Human touch in an AI world: How coaching leadership mitigates burnout in the hospitality sector

초록

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in hospitality confronts a critical challenge: escalating employee burnout. Drawing on Conservation of Resources theory and the Job Demands-Resources theory, this study explains how coaching leadership mitigates this threat through a moderated mediation pathway. Using three-wave, time-lagged data from 300 hospitality employees, the results show that coaching leadership reduces burnout by fostering task idiosyncratic deals. Crucially, this indirect, burnout-reducing effect is significantly stronger when employees perceive AI as difficult to use. By identifying perceived ease of AI use as a critical personal resource governing leader support efficacy, this study advances theory and offers a crucial insight for the hospitality sector. The findings demonstrate that in an industry where service quality depends on employee well-being, leadership in the AI era is not universal; it must be precisely tailored to employees' technological readiness to ensure efficiency gains do not come at the cost of the human capital that defines hospitality excellence.

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