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The Impression Management Techniques of TourLeaders in Group Package Tour Service EncountersChi-Yun Chianga & Wei-Chun Chena

a Department of Business Administration, Ming Chuan University, 250, Chung Shan N. Rd.,Sec. 5, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. 111Published online: 22 Jul 2014.

To cite this article: Chi-Yun Chiang & Wei-Chun Chen (2014) The Impression Management Techniques of Tour Leaders in GroupPackage Tour Service Encounters, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 31:6, 747-762, DOI: 10.1080/10548408.2014.889641

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THE IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES OFTOUR LEADERS IN GROUP PACKAGE TOUR

SERVICE ENCOUNTERSChi-Yun ChiangWei-Chun Chen

ABSTRACT. For group package tour settings, tour leaders may consciously or unconsciously utilizeimpression techniques to interact with groups. This study examines the impression behaviors of tourleaders based on a framework of five discrete techniques of impression management (ingratiation, self-promotion, exemplification, supplication, and intimidation). The findings of this study indicate theimpressions of tour leaders as perceived by tourists can influence the personal interaction quality.Furthermore, the personal interaction quality can subsequently influence the repurchase intention oftourists, word-of-mouth communication, as well as the reputation of tour operators. The implicationsfor tour operators and directions for future research are also discussed.

KEYWORDS. Impression management, personal interaction quality, tour leaders, group package tour

INTRODUCTION

The income levels and standard of living forpeople in Taiwan have grown dramatically, andconsequently their interest in leisure activitieshas grown, too. Nowadays, people easily obtaina variety of domestic and international travelinformation from magazines, TV programs,and the Internet, and such information maystimulate people to travel. Taiwanese peopleare not only interested in domestic travel, butalso in outbound travel. According to officialstatistics provided by the Taiwan TourismBureau (2012), 86% of Taiwanese travelerswho had traveled abroad in 2011 sought touroperators for outbound travel services.

Furthermore, 35% of Taiwanese travelers tra-veled abroad by group package tours in 2011.Many Taiwanese travelers prefer to travelabroad with group package tours (Chang &Chung, 2012). Group package tours simplifytraveling abroad, and also provide many bene-fits for travelers, such as convenience, worry-free travel, cost savings, one-stop shopping, andspecial treatment (Cook, Yale, & Marqua,2005).

In Taiwan, tour operators assign tour leadersto group package tours to escort and delivernecessary services to tour participants through-out their entire trips (Wong & Wang, 2009).Typically, tour leaders act as the front-lineemployees of tour operators, serving and

Chi-Yun Chiang is Assistant Professor in the Department of Business Administration, Ming ChuanUniversity, 250, Chung Shan N. Rd., Sec. 5, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. 111 (E-mail: miller@mail.mcu.edu.tw).

Wei-Chun Chen is an MBA Program Student in the Department of Business Administration, Ming ChuanUniversity, 250, Chung Shan N. Rd., Sec. 5, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. 111 (E-mail: alexalexachen@hotmail.com).

Address correspondence to: Chi-Yun Chiang, Department of Business Administration, Ming ChuanUniversity, 250, Chung Shan N. Rd., Sec. 5, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. 111.

The authors gratefully acknowledge Mark Quinlan providing language help. Mark Quinlan currentlyserves as an instructor of English Language, at the English Language Center, Ming Chuan University.

Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 31:747–762, 2014© 2014 Taylor & FrancisISSN: 1054-8408 print / 1540-7306 onlineDOI: 10.1080/10548408.2014.889641

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accompanying tourists (Ap & Wong, 2001;Wang, Hsieh, Chou, & Lin, 2007; Wang,Hsieh, & Huan, 2000; Wong & Wang, 2009).Wong and Wang (2009) indicated that in tour-ism settings, tour leaders intensively interactface to face with tourists and display variousemotions during the trips. Thus, tour leadersplay “emotional labor” roles. They usually dis-play proper emotions in order to create a posi-tive atmosphere for groups, thus affectingtourists’ emotions, attitudes, and behaviors. Insuch situations, tour leaders may feel exhaustedand burnt out; however, “emotional labor” rolesexhibited by tour leaders may create positivefeedback, improve task effectiveness, andincrease monetary benefits. Therefore, tour lea-ders should develop and maintain favorablerelationships with groups through appropriateemotional expressions. Tour leaders can controltheir emotions and attempt to behave in waysthat create favorable impressions in groups.

Impression management is a process throughwhich individuals undertake to influence theimages that others have of them (Rosenfeld,Giacalone, & Ricordan, 1995). The impressionsderived by others have implications for howpeople perceive, judge, and treat the impressioncreators (Goffman, 1959). People usuallyengage in impression management behaviorsto affect the images perceived by others, andsuch behaviors are often utilized to createdesired and intended images (Bolino &Turnley, 2003; Turnley & Bolino, 2001). Thesuccessful use of impression management maylead to desired outcomes (Crane & Crane,2002). Furthermore, impression managementtechniques may increase the likelihood ofhighly self-monitoring individuals to becomeleaders of work groups (Zaccaro, Foti, &Kenny, 1991), and execute superior boundaryspanning jobs well (Caldwell & O’Reilly,1982). In group package tour settings, tour lea-ders are leaders of groups, and have boundaryspanning roles. Tour leaders should expressimpressions that meet or exceed groups’ expec-tations. Therefore, tour leaders can utilizeproper impression management techniques tocreate positive images and avoid negativeimpressions from groups. Such behaviors canhelp to make tour leaders more likeable,

competent, and worthy, and may help tour lea-ders to cultivate positive environments withingroups. By understanding how the impressionsof tour leaders perceived by groups may subse-quently affect the perceptions of service qualityand behavior intentions of groups, managerscan develop training programs for tour leadersto improve their impression management tech-niques and service skills.

Impression management is a well-developedtheory and much of the existing research hasexamined the impression management beha-viors that occur in organizational settings. Ingroup package tour service encounters, tour lea-ders have to escort the groups and it is neces-sary for tour leaders to maintain goodrelationships with groups. Tour leaders arelikely to express favorable images of them-selves and such behaviors are indeed someform of impression management. In fact, tourleaders may consciously or unconsciously uti-lize various impression management behaviorsto serve or satisfy tour groups. However, thespecific impression management behaviorsused by tour leaders are still poorly understood.Thus, this study aims to identify the key tech-niques of impression management from organi-zational literature, and further investigate howthese techniques can be applied by tour leadersand be generalized to group package tour ser-vice encounter settings.

The core service experiences of group pack-age tours mainly occur within the duration oftrips tourists participate in, and tour leaders areresponsible for providing a series of services togroups within such service encounter contexts.Since tour leaders have to interact with touristscontinuously and intensively, the perceivedquality of group package tours depends heavilyon the service quality provided by tour leaders(Ap & Wong, 2001). Although service qualitycomprises multiple dimensions, LeBlanc (1992)suggested that personal interaction affects ser-vice quality perception significantly in the ser-vice delivery process. Therefore, this study aimsto explore the personal interaction quality deliv-ered by tour leaders in group package tourservice encounters.

Previous research suggests that tour leadersare fundamental elements of group package

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tours, and the service quality and performanceof tour leaders have an influence on the conse-quent outcomes, such as customer satisfaction,customer loyalty, repurchase intention, word-of-mouth communication, and the image and repu-tation of tour operators (Ap & Wong, 2001;Heung, 2008; Mossberg, 1995; Wang et al.,2000). For this purpose, the relationshipsbetween personal interaction quality and asso-ciated service outcomes are also examined.More specifically, the objectives of this paperare as follows:

1. Identifying the key techniques of impressionmanagement from organizational literatureand investigating how these techniques canbe applied by tour leaders in group packagetour service encounter settings.

2. Exploring the relationship between impres-sion management techniques and personalinteraction quality.

3. Verifying how the personal interaction qual-ity between tour leaders and groups maysubsequently affect tourists’ repurchaseintention, word-of-mouth communication,as well as the reputation of tour operators.

LITERATURE REVIEW ANDHYPOTHESES

Service Quality

Generally, tour operators offer similar travelproducts and it is difficult for them to createproduct differentiation. Thus, it is hard for touroperators to attract and maintain customers. Inorder to improve this weakness, tour operatorsshould understand how their customers evaluateservice quality (Zhu, Cole, & Card, 2007). Forgroup package tours, tour operators usuallyassign tour leaders to escort their tours. Tourleaders are the primary frontline staff providingservice to tourists. The performance of tour lea-ders in the service encounter stage can affect thesatisfaction level of tourists. Hence, the servicecapability of tour leaders can be an importantcompetitive advantage for tour operators to gen-erate product differentiation, improve company

image, and enhance customer loyalty and word-of-mouth communication (Mossberg, 1995).

In research on tour leaders, service quality hasbeen conceptualized in diverse ways. Some stu-dies define the service quality of tour leadersbased on Service Quality (SERVQUAL) (i.e.,Mossberg, 1995), while other studies are basedon the service process of group package tours(i.e., Wang et al., 2000), and still others arebased on critical components (i.e., Heung,2008; Wang et al., 2007). The service qualitydimensions of previous studies are somewhatsimilar but are not completely consistent becausethe research contexts are different. Caro andMartínez García (2008) stressed that the essen-tial factors of service quality were not the sameacross all service industries, thus it is necessaryto develop an industry-specific model. Caro andMartínez García (2008) proposed a third-orderfactor model for the tour operator industry. Thisservice quality model consists of three primarydimensions, namely personal interaction quality,physical environment quality, and outcome qual-ity. The subdimensions of personal interactionquality are conduct, expertise, and problemsolving. The subdimensions of physical environ-ment quality consist of equipment and ambientconditions. The subdimensions of outcomequality are waiting time and valence. For tour-ists, service quality not only comes from tourleaders, but also from related service elementsoffered by tour operators; thus, service qualityusually includes multiple dimensions. Basically,tourists evaluate overall service quality based onall the associated service elements provided bytour operators. Since Caro and Martínez García’s(2008) service quality model was designedfor the tour operator industry, their model hasbeen adopted for the research framework in thisstudy. LeBlanc (1992) indicated that, in theservice delivery process, personal interactionhas the most significant effect on service qualityperceptions. Because tour leaders provide majorservice for tourists at the service encounter stageand are vital to tour experience, this studyfocuses on the “personal interaction quality”dimension of Caro and Martínez García’s(2008) service quality model and examines theservice encounter between tour leaders andgroups.

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Impression Management

Impression management portrays actors’attempts to create, maintain, or change animage held by others. People are interested inmanaging impressions because it helps them torealize desirable and worthwhile outcomes(Bolino, Kacmar, Turnley, & Gilstrap, 2008).Gardner and Avolio (1998) found that leadersusually attempt to create charismatic images fortheir followers. Charismatic leaders are morelikely to utilize particular impression manage-ment techniques than non-charismatic leaders toshape credible, trustworthy, and moral images.In group package tour settings, tour leaders playleadership roles, and the service encounterbetween tour leaders and groups occurs fromthe beginning to the end of entire trips. In gen-eral, there are diverse tourists, and tour leadershave to provide tailored services and displayvarious impressions for target tourists in differ-ent situations. Thus, to express charisma and tolead groups effectively, tour leaders shouldlearn how specific techniques of impressionmanagement may facilitate or impede theirattempts to create desired images in the eyesof tourists.

Researchers have proposed various taxo-nomies of impression management, but Jones& Pittman’s (1982) taxonomy is most widelycited (Crane & Crane, 2002). Jones andPittman’s (1982) impression management fra-mework includes five different techniques(ingratiation, self-promotion, exemplification,supplication, and intimidation) and it embracesvarious behaviors that may occur in group pack-age tour settings. Therefore, Jones andPittman’s (1982) framework has been adoptedfor this study.

Generally, individuals who use ingratiation,self-promotion, and exemplification techniquescan create favorable images for themselves. Onthe other hand, individuals who use supplicationand intimidation techniques are likely to beviewed less favorably by others (Bolino &Turnley, 2003; Manzur & Jogaratnam, 2007).Gordon (1996) found that ingratiation had apositive influence on interpersonal attractionand performance evaluation. In the form ofself-promotion, individuals seek to impress

others with their competences so as to berespected for their talents and capabilities aswell as express attractive personal qualities(Jones & Pittman, 1982). Moreover, individualsmay do more, or do better, than is necessary toappear dedicated or superior, and to createexemplification impressions (Bolino et al.,2008). Turnley & Bolino (2001) found thathighly self-monitoring individuals are moreeffective at using ingratiation to be perceivedas likeable, self-promotion to be viewed ascompetent, and exemplification to be seen asdedicated, by their work group members.

For group package tours, tour leaders areassigned to serve groups and have to interactwith groups intensively. Thus, tour leadersshould tailor ingratiation, self-promotion, andexemplification images for specific interactionprocesses. Favorable and attractive impressionscan be used to maintain good relationships withtourists and cultivate better personal interactionquality. Therefore, for group package tour set-tings, the following hypotheses are suggested:

H1: Tour leaders who use ingratiation tech-niques can positively affect the personalinteraction quality between tour leadersand groups.

H2: Tour leaders who use self-promotiontechniques can positively affect the per-sonal interaction quality between tourleaders and groups.

H3: Tour leaders who use exemplificationtechniques can positively affect the per-sonal interaction quality between tourleaders and groups.

Individuals are likely to utilize supplicationwhen they lack a particular skill or resource,and they may display their weakness to targetpersons through whom they may acquiredesired outcomes. Supplication may place indi-viduals in a weak position and lead to somedisadvantages, such as decreased self-esteemor being perceived unfavorably (Crane &Crane, 2002). Typically, tourists rely on tourleaders to escort them and groups expect tourleaders to take responsibility for satisfying theirneeds. Using supplication may cause tour

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leaders to appear irresponsible, incapable, orunprofessional, and may result in negativeoutcomes.

Intimidation is likely to make individualswho use it less attractive, and may drive themaway from others, creating tension, avoidance,and withdrawal in target persons. Intimidationmost often occurs in non-voluntary relation-ships, such as marriages, families, betweenemployers and employees, and in military ser-vice (Jones & Pittman, 1982). Intimidation maybe an effective tactic when supervisors needunquestioning obedience and immediate action(Crane & Crane, 2002). However, touristsexpect a free and easy atmosphere in which toenjoy pleasurable trips. If tour leaders intimi-date tour participants, tourists may feel threa-tened and unhappy. Within such stressfulrelationships, tour leaders may interact inso-lently with groups. Therefore, the followinghypotheses are proposed:

H4: Tour leaders who use supplication tech-niques can negatively affect the personalinteraction quality between tour leadersand groups.

H5: Tour leaders who use intimidation tech-niques can negatively affect the personalinteraction quality between tour leadersand groups.

The Effects of Personal InteractionQuality

Service quality seems to be an antecedent ofcustomer satisfaction, also affecting the beha-vior intention of customers (Lee, Graefe, &Burns, 2004; Loureiro & González, 2008). Theinteraction quality of frontline employees canpositively affect customer satisfaction (Ekinci& Dawes, 2009). Dobholkar, Shepherd, andThorpe (2000) suggested that the service qualityof staff behavior can influence a customer’sintention to return to service companies. Also,Wong and Wang (2009) indicated that high-quality service can generate repeat business fortour operators. Since tour leaders are responsi-ble for accompanying groups during wholetrips, high interaction quality delivered by tour

leaders should induce tourists to express posi-tive intentions to deal with the same tour opera-tor in the future. Therefore, the followinghypothesis is proposed:

H6: The personal interaction quality betweentour leaders and groups can positivelyaffect the repurchase intention oftourists.

Most services have intangible attributes. It ishard for customers to see, taste, touch, andevaluate service performance before purchasingServices typically involve considerable interac-tion between the providers and the customers;thus, customers usually seek others’ opinionsfor making better decisions (Haywood, 1989).Word-of-mouth communication from existingcustomers to prospective ones has become atrustworthy source of attracting new businessfor companies (Gremler, Gwinner, & Brown,2001). The power of word-of-mouth communi-cation in the service marketing sector is strongerthan in any other industry sector (Sun & Qu,2011). The interpersonal relationships betweenemployees and customers can boost positivecustomer communication (Gremler et al.,2001); thus, interaction quality may influencetourists’ communication behaviors. Therefore,the following hypothesis is proposed:

H7: The personal interaction quality betweentour leaders and groups can positivelyaffect worth-of-mouth communication.

Company reputation is related to perceptions ofa company’s actions in previous time periods.Moreover, the reputation of service companiesdescribes the extent to which these companiesare considered to be honest and concernedabout their customers (Doney & Cannon,1997). If companies consistently fulfill theirpromises and perform well, such companiesshould obtain a favorable reputation among cus-tomers (Nguyen & Leblance, 2001). However,if customers have unfavorable perceptions ofcompanies or their products/services, decliningsales and revenues are anticipated (Gray &Balmer, 1998). Because tour leaders are therepresentatives of tour operators to serve

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customers, their interaction quality may influ-ence the perceived reputation of tour operators.Based on the above theoretical background, theconceptual model of this study is shown inFigure 1 and the following hypothesis isproposed:

H8: The personal interaction quality betweentour leaders and groups can positivelyaffect the reputation of tour operators.

METHODOLOGY

Measurement

A self-administered questionnaire was devel-oped to collect data. The structured question-naire contained six parts. For part 1, impressionmanagement behaviors were based on Jonesand Pittman’s (1982) theoretical model in com-bination and these behaviors were measuredusing Bolino and Turnley’s (1999) impressionmanagement scales. The scales utilized hereconsist of 22 items tapping the impression man-agement behaviors of tour leaders in grouppackage tour settings. Part 2 was designed toexamine personal interaction quality using the

seven items developed by Caro and MartínezGarcía (2008). Part 3 was designed to evaluatethe repurchase intention of tourists, and threeitems were revised from the reverse scales pro-posed by Davidow (2003). Part 4 was designedto measure word-of-mouth communication;three items were modified from the scalesdeveloped by Casaló, Flavián, & Guinalíu(2008). Part 5 was designed to measure thereputation of tour operators, with three itemsadapted from Nguyen and Leblance’s (2001)scales. All of these questionnaire items utilizeda 7-point Likert scale, ranging from “stronglydisagree (1)” to “strongly agree (7)”. Finally,part 6 shows the socio-demographic data ofthe respondents.

Data Collection and the Profiles ofRespondents

Self-administered questionnaires were dis-tributed to tourists of group package tours ori-ginating in Taiwan and survey data werecollected from February 2011 to August 2011.This study utilized two ways of gathering the

FIGURE 1. The Conceptual Framework

Ingratiation

Self-promotion

Exemplification

Supplication

Intimidation

Repurchase Intentionof Tourists

Personal InteractionQuality

Word-of-mouthCommunication

Reputation of TourOperators

H3

H4

H5

H6

H8

H7

H2

H1

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questionnaires. Firstly, three tour operatorsassisted in gathering survey data. Each touroperator delegated some tour leaders to distri-bute the questionnaires to their groups, andfinally each tour operator collected and returnedcompleted questionnaires to us. Secondly,friends of the researchers who participated ingroup package tours were asked to distribute thequestionnaires to other tour participants on thelast day of their tours.

Overall, 461 valid and usable questionnaireswere received. The demographic profiles of therespondents are shown in Table 1. There was arelatively small difference between the numberof males and females; 46.2% were male and53.8% were female. The majority of the respon-dents were married (59.4%). Over half of therespondents were in the age categories of 31–40(30.4%) or 41–50 (21.5%), while only 6.3%were 61 years old and above. Moreover, forthe “average monthly income” category, mostrespondents earned below 50,000 NT dollars(39.7% earned from 30,001–50,000 NT dollars,while 31.9% earned below 30,000 NT dollars).Also, 42.1% of the group package tours costbetween 30,001 and 40,000 NT dollars, and23% cost between 20,001–30,000 NT dollars.For the “personal expenditures during this tour”category, 40.8% spent less than 10,000 NT dol-lars, and 31% spent between 10,001 and 20,000NT dollars, while only 11% spent 30,001 NTdollars and above. Finally, for the “destination”category, the top five destinations wereMainland China (20.6%), Japan (20.4%),Thailand (10.6%), Korea (9.1%), and Europe(8.9%), respectively.

Testing the Model

Linear Structural Relations (LISREL) is amodel for covariance structure analysis andbelongs to the factor analysis based approach.The partial least square (PLS) path modeling is amodel for canonical correlation structure analysisand belongs to the principle component analysis-based approach (Fornell & Bookstein, 1982).Partial least square requires less stringent assump-tions related to measurement levels of the mani-fest variables, multivariate normality, and sample

size (Hulland, 1999; Chin, Marcolin, & Newsted,2003) than does the covariance-based approach tostructural equation modeling (e.g., LISREL).Partial least square has been increasingly utilizedin international marketing research (Battour,Battor, & Ismail, 2012; Henseler, Ringle, &Sinkovics, 2009), and travel and tourism market-ing research (Battour et al., 2012; Conze, Bieger,Laesser, & Riklin, 2010; Loureiro, 2010; Regan,Carlson, & Rosenberger, 2012). Fornell andBookstein (1982, p. 450) indicated that “If thetheoretical model is correct and the indicators

TABLE 1. Profiles of Respondents

Variables n %

GenderMale 213 46.2%Female 248 53.8%Age25 and below 63 13.6%26–30 69 15%31–40 140 30.4%41–50 99 21.5%51–60 61 13.2%61 and above 29 6.3%Marital StatusSingle 187 40.6%Married 274 59.4%Average monthly incomea

30,000 and below 147 31.9%30,001–50,000 183 39.7%50,001–70,000 95 20.6%70,001 and above 36 7.8%Fee of the group package toura

20,000 and below 50 10.8%20,001–30,000 106 23%30,001–40,000 194 42.1%40,001–50,000 26 5.6%50,001 and above 85 18.4%Personal expenditures during this toura

10,000 and below 188 40.8%10,001–20,000 143 31%20,001–3,0000 82 17.8%30,001 and above 48 11%DestinationMainland China 95 20.6%Japan 94 20.4%Thailand 49 10.6%Korea 42 9.1%Europe 41 8.9%Vietnam 35 7.6%America 28 6.1%Others 77 16.7%

Note. aNT dollars.

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are valid measurements of the constructs, theLISREL estimate would be correct whereas thePLS estimate would be biased downward. If onehad reason to doubt the accuracy of the theoreticalmodel and/or the validity of the indicators, theLISREL estimate would be exaggerated andmore credence could be given to the PLS esti-mate”. Impression management is a well-devel-oped theory and has been applied to variousorganizational contexts. Although impressionmanagement techniques are likely to be utilizedby group leaders during the group package tourservice encounters, almost no research has appliedimpression management theory to the travel andtourism marketing field. This study aims to pro-pose a theoretical model based on impressionmanagement theory, and it should further examinethe accuracy of this model as well as relatedindicators. According to the research context ofthis study, LISREL does not to be well suited andPLS is a suitable alternative. Therefore, this studyused the PLS analytical approach to evaluate themodel.

This study employed SmartPLS v.2 softwaredeveloped by Ringle, Wende, and Will (2005)to analyze the data. Researchers adopted thetwo-stage approach (comprising both the mea-surement model and the structural model) pro-posed by Hulland (1999) to implement itsstatistical procedures. The former reflects thereliability and validity of study measurements,the latter verifies the statistical support providedfor the hypothetical relationships among con-structs. Such results are utilized as a basis fordiscussion and identifying managerialimplications.

Measurement Model

In order to address the adequacy of the mea-surement model, this study assessed the reliabil-ities, convergent validity, and discriminantvalidity of individual items. Firstly, the itemloadings that reflect the extent to which eachconstruct is tapped by this study range from0.707–0.966 (Table 2); all exceeded the recom-mended threshold value of 0.7 suggested byHulland (1999). Secondly, this study used thecomposite scale reliability (CR) and average

variances extracted (AVE) to assess the internalconsistency of constructs. While CR is analo-gous to Cronbach’s alpha, the AVE denotes theamount of variance captured by the measure ofa construct relative to random measurementerror (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Table 3 showsthat the estimates of the CRs ranged from0.893–0.978 in this study, significantly exceed-ing the value of 0.7 recommended by Hulland(1999). The estimates of AVEs were found toexceed 0.5 (ranging from 0.820–0.967) and alllay within the acceptable range stipulated byHulland (1999), thus achieving significant con-vergent validity. All item loadings, CRs, andAVEs were supported, and indicated high relia-bility and convergent validity.

Furthermore, this study checked the discrimi-nant validity by examining whether the squareroots of the AVE for these constructs werelarger than any other value of their individualcorrelation coefficients. Table 3 shows that thesquare root of the AVE for each construct alongthe diagonal line was higher than any othervalue of its correlation coefficients in thelower triangle area. This result clearly demon-strated good discriminant validity. Overall,these statistics revealed that the construct mea-surements were sufficiently strong to enablesubsequent structural model estimation.

Structural Model

There is no proper overall goodness-of-fit(GoF) measure for the PLS model. The mini-mization of error (or the maximization of var-iance explained) is one major objective of PLS,and it can be determined by examining the R2

values (the amount of variance explained) forthe dependent (endogenous) constructs(Hulland, 1999). In order to display a goodexplanation for the dependent constructs, R2

values should exceed 0.3 (Gefen, Straub, &Boudreau, 2000). There were four dependentconstructs in the current structural model: per-sonal interaction quality, repurchase intention oftourists, word-of-mouth communication, andreputation of tour operators; the R2 valueswere 0.622, 0.500, 0.509, and 0.414, respec-tively. Thus, these results demonstrated a good

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TABLE 2. Items and the Measurement Model

Construct/Items Factorloading

Compositereliability (CR)

Average variancesextracted (AVE)

Impression ManagementIngratiation:The tour leader praises the tour participants so you consider him/her a

nice person.0.937 0.958 0.945

The tour leader compliments tour participants so you see him/her aslikeable.

0.936

The tour leader does personal favors for tour participants to show you thathe/she is friendly.

0.941

The tour leader takes an interest in tour participants’ personal lives toshow you that he/she is friendly.

0.874

Self-Promotion:The tour leader makes tour participants aware of his/her talents or

qualifications.0.892 0.893 0.820

The tour leader makes tour participants aware of his/her unique skills andabilities.

0.857

The tour leader talks proudly about his/her past accomplishments whichmight help make this trip successful.

0.822

Exemplification:The tour leader lets tour participants know how hard he/she has been

working for this trip.0.913 0.938 0.919

The tour leader lets others know that he/she has been putting in a lot oftime for this trip.

0.914

The tour leader takes on more than his/her responsibility so that tourparticipants will see him/her as dedicated.

0.841

The tour leader tries to appear like he/she has been very busy working onhis/her job.

0.823

The tour leader arrives at group activities before they start and remainsuntil they end in order to appear dedicated.

0.840

Supplication:The tour leader acts like he/she knows less than he/she really does so that

tour participants will help him/her out.0.883 0.963 0.952

The tour leader tries to gain assistance or sympathy from tour participantsby appearing needy in some area.

0.897

The tour leader acts like he/she needs assistance on his/her job so thattour participants will help him/her out.

0.921

The tour leader pretends not to understand how to do something in orderto avoid having to work on an undesirable part of the task.

0.933

The tour leader discloses his/her weakness in a particular area so that he/she can avoid an unpleasant part of the task.

0.944

Intimidation:The tour leader is intimidating with tour participants when it is necessary

for the good of the task.0.927 0.955 0.940

The tour leader uses intimidation to get tour participants to do something. 0.895The tour leader speaks strongly or forcefully to get tour participants to

agree to do something.0.906

The tour leader deals strongly or aggressively with tour participants. 0.796The tour leader lets tour participants know that he/she is not willing to be

pushed around or dictated to.0.966

Personal Interaction Quality:The overall interaction between the tour leader and tour participants is

good.0.761 0.916 0.896

The tour leader seeks the best for the customers. 0.761The attitude of the tour leader demonstrates his/her willingness to help us. 0.715

(Continued )

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explanation for these dependent constructs. Theindices for R2, communality, and redundancyare given in Table 4.

“PLS path modeling does not optimize anyglobal scalar function so that it naturally lacksan index that can provide the user with aglobal validation of the model” (Tenenhaus,Vinzi, Chatelin, & Lauro, 2005, p.173), andthat has long been considered a drawback ofthis method (Henseler & Sarstedt, 2013).Tenenhaus et al. (2005) took account of boththe measurement and structural models’

TABLE 2. (Continued)

Construct/Items Factorloading

Compositereliability (CR)

Average variancesextracted (AVE)

The tour leader has enough knowledge about different services to respondto our requests.

0.707

The tour leader is competent. 0.893When we have problems, the tour leader shows a sincere interest in

solving them.0.715

The tour leader is able to handle customer complaints efficiently. 0.890Repurchase Intention:I will deal with this tour operator in the future. 0.965 0.978 0.967I will join more itineraries of this tour operator in the future. 0.981I will probably purchase this tour operator’s products/services again. 0.960Word-of-mouth Communication:I will recommend this tour operator to other customers. 0.950 0.957 0.933I will recommend this group package tour itinerary to other customers. 0.957I will point out the positive aspects of this tour operator if anybody criticizes

it.0.909

The Reputation of Tour operators:This tour operator has a good reputation. 0.916 0.960 0.937I believe that the reputation of this tour operator is better than that of the

other tour operators.0.958

In general, I believe that this tour operator always fulfills the promises thatit makes to its customers.

0.953

TABLE 3. Square Roots of Average Variances Extracted (AVE) and Correlation Matrix

Construct 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1. Ingratiation –

2. Self-Promotion 0.485 –

3. Exemplification 0.495 0.411 –

4. Supplication −0.164 −0.332 −0.204 –

5. Intimidation −0.274 −0.222 −0.212 0.661 –

6. Interaction 0.375 0.496 0.383 −0.612 −0.683 –

7. Repurchase 0.438 0.424 0.355 −0.526 −0.648 0.707 –

8. Word-of-mouth 0.353 0.361 0.299 −0.510 −0.661 0.713 0.783 –

9. Reputation 0.406 0.338 0.319 −0.462 −0.603 0.644 0.779 0.722 –

Note. Diagonal elements in bold are the square roots of the AVE.

TABLE 4. R2, Communality, and Redundancy

Construct R2 Communality Redundancy

Ingratiation 0.8513Self-Promotion 0.7356Exemplification 0.7519Supplication 0.8384Intimidation 0.8099Interaction 0.6223 0.6098 0.0114Repurchase 0.5004 0.9380 0.4694Word-of-mouth 0.5090 0.8819 0.4482Reputation 0.4145 0.8883 0.3656

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performance to propose the GoF index torespond with an operational solution for suchdeficiency. Goodness-of-fit could be implied asan index to validate the PLS model globallyand can be presented as the geometric mean ofthe average communality as well as the aver-age R2:

GoF ¼ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffifficommunality� R

2q

(1)

Goodness-of-fit has been presented in severalempirical studies that utilized PLS path model-ing as an analytical method (Henseler &Sarstedt, 2013). A GoF index exceeding 0.36is considered a good model fit (Schepers,Wetzels, & Ruyter, 2005). According to theresults in Table 4, the GoF index of this studyturns out to be 0.6444, which indicates a rela-tively good model fit to our data.

This study employed a resampling techniquebased on a bootstrapping method to test thestructural model. The bootstrapping procedurerepeatedly drew random samples from the data,leading to greater confidence in the results than

when using the sample-specific technique. Inthis study, the bootstrapping procedure wasrepeated until it arrived at 500 bootstrappingsamples (Gefen et al., 2000). Moreover, inorder to verify the relationships between theconstructs in the structural model, that is, totest the specific hypotheses, this study examinedthe t-statistics for the standardized pathcoefficients.

The findings were derived from the boot-strapping procedures. Figure 2 shows resultsof the PLS model. Hypotheses H1 to H5described the relationships between the fiveimpression management techniques and perso-nal interaction quality. For these five techni-ques, only ingratiation did not significantlyaffect personal interaction quality (βH1 = 0.03,t = 0.712, p > 0.05), thus H1 was not supported.Both self-promotion and exemplification posi-tively and significantly affected personal inter-action quality (βH2 = 0.27, t = 7.338, p < 0.001;βH3 = 0.12, t = 3.442, p < 0.001, respectively);thus hypotheses H2 and H3 were supported.Contrarily, both supplication and intimidationnegatively and significantly affected personal

FIGURE 2. Results of the Partial Least Square (PLS) Path Scheme

Ingratiation

Self-promotion

Exemplification

Supplication

Intimidation

Repurchase Intentionof Tourists(R2 = 0.500)

Personal InteractionQuality

(R2 = 0.622)

Word-of-mouthCommunication

(R2 = 0.509)

Reputation of TourOperators

(R2 = 0.414)

β H8 = 0.71*(23.36)

β H5 = –0.47*(9.668)

β H4 = –0.18*(3.593)

β H3 = 0.12*(3.442)

β H2 = 0.27*(7.338)

β H1 = 0.03a

(0.712)

β H7 = 0.71*(22.97)

β H6 = 0.64*(16.79)

Notes. a Path coefficient with its t-value in parenthesis. *The coefficient is significant at the level of 0.001. R2 is the amount ofvariance explained.

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interaction quality (βH4 = − 0.18, t = 3.593,p < 0.001; βH5 = − 0.47, t = 9.688, p < 0.001,respectively), indicating that hypotheses H4 andH5 were supported. As expected, personal inter-action quality could positively and significantlyaffect repurchase intention of tourists, word-of-mouth communication, as well as the reputationof tour operators (βH6 = 0.64, t = 16.79,p < 0.001; βH7 = 0.71, t = 22.97, p < 0.001;βH8 = 0.71, t = 23.36, p < 0.001, respectively).Therefore, support was found for hypotheses 6,H7, and H8.

DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

Tour leaders may utilize impression manage-ment techniques consciously or unconsciouslyto interact with group participants during wholetrips. The findings of this study indicate that theimpressions of tour leaders as perceived bytourists can influence the personal interactionquality between tour leaders and groups.Furthermore, personal interaction quality cansubsequently influence the repurchase intentionof tourists, word-of-mouth communication, aswell as the reputation of tour operators. It issuggested that impression management theorycan be applied for developing a theoreticalmodel to examine the personal interaction qual-ity between tour leaders and groups, as well asthe key consequences of their interaction.

Positive and favorable images of tour leadersare important since such images can make themlook kind and capable of leading and organizinggroups. Hypothesis H1 was not verified; that is,ingratiation did not influence personal interac-tion quality. The behaviors of tour leaders suchas praising and complimenting tour participantsor doing personal favors for tour participantsmight influence tourists to see them as likeableor consider them to be nice people. Althoughingratiation may bring about a favorable image,in this study, it did not significantly contributeto tourists’ favorable perception of personalinteraction quality.

Travel destinations may seem strange to tour-ists, since foreign customs and regulations maybe unknown to them. In such situations, tourleaders who share their past accomplishments

and experiences can help tourists to understandtravel information. Also, when tour leadersdemonstrate their qualifications, talents, andskills to groups, it can make tourists more con-fident in the leading ability of tour leaders. Inthis study, self-promotion utilized by tour lea-ders induced positive personal interaction qual-ity for groups, and hypothesis H2 was verified.

Tour leaders are the frontline employees oftour operators; thus, they have to be responsiblefor serving and taking care of tour participants.Tour leaders need to organize and lead groups,as well as arrive at group activities before theystart, and remain until they end. Tour leadersshould be conscientious about their work andput in considerable time and energy assistingtheir groups. If tourists perceive how hardtheir tour leaders have been working for them,tourists will think tour leaders are dedicated. Inthis study, exemplification utilized by tour lea-ders induced positive personal interaction qual-ity for groups, and hypothesis H3 was verified.

Tourists who travel as part of group packagetours (not as part of foreign independent tours)usually do not want to worry about their jour-ney and expect to enjoy a whole range of tour-ism services (Cook et al., 2005). Consequently,tour leaders should accomplish tasks by them-selves, and not try to gain assistance or sym-pathy from groups. Appearing needy ordisclosing weakness is unprofessional behaviorfor tour leaders. Tourists need active andresponsible tour leaders to serve them. In thisstudy, supplication utilized by tour leadersinduced negative personal interaction qualityfor groups, and hypothesis H4 was verified.

Although tour leaders have to take responsi-bility to serve tourists, during the tours there aresome activities that should be implemented bytourists themselves or coordinated withingroups. Under such situations, if tour leadersuse intimidation or speak strongly or forcefully,it can make tourists feel uncomfortable. In thisstudy, the empirical findings indicate that inti-midation utilized by tour leaders induced nega-tive personal interaction quality for tourists, andhypothesis H5 was verified. To sum up, tourleaders who use self-promotion and exemplifi-cation may create favorable images for them-selves, resulting in positive personal interaction

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quality. On the other hand, tour leaders who usesupplication and intimidation may create unfa-vorable images that lead to negative effects.

Furthermore, the empirical results show thatpersonal interaction quality can generate posi-tive outcomes such as the repurchase intentionof tourists, word-of-mouth communication, aswell as the reputation of tour operators, andhypotheses H6, H7, and H8 were verified.Such findings are consistent with previous stu-dies (Ap & Wong, 2001; Heung, 2008;Mossberg, 1995; Wang et al., 2000). Thisstudy proves that the interaction quality pro-vided by tour leaders can be a critical competi-tive advantage for tour operators.

Managerial Implications

For tour operators, tour leaders are not justemployees, they are essential components ofgroup package tour products. Since tour leadersare so important, tour operators should recruit,select, train, motivate, and retain proper tourleaders. Human resources (HR) managersshould use appropriate approaches to identifythe best candidates. Human resources managersshould not only be concerned with the academicand professional background of the candidates,but should also concern themselves with somepositive personality traits such as friendliness,courtesy, consideration, and being active, etc.Human resources managers can utilize somepersonality tests to identify traits relevant fortour leader applicants. Developing and mana-ging such tests can help HR managers to recog-nize the suitability of job candidates. No one isborn to be an excellent tour leader. It is funda-mental to teach tour leaders company history,mission, purpose, and strategy, as well as pro-duct and service knowledge. In addition, HRmanagers should provide training for tour lea-ders, especially in impression managementtechniques and personal interaction skills,since these techniques and skills have beenshown to be important to tourists and firms inthe current study.

Tour leaders are expected to be friendly,cheerful, enthusiastic, courteous, and empathic;however, tour leaders do not always feel

positive emotions while they lead and servetourists. In such a situation, tour leaders haveto repress their personal feelings in order tomatch tourists’ expectations. When tour leadersuse impression management techniques to cre-ate favorable images and avoid unfavorableimages from groups, they may often have tosuppress their true emotions to interact withgroups. “Emotional labor” arises when the inter-nal feelings of tour leaders are different fromthe emotions that management requires them toexpress in front of tourists (Lovelock & Wirtz,2011). Tour operators have to understand theemotional pressure of tour leaders and traintour leaders how to cope with their internalemotional stress, as well as how to deal withstress from tourists (Crosno, Rinaldo, Black, &Kelley, 2009). In addition to training programs,motivated employees may suffer less customerstress (Mahesh & Kasturi, 2006), resulting inhigher performance. Thus, tour operators candevelop and administrate monetary and non-monetary reward systems to motivate tourleaders.

The demands and requests of tourists may bein conflict with the company’s regulations andprocedures. Whether to enforce organizationalrules or to satisfy tourists’ needs seems to be astressful challenge for tour leaders. This type ofconflict is the so-called “two-bosses dilemma”(Lovelock & Wirtz, 2011). During tours abroad,some unexpected situations or accidents mayoccur. Tour leaders are responsible to resolvetourists’ problems and complaints, and dealwith some personal requirements immediately.Empowered tour leaders are capable of findingsolutions for tourists’ problems and makingdecisions to deliver proper service, and suchtour leaders can maintain good personal inter-action quality with tourists. Thus, tour operatorsshould empower tour leaders and offer themconsiderable discretion, because it is hard forthem to get timely permission from firms whenabroad.

Limitations and Future Research

Firstly, previous researchers indicated thatimpression management techniques are

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employed differently by males and females.Males tend to utilize a more aggressiveapproach, while females tend to take a morepassive stance. For males, intimidation techni-ques are unrelated to likeability but have apositive relationship with performance ratings.On the other hand, females who use intimida-tion techniques are perceived as less likeablebut such techniques are unrelated to perfor-mance ratings (Bolino & Turnley, 2003).Furthermore, females who use self-promotiontechniques tend to be perceived as more com-petent, but also less socially attractive and lesshireable. Generally, females may be more effec-tual in the use of ingratiation techniques than inthe use of intimidation techniques (Rudman,1998). When examining impression manage-ment behaviors of tour leaders, the currentstudy does not investigate the potential moder-ating effects that may be caused by genderdifferences among tour leaders. Future researchcan focus on the effects of impression manage-ment techniques used by male and female tourleaders. Furthermore, the gender of tourists mayalso play an important role in determining howindividuals respond to the impression manage-ment techniques utilized by tour leaders. Futureresearch should also examine the potential dif-ferences in response between male and femaletourists. In addition to gender, impression man-agement effects may vary according to age andprevious experience characteristics of tour lea-ders. Tourists of different age or with differenttravel experiences may also prefer distinctimpression management skills utilized by tourleaders. Future researchers can focus on age andexperience issues.

Secondly, previous researchers found thatpeople may attempt to employ a particularimpression for some group members andemploy another impression for other groupmembers. That is, people may have to generatemultiple impressions among a group with multi-ple targets at the same time. Thus, it seemsmore complicated to accomplish impressiongoals in a team setting than in a dyadic relation-ship setting (Bolino & Turnley, 2003). A tourgroup usually consists of multiple subgroups,such as family members, couples, friends, andcolleagues, etc., and these subgroups may be

demographically heterogeneous. In order tomanage and satisfy a group with different mem-bers, tour leaders may have to adapt variousimpression management techniques for differentsubgroups. Future researchers could furtherinvestigate how tour leaders may effectivelyutilize different impression management techni-ques for subgroups.

Thirdly, Turnley & Bolino (2001) suggestedthat impression management might be a job-related skill in some positions. High self-moni-tors were likely to be more effective in use ofimpression management than low self-monitorsmight be. Furthermore, high self-monitors weremore adept at managing interpersonal relation-ships and were more skillful in boundary-span-ning roles. Thus, future research can examinethe self-monitoring factor that may influence theeffectiveness of tour leaders’ attempts atimpression management. Since this study exam-ines the impression management techniques oftour leaders from the tourists’ perspective,future research can re-examine this issue fromthe tour leaders’ perspective. That is, futureresearch can focus on “impression creators”instead of “impression targets”.

Overall, impression management theory hasbeen increasingly studied over the past fewyears. However, this research is still at anearly stage in the tourism field and the touroperator industry. It is hoped that the researchframework and the empirical findings of thisstudy may lead to a better understanding ofthe impression management issue.

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SUBMITTED: February 2, 2013FINAL REVISION SUBMITTED:

June 18, 2013ACCEPTED: August 2, 2013

REFEREED ANONYMOUSLY

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