empirical studies in the extant literature (e.g. Hartline and Ferrell, 1996; Karatepe and
Aleshinloye, 2009). A total number of 250 questionnaires were given to the managers in
the international five-star chain hotels. Such managers were also instructed to
distribute the questionnaires to employees in frontline service jobs of their hotels, who
met the selection criteria mentioned previously. The questionnaires were directly
returned to the representatives of the firm. Of the 250 questionnaires distributed, 151
were retrieved, but 16 of them, which had missing information and did not meet the
selection criteria, were not included in the dataset. Consequently, a total number of
usable 135 questionnaires were obtained, yielding a response rate of 54 percent.