Search results

Considering that little is known on market orientation at the individual level, this study investigates the effects of individual market orientation on proactive service behavior, and subsequently, sales performance among business-to-business salespeople. Based on social cognitive theory and competing values framework, this paper also examines the interaction effects of organizational culture on the link between individual market orientation and proactive service behavior.

The study sampled 539 business-to-business salespeople from 18 corporate banks in Kuala Lumpur by using a questionnaire survey.

The results of the study show that adhocracy culture strengthens the effects of information acquisition on proactive service behavior, while at the same time weakens the impact of coordination of strategic response on the same outcome. Meanwhile, rational culture displayed negative contingent effects of information dissemination on proactive service behavior.

Given its link to sales performance and proactive service behavior, banks should motivate their employees to embrace market orientation as individual competencies. This research outcome will aid managers in developing strategies and inculcating the right culture to ensure the market-oriented behaviors are internalized and transpired into positive outcomes.

This paper contributes to the enrichment of the existing market orientation frameworks by offering underlying mechanisms (cultural environment and proactive service behavior) through which market-oriented behaviors contribute to the sales performance of business-to-business salespeople within the financial service industry. It is also among the earliest studies that examine the influence of individual market orientation and organizational culture on proactive service behavior.

This study aims to investigate the configurations that drive employee service recovery. Rather than analyzing the net effects of individual antecedents of service recovery, which is the common approach in the literature, this study uses a configurational approach to investigate how five antecedents (customer service orientation, rewards, teamwork, empowerment and customer service training) combine to yield employee adaptive and proactive service recovery behaviors.

The study collects responses from 90 frontline employees through an online survey. Building on configurational theory, the authors developed and empirically validated four research propositions by using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis.

Three equifinal configurations of managerial practices result in either employee proactive or adaptive service recovery behaviors. Two of these three configurations result in both adaptive and proactive behaviors. In addition, the findings show that two out of the three configurations that lead to proactive behavior in service recovery also lead to the simultaneous existence of proactive and adaptive behaviors in service recovery. None of the sufficient configurations require the presence of all managerial practices. These results underscore that managers do not have to act on every single managerial intervention area to promote service recovery.

The study advances the knowledge on the antecedents of employee behavior in service recovery by investigating how these antecedents combine to yield different recipes for developing either employee adaptive or proactive behavior in service recovery.

The findings provide insights for managers into the different combinations of practices that can be used to develop employee proactive or adaptive behavior in service recovery.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that relies on a configurational approach to understand the combinations of managerial practices that result in employee proactive and adaptive behaviors in service recovery.

This study aims to apply the elaboration likelihood model to explore when, how and why robotic services increase customer engagement.

A field survey and two experiments were conducted to examine the proposed theoretical framework.

The robots’ proactive behavior encouraged customers to trust and engage with them. The influence of this behavior on customer engagement increased for highly interaction-oriented customers or when the reputations of companies were poor.

The findings can inform the efficient management of customer–robot interactions and thus support firms’ relationship marketing objectives.

The literature on robotic services has recognized that robots should be proactive to ensure positive customer experiences, but few studies have explored the relational outcomes of proactive robotic services. The authors’ in-depth empirical examination thus extends research into the role these services can play in fostering customer engagement.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating roles of two variables of psychological empowerment and affective commitment of frontline service employees (FSEs) in the relationship between transformational leadership (TFL) and proactive customer service behavior (PCSB) of FSEs.

In a rigorous research design, the authors obtained data from 225 FSE-supervisor dyads working in a large Indian IT services organization. Analysis was done using structural equation modeling approach in LISREL 8.72.

As expected, affective commitment and psychological empowerment of FSEs fully mediated the positive relationship between TFL and PCSB of FSEs, even after controlling for age and tenure. The specified model explained 24 percent of the variance in PCSB of FSEs.

As FSEs act as the face of a service organization, therefore their proactive behavior plays an important role in customer satisfaction. Enactment of TFL by supervisors fosters PCSB of FSEs. Therefore, organizations must develop TFL skills in their managers to psychologically empower FSEs and get them committed to a superior service delivery through PCSB.

The study is one amongst the few studies to explore the relationship between TFL and proactive behavior in the customer service domain. Additionally, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the explanatory mechanisms through which transformational leaders foster PCSB of FSEs.

Drawing from transactional stress and conservation of resource theories, this study untangles the relationship between power outage, patient incivility, job stress and proactive service performance. Further, this study also explores the mediating role of patient incivility and job stress.

A questionnaire-based survey was used, and data were collected from 275 healthcare professionals working in various public hospitals in Pakistan through convenience sampling. Structural equation modeling (SEM) via Smart PLS was used for data analysis.

Results revealed that power outage has significant positive impact on patient incivility and patient incivility has significant direct effect on job stress. Job stress has significant negative relationship with proactive service performance. Findings also confirmed that patient incivility mediates the relationship between power outage and job stress, and job stress mediates the relationship between patient incivility and proactive service performance.

This study helps the health administrators to think about the service standards of the public hospitals. Implications of this study are not limited to health sector. This study is useful for other service sectors where performance of employee affected by power outage. In addition to this, the current research helps to conduct research in other developing and underdeveloped countries which also face the problem of power outage.

This study marks the first step toward establishing power outage as an organizational behavior construct by demonstrating that power outage impacts significantly on proactive service performance. This study also explored the relationship between job stress and proactive service performance which was also not explored before.

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.

The study aims to examine the role of initiative climate as a resource caravan passageway in engaging employees and developing a proactive frontline service workforce to identify the mechanisms whereby scarce resources efficiently yielding the desired outcomes can help organizations improve productivity and gain competitive advantage, thereby helping clarify the leadership–performance relationship in service organizations.

The study employed a quantitative research design with a cross-sectional survey conducted among frontline hospitality employees in Malaysia. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to examine the hypothesized relationships.

The initiative climate is significant as a resource caravan passageway to transmit the positive impact of interpersonal leadership onto the engagement and proactive performance of frontline hospitality employees in whom initiative climate and employee engagement sequentially mediated the relationship between interpersonal leadership and proactive service performance.

The online data collection procedure conducted through LinkedIn and Facebook and cross-sectional, self-reported survey method are significant limitations of the current study.

The findings of the study will aid in developing organizational interventions for an engaged and proactive frontline service workforce, as interpersonal leadership can positively impact the engagement and proactive behavior of frontline service employees via initiative climate. Therefore, hospitality managers should value interpersonal leadership and initiative climate as coexisting organizational resources.

The study shows the significance of initiative climate in the relationships between interpersonal leadership, employee engagement and the proactive performance of frontline service employees.

The purpose of this study is to explore a balanced understanding of the relationship between perceived occupational stigma and social workers’ proactive behaviors in China. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, this study explored the mediating role of threat and challenge appraisals, as well as the moderating role of trait resilience.

Data were collected using a time-lagged research design. The hypotheses were examined using a sample of 338 social workers in China.

Perceived occupational stigma is appraised as both a challenge and a threat simultaneously. Challenge appraisal positively mediated perceived occupational stigma and proactive behavior, whereas threat appraisal negatively mediated this relationship. Trait resilience moderated the effect of threat appraisal, suggesting that perceived occupational stigma was appraised as a threat when trait resilience was lower (rather than higher), which then reduced social workers’ proactive behaviors.

This study enriches the literature on perceived occupational stigma by identifying the relationship and mechanism of perceived occupational stigma-proactive behaviors and a boundary condition from the theoretical perspective of cognitive appraisals. It demonstrates both the positive and negative aspects of perceived occupational stigma as appraised by social workers in relation to an important workplace outcome of proactive behaviors. In addition, it offers a fresh approach by exploring perceived occupational stigma from the perspective of social workers.

This study expands on research related to the dark side of personality traits by examining how individual dark personality affects proactive work behaviours. Specifically, the authors consider paranoia as a dark personality trait and propose that it negatively relates to perceived psychological safety and indirectly affects frontline employees' (FLEs) willingness to report customer complaints as well as their extra-role customer service. The authors also posit that empathetic leadership is a focal, contextual factor that mitigates the impact of paranoia on perceived psychological safety and, consequently, the willingness to report customer complaints and engage in extra-role customer service behaviour.

The model was tested on a sample of 252 FLEs using process macro (Hayes, 2017) and AMOS. Data were collected from FLEs working in different hospitality organisations using a time-lagged design; supervisor-rated employee extra-role customer service was also measured.

The authors found that FLEs with a paranoid personality trait had a lesser sense of psychological safety at work, which reduced their willingness to engage in proactive work behaviours. However, this negative effect was mitigated by the presence of an empathetic leader.

The results are important because research has yet to determine which actions managers should take to counter the negative effects of dark personalities in the workplace.

Co-creating value with customers is important for companies in order to gain a competitive advantage. Based on resource theory and social interaction theory, the purpose of this paper is to explore the customer participation mechanism in co-creating value and test the effects of different types of customer resources and multi-level customer–firm interaction on customer value.

Data were collected from tourism industry. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that both the customer’s human resource and relationship resource have a significantly positive effect on customers’ utilitarian value and hedonic value through reactive and proactive interactions. Reactive interaction has a full mediating effect on the relationship between relationship resource and proactive interaction, whereas proactive interaction has a full mediating effect on the relationship between reactive interaction and hedonic value.

This study explores the mediating effects of customer–firm interaction between customer resources and customer value. This paper contributes to the understanding of customers’ motivations for, and the processes of, participating in value co-creation.