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This study aims to explore the role of frontline service employees’ (FSEs) awareness that their job can be substituted by smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and algorithms (STARA) in their job autonomy and proactive service performance and when these relationships can be buffered. Drawing on the cognitive appraisal theory of stress, the study examined the mediating relationship between FSEs’ STARA awareness, job autonomy and proactive service performance and the moderating effects of self-efficacy and resilience on this relationship.

The authors administered two-wave online surveys to 301 South Korean FSEs working in various service sectors (e.g. retailing, food/beverage, hospitality/tourism and banking). The Time 1 survey measured respondents’ STARA awareness, self-efficacy, resilience and job autonomy, and the Time 2 survey assessed their proactive service performance.

FSEs’ STARA awareness negatively affected their subsequent proactive service performance through decreased job autonomy. The negative association between STARA awareness and job autonomy was weaker when FSEs’ self-efficacy was high than when it was low. While the authors observed no significant moderation of resilience, the author found a marginally significant three-way interaction between STARA awareness, self-efficacy and resilience. Specifically, STARA awareness was negatively related to job autonomy only when both self-efficacy and resilience were low. When either self-efficacy or resilience was high, the association between STARA awareness and job autonomy became nonsignificant, suggesting the buffering roles of the two personal resources.

Given that the measurement of variables relied on self-reported data, rater biases might have affected the findings of the study. Moreover, the simultaneous measurement of STARA awareness, self-efficacy, resilience and job autonomy could preclude causal inferences between these variables. The authors encourage future studies to use a more rigorous methodology to reduce rater biases and establish stronger causality between the variables.

Service firms can decrease FSEs’ STARA awareness through training in the knowledge and skills necessary to work with these technologies. To promote FSEs’ proactive service performance in this context, service firms need to involve them in decisions related to STARA adoption and allow them to craft their jobs. Service managers should provide FSEs with social support and exercise empowering and supportive leadership to help them view STARA as a challenge rather than a threat.

Distinct from prior research on STARA awareness and employee outcomes, the study identified proactive service performance as a key outcome in the STARA context. By presenting self-efficacy and resilience as crucial personal resources that buffer FSEs from the deleterious impact of STARA awareness, the study provides practitioners with insights that can help FSEs maintain their job autonomy and proactive service performance in times of digitalization and automation.

Grounded in the conservation of resources theory, this study proposes the mechanisms and conditions under which customer mistreatment affects employee proactive behavior. This study focuses on insomnia as a mediating mechanism and resilience as a boundary condition for the indirect effect of customer mistreatment on employee proactive behavior via insomnia.

We conducted a single survey in two phases, with a time lag of three weeks, among 302 frontline South Korean employees. The data collected from these two points were then analyzed using hierarchical regression analysis and the PROCESS macro.

The findings demonstrated that there was a significant negative relationship between customer mistreatment and employee proactive behavior, and this relationship was mediated by insomnia. Furthermore, the results revealed that resilience moderates both the effect of customer mistreatment on insomnia and the indirect effect of customer mistreatment on employee proactive behavior through insomnia.

This research primarily focuses on Korean frontline workers, potentially limiting cultural generalizability. The reliance on self-reported data may introduce common method bias. Future studies should diversify participant demographics and utilize multi-source feedback to validate findings. Grounded in the Conservation of Resource Theory, this study underscores the neglected linkage between customer mistreatment and proactive behavior, especially in frontline employees. We introduce insomnia as a pivotal mediator, deepening our understanding of why mistreatment dampens proactivity. Additionally, we spotlight the role of resilience, revealing its buffering effect against mistreatment’s adverse outcomes.

Organizations should be aware of the detrimental effects of customer mistreatment on frontline employees, as it can hamper proactive behavior, primarily through the exacerbation of insomnia. Implementing resilience-training programs can be a proactive step, offering frontline staff tools to buffer against such negative outcomes. Managers are encouraged to recognize and address instances of customer mistreatment and prioritize employee well-being, which in turn can foster a more proactive and resilient workforce, enhancing organizational performance and customer satisfaction.

This study underscores the broader societal challenge of customer mistreatment in the service sector, highlighting its ripple effects on employee well-being and proactive behavior. It sheds light on the importance of fostering respectful interactions in public and private spaces, emphasizing mutual respect between customers and service providers. Recognizing the adverse impacts of mistreatment can prompt societal discourse on workplace ethics and encourage organizations to advocate for their employees' rights. Ultimately, nurturing a culture that condemns customer mistreatment can lead to healthier work environments, benefitting both employees and society at large.

This study presents a novel approach by investigating the impact of customer mistreatment on employee proactive behavior, considering insomnia as a mediator, a perspective that has received limited attention in existing literature. Additionally, it introduces the concept of resilience as a moderator, offering fresh insights into how individual resilience levels can affect the relationship between customer mistreatment and proactive behavior. The research goes beyond traditional analyses of workplace dynamics to explore the broader implications of these interactions on personal well-being and sleep patterns. Through the application of a moderated-mediation framework, this study enhances understanding of complex organizational behavior dynamics, particularly in the service sector, and provides valuable implications for both theoretical understanding and practical application.

This paper aims to investigate the role of the service provider in determining customer satisfaction in sharing economy services. The authors sought to examine how the intrinsic and extrinsic cues along with their interactions influence customer satisfaction.

This research uses a mixed-methods design to test the hypotheses. Study 1 uses secondary data from Inside Airbnb. Study 2 uses a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subject experimental design.

Both studies support the confirmation bias perspective over the expectancy-confirmation perspective in explaining the interplay among different cues in determining customer satisfaction. In the context of Airbnb, in the absence of a Superhost badge, if hosts adopt a reactive communication style, physical presence has a greater impact on customer satisfaction compared to virtual presence.

This study extends the services marketing literature and cue utilization theory by investigating the dynamic interactions among multiple intrinsic and extrinsic service cues. It shed new light on how a combination of these cues may become additive or redundant in determining customer satisfaction. This study contributes to the services marketing literature by addressing the interactive nature of sharing economy services and the neglected role of service providers.

This paper aims to investigate how chief executive officer (CEO) responsible leadership impacts corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organization performance by considering diverse organizational climates (including ethical, service and initiative climates) as mediators and CEO founder status as a moderator.

This study analyzed survey data from 212 service organizations in China with structural equation modeling.

The results clearly established that CEO responsible leadership played a crucial role in augmenting both CSR and organization performance by shaping positive organizational climates. Notably, CEO responsible leadership significantly fostered ethical, service and initiative climates. Furthermore, an ethical climate promoted CSR and organization performance, whereas service and initiative climates specifically enhanced organization performance. Additionally, responsible CEOs with founder status exhibited a higher propensity for enhancing ethical, service and initiative climates within service organizations.

Service organizations should take measures to build CEO responsible leadership, especially for CEOs with founder status. Furthermore, service organizations should motivate employees to reach consensus on ethical conducts, superior service and proactive approach to work.

First, the findings on CEO responsible leadership’s effects on CSR and organization performance extend the research on responsible leadership outcomes. Second, this paper adds to responsible leadership literature through exploring the mediating effects of ethical, service and initiative climates. Finally, the finding on the moderating role of founder CEOs offers a novel perspective regarding the boundary condition of the effects of CEO responsible leadership.

This study aims to identify factors that can improve customer service performance by verifying the relationships between these factors, such as customer orientation, firm-specific resource integration, transactive memory system and service innovation capability. In other words, this study identifies the determinants of customer service performance from the perspective of the resource advantage theory of competition.

This research was conducted through an online survey of hotel managers and supervisors in Indonesia, which produced 327 questionnaires that could be processed with a response rate of 70.6%. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data and test the hypotheses with the help of AMOS 23.

This study confirms that firm-specific resource integration can improve customer service performance, with the antecedents of the former being customer orientation and a transactive memory system.

This research was conducted with a sample of three-, four- and five-star hotels, which have different conditions. In future research, it would be interesting to compare how such hotels over a larger geographical area behave in improving customer service performance using the investigated variables.

This research provides additional insight into the resource advantage theory of competition, namely, that integrated enterprise-specific resources are good antecedents for innovation and customer service performance.

This study explores the moderated mediation effect, wherein collective mindfulness attenuates the hypothesised relationship between customer incivility, service sabotage and psychological well-being and is supported by the conservation of resources (COR) theory.

Multiwave and multisource data were collected from 315 frontline employees (FLEs) working in 32 Indian bank branches. Using HLM 7.00, the authors tested a multilevel model in which branch-level collective mindfulness moderated the association amongst individual-level customer incivility, psychological well-being and service sabotage.

A higher level of collective mindfulness had a profound cross-level effect on the association between customer incivility and service sabotage through psychological well-being.

Distinct from prior research that focussed on individuals' personal resources as a buffer against customer incivility, the authors' study identified branch-level collective mindfulness as a boundary condition that helps employees experiencing customer incivility decrease service sabotage. By uncovering a branch-level variable that reduces the negative impact of customer incivility on service sabotage, the authors' study offers valuable insights for banks to enhance customer service at their branches.

This study aims to investigate the effects of entrepreneurial leadership on service innovation in the hospitality industry and examine the mediating effects of market-sensing capability and knowledge acquisition. Additionally, the study explores the moderating role of competitive intensity in the relationships between market-sensing capability, knowledge acquisition and service innovation, drawing on the dynamic capability theory and resource dependence theory.

The data for this study were obtained from 322 employees and 137 leaders working in 103 hotels in Vietnam, using a time-lagged approach. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling in SPSS Amos 28.

The results of this study reveal a significant positive association between entrepreneurial leadership and service innovation, with mediation effects observed through both knowledge acquisition and market-sensing capability. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that competitive intensity moderates the association between knowledge acquisition and service innovation.

The results of this study provide implications for hospitality firms to cultivate entrepreneurial leadership through leadership training and development programs and enhance their dynamic capabilities (i.e. market-sensing capability and knowledge acquisition) to allow them to survive and develop in a competitive market.

This study advances entrepreneurial leadership research in the hospitality context by identifying mediating and moderating mechanisms that translate entrepreneurial leadership into hospitality firms’ service innovation.

This study aims to understand the impact of negative supervisor gossip on job performance among South Indian hotel employees. The focus is not just on the direct influence, but also on the mediating role of feedback-seeking behaviour (FSB) and the moderating effects of the agreeableness trait.

Through purposive sampling, data was garnered from South Indian hotel employees. Comprehensive analyses were performed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The analysis shows that FSB plays a mediating role in the positive relationship between negative supervisor gossip and job performance. In addition, the influence of gossip on FSB and subsequent job performance was more pronounced for employees with high agreeableness.

This research underscores the complex interplay between negative supervisor gossip and job performance, revealing that such gossip can catalyze FSB process in employees. It suggests that under certain conditions, negative gossip can be transformed into a constructive force that enhances job performance, challenging traditional perceptions of gossip in the workplace.

The findings underscore the importance of understanding the effects of workplace dynamics, like supervisor gossip, on employee behaviour and performance. Recognizing the influence of individual personality traits, such as agreeableness, can guide management strategies for fostering a productive work environment.

This research sheds light on the intricate interplay between negative supervisor gossip, FSB and agreeableness, offering a novel perspective on their combined impact on job performance. It not only enriches the existing literature on workplace communication but also broadens the understanding of the role of personality traits in shaping employee responses and outcomes.

Guided by the cognitive-affective system theory of personality (CAPS), this study aims to investigate the parallel mediating effects of cognitive and affective cynicism on the relationship between illegitimate tasks and employees’ adaptive performance. It also proposes growth need strength as a moderating variable for relationships between illegitimate tasks and employees’ adaptive performance.

Using a time-lagged design, data were gathered from 330 frontline hotel employees in China.

The authors found that the presence of illegitimate tasks is negatively associated with employees’ adaptive performance, this relationship being mediated by cognitive and affective cynicism. Growth need strength weakens the negative impacts of cognitive and affective cynicism on employees’ adaptive performance. In addition, the indirect effect of illegitimate tasks on employees’ adaptive performance via cognitive and affective cynicism is stronger for employees with lower levels of growth need strength.

Hotel managers must heed the negative impact of illegitimate tasks. Furthermore, they should underscore the importance of promoting a harmonious and positive organizational culture and atmosphere. Naturally, hotel managers must also establish effective communication with employees, assisting them in fostering a desire for excellence in their work.

This study provides valuable insights for the hospitality industry by investigating how illegitimate tasks hold sway over hotel employees’ adaptive performance. The study uses a moderated dual-path model to uncover the mechanisms behind this impact and the influence of boundary conditions, thereby expanding the understanding of the topic.

On the basis of social identity theory, the purpose of this study is to simultaneously examine how social-based identity (i.e. organizational identification and supervisor support) and personal-based identity (i.e. work-related characteristics and job embeddedness) influence employees’ service sabotage.

By using a sample of 685 employee–customer dyads, this study investigated whether the cross-level moderating roles of organizational identification and supervisor support can activate linkage between work-related characteristics and job embeddedness.

The results of this study indicated that job embeddedness mediates the multiple cross-level effects of organizational identification, supervisor support and work-related characteristics on service sabotage. Moreover, work-related characteristics influence job embeddedness more positively in higher than lower levels of organizational identification and supervisor support.

This study provides a valuable approach to effective management practices, helps to clarify identification at work and expands perceived external prestige for hospitality companies.

These findings support that identity in organizations can be recognized as one of the fundamental concepts that influence individual psychological traits, capabilities, bodily attributes, group classifications and organizational effectiveness.