Motivated to stay: Exploring the link between regulatory focus, career adaptability, and job embeddedness in hotel employees

The Covid-19 pandemic, digital transformation era, and the evolving industry landscape necessitate studying employees’ motivational orientations in the hospitality industry to better understand their job retention. This study explored how hotel employees’ regulatory focus influences job embeddedness, and how career adaptability mediates these effects. Mediation analysis was conducted to test the study hypotheses. Career adaptability is found partially mediates the relationship between prevention regulatory focus and job embeddedness, while a full mediation effect is observed between promotion regulatory focus and job embeddedness. These findings enrich theoretical frameworks in hospitality management literature and provide practical insights for industry practitioners.