Unit-level linkages between employee commitment to the organization,customer service delivery and customer satisfaction

Service profit chain and service climate research identifies the importance of employee attitudes and employee service behavior as mediating between organizational practices and customer satisfaction. While the importance of employee attitudes and customer service performance are acknowledged, there are calls to more precisely specify proximal mediators between employee attitudes and customer satisfaction. We propose a model in which the relationship between unit-level organizational commitment and customer attitudes is not direct but mediated via employees' customer service delivery including queuing time, serving time and service quality. We conducted a longitudinal unit-level analysis (N = 39) aggregating employee (N over 893) organizational commitment and customer (N over 1248) satisfaction data, and customer service behavior drawn from organizational records. Our model received reasonable support from basic tests of the predictive associations between unit-level organizational commitment, customer-relevant employee behaviors and customer satisfaction; however, organizational commitment was not found to be an important predictor in more rigorous change analyses. The findings as a whole therefore suggest that organizational commitment is a feature of units delivering fast, quality service, but its causal role is as yet unclear.     

The impact of employee satisfaction on quality and profitability in high-contact service industries

The extant operations management literature has extensively investigated the associations among quality, customer satisfaction, and firm profitability. However, the influence of employee attributes on these performance dimensions has rarely been examined. In this study we investigate the impact of employee satisfaction on operational performance in high-contact service industries. Based on an empirical study of 206 service shops in Hong Kong, we examined the hypothesized relationships among employee satisfaction, service quality, customer satisfaction, and firm profitability. Using structural equations modeling, we found that employee satisfaction is significantly related to service quality and to customer satisfaction, while the latter in turn influences firm profitability. We also found that firm profitability has a moderate non-recursive effect on employee satisfaction, leading to a “satisfaction–quality–profit cycle”. Our empirical investigation suggests that employee satisfaction is an important consideration for operations managers to boost service quality and customer satisfaction. We provide empirical evidence that employee satisfaction plays a significant role in enhancing the operational performance of organizations in the high-contact service sector.     

A multi-level examination of quality-focused human resource practices and firm performance: evidence from the US healthcare industry

In today's business world, the role of quality has become ever more significant for organizations to compete in a global marketplace. Based on the quality management theory, this study empirically examines the relationship between quality-focused human resource practices (QHRP) and organizational performance outcomes. Data from 69 healthcare organizations indicate a strong support for this relationship. A Human Resource (HR) system focused on quality management was directly related to multiple dimensions of organizational performance outcomes (i.e., intangible – employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction – and tangible – profit). Specifically, two measures of QHRP, knowledge management and strategic management, were found to be positively related to the financial performance of firms implementing quality management. Process management is found to be negatively related to employee satisfaction. General Human Resources were positively related to both employee and customer satisfaction. Employee focus of the firms is also positively related to employee satisfaction. In addition, employee satisfaction is also related to both customer satisfaction and financial performance while customer satisfaction is found to be positively related to employee satisfaction. The findings indicate a generally strong positive relationship with the organizational performance outcomes. The results of this study are particularly important in showing HR's contribution to the organization's bottom line.     

Some insights into customer orientation: an investigation of salespeople in Taiwan

Despite the claim that prosocial service behavior ratings influence sales performance (SP), an empirical discrepancy exists in relating prosocial service behavior ratings to actual SP. Furthermore, studies have seldom considered prescribed role and prosocial service behaviors together as important factors in influencing customer attitudes and SP. This article fills this void by examining the relative contribution of prescribed role and prosocial service behavior. Effective triadic data from 37 sales managers, 418 business customers, and 122 SP archives are used for exploring the relationships between customer-oriented behaviors and customer outcomes [customer satisfaction (CS) and loyalty intent] and percentage of sales quota attained. The principal results generally indicate that business customers place greater values on prosocial service behavior in predicting SP and CS, and that CS partially mediates the relationship between prescribed role service behavior and outcome variables.     

Do temporary agency workers affect workplace performance?

Using nationally representative workplace data we find the use of temporary agency workers (TAW) is positively associated with financial performance in the British private sector and weakly associated with higher sales per employee. However TAW is not associated with value added per employee. Employees in workplaces with TAW receive higher wages than observationally equivalent employees in non-TAW workplaces. But the presence of TAW in the employee’s occupation is associated with lower wages for employees in that occupation. Furthermore, conditioning on wages, the presence of TAW at the workplace is associated with lower job satisfaction and higher job anxiety among employees. These findings are consistent with TAW having an adverse effect on employees’ experiences at work, perhaps due a more labour intensive regime, one which is only partly compensated for with higher wages.     

Fine‐tuning what we know about employees' experience with flexible work arrangements and their job attitudes

Prior research has generally found positive relationships between flexible work arrangements (FWAs) and employee attitudes. However, we know relatively little about organizational contingencies that affect the strength of these relationships, as there is little multilevel, multicompany research on FWAs. This study explores three aspects of employees' experience with FWAs—perceived availability of the number of FWAs, different types of FWAs, and actual use of FWAs—and their corresponding effects on employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Using a large multicompany data set (1,799 companies, 17,895 workers), we found that employees who perceive more FWAs available to them have higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment, especially in organizations that report offering fewer formal FWA policies. Among different types of FWAs, perceived availability of flexible scheduling is more positively associated with job satisfaction than flexible location and hours, and both flexible scheduling and location are more positively associated with organizational commitment than flexible number of hours. We also found that employees who actually use flexible scheduling have lower job satisfaction and organizational commitment than those who have it available but do not use it. The theoretical contributions and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Can a workplace have an attitude problem? Workplace effects on employee attitudes and organizational performance

Using the employee opinion survey responses from several thousand employees working in 193 branches of a major U.S. bank, we consider whether there is a distinctive workplace component to employee attitudes despite the common set of corporate human resource management practices that cover all the branches. Several different empirical tests consistently point to the existence of a systematic branch-specific component to employee attitudes. “Branch effects” can also explain why a significant positive cross-sectional correlation between branch-level employee attitudes and branch sales performance is not observed in longitudinal fixed-effects sales models. The results of our empirical tests concerning the determinants of employee attitudes and the determinants of branch sales are consistent with an interpretation that workplace-specific factors lead to better outcomes for both employees and the bank, and that these factors are more likely to be some aspect of the branches' internal operations rather than some characteristic of the external market of the branch.     

From schoolyard to workplace: The impact of bullying on sales and business employees' machiavellianism,job satisfaction,and perceived importance of an ethical issue

Bullying can precipitate many negative outcomes at work, but previous research does not adequately address how such misbehavior affects employee dispositions and attitudes; how these characteristics impact ethical decision making is also underexplored. Given these research gaps, the purpose of this study is to assess (1) the impact of bullying on Machiavellianism and job satisfaction, and (2) the influences of Machiavellianism and job satisfaction on perceived ethical issue importance, a measure of ethical decision making. Three hundred eighty‐four sales and business employees working for different firms operating in the United States answered a self‐report questionnaire. The findings showed that, after accounting for social desirability bias, workplace bullying was positively associated with Machiavellianism and negatively associated with job satisfaction. Machiavellianism was negatively related to the perceived importance of an ethical issue embedded in a vignette highlighting Machiavellianism and latent bullying behaviors. In addition, job satisfaction was positively related to ethical issue importance. Finally, both Machiavellianism and job satisfaction mediated the relationship between bullying experiences and importance of an ethical issue, as evidenced by their significant indirect effects. HR professionals should minimize bullying and Machiavellianism to reduce the corrosive effect on the ethical environment and enhance work attitudes and ethical decisions.     

Crossing the level of employee's performance: HPWS,affective commitment,human capital,and employee job performance in professional service organizations

Extant research on high-performance work systems (HPWS) has primarily examined the effects of HPWS on firm-level performance from a macro perspective and mostly in manufacturing settings. This study extends this literature by integrating social exchange theory and human capital theory perspectives to examine how shop-level HPWS affect employee individual performance in the service context, especially focusing on the small-scale professional service organizations. Data collected from multiple sources included 97 hair salon shop owners and 284 hairdressers as well as objective job performance measured in terms of each hairdresser's average monthly service sales. Results from cross-level analysis indicated that the relationship between shop-level HPWS and employee job performance was mediated by employee affective commitment and their human capital. These findings shed new light on the mechanisms through which HPWS impact employee outcomes and serve to bridge between macro and micro perspectives of human resource management.     

基于顾客价值的销售服务顾客满意度测评研究——以汽车4S店为例

顾客满意度直接影响服务型企业绩效和发展前景,因而被高度重视。本文以汽车4S店为例,在美国顾客满意指数(ACSI)模型基础上,结合汽车销售服务的特征,建立以顾客让渡价值为中心的汽车销售服务顾客满意度测评模型,运用模糊层次分析法,建立顾客满意度测评指标体系,并进行实证研究以验证其适用性。     

Who is fit to serve? Person–job/organization fit,emotional labor,and customer service performance

This study investigates person–job (P–J) fit and person–organization (P–O) fit perceptions and relates these perceptions to employees' emotional labor and customer service performance. Data from a two‐point, time‐lagged study of 263 employees and 690 customers reveal that both P–J and P–O fit relate positively to deep acting and negatively to surface acting, in accordance with an emotional labor perspective. In addition, P–J and P–O fit are jointly associated with emotional labor, such that the positive link between P–J fit and deep acting is stronger, and the negative link between P–J fit and surface acting is weaker when P–O fit is high. Emotional labor partially mediates the interactive effects of P–J and P–O fit on service interaction quality and customer satisfaction; service interaction quality relates positively to customer satisfaction. These findings have multiple theoretical and practical implications.     

Top management leadership,employee empowerment,job satisfaction,and customer satisfaction in TQM organizations: an empirical study

Top management leadership and employee empowerment are considered two of the most important principles of total quality management (TQM) because of their assumed relationship with customer satisfaction. As a result, many top management leadership and employee empowerment strategies and practices have been suggested in the management literature. However, few studies have been done to test this assumed relationship and determine which of these strategies and practices may be most effective in bringing about the intended results. This study surveyed organizations that have adopted TQM to determine the relationship between top management leadership, employees' empowerment, job satisfaction, and customers' satisfaction. The results reveal positive correlation between top management leadership, employee empowerment, job satisfaction, and customer satisfaction. Employee empowerment and improved levels of job satisfaction are facilitated by top management leadership and commitment to the TQM goal of customer satisfaction by creating an organizational climate that emphasizes total quality and customer satisfaction. Effective strategies for achieving employee empowerment and job satisfaction, together with top management leadership roles in a TQM environment, are identified and discussed.     

Operations change interactions in a service environment: Attitudes,behaviors, and profitability

An attitudinal and behavioral change program was developed and implemented in a service operations function. Changes were (1) stabilizing operations management (reducing turnover) and (2) improving attitudes and behaviors of employees with strong union affiliations in a common carrier trucking terminal when compared to similar employees in a control terminal undergoing no planned change. Management turnover was reduced. Other results from the eighteen-month longitudinal study indicated that employee attitudes in both groups remained negative toward work, management, and the company throughout the study period. Behaviors relating to attitudes — particularly turnover, absenteeism, and accident rates—improved at the experimental terminal, even though expressed attitudes remained negative. Operating efficiencies and profitability improved at the experimental terminal. It was found that these employees, pick-up and delivery drivers, retain positive attitudes toward customers and customers the same toward them, in spite of the drivers' negative attitudes toward the company. The operative service employee appeared to discriminate between attitudes toward the company and the customer; the drivers' negative attiudes toward most everything (except the customer) not affecting the customer's perceptions of the driver or the company.     

What is the joint effect of employee satisfaction and customer orientation on the organizational culture in metalworking manufacturing?

It is a known fact that culture is an important element for the organizations. In this context, a research has been carried out in which the main subject is about to investigate the organizational culture depending on the factors of employee satisfaction and customer orientation in metalworking manufacturing firms. To perform the study, we constructed an original model and conducted research with 578 employees of metalworking organizations. After the data analysis, we determined that organizational culture has positive-significant correlation with employee satisfaction and customer orientation (at the 0.000 level). Additionally, the total explained variance of organizational culture – depending on employee satisfaction and customer orientation – has come out as a satisfying value (0.53). According to the results of our research, we are able to conclude that employee satisfaction and customer orientation has a mid-level effect on creating a substantial organizational culture.     

Service Guarantee Strength: The key to service quality

While most authors describe a service guarantee as a “zero-one variable” indicating the presence or absence of an explicit written service guarantee, this paper develops a construct called “Service Guarantee Strength” (SGS) that is a continuous variable. This construct measures the degree to which a firm sets clear service quality standards for itself on dimensions that customers care about, and has an formal policy for quickly giving meaningful compensation to customers when these standards are not met.The paper builds upon established micro-level behavioral theory to develop the “Service Guarantee Strength Framework”. This framework posits that high Service Guarantee Strength leads to improved service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty through three intervening variables—marketing communications impact, employee motivation and vision, and learning through service failure.An empirical investigation was conducted to test the SGS Framework using both employee and customer data from three pairs of firms, with each pair in a different industry. None of these firms had an explicit service guarantee. Unlike many behavioral research studies, this study measured both employee and customer perceptual data and compared the two. The research finds that Service Guarantee Strength is positively related to customer perceptions of service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.     

Perceived Fairness of the Mystery Customer Method: Comparing Two Employee Evaluation Practices

This study explores differences in the perceptions of fairness between two employee evaluation methods: one based on data collected using the mystery customer method and the other based on supervisor judgment. Fifty eight female sales clerks filled out a questionnaire which assessed their perceptions with respect to the fairness of the two evaluation methods and their job satisfaction. Given apparent differences in the evaluating agent, the extent of process consistency, the breadth of behaviors evaluated, and the extent of employees' awareness of the evaluation process, we hypothesize and find that evaluation procedures conducted by supervisors are perceived as more fair both procedurally and distributively than those conducted by means of the mystery customer method.The expected relationship between perception of fairness and job satisfaction was, however, foundonly in the correlations with supervisor evaluations and not in the correlations with the mystery customer evaluation method. Though the results are limited by the restricted sample, they shed an important light on the perceived fairness of the mystery customer procedure, and suggest that the choice of this procedure should take into account the fairness aspect of it when assessing its effectiveness and value. The data in this study was collected by Idit Malka and Michal Ben-Avi, for a research seminar conducted under the supervision of the second author.     

Putting employee involvement in context: a cross-level model examining job satisfaction and absenteeism in high-involvement work systems

The current study examines how high-involvement work systems (HIWS) influence employee responses to involvement initiatives. While existing research has linked HIWS to individual attitudes, we predict that an organization's HIWS moderate the relationship between employee involvement and job satisfaction and absenteeism. Using multilevel data (8454 employees from 1429 workplaces), we found that employee involvement and HIWS are positively related to employee job satisfaction. Additionally, the results support a cross-level interaction: at high levels of HIWS, employee involvement is negatively related to absenteeism, whereas at low levels of HIWS, the negative relationship is weaker. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

旅游企业内部服务质量、内部顾客导向对绩效的影响机制研究

本文基于对相关文献的研究,试图探索内部服务质量、内部顾客导向对绩效的影响,通过对天津市25家旅游企业212份员工样本的采集分析,提出并验证内部服务质量、内部顾客导向对员工绩效的影响机制模型。研究发现,内部服务质量对内部顾客导向具有显著的正向影响,内部顾客导向对员工绩效有直接正向影响,提高企业内部服务质量可以间接提升员工绩效水平。     

企业社会责任、企业声誉对员工满意度影响的实证研究

构建了企业社会责任、企业声誉和员工满意度的关系模型,以西北工业大学深圳地区和西安地区MBA班工程硕士学员为调研对象,欲探讨现阶段企业员工对企业社会责任的认知状况。通过构建结构方程模型,实证分析发现:企业社会责任对企业声誉有显著正向影响;企业声誉对员工满意度有显著正向影响;企业社会责任不直接对员工满意度产生影响,而是通过影响企业声誉后对员工满意度产生作用。