Does employee innovation matter in the UK hotel industry? The mediating role of psychological safety

Purpose: In the current turbulent and highly competitive environment, hotels’ management is under pressure to be innovative and improve their products and services continuously to meet and exceed guests’ expectations. Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to develop and test a framework of the factors that can promote employee psychological safety and help drive employee innovation in hotels in the UK. Design/methodology/approach: A survey questionnaire was constructed and distributed to employees in four- and five-star hotels in the UK. Non-probability convenience sampling was performed in this study. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the research’s model and hypotheses. Findings: The findings revealed a positive and significant association between psychological safety and employee innovation. Furthermore, psychological safety was found to fully mediate the influence of leader inclusiveness, respectful relationships at work and autonomy on employee innovation. Also, leader inclusiveness and role clarity were discovered to be associated with autonomy, whereas proactive personality was found to be related to employee innovation directly. The outcomes also showed that a proactive personality fully mediates the impact of autonomy and respectful relationships on employee innovation. Originality/value: This study presents an original chain-mediation model that illustrates the mechanism of how employee innovative behavior can be encouraged by focusing on the mediation of psychological safety. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first attempts to shed light on the role of psychological safety in promoting employee innovation in the hotel sector.