Building Bridges to Employee Productivity: Investigating the Interplay of Talent Management Practices, Psychological Safety, Person-Organization Fit, and Employee Performance in the Hospitality Sector of Pakistan

Abstract

The dynamic nature of jobs and consistent fluctuations in the hospitality sector call for researchers to examine the management practices impacting employees' performance in this industry. The current study aims to draw on the RBV perspective and analyze the effect of talent management practices on employee performance, this study has taken TM into account as a multi-dimensional phenomenon rather than a single practice. Therefore, the study aims to analyze the impact of talent development, engagement, and retention on psychological safety and employee performance. Moreover, this study also examines the mediating role of psychological safety between talent development, talent engagement, talent retention, and employee performance, and the moderating role of person-organization fit. The study utilized a quantitative research design, and cross-sectional data for this questionnaire-based study was collected from 381 frontline employees working in the hospitality sector of Pakistan. Furthermore, PLS-SEM was used for statistical analyses of this study. The results revealed that talent development and talent retention are significantly positively related to psychological safety. In contrast, talent engagement demonstrated a non-significant relationship with psychological safety in the hospitality sector. Results also showed a positive impact of psychological safety on employee performance, and psychological safety mediated the relationship between talent development, talent retention, and employee performance but not the relationship between talent engagement and employee performance. The fascinating findings revealed in this study are the significant negative role of person-organization fit as a moderating variable between psychological safety and employee performance. These findings contributed to the theoretical knowledge gap and entered into one of the initial studies utilizing these constructs in a single framework in light of RBV. While filling the existing literature gaps, this study also paved the way for practitioners and organizations to overpower the substantial challenge faced by the hospitality sector in implying effective TM practices and enhancing employees' performance. The research work provokes that in an evolutionary modern world, organizations should focus on providing a supportive, interactive, and competitive work environment to retain their high-performing employees and to gain competitive advantage.