Tracy Shu

Dr Shi (Tracy) Xu

Senior Lecturer in Hospitality
+44 (0)1483 688710
Researchgate
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Biography

Dr. Shi (Tracy) Xu is a Senior Lecturer at University of Surrey School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, and Programme Leader of MSc Strategic Hotel Management. She holds a Ph.D. degree from the Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Xu has authored over fifty refereed journal articles and conference proceedings publications. Dr. Xu received the Best Paper Award at the 20th Annual Graduate Education and Graduate Student Research Conference in Hospitality and Tourism, in Tampa, FL, January 2015, and the Best Paper Award at the Southern Management Association Annual Conference, in Charlotte, NC, October 2016. As an active human resource management and organizational behavior researcher in the hospitality industry, Dr. Xu's research focuses on three themes: employee wellbeing, leadership, and turnover.  

Dr. Xu is the Researcher of the Year of the School in 2019. Dr. Xu has more than 20 research projects in various stages of progress. Her research projects have been funded by ESRC UKRI COVID-19 Fund (2020), The National Social Science Fund of China (2018-2021), Research England Innovation Voucher Grant (2019), FASS Pump-priming grant (2019-2020), Early Career Researcher Fund (2018), Digital Group Small Research Fund (2018), Student-staff research partnership fund (2018), FASS Pump-priming travel fund (2017-2018), and Graduate Student Research Endowment from Penn State (2016), etc. A few projects in the works examine

  • Consumer responses to attractiveness of waiters/waitresses
  • Health responses to emotion work in the nursing profession
  • Mindfulness of hospitality employees
  • Student's response to online feedback using eye-tracking techniques
  • Abusive supervision using experience sampling methodology
  • Meta-analysis on various topics
  • Hospitality employees’ perception of robotic technology
  • Bystanders’ view on abusive supervision
  • COVID 19: HR impact in the hospitality industry

Dr. Xu serves on the editorial advisory boards of International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management and Cornell Hospitality Quarterly. Her articles have been featured  in ScienceDaily, Hospitality&CateringNews, Guildford Dragon, AzoRobotics, NewsWise, Gadget, News8Plus, etc.

Dr. Xu is always looking for passionate, curious, and dedicated researchers to work with her.

Dr. Xu is excited about partnering with organizations to use rigorous scientific methodology to achieve their employee well-being goals. 

 

University roles and responsibilities

  • Programme Leader - MSc in Strategic Hotel Management

    Research

    Research interests

    Supervision

    Postgraduate research supervision

    My teaching

    Courses I teach on

    Undergraduate

    Undergraduate

    My publications

    Publications

    Xu Shi, Martinez Larry, Nicholas Smith (2019)The Effects of Attractiveness, Gender and Self-Esteem in Service Jobs, In: International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management Emerald Publishing Limited

    Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of service providers’ attractiveness in service jobs and examine the underlying psychological mechanisms that may explain consumers’ different attitudes and potential behavior.

    Design/methodology/approach – An experimental design was utilized in this paper. Study 1 used a scenario depicting a front-desk agent performing check-in procedures and Study 2 used a scenario depicting a restaurant server. Data were analyzed using Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS macro.

    Findings – Study 1 demonstrated the mediating effect of perceived interpersonal skills in the relations between front desk agent attractiveness and participant positive word-of-mouth and service satisfaction. Study 2 reaffirmed this finding and showed that the attractiveness of servers positively impacted participants’ perceptions of the servers’ interpersonal skill and participants’ tipping behavior. Furthermore, the relation between attractiveness and interpersonal skills was moderated by servers’ genders and participants’ levels of self-esteem, such that the effect was stronger in response to female servers for participants with relatively low self-esteem. In addition, the effect of the three-way interaction among server gender, server’s level of attractiveness, and participant’s level of self-esteem on tipping was mediated by participant’s perceived interpersonal skills.

    Originality/value - This article investigated the under-researched constructs of participants’ self-esteem and service providers’ gender and their moderating roles within the service context. These results suggest that responses to service providers can be impacted by the attractiveness and gender of the provider and customers’ self-esteems, despite equivalent objective performance of the provider.

    Xu Shi, Wang Jingna (2019)Still waters stay put: uncovering the effects of emotional variability using experience sampling methodology, In: Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism19(3)pp. 317-332 Taylor & Francis
    DOI: 10.1080/15022250.2019.1583124
    Research has been extensively focusing on the overall mean levels of positive and negative emotions, while paying much less attention to how fluctuating they are across time. This research explores the impacts of employee emotional variability with emotional exhaustion as a potential mediator and psychological withdrawal and job satisfaction as outcomes. In a sample of 109 student employees working in two hotels, this study utilized experience sampling methodology to examine the effects of variability in both positive emotions and negative emotions across 9 weeks. The results of the longitudinal design suggested that higher variability in negative emotions predicted more emotional exhaustion, which in turn, was associated with less job satisfaction and more psychological withdrawal. The findings support the notion that too much variability in negative emotions is maladaptive. Findings can inform the practice on reducing employee exhaustion and promoting satisfaction and retention for employees.
    Yang Wan, Ma Emily, Wu Laurie, Xu Shi (Tracy) (2021)Hotel work-family support policies and employees' needs, concerns and Challenges—The Case of Working Mothers’ maternity leave experience, In: Tourism Management83104216 Elsevier
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2020.104216
    Based on in-depth interviews conducted with working mothers in the U.S. hotels' industry, the current research developed a process model depicting working mothers’ maternity leave and transition experiences under the current framework of maternity leave and other family and work support policies. Drawing on prior theories and interview findings, our research elucidates the process of how female hospitality professionals cope with challenges and strive to navigate post-maternity life while re-adapting to their professional roles and work-life balance. The model developed from our interview findings brings to light the pivotal role maternity leave and other family support policies play in enabling or inhibiting hospitality working mothers to re-adapt during the post-maternity life stage. Based on such findings, we provide discussions on the theoretical and managerial implications as well as future research agendas related to this topic.
    Xu Shi, Martinez Larry R., Van Hoof Hubert, Eljuri Maria Isabel, Arciniegas Liliana (2016)Fluctuating emotions: relating emotional variability and job satisfaction, In: Journal of Applied Social Psychology46(11)pp. 617-626 Wiley
    DOI: 10.1111/jasp.12390
    This study focuses on the relation between emotional variability and job satisfaction and examines emotional exhaustion as a potential explanation for why variability may result in lower satisfaction. In addition, this study examines organizational identification as a potential moderator of the relation between emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction. A total of 244 nonacademic staff in two universities in Ecuador responded to the surveys. The results demonstrated that emotional exhaustion mediated the relation between emotional variability and job satisfaction and that organizational identification weakened the negative relation between emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction. This research is among the first to investigate emotional variability in organizations and examine the role of organizational identification in buffering the negative effect of emotional variability.
    Martinez L.R., Xu S., Hebl M. (2018)Utilizing Education and Perspective Taking to Remediate the Stigma of Taking Antidepressants, In: Community Mental Health Journal54(4)pp. 450-459 Springer
    DOI: 10.1007/s10597-017-0174-z
    The incidence of depression has been increasing. One of the best interventions for depression is taking antidepressant medications. However, the stigma of taking antidepressants has been shown to be a barrier not only to seeking an antidepressant regimen but also adhering to it. This may have negative consequences for people who suffer from depression. Thus, in two studies, we investigate the incidence of felt stigma of taking antidepressants among clinically depressed individuals who take antidepressants and the effectiveness of two possible interventions to reduce this stigma among others. Study 1 revealed that stigma toward individuals who take antidepressants is a reality, either because people were not educated about depression and antidepressants, or because they did not show empathy or did not take on perspectives from the victim’s point-of-view. Based on these results, we used an experimental design in Study 2 to investigate the effects of education and perspective-taking interventions in diminishing the stigma of taking antidepressants. These results suggest that participant gender played a moderating role in the effectiveness of education and perspective taking, such that a combination of the two interventions resulted in lower stigma for men but not for women. These results suggest that people can be trained (using a simple, low-fidelity intervention) to be more accepting of antidepressant use among their friends, family members, and colleagues, resulting in better outcomes for those who benefit from taking antidepressants.
    Martinez Larry R., Xu Shi, Van Hoof Hubert The Use of Latent Growth Curve Modeling in Measuring Student Perceptions about Mandatory Work Experiences, In: Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education30(4)pp. 241-249 Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
    DOI: 10.1080/10963758.2018.1480379
    The study reported here investigated how hospitality students’ perceptions of a required hospitality industry work experience changed over time. By means of an experience sampling method, we captured information about the students’ emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, psychological withdrawal, and performance on an ongoing basis over a 9-week period during which they were required to work weekly shifts in 2 campus hotels. We found that whereas job satisfaction and job performance followed a linear decrease over time, psychological withdrawal followed a linear increase. Prior work expectations predicted the students’ initial levels of job satisfaction and psychological withdrawal. We elaborate on the benefits and future uses in hospitality research of latent growth curve analysis and experience sampling, which are relatively unexplored data collection and analytical tools in the field of hospitality management that enable researchers to measure trajectories of change in subjects’ attitudes and Q4 perceptions over time.
    Yu Yitong, Xu Shi Tracy, Li Gang, Shi Da Applications of the Experience Sampling Method: A Research Agenda for Hospitality Management, In: International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management Emerald
    Purpose – This study aims to provide researchers in hospitality management with a comprehensive understanding of the experience sampling method (ESM) and to engage them in the use of ESM in their future research. With this critical discussion of the advantages and challenges of the method, researchers can apply it appropriately to deepen and broaden their research findings. Design/methodology/approach – This study chooses an empirical example in the context of hotel employees’ surface acting, tiredness and sleep quality to illustrate the application of ESM. Based on the example, this paper conducts two-level modeling in Mplus, including a cross-level mediation analysis and mean centering. Findings – This paper demonstrates the applicability and usefulness of ESM for hospitality research and provides a detailed demonstration of how to use the statistical program Mplus to analyze ESM data. With this paper, researchers will be able to consider how to engage ESM in their future studies. Originality/value – This paper is among the first to provide a hands-on demonstration of ESM to hospitality researchers. We call for more research in hospitality management to use ESM to answer complex and pressing research questions.
    Xu Shi, Van Hoof Hubert, Nyheim Peter (2018)The effect of online scheduling on employees’ quality of life, In: Journal of Foodservice Business Research21(2)pp. 172-186 Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
    DOI: 10.1080/15378020.2017.1364592
    Online employee scheduling has increased in popularity in recent years, especially among hourly workers who have grown up in the information age and the flexibility it provides increases their sense of job autonomy. This article reports on two studies that investigated the impact of work scheduling flexibility on employees’ personal well-being. One study collected data from current users of an online scheduling product and the other study collected information from hospitality management students who are potential future users of online scheduling software. The studies found that online scheduling helps to enhance employees’ personal well-being through satisfaction with schedule flexibility and job autonomy.
    Xu Shi, Martinez Larry R., Lv Qin (2017)Communication is Key: The Interaction of Emotional Labor Strategies on Hotel Supervisors' Turnover Intentions in China, In: Tourism Analysis22(2)pp. 125-137 Cognizant Communication Corporation
    DOI: 10.3727/108354217X14888192562168
    Although past research has examined the link between emotional labor and turnover in organizational contexts, relatively little research has focused specifically on supervisors' experiences of emotional labor and turnover. In the present study, supervisors' levels of communication are posited to affect the interactive relation between expressing genuine emotions and engaging in surface acting because the interactive relation is expected to be more pronounced for supervisors who communicate less. This study was administered to 144 supervisors in four Chinese hotel companies. The results showed that the interactive effects of genuine emotions and surface acting on turnover intentions were strengthened when supervisors communicated with other colleagues less intimately but that there was not an effect related to the extent to which they communicated with many colleagues. The findings extend previous literature by demonstrating that a lack of intimate communication will increase intentions to leave among supervisors who express less genuine emotions and who engage in more surface acting.
    Xu Shi, Martinez Larry R., Lv Qin Explaining the Link Between Emotional Labor and Turnover Intentions: The Role of In-Depth Communication, In: International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration18(3)pp. 288-306 Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
    DOI: 10.1080/15256480.2016.1276003
    This study investigates the relationships between three different emotional labor strategies (surface acting, deep acting, and genuine emotions) and turnover intentions and introduces the role of in-depth communication with colleagues as a potential moderator. This study was administered to employees in four Chinese hotel companies. Frontline employees were asked to participate in the survey and 216 valid responses were obtained for data analysis. The results showed that surface acting and deep acting were associated with turnover intentions, and in-depth communication with colleagues moderated the relation between deep acting and turnover intentions. Although there was not a direct effect of genuine emotions on turnover intentions, in-depth communication was a significant moderator of this relation. These findings extend previous literature by demonstrating the role of in-depth communication in shaping employees’ retention.
    Wong IpKin Anthony, Xu Shi, Chan Suk Ha Grace, He Mang (2019)A Cross-Level Investigation of the Role of Human Resources Practices: Does Brand Equity Matter?, In: Tourism Management Elsevier
    The extant literature has suggested that high-performance human resources practices (HRPs), such as employee training, employment security, and a results-oriented appraisal system, promote favorable employee behaviors. This research predicts that such practices render a mechanism that reduces hotel employees’ propensity to quit through lowering their emotional exhaustion. However, does this mechanism work more effectively in hotels with a strong brand? To address this question, we propose a multilevel research model to assess the effectiveness of HRPs under different conditions of brand equity. Drawing on both social exchange theory and social identification theory, the current study works to advance the literature by investigating the cross-level brand equity boundary condition on the HRPs−intention-to-quit moderated mediation process from two independent sets of data. It advances the literature by bridging the research gap between human resource management and brand management.
    Xu Shi, Van Hoof Hubert, Serrano Ana Lucia, Fernandez Lucia, Ullauri Narcisa The role of coworker support in the relationship between moral efficacy and voice behavior: The case of hospitality students in Ecuador, In: Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism16(3)pp. 252-269 Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
    DOI: 10.1080/15332845.2017.1253431
    This article explores the relationships among employee moral efficacy, coworker emotional support, coworker instrumental support, and employee voice behavior regarding abusive supervision in the hospitality industry in Ecuador: a high power distance culture. The results indicate that employees’ moral efficacy predicted their voice behavior with regards to abusive supervision and that coworker emotional support strengthened this relation. However, an interaction effect between moral efficacy and coworker instrumental support on voice behavior was not found. This study provides a theoretical extension of the voice literature by introducing the roles of moral efficacy and coworker support, and has practical implications for the hospitality workplace.
    Lv Qin, Xu Shi, Ji Hui Emotional Labor Strategies, Emotional Exhaustion, and Turnover Intention: An Empirical Study of Chinese Hotel Employees, In: Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism11(2)pp. 87-105 Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
    DOI: 10.1080/15332845.2012.648837
    In this research the authors investigate the relationship among emotional labor strategies, emotional exhaustion, and turnover intention, specifically in the hospitality industry. The sample comes from hotel employees in China. The conclusions obtained by the authors are: (1) Surface acting positively influences emotional exhaustion; deep acting negatively influences emotional exhaustion; automatic emotional regulation, however, has little significance on emotional exhaustion. (2) Emotional exhaustion positively influences turnover intention. (3) Emotional labor strategies influence turnover intention through the role of emotional exhaustion. Implications and suggestions for human resource management practice are discussed in the study.
    Van Hoof Hubert B., Xu Shi (Tracy), Serrano Ana-Lucia, Torres Leonardo (2015)Abusive supervision – A form of workplace harassment: An exploratory study in the Ecuadorian hospitality industry, In: European Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Recreation6(1)pp. 103-121 Instituto Politécnico de Leiria
    In light of the conspicuous absence of workplace harassment (“acoso laboral”) in the Ecuadorian Constitution and the country’s Labor and Penal Codes, this article reports on an exploratory study about abusive supervision, a form of workplace harassment, in the country’s hospitality industry. Based on a review of the literature on various forms of workplace harassment, the study investigated employee opinions about their supervisors’ behaviors and found that abusive supervision is a prominent issue in the Ecuadorian hospitality industry and that it is signifcantly related to employees’ intentions to leave the organization. The study advocates future research into other components of workplace harassment in these and other industries in the country and into the development of measures that reduce abusive supervision and workplace harassment.
    Nyheim Peter, Xu Shi, Zhang Lu, Mattila Anna S. (2015)Predictors of avoidance towards personalization of restaurant smartphone advertising, In: Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology6(2)pp. 145-159 Emerald Group Publishing Limited
    DOI: 10.1108/JHTT-07-2014-0026

    Purpose

    This paper aims to examine the effect of privacy concern, irritation and personalization on Millennials’ perceptions of personalized smartphone advertising avoidance in a restaurant context. The hospitality industry has witnessed a huge surge in mobile activity over the past few years. Mobility opens up a new communication channel and allows industry to connect with their guests in a more personalized way. However, not all customers welcome the personalized advertisements.

    Design/methodology/approach

    Data were collected from 159 Millennials enrolled in a large state university in the Eastern USA using an online self-administered survey. These Millennials were asked to use a restaurant’s smartphone application for 30 days and then complete a survey based on their perceptions of personalized advertising. Descriptive analysis, reliability, factor analysis and regression analysis were used to evaluate the relationships among the four constructs: privacy concern, irritation, personalization and advertising avoidance, with the first three variables as predictors and advertising avoidance as an outcome.

    Findings

    The results suggest that advertising irritation is positively related to advertising avoidance, perceived personalization is related with less advertising avoidance, while privacy concern is not related to advertising avoidance.

    Originality/value

    Although advertising avoidance has previously been studied for the past few decades, little research has explored the underlying mechanisms of the Millennials’ avoidance of personalized smartphone advertising in a restaurant context. The current research suggests information pertinent to strategies for marketing personalized smartphone advertisement for restaurant companies.

    Xu Shi, Martinez L (2018)Applications of Latent Growth Curve Modeling: A Research Agenda for Hospitality Management, In: International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management30(11)pp. 3268-3286 Emerald
    DOI: 10.1108/IJCHM-10-2017-0650
    Purpose –

    This paper aims to introduce Latent Growth Curve Modeling (LGCM) as a statistical technique to analyze repeated measures of longitudinal data to researchers in hospitality management.

    Design/methodology/approach –

    First, the basics and extensions of LGCM are explained. Second, this paper reviews three existing empirical hospitality research studies that could have benefitted from LGCM but did not use this methodology. Third, this paper provides an overview of two specific illustrative examples of how the current authors have already utilized LGCM for hospitality research.

    Findings –

    Based on explaining the basics of LGCM, delineating two examples using LGCM method, and presenting new research avenues that would utilize LGCM to advance theoretical knowledge, this paper shows how LGCM represents a leap forward in the promotion of more rigorous research in hospitality management.

    Originality/value -

    This paper is the first in hospitality to call for research based on LGCM and provide hands-on demonstrations and an agenda for this methodology.

    Xu Shi, Martinez Larry R., Van Hoof Hubert, Tews Michael, Torres Leonardo, Farfan Karina The impact of abusive supervision and co-worker support on hospitality and tourism student employees’ turnover intentions in Ecuador, In: Current Issues in Tourism21(7)pp. 775-790 Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
    DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2015.1076771
    Ram (2015. Hostility or hospitality? A review on violence, bullying and sexual harassment in the tourism and hospitality industry. Current Issues in Tourism. doi:10.1080/13683500.2015.1064364) posits that violence and harassment are areas of concern within the hospitality industry, and scholarly interest in abusive supervision in the workplace has grown since the last decade. This study extends Ram's (2015. Hostility or hospitality? A review on violence, bullying and sexual harassment in the tourism and hospitality industry. Current Issues in Tourism. doi:10.1080/13683500.2015.1064364) assertion by examining the effect of abusive supervision experiences on student employees’ turnover intentions in a hospitality and tourism context in a high power distance culture, Ecuador. The results showed that abusive supervision was positively related to turnover intentions, and its effect was stronger than co-worker support, with the abusive supervision–turnover intentions relationship being fully mediated by perceived organizational support (POS). In addition, co-worker emotional support was found to attenuate the negative effects of abusive supervision on POS. All in all, the findings highlight the roles of POS in explaining the relation between abusive supervision and turnover intentions and co-worker emotional support in buffering the negative effect of abusive supervision. The important role of culture is discussed.
    Tews Michael J., Michel John, Xu Shi, Drost Alex J. (2015)Workplace fun matters … but what else?, In: Employee Relations37(2)pp. 248-267 Emerald Group Publishing Limited
    DOI: 10.1108/ER-10-2013-0152

    Purpose

    The purpose of this paper is to extend research on fun in the workplace by focussing on its relationship with job embeddedness among Millennials. This research examined the influence of four dimensions of fun, including fun activities, manager support for fun, coworker socializing, and fun job responsibilities, on embeddedness. In addition, this research assessed the impact of fun relative to other aspects of the employment experience.

    Design/methodology/approach

    Data were obtained from 234 full-time working Millennials via survey methodology.

    Findings

    Fun job responsibilities were the most dominant predictor of embeddedness followed by perceived career opportunities and praise and rewards. The other dimensions of fun accounted for significant variance in embeddedness, yet their influence was more modest.

    Research limitations/implications

    The research demonstrated that fun plays a role in enhancing Millennials’ embeddedness, accounting for significant additional variance beyond other important aspects of the employment experience. At the same time, some aspects of fun were more dominant predictors of embeddedness than others, and other aspects of the employment experience were more dominant predictors than certain aspects of fun. These findings should be interpreted in the context of the primary limitation that the data were cross-sectional.

    Practical implications

    Workplace fun may play a role in enhancing embeddedness, but organizations should not lose sight of other human resource management practices.

    Originality/value

    The present study examined the role of workplace fun in a more nuanced perspective by examining its relationship on embeddedness relative to other important constructs.

    Yu Yitong, Xu Shi (Tracy), Li Gang, Kong Haiyan (2020)Systematic Review of Research on Abusive Supervision in Hospitality, In: International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management Emerald

    Purpose: This paper aims to provide researchers and practitioners with an understanding of abusive supervision in the context of hospitality. It seeks to conduct a comprehensive review of the area and offer recommendations for future research by exploring the antecedents, consequences, mechanisms, and designs of research on abusive supervision.

    Design/methodology/approach: Content analysis was conducted to review and analyze studies on abusive supervision in the context of hospitality. Previous studies were searched in the EBSCO, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar electronic databases.

    Findings: Thirty-six referred articles related to abusive supervision in hospitality were reviewed across four key areas, namely, antecedents, consequences, mechanisms, and research design. After reviewing the research on abusive supervision in the context of hospitality, this paper offers future research directions with respect to research focus and research design.

    Research limitations/implications: This paper only included English articles from peer-reviewed journals on abusive supervision. The number of reviewed articles was relatively small. This limitation may have arisen because abusive supervision is a new research field and is still a sensitive topic.

    Practical implications: The results of this work may encourage managers to minimize or even halt abusive supervision. From an organizational perspective, formal policies may be developed to regularize supervisors’ behavior. In turn, employees could use this paper to learn further about abusive behavior and how to handle it effectively.

    Social implications: The review highlighted the negative consequences of abusive supervision. Managers should urgently realize the seriousness of abusive supervision and develop effective policies to minimize its negative effect.

    Originality/value: This paper contributes to the emerging literature on abusive supervision in the context of hospitality by identifying key research trends and framing the outlines of empirical studies. It identifies research gaps, and as the first review of abusive supervision in hospitality, it may encourage researchers to explore the topic on the basis of the characteristics of the sector and offer suggestions for future research.

    Additional publications