Customer orientation, learning orientation, and new service development: an empirical investigation of the Swiss hotel industry

Although many studies have investigated the role of customer orientation and learning orientation on a firm’s performance in small, medium, and large enterprises, the literature provides little empirical evidence about the role of customer orientation and learning orientation within the hotel industry. This current work investigates the influence of these variables on new service development and their subsequent effect on performance (financial and perceptual). Also, the impact of participating managers’ positive attitude toward change on new service development has been examined. Using data from hotel managers and owners located in Switzerland, several hypotheses have been formulated and tested. The findings not only verify aspects of prior research but also provide a new insight by exploring customer orientation, learning orientation, and new service development simultaneously, revealing how these factors affect the performance of the Swiss hotel industry. Although support for some hypotheses was found, these results need to be evaluated in light of the limitations, which moderate the contribution and also provide areas for further research