Managing the service brand value of the hotel industry in an emerging market

This study integrates the resource-based view (RBV) of a firm and institutional theory to investigate how top management team (TMT) leaders promote the quality of employees’ service by leveraging the resource-based advantages (e.g., service brand value, TMT leadership, human capital (HC) management, and service culture) of their hotel brands to compensate for institutional influences at the global, regional, and local levels in an emerging market. The results show that a hotel develops its resource-based advantages by creating service brand value, which is cultivated by the TMT's transformational leadership through HC investment and the creation of a service culture to improve the quality of service behaviors. At the same time, resource-based and institutional advantages are applied in a complementary fashion to achieve successful market expansion in China as an emerging market.