Employees’ Emotional Connection to Their Organizations. Is It an Achievable Challenge?

The purpose of this chapter is to establish a clear image of the most relevant findings on the topic on emotional connection between employee and customer in the hospitality industry, as well as creating a review on the main conclusions extracted from the subject and its different approaches. The literature review was based on a systematized bibliographic review process, commonly used in social sciences. Eventually, 348 articles were selected and created a complete review of the literature and theoretical framework, considering that only hospitality related articles were chosen. Employee engagement is an evolving concept within the business, management, and human resource areas of knowledge. This topic, related with hotel experience management, from both internal and external parts, has no relevant theoretical background, what makes the conducted research important and valuable for both, academic and professional fields. The definition and clear establishment of the concept of emotional connection is not sufficiently studied in existing literature, creating a gap in measuring its level of application and its understanding in hotel companies. It is a relatively recent approach that has become a widely used term, with real organizational and professional interests, although studies, especially those related to the tourism and hospitality sector are limited. The concepts of emotional connection, employee and customer cannot exist without the other, giving the great importance and field of implementation to research of emotional employment in hospitality, loyalty of customers and the liaison of both.