THE ROLE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION IN MANAGING CHANGE: THE CASE FROM THE HOTEL INDUSTRY

Purpose – The main research goal of this paper is to examine how organizational culture affects change management process through employee satisfaction. Organizational culture and employee satisfaction appear as important factors in a successful business because they lead to the satisfaction of the service user, which helps building quality relationships with customers. Methodology – In order to test the research hypotheses and analyze the connection between variables, a questionnaire was conducted among 49 employees of the Bluesun hotel in Dalmatia. The collected data was analyzed using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), while descriptive statistics were analyzed using SPSS. Findings – The results of PLS-SEM analysis confirmed that dynamic organizational culture has positive direct and indirect impact on change management, i.e., employee satisfaction partially mediates organizational culture-change management relationship. Contribution – Organizational culture, change management and employee satisfaction are crucial to an organization's competitiveness and survival in the market. One unique contribution is the proposed model that integrates mentioned variables with a particular focus on the mediating role of employee satisfaction in facilitating the positive effects of a dynamic and creative organizational culture in hotel industry. This work also aims to draw attention to the importance of organizational culture, its impact on each individual part of the organization and the necessity of constant adaptation to changes.