When parents become guests and staff become guardians: A dual-path mechanism model

Amid rising education-oriented family mobility, parent-accompanied hotels have emerged as emotionally intense service settings where customer–employee boundaries are increasingly blurred. These hybrid, long-duration service relationships provide a salient context for value co-destruction (VCD), yet the mechanisms by which value erosion unfolds remain underexplored. Adopting VCD as the central analytical framework, this study develops and tests a dual-path model that explains how misaligned service interactions translate into emotional strain, perceived value loss, and subsequent behavioral disengagement from both the parent and frontline employee perspectives. Using a two-phase mixed-methods design, in-depth interviews were first conducted to identify key constructs and interactional patterns underlying value co-destruction. Building on these insights, matched parent–employee survey data were then used to examine dyadic structural pathways empirically. The results show that perceived interactional misalignment increases emotional strain, which, in turn, intensifies perceptions of value co-destruction and weakens behavioral intentions. While parents exhibit stronger emotional reactivity, parent and employee perceptions converge at the value evaluation stage. This study advances VCD research by conceptualizing value erosion as a dyadic and processual phenomenon in emotionally embedded service contexts.