How and when servant leadership promotes service innovation: A moderated mediation model

Based on social learning theory, the current study examined how and when servant leadership could promote employee service innovative behavior (SIB) in the hospitality setting. Survey data collected from 1021 service employees and their 229 direct supervisors at 54 hotels showed that servant leadership was positively related to employee SIB, and employee customer orientation mediated such effect. Results also showed that employee age moderated the effect of servant leadership on customer orientation, as well as the indirect effect of servant leadership on SIB via customer orientation, such that these effects were stronger for younger employees. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Can innovative behavior be led by management? A study from the lodging business

This study examined the effects of hotel management leadership on employee innovative behavior in Chinese hotel organizations. Using a dyadic sample of 164 hotel supervisors and 603 service employees at 23 four-star and five-star hotels in 11 Chinese cities, we investigated whether organizational commitment mediated the effects of leadership on employee innovative behavior. We also examined how organizational tenure moderated leadership and innovative behavior through organizational commitment. Findings from our moderated-mediation model revealed that organizational commitment mediated the relationship between leadership and innovative behavior. Similarly, organizational tenure moderated the relationship between leadership and organizational commitment: there was a stronger relationship for long-tenured employees and a weaker relationship for short-tenured employees. However, the effect of higher leadership on organizational commitment was stronger for short-tenured employees than long-tenured employees. Our results spotlight the importance of fostering organizational commitment, which directly affects innovative behavior and through which supervisors can influence individual innovative behavior.     

Disentangling green service innovative behavior among hospitality employees: The role of customer green involvement

Regardless of the role of customers in co-creating value with organizations, how customer involvement drives employees, particularly in the hospitality industry, to engage in green service innovative endeavors has been scarcely examined. This study seeks to uncover how and when customer green involvement nurtures green service innovative behavior among hotel employees. The dataset was formed from the responses from 519 employees and 84 managers working in Vietnam-based hotels and analyzed via multilevel structural equation modeling. The results demonstrated the role of hotel employees’ green information management motivations (i.e., green information proactiveness, transparency, and formality) in mediating the positive relationship between customer green involvement and employee green service innovative behavior. Internal green marketing orientation functioned as an enhancer for the effects of customer green involvement on green information management motivations. This research contributes to the stream of green behavior research by bringing together customer green involvement and green service innovative behavior in the hospitality literature and unraveling the mechanisms behind their relationship.     

Crafting and testing a central precept in service-dominant logic: Hotel employees’ brand-citizenship behavior and customers’ brand trust

Employees play an important role in hotel service branding. Their enactments of positive brand-supportive behaviors help nurture positive customer–brand relationships. This study explores the relationship between employee perceived organizational support, brand citizenship behavior, and customers’ perceptions of brand trust. Two questionnaire surveys were carried out in high-contact hotel service firms collecting employee and customer data by matched-questionnaires. The results of the study indicate that brand-citizenship behavior consists of three components: willingness-to-help, brand enthusiasm, and propensity for further development. Propensity for further development has a significant direct positive effect on the other two components, and the other two components both have significant direct positive effects on customer's brand trust. Employee-perceived higher levels of organizational support increase performance of brand citizenship behavior. The study includes empirical findings, contributions to theory, limitations, and direction for future research.     

To speak up or stay silent? How employee–supervisor value differences affect speaking up behavior in the hospitality industry

Speaking up behavior plays an essential role in improving the service quality of teams and organizations. This study uses cross-level polynomial regression to explore the influence of supervisor–frontline employee power distance orientation (PDO) congruence on the speaking up behavior of frontline employees. The results indicate that congruence (vs. incongruence) in supervisor–frontline employee PDO can lead to more speaking up behavior. In addition, we propose an asymmetrical incongruence effect such that speaking up behavior will be most when supervisors are low in PDO and frontline employee are high in PDO. A team-oriented incentive structure also moderates the relationship between supervisor–frontline employee power distance orientation and speaking up behavior. These findings not only help us better understand the antecedents of frontline employee speaking up behavior, but also provide important implications for hospitality management.     

Service innovativeness and the structuring of organizations: The moderating roles of learning orientation and inter-functional coordination

This paper aims to investigate the influence of organizational structure on service innovativeness by testing the moderating roles of learning orientation and inter-functional coordination. This helps to understand how organic structure influences service innovativeness when it is effectively leveraged with favorable organizational factors. Data were collected from 178 hotel managers and executives in Japan and moderated regression analysis was performed to analyze the data. Findings of the study suggest that higher levels of service innovativeness are positively related to higher levels of hotel business performance. In addition, organic structure makes a positive influence on service innovativeness and an increase in the levels of learning orientation boost the effectiveness of organic structure on service innovativeness. Moreover, the positive association between organic structure and service innovativeness become stronger when all firm’s functions make an attempt to cooperate and contribute to disseminating customers and competitors’ information in the hotels. These findings contribute to understanding how hotel service innovation is affected by service innovativeness, organizational structure, learning orientation and inter-functional coordination.     

Effect of customer orientation and entrepreneurial orientation on innovativeness: Evidence from the hotel industry in Switzerland

While researchers have explored the relationship between customer orientation, entrepreneurship and innovativeness with business performance in different organizations, few such studies exist on the hotel industry. This current work investigates the potential influences of these variables on hotel industry performance. Data for this study was collected through personal questionnaires collected from 156 hotel managers and owners from German and French speaking cantons located in Switzerland in order to examine the interrelation between innovativeness, customer orientation, entrepreneurship and service business performance dimensions (i.e., profit goal achievement, sales goal achievement and ROI achievement). The findings support aspects of prior research, but also provide some new insights by exploring customer orientation and innovativeness simultaneously and revealing how these factors impact upon the performance of the Swiss hotel industry. In the light of existing literature, limitations and future research directions are subsequently addressed.     

Pushing forward high-performance work systems in the hotel industry: A procedural-justice climate to promote higher unit-level outcomes

In this study, we examine how the high-performance work system (HPWS) can be used to promote positive employee behavior leading to higher organizational service performance in the hotel industry. Specifically, we suggest that the collective organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of employees links the HPWS to organizational service performance, and a stronger procedural-justice climate of a hotel strengthens the relationship between the HPWS and the collective OCB. Using multi-source data drawn from 5290 employees across 180 independent franchise hotels in North America and customer feedback on each surveyed hotel, we found that the collective OCB mediates the relationship between the HPWS and organizational service performance, and when hotels have a stronger procedural-justice climate, the mediating effect is more salient. The implications of these findings for tourism researchers and practitioners are discussed.     

Linking customer-employee exchange and employee innovative behavior

Employee innovative behaviors lay the foundation for organizational innovation and are of importance to business success, especially for service firms. Although these innovative behaviors are performed at the individual level, employees still need to have frequent exchanges with others, such as customers. As there is little research investigating customer-employee exchange (CEX) and its influence on employee innovative behavior in services, this study aims to fill this gap in a hotel context. The results of a survey with 180 respondents indicate that both the solidarity and harmonization components of CEX have positive effects on employee innovative behavior, yet the information exchange between customers and employees does not significantly influence employee innovation. Also, higher level of CEX leads to higher level of perceived social psychological climate for innovation. The mediating effect of social psychological climate in the relationship between CEX and employee innovative behavior is partially supported. The findings contribute to the understanding of the role of social exchanges in facilitating employee innovative behavior and provide implications for the management of employee innovative behavior in hospitality firms.     

The influence of service brand orientation on hotel employees’ attitude and behaviors in China

As foreign hotel brands continue to roll out their investment in China, the competitive landscape intensifies. Central to the success of these hotel brands is their ability to offer the unique features of their service offering, as reflected in the brand, in which employees play a key role. However, in the Chinese market, where the introduction of foreign hotel brands is in its initial stages, employee brand knowledge may be limited resulting in service behaviors that are inconsistent with the brand. Therefore, the adoption of a service brand orientation to guide employee attitudes and behavior is considered to be necessary. In an effort to realize productive service employees, this study examines the consequences of adopting a service brand orientation. Results suggest that a service brand orientation is imperative for positive employee brand-oriented behaviors as well as customer-oriented behaviors that are a consequence of an employee customer orientation.     

Propensity to trust and knowledge sharing behavior: An evaluation of importance-performance analysis among Nigerian restaurant employees

Drawing from knowledge management theory, this study examines the relationships between employee's propensity to trust, organic organizational structure, knowledge sharing behavior, and service innovation in a multivariate nexus in restaurants. Data from 180 restaurants with a total of 453 employees were used to test the research hypotheses via partial least square structural equation modelling. As expected, the results of the empirical analysis revealed that propensity to trust is positively related to knowledge sharing behavior, organic organizational structure and service innovation; and knowledge sharing behavior is positively related to organic organizational structure and service innovation. Further, this study established that both knowledge sharing behavior and organic organizational structure serially mediates the positive effect of propensity to trust on service innovation. The result of importance-performance analysis highlights propensity to trust as the highest important predictor of service innovation while knowledge sharing is the best performance factor for service innovation in restaurants.     

ACE-ing the Hiring Process

Abstract

Hotels and other hospitality organizations use customer service as a key indicator of operational performance. This paper explores the literature on customer service and presents a theoretical framework for measuring employee customer service orientation. The authors also offer recommendations for practical application using the personality traits of Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Extroversion (ACE) as positive predictors of customer service orientation during the hiring process.     

Knowledge sharing in hospitality organizations: A meta-analysis

Knowledge sharing plays a crucial role in how hospitality organizations gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Using meta-analytic examinations based on 275 relationships from 54 primary studies, the current study proposes an integrative framework at both an employee and organizational level. Accordingly, this study comprehensively investigates the relations of knowledge sharing with its antecedents and consequences at both levels by synthesizing effect size estimates. Also, this study supplementarily conducts full-information meta-analytic structural equation modeling to examine the causality of proposed relationships. This study further examines the moderating roles of certain sub-dimensions of knowledge sharing and regions in each relationship of knowledge sharing with its predictors and outcomes. Based on findings derived from robust meta-analytic procedures, the authors identify several important patterns of findings. This study provides an advanced understanding of the nomological network of knowledge sharing in the hospitality organizational context.     

Mediated Effects of Customer Orientation on Customer Relationship Management Performance

ABSTRACT

Drawing on relationship marketing and management theory, the author examines how customer orientation can stimulate employee training and customer information processing capability when firms implement customer relationship management (CRM). The researcher also investigates how employee training and customer information processing affect CRM performance in light of customer satisfaction and financial performance. Restaurant data support the proposed model, which incorporated mediated relationships among customer orientation, training orientation, customer information processing, and CRM performance. The findings indicate that training orientation and customer information processing mediate the effect of customer orientation on CRM performance. The empirical results suggest theoretical and managerial implications for CRM implementation and strategies.     

Effective communication styles for the customer-oriented service employee: Inducing dedicational behaviors in luxury restaurant patrons

The goals of this study were (1) to identify the optimal facets of communication style for customer-oriented service employees and (2) to examine the ways in which the customer-oriented service employee (COSE) induces luxury restaurant patrons’ dedicational behaviors. Customer dedicational behaviors are defined as ‘a set of active and positive customer voluntary behaviors towards a business induced by high relationship quality’. Based on the existing body of communication literature, nine types of communication styles were derived. Theoretical relationships between the nine communication styles and the COSE also were developed via literature review, and causal relationships between the COSE and three different types of consumer dedicational behavior styles were subsequently suggested. By integrating the derived theoretical hypotheses, a conceptual model was proposed and then tested utilizing data collected from 527 luxury restaurant patrons. The results of data analysis revealed that five types of communication styles (attentive, friendly, impression leaving, open, and relaxed) bear a positive impact on COSE, while one communication style (contentious) bears a negative impact. It was also found that the customer-oriented service employee plays a critical role in inducing three types of dedicational behaviors in consumers: enhancement, cooperation, and advocacy. The key theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed in the latter part of this article.     

Do emotions play a mediating role in the relationship between owner leadership styles and manager customer orientation,and performance in service environment?

This study examines the dynamic relationships among leadership style (transformational and transactional), emotion in service employees, customer orientation (dimensions of enjoyment and needs), and job performance. The study proposes a model based on existing literatures and examines the mediating role of service employees’ emotion in the relationship between leadership style and their customer orientation. The study found that all four elements of transformational leadership have a significant effect on positive emotion. Emotion is found to have a significant influence on both enjoyment and needs dimensions of customer orientation and to partially mediate the relationship between leadership style and customer orientation.     

Workplace deviance and human resource management relations: A case study of Turkish hotel employees

The main purpose of this study is to examine the negative associations between employees' perception of the effectiveness of performance appraisal practices and deviant workplace behavior. This study also tests the mediating effect of the forms of organizational justice in the relationship between performance appraisal practices and deviant workplace behavior. Moreover, it also investigates how line managers' performance appraisal politics may influence the relationship between perceptions of performance appraisal practices and employee deviant workplace behavior. In order to facilitate this study, the research team employed a survey design. A total of 193 service employees from different service establishments attended the forum where the study was conducted in the capital city of Turkey, Ankara. The results of this study strongly support the premise that effective performance appraisal practices influence employee deviance behavior, and especially that interactional justice is an important predictor of employee violative behavior. Moreover, the findings indicate that there is no evidence regarding the moderating effect of employees' perception of managers' appraisal politics in the negative relationship between performance appraisal effectiveness and employee deviance.     

Factors affecting the knowledge sharing attitude of hotel service personnel

The accumulation and sharing of knowledge is an important managerial approach to attracting customers and increasing customer satisfaction. However, knowledge sharing is not an automatic behavior. The primary purpose of this study is to understand the organizational and personal factors motivating employees to share knowledge. Personnel in international tourist hotels in Taipei who provide front-line services for travelers were surveyed. This study shows that internal marketing and organizational culture influence knowledge-sharing attitudes and perceived behavioral control. In addition, perceived behavioral control influences the relations among internal marketing, organizational culture, and knowledge-sharing attitudes. This research suggests that to develop knowledge-sharing attitudes among personnel that benefit customer service, it is important for managers to model supportive attitudes, give actual support in forms such as bonuses and resources, and develop a culture that encourages personnel to attempt innovation.     

Paradoxical leadership and hospitality employees’ service performance: The role of leader identification and need for cognitive closure

Based on the social identity theory, this study examined the relationship between paradoxical leadership and employees’ service performance in the hospitality industry. Data were collected from a multisource, time-lagged survey of 72 leaders and 556 employees in eight full-service hotels in China. Using hierarchical linear modeling, paradoxical leadership was found to be positively related to employees’ leader identification, which consequently enhanced their service performance. Furthermore, the level of an employee’s need for cognitive closure moderated the relationship between paradoxical leadership and leader identification such that paradoxical leadership exerted a stronger positive influence on leader identification for those employees with a lower need for cognitive closure. These findings have implications for both paradoxical leadership and hospitality management practices.     

Driving employees to serve customers beyond their roles in the Vietnamese hospitality industry: The roles of paternalistic leadership and discretionary HR practices

Our research primarily seeks to assess how paternalistic leadership behaviors – authoritarianism, benevolence, and morality – influence extra-role customer service via employee work engagement as a mediator. The data for our research model were gleaned from four- or five-star hotels in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. To test the hypotheses of the research model, structural equation modelling was employed. Our research findings cast light on the mediation mechanism of employee work engagement for the positive relationships between benevolence and morality components of paternalistic leadership and extra-role customer service behavior, as well as for the negative relationship between authoritarian behavior and extra-role customer service behavior. Additionally, benevolent and moral behaviors were found to attenuate this negative association between authoritarian behavior and extra-role customer service. Discretionary HR practices were proved to play the moderating role for the relationships between the three paternalistic leadership behaviors and employee work engagement in that discretionary HR practices fortified the positive link between benevolent or moral behavior and work engagement and alleviated the negative link between authoritarian behavior and work engagement.