Fuel the service fire: The effect of leader humor on frontline hospitality employees’ service performance and proactive customer service performance
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
ISSN: 0959-6119
Article publication date: 16 April 2020
Issue publication date: 23 May 2020
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing from self-determination theory, this study aims to examine the effect of leader humor on frontline hospitality employees’ service performance and proactive customer service performance (PCSP) via harmonious passion (HP) for work with employee neuroticism as the moderating mechanism.
Design/methodology/approach
This study controlled for the nested effect and tested all the hypotheses with Mplus 7.0 using a time-lagged three-wave survey of 232 Chinese supervisor–subordinate dyads.
Findings
The results indicated that leader humor promotes frontline hospitality employees’ service performance and PCSP by enhancing their HP. Furthermore, neuroticism was shown to strengthen the direct impact of leader humor on employee HP and its indirect impact on employee service performance and employee PCSP through HP.
Originality/value
First, this research contributes to the leader humor literature through exploring its impact on the service performance and PCSP of frontline hospitality employees. Second, this research develops a new framework to explain the leader humor-employee service outcomes relationship using self-determination theory. Finally, the focus on the moderating role of neuroticism helps to explain the “when” question of leader humor.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The first two authors contributed equally to this work, and the authorship is listed alphabetically.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71472116, 71672108, 71902111); Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 20720151128); National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 18BJL040); MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (Grant No.17YJC630011).
Citation
Wu, L.-Z., Ye, Y., Cheng, X.-M., Kwan, H.K. and Lyu, Y. (2020), "Fuel the service fire: The effect of leader humor on frontline hospitality employees’ service performance and proactive customer service performance", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 32 No. 5, pp. 1755-1773. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-06-2019-0534
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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