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This study aims to explore how and when managers' job crafting contributes to their service performance. The first objective of the research was to assess the mediating relationship between franchised restaurant managers' job crafting, work engagement and service performance. Its second objective was to examine the moderating effect of organizational control systems on the job crafting–work engagement relationship.

The authors administered paper-and-pencil surveys to 235 franchised restaurant managers in South Korea. The authors tested their hypotheses via Process 3.5 macro and bootstrapping.

The results confirmed the mediating effect of work engagement on the relationship between job crafting and work engagement. Furthermore, this relationship was more pronounced when the headquarters used a high level of outcome-based control systems and a low level of behavior-based control systems.

Distinct from studies that have examined service employees' job crafting, this study uncovers the role of managerial job crafting in service performance. The findings contribute to service theory and practice by providing novel insights into the interplay between managerial job crafting and organizational control systems.

Due to volatile changes and crises in the business environment, frontline service employees (FSEs) are faced with increasing work stressors in the new service marketplace. Of these, customer incivility has been found to negatively affect their work outcomes. This study aims to examine the moderating effect of experiencing an imminent environmental crisis (i.e. the COVID-19 pandemic) on the relationship between customer incivility, work engagement and job crafting, using pre- and postpandemic samples.

The authors administered two-wave surveys to 276 FSEs (prepandemic sample) in July and October 2019 and to 301 FSEs (postpandemic sample) in March and April 2020.

Moderation analyses showed that the relationship between customer incivility, work engagement and job crafting varied between FSEs who experienced the pandemic and those who did not; the relationship was stronger for the postpandemic than the prepandemic sample. There was a positive relationship between work engagement and job crafting; it was weaker for the postpandemic sample.

The deleterious effect of customer incivility exacerbated after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic; however, the authors did not explore why the pandemic aggravated the negative effect. The mechanism underlying the moderating effect of the pandemic and the effect of more diverse types of incivility should be explored in future research.

It is critical to provide FSEs with instrumental and emotional support to cope with the crisis brought on by the pandemic. Service organizations must monitor customers’ uncivil behaviors to identify their causes and develop interventions to improve service quality. Furthermore, service organizations are advised to enhance the coping capabilities of FSEs by using diverse interventions, such as emotion regulation training, debriefing sessions, short breaks and job crafting.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to reveal the moderating effect of the pandemic on the relationships between customer incivility, work engagement and job crafting, using pre- and postpandemic samples. This study offers necessary insights to improve FSEs’ engagement at work and enhance their job crafting in the new service marketplace.

The purpose of this study is to identify and explore what leadership characteristics constitute humanistic leadership in the South Korean context. Moreover, this study examines how these leadership characteristics are connected to Korean culture.

Based on the information gathered from semi-structured interviews and other sources, including books, case study articles and news articles, this study captures a more comprehensive perspective of Mr. Kook-Hyun Moon, the former CEO of Yuhan–Kimberly.

The key characteristics of Mr. Moon's humanistic leadership that are identified in this study are: respect for all mankind, benevolence (seeking the greater good), sincerity (building trusting relationships with stakeholders) and continuous learning and innovation (developing self and others). These key characteristics set Mr. Moon apart from other leaders and are connected to the fundamental values and philosophies of Korean culture.

This study contributes to the current leadership literature by identifying and exploring Mr. Moon's humanistic leadership characteristics that enable him to gain respect and contribute to communities and society in the South Korean context. This study also finds that the humanistic leadership characteristics of Mr. Moon reflect three major attributes of Korean culture: the ideology of the Dangun mythology, the principle of Neo-Confucianism in Korea and jeong – an indigenous cultural concept in Korea (these attributes will be discussed in detail in the South Korean values and philosophies section). Such reflection suggests that investigating how humanistic leadership characteristics are connected to local cultural roots is important to enhance the understanding of humanistic leadership.