The trickle-down effect of servant leadership on frontline employee service behaviors and performance: A multilevel study of Chinese hotels

This study tests a trickle-down effect regarding how servant leadership flows from top-to middle-level leaders, resulting in frontline employees' service-oriented behaviors and service quality. Using multiple validations, we develop and test a measure of servant leadership at various levels in the hospitality industry. Drawing on data from 325 employee–supervisor pairs of workgroups in 9 Chinese, star-level hotels, results from hierarchical linear modeling support the service profit chain theory and trickle-down model of leadership by demonstrating influence of top- and middle-level servant leadership on frontline employees. Cross-level moderation analysis suggests service climate moderates the effect on service-oriented behaviors, but in an inverse direction.     

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.     

How and when servant leaders fuel creativity: The role of servant attitude and intrinsic motivation

Workplace creativity is critical to stay ahead in the current competitive hospitality industry. Recent research has suggested that servant leadership fosters creativity. However, there is a lack of research into the mechanisms and situations that make this link possible. This paper examines (1) employee servant attitude as a mediator in the servant leadership–employee creativity relationship, and (2) the role of intrinsic motivation in both the direct and the mediated relationship. Using structural equation modeling to analyze a sample of 259 hotel employees in Spain, we found that servant attitude is one of the mechanisms servant leaders use to foster creativity, and that this mediating role of servant attitude is strengthened as employee intrinsic motivation increases. However, when intrinsic motivation decreases, the mediation reverts and the leadership–employee creativity relationship becomes significant again. New light is shed on how and when servant leadership is most effective in fostering hotel staff creativity.     

Reducing Employee Turnover Intention Through Servant Leadership in the Restaurant Context: A Mediation Study of Affective Organizational Commitment

Building on a social exchange theory, our model explains how an employee’s perception of servant leadership affect frontline restaurant employees’ turnover intention. Data were collected from 213 frontline restaurant employees in United States. The structural equation modeling findings support our hypothesized model and indicate that affective organizational commitment fully mediated the relationship between the employee perception of servant leadership and turnover intention. This article includes discussions of the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings.     

How servant leadership and self-efficacy interact to affect service quality in the hospitality industry: A polynomial regression with response surface analysis

This paper aimed to investigate how perceived servant leadership and employees' self-efficacy interact with each other to affect employees' service quality in the hospitality industry. We methodologically employed polynomial regression equation with response surface analysis. There were two studies in this paper. The data of the first study were obtained from front-line employees at a restaurant chain. A total of 673 employees provided valid data. The data of the second study were collected from front-line employees at five-star hotels. The sample consisted of 317 participants. Both studies yielded similar patterns and results. It was demonstrated that self-efficacy moderates the relationship between servant leadership and service quality, and employees' service quality was higher when both perceived level of servant leadership and self-efficacy were higher. The resulted also showed that the larger the difference between perceived level of servant leadership and self-efficacy, the higher employees' service quality.     

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.     

Applying Service Profit Chain model to the Korean restaurant industry

The purpose of this study is to empirically determine the relationship between employees’ constructs such as internal service quality, service ability, employee satisfaction, and organizational commitment, and customers’ constructs such as perceived value, customer satisfaction, customer trust, and loyalty. This relationship was studied by applying the Service Profit Chain model to the Korean restaurant industry. Results show that internal service quality has a significant effect on service ability, and teamwork/communication has a significant effect on employee satisfaction. Employees’ organizational commitment has a significant direct effect on the value perceived by customers. Ultimately, there is an indirect influential relationship between employees’ and customers’ constructs. Implications of these results are discussed, and possible limitations of the study are addressed.     

The impact of exploitative leadership on frontline hospitality employees’ service performance: A social exchange perspective

Based on social exchange theory, we investigate the impact of perceived exploitative leadership on frontline hospitality employees’ service performance. A three-phase analysis of 207 supervisor–subordinate dyads from three hotels in China demonstrates that exploitative leadership has a negative effect on frontline hospitality employees’ service performance. Furthermore, leader−member exchange (LMX) plays a mediating role in the relationship between exploitative leadership and employee service performance. Moderated path analyses indicate that traditionality weakens the direct influence of exploitative leadership on LMX and an indirect influence of exploitative leadership on employee service performance through reduced LMX. We also discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

Empowerment in hospitality organizations: Customer orientation and organizational support

Although empowering employees has often been prescribed as an efficient strategy for hospitality organizations, the strategy alone cannot ensure success. Individual and organizational factors should be considered to increase employees’ perception of empowerment. This study examines the impact of employees’ customer orientation and organizational factors on the employee empowerment perceptions. Our findings, based on a survey of 203 guest contact employees, suggest that organizations should hire customer oriented people, guide them with service training, provide a reward system, and facilitate service standards communication in order to increase perceived empowerment. Implications of these findings for hospitality service managers are discussed.     

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.     

A within-level analysis of the effect of customer-focused perspective-taking on deep acting and customer helping behaviors: The mediating roles of negative affect and empathy

Service employees can face customer mistreatment on a daily basis, which can negatively influence their affect and subsequent service performance. Despite this reality, little research has examined theoretically based interventions to change employees’ affective reactions to customer mistreatment. Using an experience sampling method, the current study examined customer-focused perspective-taking through a longitudinal design consisting of five days of baseline measurements, followed by five days of intervention measurements. Frontline service employees completed daily measures of affective reactions (i.e., negative affect and empathy) and employee performance (i.e., deep acting and customer helping behaviors). The results showed that customer-focused perspective-taking decreased negative affect and increased empathy toward customers, which led to more deep acting and customer helping behaviors. Regardless of fluctuations in daily difficult customer interactions, the positive effect of customer-focused perspective-taking on the outcomes remained consistent at the within-person level.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Workplace ostracism and proactive customer service performance: A conservation of resources perspective

This study tests the impact of workplace ostracism on hospitality employees’ proactive customer service performance (PCSP). Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, we investigate the effects of two sequential mediators (i.e. job tension and customer orientation) and the moderating effect of need for affiliation. Using a time-lagged research design and the data from 16 hotels in China, we find that workplace ostracism positively influences job tension; job tension decreases customer orientation, which in turn undermines employees’ PCSP. Moreover, we find that need for affiliation exacerbates the effect of workplace ostracism on job tension such that the effect is stronger when employees’ need for affiliation is high rather than low. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications subsequently.     

Negative affect,deep acting,and customer compensation as responses to customer mistreatment: The effect of customer-based perspective-taking

Customer service employees often deal with customer mistreatment, eliciting negative affect, which subsequently influences service performance. Using affective events theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) as the theoretical framework, perspective taking was examined as an intervention to influence negative affect elicited from customer mistreatment in two experiments. Study 1 examined and found that customer perspective taking led to less negative affect, and subsequently more customer compensation and more deep acting through serial mediation effects. Study 2 tested the moderating effect of the service failure locus of causality (i.e., hotel or customer). The most important theoretical contribution is understanding how having employees shift the focus away from their own emotions, towards why a customer is being rude or difficult, influences deep acting and customer compensation via reduced negative affect. This paper provides a promising intervention and training tool that hospitality organizations can use to influence employee service recovery strategies and customer service.     

The impacts of complementary information technology resources on the service-profit chain and competitive performance of South African hospitality firms

The potential of information technology (IT) resources to empower employees, to shape customer service and contribute to the competitive performance of hospitality firms has received much attention. Yet empirical evidence has been lacking. This study draws on the resource-based view of the firm and the service-profit chain framework to develop and test a model of the effects of a complementary system of tangible and intangible IT resources on employee and customer service outcomes and on competitive performance. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 112 hospitality establishments operating in South Africa. Results revealed that the complementary system of IT resources has significant direct effects on competitive performance whilst its effect on customer service outcomes is fully mediated by employee outcomes. Results support the contention that hospitality service is information intensive. In addition to employees, tangible and intangible IT resources demand the attention of hospitality managers and their role in competitive strategy must be considered.     

Ethical leadership and its impact on service innovative behavior: The role of LMX and job autonomy

This study examined the effect of ethical leadership on service innovative behavior of employees at small and medium sized tourist hotels in Uttarakhand, India. It has forwarded an integrated model that highlights the relationship between ethical leadership and employees' service innovative behavior while interacting through leader-member exchange and job autonomy. Using a sample of 468 customer contact employees and their 117 supervisors, hierarchical regression was conducted to establish the relationship. Findings of the study revealed that ethical leadership promoted service innovative behavior of the hotel employees mediated through leader-member exchanges. Further, it was also found that the level of service innovative behavior was commensurate to the perception of employee job autonomy. Based on the study findings, implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

A triple whammy effect of employees' gender,job type,and service outcomes on consumer behavior

The extant literature reports inconsistent results regarding the effect of employee gender on customers' attitudes and behaviors. Furthermore, the previous research on congruency bias has mainly focused on female-dominant jobs. To address these issues, this study examined how customers' gender stereotypes affect their service evaluations and revisit intentions. Grounded in role congruity theory, congruency bias, and justification-suppression models, the results showed that employee gender and gender congruency with the norm for the job have differential impacts on customer evaluations. Furthermore, this study found asymmetric impacts of congruency bias on customer experiences. For example, customers showed lower satisfaction and revisit intention when female employees failed in a male-dominant job than when their male counterparts did. However, they showed equal levels of satisfaction and revisit intention when male and female employees failed in a female-dominant job. The results provide important insights into how to reduce customers' gender bias toward different gender-dominated jobs.     

Wearable technology in service delivery processes: The gender-moderated technology objectification effect

In the current research, we investigate how employees’ adoption of wearable technology (i.e., a front-line employee using Google Glass for a hotel check-in) influences consumers’ service encounter evaluations and revisit intentions. Building on the theoretical frameworks of technology objectification effect, person sensitivity bias and gender stereotypes, we find that wearable technology has a differential impact on service evaluations based on the employee's gender. Study 1 demonstrates that for female employees, the adoption of wearable technology leads to more favorable customer evaluations in service failure encounters. Study 2 shows that for male employees, the adoption of wearable technology leads to less favorable customer evaluations in service success encounters. We discuss theoretical and managerial implications of these findings.