Effectiveness of error management training in the hospitality industry: Impact on perceived fairness and service recovery performance

Hospitality employees make errors given the characteristics of the service product. The way employees handle errors is largely determined by the training they receive. This research examined the impact of three training types on employees’ service recovery performance: errorless training, error avoidance training, and error management training. The mediating effect of perceived fairness between training types and service recovery performance was also examined. A scenario-based experimental research design in a restaurant setting was used in this study. The data was collected from 109 frontline hospitality employees in the United States (in Study 1) and from 155 foodservice professionals in China (in Study 2). Results indicated that error management training has a stronger impact on service recovery performance and perceived fairness compared to errorless and error avoidance training. The mediation effect of perceived fairness was also found. All hypotheses were supported and the findings were consistent in both studies.