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This study explored the relationships between a leader’s self‐awareness of his/her leadership behavior and the attitudes and performance of subordinates. Following previous research, leaders were categorized as overestimators, underestimators or in‐agreement. Results indicate that subordinates of underestimators reported significantly higher levels of supervisory and job satisfaction than did subordinates of those who were in‐agreement, and both subordinates of underestimators and those in‐agreement reported significantly higher levels of supervisory and job satisfaction than did subordinates of overestimators. No significant differences were found between the self‐awareness categories and transfer intent. Finally, subordinates of underestimators and those in‐agreement achieved a significantly higher level of productivity than did subordinates of leaders who overestimated their leadership ability.

Although research on customer service representatives (CSRs) in call centers has increased in recent years, little attention has been paid to the growing use of contingent (temporary) CSRs in this setting. This study investigated the role that human capital plays in explaining the job satisfaction and performance of contingent and regular CSRs. Consistent with our expectations, contingent CSRs had less human capital but higher job satisfaction than regular workers. In addition, we found that human capital mediated the relationship between work status and job satisfaction. Contrary to expectations, no performance differences were found between contingent and regular CSRs. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Research has shown that managing client participation can add value to the delivery of quality services. While several control mechanisms have been proposed in the literature for the management of complex service relationships, they generally fail to account for two realities of service provider/client relationships ‐‐ information asymmetry and uncertainty. This paper proposes a new mechanism, “professional concern,” and suggests that its various dimensions ‐‐ provider authority, social affiliation, client role accountability and objective attitude ‐‐ provide a framework for managing knowledge‐based service relationships and optimizing decision‐making processes for delivering quality services.