Hospitality employee’s mindfulness and its impact on creativity and customer satisfaction: The moderating role of organizational error tolerance

Abstract

Mindfulness refers to the psychological attentional state in which a person is conscious and accepting of the present. It is increasingly emerging as an estimable quality, especially within the hospitality industry where frontline employees’ creativity is critical to sustaining high-reliability organizations (HROs). Drawing on the literature on mindfulness, HROs, and creativity, this study (1) examines the moderating effect of organizational error tolerance on the relationship between employee mindfulness and creativity; and (2) investigates the mediating role of creativity on the relationship between employee mindfulness and customer satisfaction. The results of the multilevel path analyses performed on data collected from 303 restaurant employees and their managers supported the study's hypotheses. Specifically, the relationship between employee mindfulness and employee creativity was found to be contingent on organizational environmental cues (i.e., organizational error tolerance). The study's findings have implications for hospitality managerial practice, and research regarding employee mindfulness, creativity, error management, and HROs.