Cognitive styles and resource orchestration capability: pathways to innovation and competitive advantage under environmental dynamism in hotels

Purpose The study examines how hotel management uses cognitive styles to optimize resource allocation and gain competitive advantage amid rapid technological advances, changing customer needs, and intensified market competition. The study focuses on how the three cognitive styles-creating, planning, and knowing-influence organizational agility and resource orchestration capability. Design/methodology/approach The research used a quantitative survey design. The researchers collected survey data from 325 hotel managers and used structural equation modelling to test the proposed theoretical framework. Findings The results are in line with the framework suggested. The three cognitive styles have positive effects on both organizational agility and resource orchestration capability. The relationship between these capabilities and competitive advantage as well as organizational growth is mediated by organizational innovation. Environmental dynamism reinforces the effects of organizational agility and resource orchestration capability on innovation. Practical implications The results give hotel leaders practical information about innovation that suggests that workforce development strategies and managerial practices should be in line with the latest market trends. It shows that managerial cognitive styles are central to developing dynamic capabilities, and that leadership training, recruitment, and strategic planning have implications to develop the creating, planning, and knowing styles to increase the agility of the organization, its resource management, and ability to innovate. Originality/value The paper combines the Dynamic Capabilities Theory and the Resource Orchestration Theory in explaining how hotels gain competitive advantage as a result of innovation in an environment of market instability. It also determines managerial cognitive styles to be the core microfoundations of dynamic capability development and provides a new understanding of how organizations develop strategic flexibility and economic value in the hospitality industry.