Karthik Namasivayam

Director Michigan State University

  • East Lansing MI

Karthik Namasivayam's research explores the intersection between service provider and consumer.

Contact

Michigan State University

View more experts managed by Michigan State University

Biography

Karthik Namasivayam was Professor and Chair of the Department of Hospitality Management at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs at the Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne, Switzerland, prior to joining RIT.

Karthik has worked in the hospitality industry for over 40 years. He has held various positions including as consultant, entrepreneur, faculty, academic administration, and hospitality management jobs across three continents – Europe, Asia, and North America. His experiences include economy and luxury full service hospitality operations.

He has taught in the US, Switzerland, India and China at the undergraduate and graduate levels and has delivered tailored Executive Education programs for national corporates. Karthik is widely published in leading hospitality and marketing journals and is well cited. His research explores the intersection between service provider and consumer. Consistent with the evolution of the hospitality industry, he researches the impact of various new technologies on consumer experience and consumer centric organizational design. He received the International Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education Bradford Wiley Best Published Paper award.

Karthik obtained his Master’s and PhD in Hospitality Administration from Cornell University. He has undergraduate degrees in Economics from Madras University and Hospitality Management from Institute of Catering Technology, Chennai, India. He speaks Tamil, Hindi, German, and a bit of French and Italian. He is a keen high altitude hiker, mountaineer, and an amateur photographer.

Industry Expertise

Research
Education/Learning
Hospitality

Areas of Expertise

Hospitality Leadership
Information Technology Systems
Innovation
Sustainability
Restaurant Management

Education

Cornell University

Ph.D.

Hospitality Administration

2001

Cornell University

M.M.H.

Hotel Administration

1996

Madras University

B.A.

Economics

1981

News

The Z: Guiding Gen Z From the Classroom Into Meetings Industry Careers

Meetings Today  online

2023-04-26

“The role of a student is about learning,” said Karthikeyan Namasivayam, director of Michigan State University’s School of Hospitality Business. “As students, our role is to educate ourselves, understand the industry that we want to be in, figuring out all the different dimensions of that particular industry, and this amounts to both curricular—within the classroom—and extracurricular education.”

View More

Robots – the waiters of the future

European Times  online

2023-04-19

Pandemic concerns about hygiene and the adoption of new technologies such as QR code menus set the stage for the entry of robots, said Karthik Namasivayam of Michigan State University’s College of Business.

View More

Facing a shortage of staff, this restaurant turned to robots

CBC News  online

2023-04-12

The service industry is finding it exceptionally hard to find staff right now, and professor in the School of Hospitality and Business at Michigan State University Karthik Namasivayam said it'll continue to be difficult for businesses.

View More

Show All +

Journal Articles

Chronic Regulatory Focus and Work-Family Conflict among Chinese Workers

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

2020

Survey data from 226 service employees were used to test the hypothesized moderating role of chronic self-regulatory focus on the relationships between work–family conflict (WFC) and challenge/hindrance strain. A follow-up scenario-based experiment (N = 93 executives) confirmed the results of the hypothesized model. Results from the two studies together demonstrated the moderating role of self-regulatory processes: chronic promotion-focused individuals perceived WFC as a challenge-type strain, while chronic prevention-focused individuals viewed WFC as a hindrance-type strain. Individuals use self-regulation strategically: in work domains, they regulate themselves so that family does not interfere with work.

View more

The influence of leader empowering behaviors and employee psychological empowerment on customer satisfaction

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

2014

This study aims to examine the role that psychological empowerment (PE) and employee satisfaction (ES) play in the relationship between leader empowering behaviors (LEB) and customer satisfaction (CS) and employees' organizational commitment (OC).

View more

The role of contingent self-esteem and trust in consumer satisfaction: Examining perceived control and fairness as predictors

International Journal of Hospitality Management

2013

The paper proposes contingent self-esteem (CSE) as an important mediator between service encounter attributes and consumers’ satisfaction. The main thesis is that consumers’ perceptions of control and fairness in the exchange influence their CSE and trust evaluations which in turn effect their satisfaction evaluations. The study expands and clarifies our understanding of the psychological processes that guide consumers’ satisfaction evaluations.

View more

Show All +