Transforming the role of frontline service employees for cross-selling

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine how a manager’s learning goal orientation (LGO) influences frontline service employees’ (FSEs’) engagement in cross-selling activities. Such engagements must exist before they can achieve service–sales ambidexterity. Drawing on achievement goal theory and the meaning-making perspective, this study predicts that learning-oriented managers encourage and foster FSEs’ cross-selling behaviors by facilitating their ability to derive positive meaning from the cross-selling initiative. They do so by conveying high-quality information about the initiative and related changes to individual employees, as well as by encouraging the formation of a collective perception of open communications within the work unit.

Design/methodology/approach

Hierarchical (nested) data from 39 managers and 357 FSEs of a major logistic service company are used to test the hypotheses.

Findings

As predicted, a manager’s LGO relates positively to FSEs’ cross-selling activities, through sequential mediations of the hypothesized communication mechanisms and employees’ benefits-finding.

Originality/value

A manager’s LGO is an important antecedent of FSEs’ cross-selling behaviors. This study establishes this influence and clarifies the processes by which it occurs. This study also extends previous research by specifying the important role of employees’ meaning-making, which prompts them to adopt cross-selling, as a mediator of the multilevel communication influences that result from their managers’ LGO.

Citation

Yen, H.R., Hu, P.J.-H. and Liao, Y.-C. (2021), "Transforming the role of frontline service employees for cross-selling", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 35 No. 4, pp. 428-441. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-02-2020-0071