WORKAHOLISM IN TOURISM SECTOR: THE CASE OF TAIWAN

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the question of whether or not it would be beneficial for the tourism sector to recruit workaholic employees since they might be more suitable for this type of industry. A total of 2,000 questionnaires were distributed to employees working in the tourism industry in Taiwan and 420 valid samples were returned with a return rate of 21%, from them 82 were identified as workaholics. Workaholism in our research is differentiated in three categories: low-level, high-level and burnout workaholics and it’s analysed by their relationship with work achievement and enjoyment, work involvement and inner work drivers. The core findings indicate that there are significant differences between high-level workaholism and the other categories. Therefore, it is suggested that tourism managements should select employees with high-level workaholism and this paper can serve as an indicator to assess recruiting procedures in the future.