Psychological comfort in service relationships: A mixed-method approach

Psychological comfort reflects the customer's peace of mind and a sense of ease during a service encounter that helps in maintaining strong relationships. However, the role of psychological comfort (PC) in retail service relationships is not fully explored. To fill this research gap, this study presents a unique conceptual model grounded in the stimulus organism response (S–O-R) framework to empirically explore the stimulating effect of customer experience on psychological comfort (PC), which influences relationships quality and customer retention as the response. To evaluate the model a quantitative survey was administered on 432 bank customers followed by in depth interviews of 10 bank employees. It was found that customer experience stimulates customer's PC that leads to relationship quality and retention as the response. It was also found that relationship duration influences the customer experience-PC relationship. The theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed.     

In pursuit of service encounter quality: Will service-oriented high-performance work systems benefit high-contact service industries?

Integrating social exchange and psychological contract theories, this study examines how perceived service-oriented high-performance work systems (service-oriented HPWS) augment high-contact service organizations to improve their service encounter quality. In addition, it also tests the impact of psychological contract fulfillment, innovative work behavior, and prosocial service behavior as parallel and serial mediating variables in the relationship between service-oriented HPWS and service encounter quality. Using survey data collected in three-time lags from 394 full-time frontline employees and their customers across high-contact service contexts, direct and indirect effects of service-oriented HPWS on service encounter quality were tested employing structural equation modeling. The results revealed that service-oriented HPWS is positively associated with service encounter quality via psychological contract fulfillment, innovative work behavior, and prosocial service behavior. The study contributes to the extant literature by integrating social exchange and psychological contract theories in explicating the impact of service-oriented HPWS on service encounter quality.     

科技人才领地行为如何影响后续公民行为——心理所有权的中介效应

在我国市场经济深化改革的时代背景下，过去固有的集体主义文化逐步与个体主义文化相融合，当代中国人的物权意识有了极大提升，领地行为在我国组织管理中表现出强大解释力。科技人才作为创新创业先导，其领地行为对后续公民行为的影响机制显示出别样特点，然而，目前相关研究稍显不足。基于心理所有权理论视角，实证研究科技人才领地行为在组织中呈现的两面性问题及其与组织公民行为的关系。运用问卷调查获得全国高校、高新科技企业以及科研院所有效问卷290份，并开展结构方程实证分析。结果表明：科技人才领地行为对公民行为同时存在双向影响，其中，控制标记和反应防卫行为对组织公民行为具有直接负向影响，而身份识别标记具有直接正向影响；预先防卫行为正向影响组织公民行为，而心理所有权发挥关键中介作用。究其原因，领地行为对组织的多样性影响，主要源于其内涵维度的差异性和心理所有权的中介效应。     

Configurations of social media-enabled strategies for open innovation,firm performance,and their barriers to adoption

The use of social media offers tremendous innovation potential. Yet, while current research emphasizes success stories, little is known about how firms can leverage the full potential of their social media use for open innovation. In this paper, the authors address this gap by conducting a configurational analysis to develop an integrative taxonomy of social media-enabled strategies for open innovation. This analysis stems from the integration of internal and external variables such as social media communication activities, organizational innovation seekers, potential innovation providers, the stages of the open innovation process, and their relationship with different performance outcomes and barriers to social media adoption for open innovation. Through an empirical study of 337 firms based in eight countries, four clusters have been identified that are characterized as distinct strategies: “marketing semi-open innovators,” “cross-department semi-open innovators,” “cross-department full process semi-open innovators” and “broad adopters open innovators.” The findings reveal the trade-offs associated with different strategies for implementing social media for open innovation and provide insights of the use of these strategies. By doing so, they suggest a more nuanced approach that contrasts with the traditionally positive (or even rosy) depiction of the effects of social media on open innovation. Accordingly, managers are encouraged to contemplate their organizational competencies, capabilities, and their strategic intent when drafting social media strategies for open innovation. Selective approaches, along with greater adoption leading to greater benefits, are shown to be more rewarding than a middle way that spreads things too thin. Avenues for further research include qualitative explorations of the trajectories unfolding through implementing social media strategies for innovation activities and the use of objective performance measures rather than subjective perceptions from informants to understand the complex relationships between social media adoption and performance.     

Making the invisible,visible: Overcoming barriers to ESG performance with an ESG mindset

Improving corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance starts with recognizing that not every dollar of earnings is created equally, as some profit may be earned at the cost of damaging the environment or of harming stakeholder relationships. These costs are often invisible to corporate employees, as they are not recorded. To earn corporate profits that are environmentally and socially responsible, boards and CEOs must overcome two barriers: (1) the ESG issue-assessment barrier, which reflects an organization’s inability to fairly assess, prioritize, scope, and plan ESG initiatives that address the invisible environmental and social damage corporations cause, and (2) the shareholder-value barrier, which recognizes that corporate employees may resist implementing ESG initiatives owing to their entrenched belief that corporations must maximize shareholder returns. To overcome these two barriers, we propose an ESG mindset model that highlights the pitfalls relating to ESG issue assessment and to the common belief in maximizing shareholder value and then suggests tactics to overcome them. The benefits to corporations that successfully overcome the barriers and improve their corporate ESG performance are threefold: They (1) will be perceived as positively contributing to environmental and societal issues, and thereby (2) avoid accusations of greenwashing and (3) improve their standing with stakeholders.     

Sustainable entrepreneurship and legitimacy building in protected areas: Overcoming distinctive barriers through activism

Sustainable entrepreneurs operating in protected areas face distinctive barriers that place additional emphasis on the need to build legitimacy. To date, how they do this has not been entirely explored. This paper addresses this need through an exploratory study of sustainable entrepreneurs in a transnational protected area. The results indicate that sustainable entrepreneurs in protected areas face barriers that can be broadly classified as cognition spanning, locale and sector-related barriers. The findings highlight that a key way sustainable entrepreneurs overcome these distinctive barriers is by building legitimacy through activism. Activism became instrumental in building legitimacy with varied stakeholders and actors. This is all geared towards overcoming barriers during the sustainable entrepreneurship process. The findings add to existing literature on the role of legitimacy building in sustainable entrepreneurship by detailing the different forms of legitimacy and how they are built through activism. The paper concludes with propositions about the conditions necessary for sustainable entrepreneurs to build legitimacy in fragile socioecological contexts through activism.     

协同工作设计能缓解组织知识隐藏“困境”吗——基于防御型与促进型心理所有权视角

如何有效干预知识隐藏、突破知识型组织发展的约束性因素，是组织管理中亟需解决的难题，尤其是在竞合交织的工作情境下鲜有研究同时考虑合作性、竞争性工作情境对知识隐藏行为的影响机制，导致对知识隐藏的认知存在片面性。鉴于此，结合心理所有权理论，探讨协同工作设计与团队竞争氛围影响知识隐藏的联动机制。通过对77个知识团队的457名成员进行两阶段问卷调查，研究发现，知识心理所有权、组织心理所有权在协同工作设计(任务互依性、社会支持和他人反馈)与知识隐藏之间起中介作用，团队竞争氛围在协同工作设计要素通过知识心理所有权、组织心理所有权影响知识隐藏的中介路径中发挥调节作用。上述结论不仅为深入研究知识隐藏行为提供了全新的理论视角，也为构建竞争与合作平衡的知识型组织提供了有益启示。     

When,where, and with whom during crisis: The effect of risk perceptions and psychological distance on travel intentions

We investigate how risk perceptions and psychological distance impacted people's travel intentions during Covid-19. Our findings reveal that traveling to a high-risk destination increased people's risk perceptions of Covid-19, and their risk perceptions at the destination, which, in turn, reduced people's travel intentions. We identify temporal, spatial, and social distance (the “when, where, and with whom” of traveling) as moderators of these effects; while social distance moderates the effect of risk, on risk perceptions, temporal and spatial distance moderate the effect of risk perceptions on travel intentions. We outline theoretical contributions and implications for tourism during crisis.     

A CSR perspective to foster employee creativity in the banking sector: The role of work engagement and psychological safety

The entire service sector has acknowledged the importance of employee creativity. However, the underlying mechanism due to which employees are engaged in creativity has been relatively unexplored. Moreover, where the banking service sector in advanced countries has realized the potential role of employee creativity for a bank's success, the same was not fully realized in the context of a developing country, especially in Pakistan. Against this backdrop, the current study is an effort to explore the underlying mechanism of employee creativity as an outcome of corporate social responsibility (CSR) with the mediating effects of work engagement (WE) and psychological safety (PS) in the banking sector of Pakistan. Data were collected (n = 483) from banking employees through a self-administered questionnaire, which used the paper and pencil method. The hypotheses of the current survey were validated by employing structural equation modeling (SEM) in AMOS software. The results confirmed that employee creativity, as an outcome of CSR, was significantly influenced by the CSR orientation of a bank. Furthermore, PS and WE produced a significant mediation effect (41%) between the relationship of CSR and employee creativity. The findings of the current study are helpful to the banking sector of Pakistan in understanding the CSR-employee creativity mechanism, which is of utmost importance from the standpoint of competition.     

Discontinuity of required oral and literacy skills across job roles in achieving high work performance: An fsQCA approach

This study explores how the English proficiency of local employees in foreign subsidiaries of multinational enterprises mitigates language barriers and improves their work performance. A research framework is developed by introducing the multidimensionality of foreign language proficiency and employing insights from applied linguistics, the brain-drain model, and media synchronicity theory. By using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis for data analysis, this study finds that the relative importance of English literacy skill to oral skill in achieving high work performance varies across positions in foreign subsidiaries. Discontinuity of required linguistic skills between managerial and nonmanagerial positions implies that incremental development of a skill set required for lower positions does not assure successful capability development toward upper positions. This study also finds that competence that supports appropriate usage of English in a specific context plays an important role in mitigating language barriers and achieving high work performance.