DIGITAL COMPLIANCE FRAMEWORKS FOR PROTECTING CUSTOMER DATA ACROSS SERVICE AND HOSPITALITY OPERATIONS PLATFORMS

Abstract

Digital compliance frameworks are essential for protecting customer data across service and hospitality operations platforms characterized by high transaction intensity, workforce turnover, and extensive system integration. This quantitative study examined the extent to which compliance framework maturity influenced customer data protection performance across service and hospitality properties, focusing on governance, process execution, and technical control layers. Property-level data were collected from 240 service and hospitality sites operating multiple customer-facing platforms. Hierarchical regression models were estimated to assess the relationships between compliance maturity and three outcome domains—compliance performance, security outcomes, and operational data handling outcomes—while controlling for property size, transaction volume, workforce turnover, geographic region, and cloud adoption level. Descriptive results indicated moderate-to-high average compliance maturity (M = 5.04, SD = 0.79 on a seven-point scale), with substantial variation across properties. Regression findings showed that compliance framework maturity explained an additional 19% of variance in audit pass performance, increasing overall explained variance to 41%. Higher compliance maturity was significantly associated with lower audit finding severity (β = −0.49, p < .001) and shorter remediation cycle times (β = −0.29, p < .001). Security-related outcomes were also affected, as compliance maturity was associated with fewer security incidents (β = −0.38, p < .001) and fewer unauthorized access events (β = −0.32, p < .001). Operational data handling outcomes demonstrated similar patterns, with maturity predicting lower policy violation rates (β = −0.44, p < .001). Moderation analysis indicated that platform ecosystem complexity and third-party dependency strengthened these relationships, accounting for an additional 4%–6% of explained variance in high-complexity environments. Comparative layer analysis revealed that governance quality had the strongest association with audit outcomes (β = 0.33), process execution showed the strongest association with operational handling outcomes (β = −0.34), and technical controls demonstrated the strongest association with security outcomes (β = −0.31). Overall, the models explained between 30% and 49% of variance across outcome categories, demonstrating that digital compliance frameworks functioned as measurable operational capabilities that significantly influenced customer data protection performance across complex service and hospitality platform ecosystems.