Employee Engagement as a Mediator to Role Benefit and Innovative Behavior (Evidence from Balinese Five-Star Hotel Employees)

Abstract

The impact of the coronavirus pandemic is being felt throughout the entire hospitality ecosystem in Bali, including premium hotels, which have been slowest to recover due to the lack of international tourists. Meanwhile, employee engagement has become one of the most prominent primacies for human resource managers and practitioners due to lockdown. This study investigates the link between employee engagement, role benefit, and innovative behavior of five-star hotel employees in Bali during the outbreak. Data were obtained through an online questionnaire in March 2022. This study examines a sample of 241 whose data was analyzed in structural equation modeling. The results indicate that role benefit directly affected both employee engagement and innovative behavior, while employee engagement had a direct positive effect on innovative behavior. Thus, role benefit positively affected innovative behavior directly and indirectly via employee engagement. These findings can add to the existing literature on how role benefit and employee engagement affect the innovative behavior of five-star hotel employees and provide practical recommendations for policymakers and industry leaders to promote those outcomes in Bali.