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Article
Publication date: 12 March 2019

Jaewon Yoo and Yeonsung Jung

The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of the service orientation on bank-employee behaviors; to empirically examine the moderating role of the productivity orientation…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of the service orientation on bank-employee behaviors; to empirically examine the moderating role of the productivity orientation in an effort to explain when and why the simultaneous pursuit of the service orientation and the productivity orientation negatively affect the financial service employee psychological empowerment; and to explore any contextual factors that can suppress or facilitate the bank–employee behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach

A single cross-sectional descriptive design was used for this study. Purposive sampling was used to identify the respondents who were bank employees in financial-service-sector organizations in South Korea. To analyze the data, a confirmatory-factor analysis (CFA) using LISREL 8.5 was employed. Conditional process modeling was performed to test the moderated mediation and the moderated-mediation hypotheses.

Findings

The results showed a significant relationship between the service orientation and the frontline-employee behaviors, thereby establishing the psychological empowerment as an intervening mechanism. The findings also suggest that the moderating role of the productivity orientation weakened the positive effect of the service orientation on the bank-employee psychological empowerment. This research identifies the positive interactive effect of the customer power upon the psychological empowerment of the employee extra-role behavior. The task interdependence enhanced the link between the psychological empowerment and the employee in-role behavior.

Research limitations/implications

The specific service sector that was chosen is retail banking. The cross-sectional nature of the data is considered a limitation; furthermore, the self-reported nature of the completed questionnaires might have resulted in the common method bias. Further research should be conducted to collect longitudinal data from other service sectors to verify the hypothesized relationship. Extensions into other sectors that differ in terms of the customer power degree and the task interdependence level could lead to a contingency framework that shows if and how the hypothesized linkages can be changed according to the contextual factors.

Practical implications

For managers who want or need to pursue the strategic goals of the service orientation and the productivity orientation simultaneously, this study offers useful insights into the management of the strategic dilemmas that stem from service-setting multi-goal pursuits from an employee perspective. Second, the significant positive relationships that were observed between the values of the overt customer power and the extra-role behavior suggest that constraining and influential customer behaviors are likely to produce a structured working environment that encourages the bank-employee extra-role behavior. Third, the results also suggest that the task structure (task interdependence) may influence the employee in-role behavior. Thus, managers should encourage an organizational sense of belonging for their employees and an understanding of the essential nature of the employee work role in terms of a competitive organizational performance.

Social implications

In banking circumstances, stickiness on product orientation by cutting cost will deteriorate the level of customer service and will then reduce customer revenues. In this case, disgruntled staff and unhappy customers perceive that their interests are being sacrificed in the pursuit of greater productivity. In this situation, revenues may fall faster than the reduction in costs. Thus, it may be proven that the cost of the dual demands from these two orientation types outweigh the benefit. Bank executives may perceive organizational productivity orientation as being an easier and more evident tool to use for reducing cost, especially with the existence of tough competition. Critically, in addition to poor service quality, this study indicates that there is a side effect of productivity orientation practice. Thus, managers should use caution in the concurrent employment of the two types.

Originality/value

This study identified the reason for the negative service outcomes that result from the simultaneous pursuits of the service orientation and the productivity orientation. From an employee perspective, it might be proven that the costs of the dual-service and production-orientation demands may outweigh the benefits. Thus, this proposed research model, in which the frontline autonomy acted as a key mediator and the customer power and the task interdependence were salient moderators, has been shown as crucial in the transmission of the impacts of the service and the quality orientation, and in the blunting of the service-productivity trade-offs that are due to the employee’s perceived multi-goal orientations.

Details

International Journal of Bank Marketing, vol. 37 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-2323

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 October 2021

Jin Ho Jung, Jaewon Yoo and Yeonsung Jung

The aim of this paper is to test how leader–member exchange (LMX) interacts with procedural justice climate to influence three types of employee motivation (i.e. achievement…

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to test how leader–member exchange (LMX) interacts with procedural justice climate to influence three types of employee motivation (i.e. achievement striving motivation, status striving motivation and communion striving motivation). Furthermore, this study empirically examines the indirect effects of LMX on customer loyalty through employee motivation and service orientation.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used a matched sample of 188 retail service employees and 376 customers from a large shopping mall in South Korea to test the empirical model. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and bootstrapping method were employed to test a series of proposed hypotheses.

Findings

The results show that LMX significantly enhances customer loyalty through two motivational dimensions and service orientation. In particular, this study shows that achievement and status striving motivation are directly related to service orientation, but communion striving motivation does not affect customer-focused service attitude. In addition, procedural justice climate serves as a critical moderator and synergistically interacts with LMX to influence achievement and status striving motivation.

Research limitations/implications

This study offers new insight regarding how managers' roles in both individual (leader–member exchange) and organizational (procedural justice climate) level affect different forms of retail service employee motivation and service orientation, which in turn, result in customer loyalty.

Practical implications

The results suggest that when retail service employees perceive procedural fairness at retail stores, they are more motivated to work hard to complete their assignments and achieve their sales goals in conjunction with leader support. Therefore, managers must provide a clear guideline and procedure regarding salary raises and performance evaluations or engage in thorough discourse on such matters with employees prior to announcements of such decisions. Moreover, as retail service employees interact with customers in the frontline, and how they serve customers plays a key role in creating customer loyalty. Managers should encourage retail service employees to engage in service-oriented behaviors.

Originality/value

The results suggest that LMX facilitates more formal task-related motivation to achieve either tasks or status while it is less related to relationship-building motivation, which is a unique contribution of this study. The results offer better understating of how LMX differentially leads to specific types of employee motivation in the existing literature.

Details

Journal of Service Theory and Practice, vol. 32 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2055-6225

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