“The impact of marketing agility on crisis management stages at five and four- star hotels in Jordan”

ARTICLE INFO Hamza Khraim and Tayseer AL Afaishat (2021). The impact of marketing agility on crisis management stages at five and four-star hotels in Jordan. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 19(4), 470-481. doi:10.21511/ppm.19(4).2021.38 DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.19(4).2021.38 RELEASED ON Tuesday, 28 December 2021 RECEIVED ON Monday, 08 November 2021 ACCEPTED ON Friday, 17 December 2021


INTRODUCTION
The COVID-19 pandemic's global spread continues to cause chaos in all sectors, particularly in the travel, tourism, and hospitality industries, which depend heavily on the flux of tourists. According to Sorrells (2020), the global lockdown affected all tourism activities related to travel, hospitality, and air transportation. Many countries tend to close their borders and suspend flights from highly infected countries to control the pandemic's spread and protect people from new waves of viruses, and Jordan was no exception. The Jordanian government took many measures to suppress the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the closure of many activities, especially in the service sectors that depend on people's social contact and gatherings to preserve social distance and protect people. The suspension of international flights and the imposition of a travel ban on tourists coming from other countries caused many tourists to cancel ticket and hotel reservations. The tourism industry saw a sharp drop in revenue and a drop in hotel demand of 85 percent (Raouf et al., 2020). These necessary measures hurt the growth of all economic sectors in Jordan, especially the tourism and hospitality industries, which depend mainly on international travelers. These unprecedented circumstances place

LITERATURE REVIEW
The COVID-19 pandemic created new challenges for managers. Boudet et al. (2020) suggest that marketing models should be modified accordingly. Moorman (2020) proposed that organizations need to apply flexible models and asserted that "marketing needs to be agile". Homburg and Pflesser (2020) viewed marketing agility as the prime priority for producing marketing excellence. Rachmawati et al. (2019) point out that agility can assist the company in increasing the abilities and capabilities to act proactively in response to unpredicted external environmental changes.

Development and definition of marketing agility
The appearance of agile thinking can be traced back to many academic fields, such as manufacturing, sociology, and education (Prange & Heracleous, 2018). The inauguration of the agile concept appeared after the declaration of "The Agile Manifesto" in 2001, and it was a moderately limited concept that focused on more precisely dealing with the software development community. The growth of the agile concept was very dynamic and evolved in an accelerated style to encompass more comprehensive and progressive realms across all types of businesses and industries, such as manufacturing, supply chain, marketing, human resources, and innovation. Dierdorf (2019) and Meyer (2016) contributed to the diverse aspects of agile by adopting the concept to reflect their area of interest. Currently, "agile" is one of the most famous tags in the business community (The Economist, 2018). Ewel (2011) announced the Agile Marketing Manifesto, which contained the Agile Marketing principles and values based on a faster pace, customer engagement, and coordination and was intended to enable the company to deal with market changes in a flexible, efficient, and effective manner. The agile marketing approach's supreme purpose is to enable and support marketing functions to react and adjust swiftly and cost-efficiently to market fluctuations (Accardi-Petersen, 2011). This new approach depends on the effectual synthesis of resources, including people, technology, and management, to deliver more practical marketing solutions, especially in increasingly dynamic and turbulent environments (Inversini et al., 2014). Agile practices are a significant instrument that improves work quality by enhancing innovation, maximizing productivity, handling and modifying priorities according to feedback in more responsive and efficient processes, and achieving better results through enhanced comprehensive collaboration among units, teams, and company objectives (

Marketing agility benefits and measurement
As far as marketing is concerned, Golgeci and Gligor (2017) and Zhou et al. (2018) found a direct positive connection between marketing performance and agility. Matthyssens et al. (2005) found that agility plays a vital tool in creating a successful competitive advantage and creating customer value. Tahmasebifard et al. (2017) found that agility provides massive aid in managing market-related changes such as escalating competition, innovative customer requirements, launching new products, and accelerated technological development. Golgeci and Gligor (2017) asserted that marketing agility will empower the organization to develop demand by promptly modifying strategies, tactics, and operations according to environmental fluctuations. Furthermore, employing marketing agility is considered a mechanism for "embracing change" that makes the organization more responsive to market needs and enables the organization to master innovation, therefore allowing it to succeed (Osei et Gligor et al. (2013) and modifies them to fit the current analysis. The enclosed dimensions are alertness, accessibility, decisiveness, swiftness, and flexibility.

Crisis management in the hotel industry
The Institute for Crisis Management -ICM (n.d.) defined crisis as an issue, problem, or disorder which triggers negative stakeholder responses that can influence the organization's reputation, business, and financial strength. Bundy et al. (2017) defined a crisis as an event perceived by managers and stakeholders as highly salient, unexpected, and potentially disruptive and can threaten organizational goals. ICM further elucidated that mismanagement of a crisis can drive up costs and complicate the responsibilities of organizations.
Ritchie and Jiang (2019) cited that crisis results from internal organizational failure to act wisely to deal with external events that happen over which the organization has no control, such as in the case of a disaster. Current estimates show that the tourism industry expects to lose more than 2.1 trillion US dollars in revenue (WTTC, n.d.). To deal with crisis more effectively, the crisis models were developed and divided into four main categories (Kim, 2002;Coombs, 2000;Mitroff & Pearson, 1993;Pauchant & Mitroff, 1992). Crisis management is viewed as a series of steps or cyclical processes that consist of pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis stages. The pre-crisis stage involves the signal detection of expected crises, crisis preparation, and crisis prevention. The second stage is the crisis stage, and it instigates a trigger incident and consists of two components: crisis recognition and crisis containment. The post-crisis stage consists of two components: recovery and learning (Mitroff et al., 1987;Mitroff et al., 1996;Coombs, 2007). Pearson and Mitroff (1999) suggested a five-stage framework for crisis management: 1) signal detection; 2) preparation/prevention; 3) containment/damage limitation; 4) recovery; and 5) learning. Kim (2002) suggested six types of crisis management activities that should be underway: signal detection, recognition, preparation, prevention, containment/recovery, and learning. Moreover, Ritchie (2004) introduced a new strategic approach to crisis management deemed to be more "holistic", presented in three stages: 1) proactive pre-crisis planning, 2) strategy implementation, and 3) evaluation and feedback.  Pearson and Mitroff (1993) provides a more comprehensive approach to understanding crisis stages than the four-stage framework models.
Endemics, epidemics, and pandemics have catastrophic consequences for the travel and tourism sector. Guevara (2020) asserted that the travel and tourism sector is already facing collapse and is in a fight for survival. Hotels are primarily vulnerable to declining tourism and travel, along with a slowdown in economic movement (Hoisington, 2020). Hotel occupancy rates have fallen as events across the globe continue to be canceled or suspended, and the COVID-19 pandemic has caused critical setbacks for hoteliers worldwide (Jiang & Wen, 2020). Hotels in Jordan also suffered severely from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, and there was a drop in demand for hotels by 85 percent (Raouf et al., 2020). This situation encourages hoteliers to act swiftly and take action to face several hurdles induced by crises. Concerning the hotel industry, few studies have been devoted to investigating crises from a strategic point of view (Varelas & Apostolopoulo, 2020). Based on the literature review, the study proposes the theoretical model ( Figure 1).

AIMS AND HYPOTHESES
This paper aims to implement the agility concept in a Jordanian marketing context. Furthermore, most articles are qualitative, theoretical, or ap-plied to a single-case study (Moi, 2019;Osei et al., 2019). This study aims to overcome those shortcomings and provide empirical-quantitative findings that make it easier to understand the impact of marketing agility on crisis management. Based on the theoretical literature review, the following hypotheses are proposed: H1: Marketing agility has a significant positive impact on the pre-crisis stage (signal detection).
H2: Marketing agility has a significant positive impact on the pre-crisis stage (preparation and prevention).
H3: Marketing agility has a significant positive impact on the pre-crisis stage (containment, damage limitation).
H4: Marketing agility has a significant positive impact on the post-crisis stage (recovery).
H5: Marketing agility has a significant positive impact on the pre-crisis stage (learning).

Data collection
The study uses the quantitative approach by designing and utilizing a structured questionnaire that contains relevant questions about marketing agility and the crisis management stage. To answer the research question, the questionnaire was distributed to five-star and four-star hotels in Jordan. Marketing agility is measured with seventeen items ( Mitroff and Pearson (1993) and Jabouri (2011). Some items were slightly reconstructed to suit the context of the study. To measure the items on the marketing agility and crisis management stages, a five-point Likert-type scale was used, with 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. Five and four-star hotels are deemed to have more resources and education and possess advanced knowledge and experience that enable them to deal with the crisis management process (Karam, 2018). Consequently, the study population consists of five-star and fourstar hotels in Jordan. According to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiques (2019), the total number of hotels is 71, as shown in Table 2. Bilić et al.
(2017) note that crisis management practices are the responsibility of upper-level management staff, and all questions or surveys should be directed to those managers. Accordingly, the unit of analysis was general managers, assistants to general managers, and marketing managers. About 198 questionnaires were sent by email, and only 15 questionnaires were submitted by hand as requested. The process took approximately two weeks to

RESULTS
Factor analysis was used to capture the meaning and purpose of marketing agility and to identify the underlying dimensions. Factor analysis will help align related items into similar factors to enhance examination of their effects on different stages of crisis management. To examine the data appropriateness for conducting factor analysis, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) was used to measure sampling adequacy. The KMO result was 0.827 and was deemed to have a high value (Hair et al., 2010). Bartlett's test of sphericity shows that variables are unrelated, indicating the correlation matrix is significantly different from the identity matrix (Mazzocchi, 2008). Sphericity resulted in a significant (β = .001) result. All these rules for procuring a dimension showed that it was suitable to use factor analysis for summarizing data to realize underlying dimensions that reflect marketing agility (Hair et al., 2010;Mazzocchi, 2008). The current study utilized a principal component analysis using Varimax rotation. This method is used to assign the least number of dimensions that estimate the highest variance in the data (Hair et al., 2010;Malhotra, 2010). Table 4 indicates the loadings for the factors on which the variable loaded the most. As presented, all item loadings were above 60, as described by Hair et al. (2010) and Malhotra (2010). Accordingly, construct validity has been proved since all items have been loaded appropriately with satisfactory loading values. The five-factor structure accounted for 73.62% of the total variance, and this is considered sufficient compared with the 60% as prescribed by Malhotra (2010). Cronbach's alpha reliability is performed to test the internal consistency of the retained marketing agility dimensions, and the results were as follows: Alertness: 0.726, Accessibility: 0.908, Decisiveness: 0.878, Swiftness: 0.717, and Flexibility: 0.776. All the dimensions' reliability is above the value of 0.70 or more, which is considered satisfactory (Malhotra, 2010). The Eigenvalues of the five factors were 5.721, 2.596, 1.852, 1.262, and 1.085, respectively. To check the internal consistency of the crisis management stages, Cronbach's alpha was used to check the reliability. For the pre-crisis stage of signal detection, Cronbach's alpha was 0.820, and one question was dropped. While for preparation and prevention, it was 0.728. In the crisis stage, the reliability result was 0.787 for containment; one question was dropped. For the post-crisis stage, Cronbach's alpha for recovery and learning was 0.741 and 0.728, respectively, dropping one question from this dimension.
To test the proposed hypotheses, multiple regression analysis was computed for marketing agility dimensions as the independent variables and the pre-crisis stage (signal detection, crisis preparation, and prevention) as the dependent variable. Table 5 shows that marketing agility is a significant predictor of signal detection stage (f = 28.07, β = .01). Thus, the study supports H1: there is a significant positive impact on the pre-crisis stage signal detection. In regression analysis, R 2 is used to estimate the collective capacity of a construct in terms of variance explained (Hair et al., 2012). The value of R 2 is 0.437, which means that the marketing agility dimensions explain the 43.7% variation in the signal detection stage. As stated in H2, marketing agility dimensions have a significant positive impact on the pre-crisis stage (crisis preparation and prevention). The regression coefficient results (f = 209.5, β = .001) back up the proposed significant positive impact and thus confirm H2. The value of R 2 is 0.853, which means that the marketing agility dimensions explain 85.3% of the variations in the preparation stage. It appears that marketing agility dimensions are considered a valuable strategy in dealing with the pre-crisis stage, including signal detection, crisis preparation, and prevention. Multiple regression analysis was used to test marketing agility dimensions as the independent variables and the crisis stage (crisis containment) as the dependent variable. As stated in H3, the marketing agility dimensions have a positive impact on crisis containment. Results show that marketing agility dimensions have a significant impact on crisis containment (f = 304.8, p < .01), therefore, the proposed H3 is confirmed. The value of R 2 is 89.4%, which means that the marketing agility dimensions explain the 89.4% variation in the containment stage.
Finally, multiple regression analysis was used to test the impact of marketing agility dimensions as the independent variables on the post-crisis stage (recovery and learning) as the dependent variable. According to H4, the marketing agility dimensions have a positive impact on recovery. The regression coefficient results (f = 82.7, β = .001) support the proposed significant positive effect, confirming the projected H4. The value of R 2 is 0.696, which means that the marketing agility dimensions explain the 69.6% variation in the recovery stage. H5 states that marketing agility dimensions have a positive impact on learning. The regression coefficient (f = 198.8, p < .001) thus confirm the proposed H5. The proposed positive relationship is significantly supported by results in Table 5: the value of R 2 is 0.842; it means that the marketing agility dimensions explain the 84.2% variations in the learning stage.
Finally, the results show that marketing agility dimensions have a significant impact on the crisis management stages. It appears that agility marketing is an acceptable assistant for managers through crisis management stages, excluding the alertness dimension.

DISCUSSION
This paper investigated the impact of those dimensions on crisis management stages in five-and four-star hotels in Jordan during COVID-19. The results confirm the five dimensions used for measuring marketing agility. The analysis revealed that marketing agility affected the five stages of crisis management with mixed levels. The alertness dimension shows no impact on crisis management stages except for containment. This is because no one can predict the occurrence and development of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The lockdown of all sectors and the cancellation of travel movements caused chaos for hotel management, which  created a need to contain the catastrophic consequences of this crisis. Results show the second dimension, accessibility, has an impact on four stages except for the first stage, the signal detection stage. Accessibility and availability of pertinent information internally and externally can facilitate managing crises and reduce their effect on hotel operations. Again, accessibility was not significant at the signal detection stage since such diseases can be extremely hard to detect. The result shows that the third dimension of decisiveness has an impact on all crisis management stages. Top management intervention is needed to make the right and timely decision at all crisis stages to minimize the side effects and accelerate the recovery processes. Similar to decisiveness, results revealed that swiftness also has an impact on all crisis management stages. Acting in a swift style will reduce the time of each stage during the crisis, which helps in rising above competitors in coping with the crisis with velocity. Finally, results show that the flexibility dimension has influenced the three stages, including signal detection, containment, and learning. Overall, the results indicate that marketing agility has less impact in the pre-crisis stage and more impact in the crisis and post-crisis stages.

CONCLUSION
The study aimed to explore the impact of marketing agility dimensions such as alertness, decisiveness, swiftness, and flexibility on the different crisis management stages that include preparation, containment, signal detection, recovery, and learning in five-star and four-star hotels in Jordan. The main results show that marketing agility impacts crisis management stages, albeit at different magnitudes. In general, the findings indicate that accessibility, decisiveness, swiftness, and flexibility have an immense impact on crisis management stages, while the alertness dimension result shows a weak impact on crisis management stages except for containment. The current study emphasizes the need to improve the alertness dimension to enhance crisis forecasting by managers. The study also underlines the importance of accessibility and readiness of relevant information internally and externally to facilitate decision-making. This information will enable top management to deal swiftly with any changes and take timely decisions. It is important here to highlight that hotel management needs to upgrade and improve its pre-crisis stage dimensions to achieve better results with subsequent stages in managing the crisis.