Mechanisms linking employee affective delivery and customer behavioral intentions

Past empirical evidence has indicated that employee affective delivery can influence customer reactions (e.g., customer satisfaction, service quality evaluation). This study extends previous research by empirically examining mediating processes underlying the relationship between employee affective delivery and customer behavioral intentions. Data were collected from 352 employee-customer pairs in 169 retail shoe stores in Taiwan. Results showed that the influence of employee affective delivery on customers' willingness to return to the store and pass positive comments to friends was indirect through the mediating processes of customer in-store positive moods and perceived friendliness. The study also indicated that employee affective delivery influences customers' time spent in store, which, in turn, influences customer behavioral intentions.     

Intraorganizational communication, perceived organizational support, and gender

Gender differences in the relationship between perceived organizational support and employee perceptions of their communication with top management, immediate supervisors, and coworkers are investigated in a university and in two engineering firms. Respondents were predominantly Caucasian Americans. Gender moderated the relationship between perceived organizational support and two communication variables (coworker communication relationship and coworker information quality). Males reporting a positive coworker communication relationship also indicated higher perceived organizational support. This pattern did not emerge for females. Males who perceived receiving higher quality information from coworkers reported higher perceived organizational support. While a similar pattern emerged for females, the relationship was weaker.     

Transformational leadership and customer service: A moderated mediation model of negative affectivity and emotion regulation

Integrating theories from leadership, emotion management, affectivity, and customer service, this study examines how transformational leadership leads to favourable customer intentions via the mediation of service employees' emotion regulation, job satisfaction, and their service performance and via the moderation of employee negative affectivity. Results obtained from data of 204 matched sets of managers, service employees, and customers show that the effect of transformational leadership on amplification of pleasant emotions was conditioned on service employees' negative affectivity. Employee service performance partially mediated the effect of job satisfaction on customer outcomes. Finally, overall results reveal that transformational leadership and amplification of pleasant emotions were more strongly related to the customer outcomes, as mediated through the intervening variables in the model, when negative affectivity was high than when negative affectivity was low. Results have implications for how service workers with negative affectivity can manage their emotions to achieve effective service outcomes through interactions with a leader, how the effect of transformational leadership can be bounded, and how transformational leadership and emotion regulation are relevant to customer service.     

Doing the right thing without being told: joint effects of initiative climate and general self-efficacy on employee proactive customer service performance

We developed and tested a cross-level model of the antecedents and outcomes of proactive customer service performance. Results from a field study of 900 frontline service employees and their supervisors in 74 establishments of a multinational hotel chain located in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia demonstrated measurement equivalence and suggested that, after controlling for service climate, initiative climate at the establishment level and general self-efficacy at the individual level predicted employee proactive customer service performance and interacted in a synergistic way. Results also showed that at the establishment level, controlling for service climate and collective general service performance, initiative climate was positively and indirectly associated with customer service satisfaction through the mediation of aggregated proactive customer service performance. We discuss important theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

The role of cognition and affect in the formation of customer satisfaction judgements concerning service recovery encounters

• It is widely accepted that justice perceptions play an important role in shaping customers' evaluations of service recovery experiences. However, this stream of justice research has evolved with little cross‐reference to emotion research. The current paper seeks to address this issue by explicitly considering the role of perceived justice in the elicitation of recovery‐specific consumer emotions. Specifically, we develop and test a model suggesting that perceived justice represents a cognitive appraisal dimension, which helps to explain the elicitation of positive and negative emotions during and/or after service recovery encounters. Furthermore, we argue that customer satisfaction with service recovery (i.e. recovery satisfaction) is based partly on cognitive (i.e. perceived justice based) and partly on affective responses. Support for the proposed model is provided through findings from an empirical study showing that both cognitive and affective influences work to create the recovery satisfaction judgement. This finding has significant implications for the theory and practice of service recovery management.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An experimental investigation of justice-based service recovery on customer satisfaction, loyalty, and word-of-mouth intentions

Service recovery is related to many important organizational outcomes such as customer satisfaction, loyalty, and profitability. Within the theoretical framework of organizational justice, an experiment using a simulated "live" service failure was used to assess the effects of justice-based service-recovery strategies on customer satisfaction, loyalty, positive word-of-mouth intentions, and negative word-of-mouth intentions. Analysis indicated that strategies including interactional justice, distributive justice, and a combination of these were equally effective in maintaining customer satisfaction, loyalty, and positive word of mouth, and minimizing negative word of mouth after a service failure. No support for the service recovery paradox, that is, increased satisfaction following service failure and recovery compared to never having a problem, was found. Satisfaction and loyalty for those in the failure conditions were equal to, although not higher than, in the no-failure control condition. Practical implications for organizational practices are discussed.     

Ethics Training,Ethical Context,and Sales and Marketing Professionals’ Satisfaction with Supervisors and Coworkers

Because organizational support for ethical conduct is valued highly in personal selling and sales management, ethics training, functioning through a company’s ethical values and culture, should prompt greater satisfaction with supervisors and coworkers because these individuals play a part in the ethical practices that impact job satisfaction in others. Using a national sample of 324 sales and marketing professionals representing a variety of organizations, this study examined the mediating role of perceived ethical context in the proposed relationships between hours of ethics training and satisfaction with supervisors and coworkers. The results indicated that the focal variables were indeed related, with either full or partial mediation identified, using two separate measures of perceived ethical context. Organizational leaders in the sales and marketing professions should consider using ethics training to institutionalize an ethical environment in sales organizations, as well as involving sales managers and other professionals in this institutionalization process. Such efforts could yield greater employee satisfaction for supervisors and coworkers.     

客户支持对一线服务员工服务绩效的影响——基于自我验证理论的视角

基于自我验证理论, 文章探讨了客户支持能否通过组织自尊的中介作用促进员工服务绩效(角色内服务绩效和主动服务客户行为), 以及员工促进定向和内控的调节作用。针对3时间点的调查得到652名员工和139名主管的配对数据进行分析, 结果显示：(1)客户支持会显著正向影响员工组织自尊, 进而显著影响他们的角色内服务绩效和主动服务客户行为; (2)员工促进定向正向调节客户支持对员工组织自尊的影响; (3)员工内控负向调节客户支持对员工组织自尊的影响。研究结果拓展了员工服务绩效的机制研究, 为组织提升员工服务绩效提供了新的思路。     

Ecological Factors Impacting Provider Attitudes Towards Human Service Delivery Reform

Although reform efforts are substantially altering the structural operations and guiding ideological framework of the human service delivery system, little empirical work has been done to systematically examine these transformations. This study examines providers' attitudes regarding two reform elements that are being widely implemented: an increased emphasis on inter-agency collaboration and a shift from a medical model service delivery philosophy, that focuses on client deficits, to one that emphasizes consumer strengths. Through survey data collected from 186 providers from 32 human service agencies in one county, the relationship between providers' perceptions of contextual support for human service delivery reform and providers' attitudes towards these initiatives is explored. The findings from this study support the importance of attending to the ecology in which we initiate system reform efforts. For both reform elements, working within contexts that are perceived as providing ideological and functional support for change was associated with positive provider attitudes towards those changes. Staffs' perceptions of the external environment played the most critical role in shaping staff attitudes. Interestingly, unique aspects of providers' work environments were related to positive attitudes towards the two different reforms. The implications of these findings for the success of human service delivery reform are discussed.     

Projection of responsiveness to needs and the construction of satisfying communal relationships

This research tested a social projection model of perceived partner responsiveness to needs. According to this model, people project their own care and supportiveness for a partner onto their perceptions of their partner's caring and supportiveness. In 2 dyadic marriage studies, participants' self-reported responsiveness to the needs of a spouse predicted perceptions of the spouse's responsiveness to the self more strongly than did the spouse's self-reported responsiveness. These projected perceptions of responsiveness, in turn, appeared to promote perceivers' relationship satisfaction. These effects were independent of individual differences in attachment, self-esteem, depression, and communal orientation. A daily-diary component suggested that people projected their own chronic responsiveness as well as their daily enacted support onto perceptions of the specific benefits received from their spouses. A 3rd study found that experimentally manipulated feelings of difficulty in recalling examples of own support provision reduced perceptions of partner responsiveness. Results suggest that projection of own responsiveness is an important determinant of perceived social support and is a means by which caring perceivers maintain satisfying and subjectively communal relationships.     

Service employees give as they get: internal service as a moderator of the service climate-service outcomes link

We lend theoretical insight to the service climate literature by exploring the joint effects of branch service climate and the internal service provided to the branch (the service received from corporate units to support external service delivery) on customer-rated service quality. We hypothesized that service climate is related to service quality most strongly when the internal service quality received is high, providing front-line employees with the capability to deliver what the service climate motivates them to do. We studied 619 employees and 1,973 customers in 36 retail branches of a bank. We aggregated employee perceptions of the internal service quality received from corporate units and the local service climate and external customer perceptions of service quality to the branch level of analysis. Findings were consistent with the hypothesis that high-quality internal service is necessary for branch service climate to yield superior external customer service quality.     

Salespersons’ empathy as a missing link in the customer orientation–loyalty chain: an investigation of drivers and age differences as a contingency

Salespersons’ customer orientation has attracted considerable attention from practitioners and researchers. By distinguishing customer-oriented attitude from behavior, this study sheds light on customers’ perceptions of salespersons’ empathy, as a missing link between customer orientation and customer-related outcomes. Noting the increasing age diversity among salespersons and customers, this study also investigates whether age differences in salesperson–customer dyads moderate the relationships of salespersons’ customer-oriented attitude and behavior with customer outcomes. Finally, this study examines salespersons’ climate perceptions as antecedents of their customer-oriented attitudes. Results of multilevel modeling with data from 164 salespersons and 405 customers reveal that salesperson empathy, as perceived by customers, is an important facilitator of the customer orientation–satisfaction relationship. When there are large age differences, salespersons’ customer-oriented attitude becomes more important for making customers feel understood by salespersons. Regarding antecedents, salespersons’ customer-oriented attitude is influenced by their perceptions of team-member exchange and age-inclusive climate.     

Employee customer orientation in manufacturing organizations: joint influences of customer proximity and the senior leadership team

Pursuing a customer-focused strategy in manufacturing organizations requires employees across functions to embrace the importance of understanding customer needs and to align their everyday efforts with the goal of satisfying and retaining customers. Little prior research has examined what factors influence employee customer orientation in manufacturing settings. Drawing on the attraction-selection-attrition model, upper-echelons theory, and contingency theories of leadership, this study investigated the joint influences of functional roles' proximity to external customers and the senior leadership team's customer orientation on employee customer orientation. Hierarchical linear modeling results based on data obtained from 4,299 employees and 403 senior leaders from 42 facilities of a global manufacturer operating in 16 countries revealed that employees occupying customer-contact roles had the highest level of customer orientation, followed by employees occupying production roles, and then by those in support roles. In addition, there was a positive relationship between the senior leadership team's customer orientation and employee customer orientation for all 3 functional roles. The positive relationship between the senior leadership team and employee customer orientation was the strongest for employees in support roles, suggesting that lower levels of proximity to external customers may create a greater need for leadership in developing employees' customer-oriented attitudes.     

Social Interdependence and Orientation Toward Life and Work1

The relationship between social interdependence and orientation toward life and work was investigated in this study. Participants were 135 dyads of Chinese employees from 4 companies. Cooperativeness was significantly related to positive indexes of orientation toward life and work, competitiveness was related to a positive orientation toward life, and a predisposition to act individualistically was related to general measures but very few of the work‐specific measures. Coworkers' ratings indicate that cooperators were perceived as being very positive and productive employees, while competitors and individualists were perceived negatively in terms of work productivity and relationships with others. The discrepancy between self‐perceptions and perceptions of coworkers indicate that competitors especially may have a self‐beneficial delusion about the effectiveness of their behavior.     

Salesperson ambidexterity and customer satisfaction: examining the role of customer demandingness,adaptive selling,and role conflict

This research investigates the effects of sales-service ambidexterity on salesperson role perceptions, behaviors, and customer satisfaction. Using a business-to-business, salesperson-customer sample, we build and test a model which highlights both the positive and negative consequences of this simultaneous goal pursuit. Specifically, while sales-service ambidexterity positively impacts adaptive selling behaviors, it also increases perceptions of role conflict among salespeople. Customer demandingness moderates these relationships. Taken together, the results provide insights for firms on how to manage their sales force to optimize both sales and service outcomes based on characteristics of their salespeople and customers.     

Doing good,doing harm,being well and burning out: The interactions of perceived prosocial and antisocial impact in service work

Service employees often perceive their actions as harming and benefiting others, and these perceptions have significant consequences for their own well‐being. We conducted two studies to test the hypothesis that perceptions of benefiting others attenuate the detrimental effects of perceptions of harming others on the well‐being of service employees. In Study 1, a survey of 377 transportation service employees and 99 secretaries, perceived prosocial impact moderated the negative association between perceived antisocial impact and job satisfaction, such that the association decreased as perceived prosocial impact increased. In Study 2, a survey of 79 school teachers, perceived prosocial impact moderated the association between perceived antisocial impact and burnout, and this moderated relationship was mediated by moral justification; the results held after controlling for common antecedents of burnout. The results suggest that perceptions of benefiting others may protect service employees against the decreased job satisfaction and increased burnout typically associated with perceptions of harming others. Implications for research on burnout, job satisfaction, positive organizational scholarship and job design are discussed.     

When supervisors feel supported: relationships with subordinates' perceived supervisor support, perceived organizational support, and performance

The authors surveyed full-time retail employees and their supervisors to investigate relationships of supervisors' perceived organizational support (POS) with subordinates' perceptions of support from their supervisors (perceived supervisor support [PSS]), POS, and in-role and extra-role performance. The authors found that supervisors' POS was positively related to their subordinates' perceptions of supervisor support. Subordinates' PSS, in turn, was positively associated with their POS, in-role performance, and extra-role performance. Beyond these bivariate relationships, subordinates' perceptions of support from the supervisor mediated positive relationships of the supervisors' POS with the subordinates' POS and performance. These findings suggest that supervisors who feel supported by the organization reciprocate with more supportive treatment for subordinates.     

Test of a service profit chain model in the retail banking sector

Research has shown that organizational subunits where employee perceptions are favourable enjoy superior business performance. The service profit chain model of business performance ( Heskett, Sasser, & Schlesinger, 1997 ) has identified customer satisfaction as a critical intervening variable in this relationship. This paper examines the relationships between organizational climate, employee attitudes, customer satisfaction, and sales performance in the retail‐banking sector. The role of customer satisfaction as a mediator between employee attitudes and sales performance is examined in a large sample of bank branches, spanning multiple organizations. Mediation effects are found, which border on significance when the sample size is large, but the effects seem to be too small to be of practical importance. It is argued that alternative formulations of the service profit chain model may provide more powerful explanations of the link between employee attitudes and business performance.     

The moderating role of consumer entitlement on the relationship of value with customer satisfaction

This research provides an extension of Oliver's (1980) expectancy disconfirmation model of satisfaction by examining the moderating role of consumer entitlement in the relationships between service quality and perceived value with customer satisfaction. Using a sample of season ticket holders of the National Hockey League franchise in the southeastern USA (n = 234), we found that consumer entitlement moderates the relationship of value with satisfaction, such that the impact of consumer‐perceived service value on satisfaction is mitigated for highly entitled consumers. That is, the positive value–satisfaction relationship is stronger for individuals low in consumer entitlement. This finding suggests that highly entitled consumers' satisfaction judgments are dominated by expectations, while less entitled consumers rely more on disconfirmation assessments. Strengths, limitations, suggestions for future research, and practical implications are offered. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Manager personality, manager service quality orientation, and service climate: test of a model

This article conceptually and empirically explores the relationships among manager personality, manager service quality orientation, and climate for customer service. Data were collected from 1,486 employees and 145 managers in grocery store departments (N = 145) to test the authors' theoretical model. Largely consistent with hypotheses, results revealed that core self-evaluations were positively related to managers' service quality orientation, even after dimensions of the Big Five model of personality were controlled, and that service quality orientation fully mediated the relationship between personality and global service climate. Implications for personality and organizational climate research are discussed.