A Cultural Perspective of the General Managers’ work: the Greek 4 & 5* hotels’ case.

Abstract

This paper explores the General Managers’ (GMs) Roles and Competencies in Greek 4 & 5* hotels from a contextual perspective, focused in culture. The existing literature indicates that the Greek context influences managerial work to a certain degree. The country’s participation in 2 international surveys during the 1990s (CRANET, GLOBE project) have indicated characteristics that differentiate Greek management, comparing to the so called ‘western’ management. In order to identify the influence of culture in the work of the GMs in 4 and 5* a hotel, a research was conducted in 16 luxury (4 & 5*) city and resort hotels in four popular destinations: Athens, Thessaloniki, Crete and Rhodes. In total 32 GMs and their assistants participated in this country case study. The results have indicated that Greek managers fully understand and appreciate the generic managerial competencies framework and roles required in any other European country. On the other hand they try to cope with the contextual challenges appearing mainly due to the Greek culture by adapting these roles and competencies to their working environment. In addition, international and national hotel chains are following standard operating procedures and formal policies which in most of the cases are adjusted or fitted in the Greek context. Smaller independent hotels (usually family business) are more informal in relation to policies and standards.