shames present the case of the Sun and Sea Hotel, a 500-room first class hotel located on the outskirts of the capital city of a small Caribbean island nation. It is a bit difficult to tell whether this is a dramatization or a reality. It does, however, serve to illustrate their point in regard to management’s cognizance, or lack thereof, of culture when it comes to cordial service and guest satisfaction. Even more apropos is the tale of the Palace Hotel, “…one of the grande dames of hospitality constructed in the boom years of the 1920s in a mid-sized Midwestern city in the United States.” The authors relate what transpired during its takeover in mid-1980 by a U.S.-based international hotel corporation. The story makes for an interesting and informative case study.

Laboratory manual for plant biology,

Lithoprinted from type-written copy, with printed t.-p.

The forest insect and disease situation, Lake States, 1960 /

"April 1961."

What is news? A tentative outline.

Mode of access: Internet.

The first captain, the story of John Paul Jones.

Mode of access: Internet.

Mad.lle Jenny Linds New Ballad. "The Song my Mother Sang". Written by Charles Jefferys, Composed by G. W. Glover

Signatur des Originals: S 36/G03303

Welfare Effort and Poverty from the Monetary and Capabilities Approach: A Cross-Country Analysis in Latin American and the Caribbean (1990-2010)

There is abundant empirical evidence on the negative relationship between welfare effort and poverty. However, poverty indicators traditionally used have been representative of the monetary approach, excluding its multidimensional reality from the analysis. Using three regression techniques for the period 1990-2010 and controlling for demographic and cyclical factors, this paper examines the relationship between social spending per capita —as the indicator of welfare effort— and poverty in up to 21 countries of the region. The proportion of the population with an income below its national basic basket of goods and services (PM1) and the proportion of population with an income below 50% of the median income per capita (PM2) were the two poverty indicators considered from the monetarist approach to measure poverty. From the capability approach the proportion of the population with food inadequacy (PC1) and the proportion of the population without access to improved water sources or sanitation facilities (PC2) were used. The fi ndings confi rm that social spending is actually useful to explain changes in poverty (PM1, PC1 and PC2), as there is a high negative and signifi cant correlation between the variables before and after controlling for demographic and cyclical factors. In two regression techniques, social spending per capita did not show a negative relationship with the PM2. Countries with greater welfare effort for the period 1990-2010 were not necessarily those with the lowest level of poverty. Ultimately social spending per capita was more useful to explain changes in poverty from the capability approach.