Empowering leadership and the influence of a humorous work climate on service employees' creativity and innovative behaviour in frontline service jobs

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe and explain the relationships between empowering leadership and a humorous work climate; and service employees' creativity and innovative behaviour in frontline service jobs.

Design/methodology/approach
A model of causal relationships is presented, along with formulated hypotheses. The data were collected with a survey answered by frontline service employees in hotels.

Findings
The findings indicate a strong relationship between frontline cognitive creativity production of novel ideas and the behavioural implementation of these ideas into their respective work role. Moreover, the empirical findings indicate that both empowering leadership and a humorous work climate are able to trigger frontline service employees' creativity. In addition service employees' creativity appears to be a mediating variable in the relationship between empowering leadership, a humorous work climate, and the service employees' innovative behaviour.

Research limitations/implications
This study limits its focus on two factors: the stimulation of service employees' creativity and innovative behaviour in frontline service jobs, both of which offer opportunities for further research.

Practical implications
This study has indicated that both leadership practice and work climate play important roles in explaining service employees' creativity and innovative behaviour. In particular, managers should be aware of their empowering practices, as well focusing on the degree of a humorous work climate. An important practical managerial implication from the findings is to take humour into account and consequently to develop and implement strategies followed by necessary actions to manage humour in an appropriate manner in service organizations.

Originality/value
The reported study contributes to enhancing the knowledge of the roles of empowering leadership and a humorous work climate for service employees' creativity and innovative behaviour in frontline service jobs.

Full text

Empowering leadership and the
influence of a humorous work
climate on service employees’
creativity and innovative
behaviour in frontline service jobs
Terje Sla
˚tten
Department of Tourism, Lillehammer University College,
Lillehammer, Norway, and
Go
¨ran Svensson and Sander Sværi
Oslo School of Management, Oslo, Norway
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe and explain the relationships between empowering
leadership and a humorous work climate; and service employees’ creativity and innovative behaviour in
frontline service jobs.
Design/methodology/approach – A model of causal relationships is presented, al ong with formulated
hypotheses. The data were collected with a survey answered by frontline service employees in hotels.
Findings – The findings indicate a strong relationship between frontline cognitive creativity
production of novel ideas and the behavioural implementation of these ideas into their respective work
role. Moreover, the empirical findings indicate that both empowering leadership and a humorous work
climate are able to trigger frontline service employees’ creativity. In addition service employees’
creativity appears to be a mediating variable in the relationship between empowering leadership,
a humorous work climate, and the service employees’ innovative behaviour.
Research limitations/implications – This study limits its focus on two factors: the stimulation of
service employees’ creativity and innovative behaviour in frontline service jobs, both of which offer
opportunities for further research.
Practical implications – This study has indicated that both leadership practice and work climate
play important roles in explaining service employees’ creativity and innovative behaviour. In
particular, managers should be aware of their empowering practices, as well focusing on the degree of
a humorous work climate. An important practical managerial implication from the findings is to take
humour into account and consequently to develop and implement strategies followed by necessary
actions to manage humour in an appropriate manner in service organizations.
Originality/value – The reported study contributes to enhancing the knowledge of the roles of
empowering leadership and a humorous work climate for service employees’ creativity and innovative
behaviour in frontline service jobs.
Keywords Norway, Hotel and catering industry, Employee behaviour, Workplace,
Innovative behaviour, Creativity, Humour, Leadership, Service, Frontline
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The literature focusing on services has largely emphasized the fundamental role
of employees in service organizations (Chebat et al., 2003; Wirtz et al., 2008).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1756-669X.htm
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International Journal of Quality and
Service Sciences
Vol. 3 No. 3, 2011
pp. 267-284
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1756-669X
DOI 10.1108/17566691111182834

Onsøyen et al. (2009) refer to the importance of frontline employees and describe their
interaction with the organizations’ customers as “the core activity” (p. 82). Moreover,
Lashley (2008) suggests that service organizations should build its activities on the
primacy of host and guest transactions as a means of building customer satisfaction,
loyalty, and competitive advantage. Consequently, because of the important role of
frontline employees in service organizations, they should be at the centre of the
managerial tasks.
Recently, there has been the suggestion in the literature that managers in service
organizations should encourage their frontline employees to be creative (Wong and
Ladkin, 2008). The main argument for this suggestion is that creativity can
fundamentally contribute to innovation and in turn to organizational survival and
competitive advantage (Amabile et al., 1996; Shalley and Gilson, 2004). Additionally, it is
likely that creativity can help frontline personnel to offer more tailored solutions to
customer problems, which can be a challenge due to the heterogeneity of customers in
service encounters (Parasuraman et al., 1985). Wong and Ladkin (2008) emphasize this
point using the increased global competition and focus on quality products in the hotel
service industry. Because of the demands set by performance excellence in service and
global competition, these authors state that “there is a need for hotels to be innovative in
their approach to improving service delivery” (p. 426). This view clearly should motivate
mangers to broaden their scope in relationship to frontline employees in service
organizations, from just a narrow focus on operational routine work to a broader focus
where managers motivate and stimulate frontline service employees’ creativity and
innovative behaviour. Consequently, the leader should try to create a culture and
practices that are able to trigger creativity and innovation at the individual level
(Edvardsson et al., 2000).
This article focuses on an individual level of creativity and innovation, and
examines creativity and innovation specifically from frontline service employees’
perspective. Recently, there has been call for more research related to creativity and
innovation linked to customer service (Wong and Ladkin, 2008). This study is limited
to and examines the impact of two factors that are able to trigger service employees’
creativity and innovation at the individual level, namely:
(1) the impact of empowering leadership; and
(2) the impact of a humorous work climate.
Subsequently, the current study both responds to a neglected area in service research
and makes an overall contribution to the focus on innovation in services, which is often
described as “being neglected and marginal” (Miles, 2000, p. 371). While this study also
makes a theoretical contribution, it is also practical, since it may advance managers’
understanding in service organizations’ of what drives individual creativity and
innovation from frontline service employees’ perspective.
Research objective
This paper specifically examines whether empowering leadership and humorous
climate are linked to frontline service employees’ creativity, which in turn is linked to
frontline service employees’ innovative behaviour. To our knowledge, the research
in this field has not hitherto studied these relationships. The objective is therefore to
describe and explain the relationships between:
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(1) empowering leadership and humorous work climate; and
(2) service employees’ creativity and innovative behaviour in frontline service jobs.
The first part of this article discusses briefly the different approaches of studying
innovation in services and the chosen approach for this study. This part also includes a
discussion and definition of employee innovative behaviour. The second part discusses
how creativity, empowering leadership, and a humorous work climate are linked to
employee innovative behaviour. The third part covers the method and the results of the
empirical study, and, the article concludes with a discussion of this study’s
implications, which points out both the limitations and suggestions for future research.
Approaches in the field of studying innovation in services
Although the literature on innovation in services is sparse, there seems to some agreement
among researchersthat using and implementing theories of innovation developedonly on
the basis of industry observations are inadequate for studying innovations in service
organizations (Gadrey et al., 1994). There is also an ongoing debate whether it is valid to
employ for serviceinnovation the same concepts and tools that are used for innovation in
manufacturing organizations (Dejer, 2004). Coombs and Miles (2000) suggest three ways
of studying service innovation. Specifically, they distinguish between:
(1) “an assimilation approach”;
(2) a “demarcation approach”; and
(3) a “synthesis approach”.
The first one treats services as being similar to manufacturing; the second approach
argues that service innovation is clearly different from innovation in manufacturing; and
the third suggests that service innovation brings to the forefront hitherto neglected
elements that are relevant for both manufacturing and service industries. Of these three
aforementioned approaches, the demarcation and assimilation approaches are dominant
in empirically based analyses (Dejer, 2004). This study has followed the demarcation
approach in order to study the drivers of innovation. There are two main reasons for this
choice. First, the empirical setting for the current study is the hospitality industry, within
the so-called service sector. As hospitality is defined as a service sector, we follow the
logic within the field of service research, which has a long tradition of regarding services
as being fundamentally different from manufacturing (Parasuraman et al., 1985).
The second reason relates to our focus on innovation at the individual level. Specifically,
we are interested in the drivers to service employees’ innovative behaviour within a
specific work role, which refers to service employees’ having a frontline job. Moreover,
service research in generalput much emphasis on the significant role of frontline-service
employees for service organizations (Lashley, 2008; Onsøyen et al., 2009; Zeithaml et al.,
2008). Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that the demarcation approach has the
best potential for contributing to our understanding of innovative behaviour in frontline
service jobs. Following this line of reasoning, we now turn to the characteristics of
frontline service jobs and the definition of the concept of innovative behaviour.
Frontline service jobs and innovative behaviour
The word “frontline” is an apt description of customer-contact employees. As the word
clearly indicates, they have an important role because they are at the “front”,
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meaning that these people are the organization’s representatives to the customers.
Zeithaml et al. (2008) emphasize the frontline service employees by stating that these
employees:
.are the service;
.are the organizations in the customers’ eyes;
.are the brand; and
.are the marketers.
Clearly, the performances of frontline service employees are evaluated at different levels
in the customer’s eyes. The overall customer evaluation or judgement of frontline service
employees is often labelled as “the moment of truth”. Evaluations of the outcome of such
customer experience can be either positive or negative, the former being associated with
customer satisfaction, the latter with dissatisfaction. These evaluations are in turn
related to the customer’s willingness to revisit or to talk positively about this
organization, or both, in the future. Frontline service employees are thus critical to
customers’ evaluations of the service encounter.
One important characteristic of frontline service jobs is heterogeneity
(Parasuraman et al., 1985). Heterogeneity reflects the fact that no customer is exactly
alike; each has unique needs and demands. This challenge implies thatservice employees
must understand customers’ needs and adapt their behaviour in their interactions with
them, depending on the frontline perception and understanding of each individual’s
customer-service script, that is, the individual customer’s expectations of what constitute
“good service”. A significant determinant of whether frontline performance is satisfactory
in the customer’s eyes is the degree to which this performance is congruent with the
individual’s customer-service script. Consequently, frontline service employees must be
constantly focused on the challenge of how to behave when interacting with each
customer, and the customer experiences this behaviour as what can be labelled as
personalized service (Surprenant and Solomon, 1987). Chung and Schneider (2002)
describe this challenge as “serving multiple masters”, an expression that emphasizes the
complexity in which frontline service employees work when seekingto serve the customer
in the best possible way.
It is reasonable to assume that treating each customer as a unique person is
demanding for frontline service employees. As already indicated, frontline service jobs
are not about standardization but rather personalization or customization of services.
Zeithaml et al. (2008) stress this point by defining services as “deeds, processes, and
performances provided or co-produced by one (entity or) person for another (entity or)
person” (p. 4). More specifically, according to this definition, the content inherent to
frontlines service jobs has three elements. First, frontline service jobs have certain
processes where customer and frontline service employees interact. Second, they feature
the deeds (e.g. methods) that frontline service employees use to serve the customers.
Third, frontline service jobs are about the frontline service employees’ performances to
the organization’s customers. It is reasonable to assume that the element of processes
inherent to frontline service points to the most critical element for successfully satisfying
customers. The element of process, as already indicated, relates to frontline service
employees’ ability both to understand and interpret the needs of customer and to act on
the basis of this knowledge, and thereby to customize service in such a way that
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it contributes positively to customer experience, or at least falls within the customer’s
zone of tolerance (Berry et al., 1993). Consequently, in the process of the customization of
services, there is a potential for the frontline service employees to act in new and
innovative ways in order more completely to customize or personalize the service
offered. It is reasonable, then, to link the concept of innovation to the element of process
inherent to frontline service jobs. Interestingly, the kind of innovation related to the
processes is one of the five concepts of innovation that Schumpeter (1934) claims to
contribute to economic development. According to Schumpeter (1934), a process
innovation is the introduction of a new method of production, including a new way of
handling a commodity commercially (p. 66).
Although, this study applies the “demarcation approach” (Coombs and Miles, 2000)
to service innovation, we acknowledge that it is possible to apply, with some
modifications, the basic idea of process innovation to the concept of innovative
behaviour employed in this study. This study labels the innovation linked to the process
of serving the customer as innovative behaviour. More specifically, innovative
behaviour refers to the application of novel ideas in the work role (West and Farr, 1989;
West, 1989). It is important to note that innovative behaviour is the application of an idea
that is novel and helps frontline service employees’ to customize their service offered to
customers, and such consequently to contribute potentially to the overall performance of
the frontline service job. Accordingly, innovative behaviours have some similarities
with what Gallouj and Weinstein (1997) label “ad hoc innovation”, that is, an innovation
produced during the very process of providing the service and consists of contributing
novel solutions to individual customers on the basis of accumul ated expertise. Moreover,
as a general rule, innovative behaviour is to a large extent linked to individual
customers, and thus it cannot be standardized for customers in general, although some
of the procedural elements can be reproduced in part for other customers.
Similar to Schumpeter’s (1934) idea that procedural innovation contributes to
economic development, we may assume that innovative behaviour (inherent in the
process) in frontline service jobs have the potential to contribute positively to service
organizations’ performance. To achieve innovative behaviour, however, organizations
need to inspire creativity among frontline service employees. The following section
discusses service employee creativity as an important precondition for innovative
behaviour in service organizations.
Service employees’ creativity and innovative behaviour. This study supposes a direct
link between service employees’ creativity and their innovative behaviour. In the
literature, creativity appears as an important factor related to innovation (Amabile et al.,
1996; Madjar and Walters, 2008). For example, Van de Ven (1986, p. 592) states that the
“foundation of innovation ideas is creativity”. Similarly, Amabile et al. (1996) suggests
that “all innovation begins with creative ideas”. Consequently, the concepts of creativity
and innovation are clearly related. Because of this close relationship, the terms of
“creativity” and “innovation” are sometimes used interchangeably and at times
indiscriminately in the literature (Ford, 1996; Scott and Bruce, 1994). However, while
innovative behaviour is the application or implementation of novel ideas in the work
role, creative engagement is more fundamental in its nature as it focuses on the input to
innovative behaviour.
Creativity refers to the production of novel ideas (Mumford and Gustafson, 1988).
Cognitive engagement is a cognitive construct and not a behavioural one, as is in the case
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of innovative behaviour. More specifically, creative engagement refers to involvement in
creative processes of production of novel ideas. This process embraces one or more
cognitive aspects such as:
.problem identification;
.information searching and encoding; and
.idea and alternative generation (Reiter-Palmon and Illies, 2004).
Moreover, creative engagement and its inherent creative cognitive processes are
manifested as a part of the interaction when frontline service employees organize a
solution to a given customer problem (Gadrey et al., 1994). This reasoning is in line with
Csikszentmihalyi’s (1999), who states that “creativity is constructed through an
interaction” (p. 314). Interestingly, much of the previous research on creativity has
employed an interactional approach to understand creativity (George and Zhou, 2001;
Oldham and Cummings, 1996). This study theorizes that frontline employees who lack
creativity in his or her interactions with customers are limited in performing innovative
behaviour. Moreover, frontline employees who are minimally engaged in creativity
produce ideas that are more or less routine or standard and far from novel. In contrast, it
is likely that creative frontline employees will produce ideas that are more novel and less
similar to routine or standard ones. Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that
creativity helps frontline service employees to be more innovati ve in his or her behaviour
when offering a service to customers. Accordingly, it is proposed:
H1. Service employees’ creativity is positively related to service employees’
innovative behaviour in frontline service jobs.
Drivers for service employees’ creativity. The discussion above suggests that
service employee’s creativity is strongly related to innovative behaviour in frontline
service jobs. However, it is also important to understand which factors lead to service
employees’ creativity and innovative behaviour in frontline service jobs. This study
examines two such factors:
(1) empowering leadership; and
(2) a humorous work climate.
Empowering leadership and creativity. Empowerment has in the literature been
emphasized as an essential factor related to service excellence (Babakus et al., 2003;
Pfeffer, 1994; Sla
˚tten, 2010). Although empowerment has been linked to service
excellence, there seems to be a lack of research on the linkage between empowering
leadership and creativity from frontline service employees’ perspective. To our
knowledge no previous study has empirically examined and tested this relationship.
However, empowering leadership has been suggested as a leadership style able to affect
service employees’ creativity. Zhang and Bartol (2010), for example, describe
empowering leadership as “leadership approach with considerable promise of
influencing employee creativity” (p. 109).
Empowering leadership is a leadership style where employees’ perceive his or her
managers as someone who gives the freedom and ability to make independent decisions
and commitments (Forrester, 2000). This definition is closely related to concept of job
autonomy which Hackman and Oldham (1980) have identified as one (out of four) core
characteristics associated with any job. Moreover, this definition clearly emphasizes
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employee self-determination or decision-making autonomy, where the service employee is
able to make decisions and implement actions without direct supervision or intervention
(Junget al., 2003). In this study we assume that empowering leadership is linked to service
employees’ creativity. This idea is supported in the literature on creativity, which has
emphasized the perception of autonomy and participation in decision-making as
important factors for creative outcomes among employees (Amabile et al., 2004).
Moreover, delegation through empowerment is linked to employees being more
cognitively active (Chebat et al., 2003). According to Tschohl (1997), “true empowerment
means employees can bend and break rules”. Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that
appropriate empowering leadership is positively linked to service employee’s engagement
in the creative processes involved in the production of novel ideas. Accordingly, on the
basis of the above discussion, we propose the second hypothesis:
H2. Empowering leadership is positively related to service employees’ creativity
in frontline service jobs.
Humorous work climate and creativity. Work climate has for a long time been
emphasized as an important factor for service organizations. For example, Schneider
(1980) has characterized the climate in service organizations as “crucial” (p. 52).
Schneider (1990) has proposed that the concept of work climate embraces three aspects
of organizations:
(1) processes;
(2) practices; and
(3) behaviours.
Climate is often described as the members’ surface experience and perceptions of the
organization (Zhou and Shalley, 2008). Consequently, the climate construct (parallel to its
meteorological metaphor) relies on the organizational members reporting how they
experience the “climatic conditions” in their organizations (e.g. the leader is bureaucratic,
colleagues are friendly and cooperative, etc.). When they report the “climatic conditions”,
they do this both subjectively and objectively as they interpret aspects of their
organizations in relationship to their well-being ( James et al., 1990). In this study we
focus on frontline service employees’ experiences and perceptions of a humorous work
climate in their organization. Specifically, humorous work climate focuses on two
aspects. The first relates to whether one uses humour oneself when communicating with
other organizational members. The second aspect relates to whether one’s place of work
is characterized by humour. It is assumed that these two aspects reflect a person’s overall
perception of their environment in relation to humorous work climate.
Humour has previously been linked to employees’ creativity. For example, in an
extensive study, Ekvall (1996) empirically tested ten climate dimensions and their
linkages with product innovation between groups of ten organizations. The findings
clearly revealed that those organizations that reported higher humorous climate profiles
were significantly more innovative than those that reported lower humorous climate
profiles. In the comparison of the ten climatic dimensions, the findings reveal that the
humorous climate dimension correlated highest with product innovation. Although
there are examples of studies of humour, the literature is most often conceptual, and does
not empirically examine the value of humour for (service) organizations. As Holmes
(2007) has noted, “there has been little research that focuses on the use of humour among
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professional in particular workplaces” (p. 518). Moreover, it seems that the literature
most often has studied humour in relationship to team or group effectiveness (Romero
and Pescosolido, 2008) leadership style and performance (Hughes and Avey, 2008) or
product innovation (Ekvall, 1996). Clearly, there is a gap in the literature if we consider
the important role that a humorous work climate plays in relation to creativity and
innovation from frontline service employees’ perspective.
Although previous research has often overlooked the frontline service employees’
perspective when studying the effect of humour on creativity, there are three arguments
supporting the existence of a positive relationship. First, from our reading of the very
few empirical studies, such as Ekvall’s (1996), we suggest that a humorous work climate
is strongly encourages people to engage in creative thinking, which leads to innovations.
Second, as mentioned earlier, the literature has conceptually emphasized the essential
role of humour for innovation in organizations. For example, Miller (1996) characterizes
humour as “tools for improving [...]innovation” (p. 36). Moreover, in line with this
reasoning, Benjelloun (2009) suggests that “humour leads to [...]creativity” (p. 312).
The third argument relates to the implicit functions of humour. Besides the potential
positive impact humour has on the organizational member, humour is, when
appropriately used, closely associated with positive emotional states, such as
playfulness, joy, and freshness (Benjelloun, 2009; Ekvall, 1996). There are findings in
the literature that have found links between a person’s positive emotional state and both
creativity and innovation. The broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 2001) within
positive psychology supports this linkage, for example. According to Fredrickson
(2003), “positive emotions can broaden people’s individual modes of thinking [...] and
make members more creative” (p. 174). Consequently, on the basis of this discussion,
we assume a positive relationship between humorous work climate and service
employees’ creativity in service organizations, and propose a third hypothesis:
H3. A humorous work climate is positively related to service employees’
creativity in frontline service jobs.
Research model
Based on the previous discussion, Figure 1 shows the research model and provides a
summary of the variables and hypotheses guiding this study. As shown in Figure 1,
the research model proposes that empowering leadership and a humorous work
climate are linked to service employees’ creativity in frontline service jobs. In addition,
it proposes that service employees’ creativity has an effect on service employees’
innovative behaviour in frontline service jobs.
Methodology
Participants
It is reasonable to assume that frontline service employees in hospitality organizations
are expected to deal with a number of requests by customers (Karatepe and Uludag,
2008). Consequently, hospitality organizations provide an appropriate setting for
studying innovative behaviour in frontline service jobs. We defined frontline service
employees as those who in their work role have daily or regular contact with customers.
Specifically, the frontline service employees included in this study were restricted to
those working in hotels.
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Procedure
The hotels included in this study were selected in part because of their geographical
location. The general manager of each hotel helped to identify the names of relevant
frontline service employees. We then contacted each of them individually and asked
them to participate in the survey. If the answer was positive, that frontline service
employee received a questionnaire. All were informed about the importance of the
study and that their responses would be treated strictly confidentially.
Questionnaire and measures
This study employed a structured questionnaire with most of the items having been
developed from different sources in the literature. One scholar evaluated the questionnaire
for its readability and appropriateness. Moreover, the questionnaire was pre-tested. On
the basis of thorough comments from the expert and from those who participated in the
pre-test, we re-worded a few questions for the sake of improving validity and clarity. The
collected data from pre-test was not used in the subsequent analysis.
The source of each construct and their items were as follows:
.Innovative behaviour. The items were borrowed and modified from Janssen
(2000). The item used were “I try out innovative ideas in my work role”.
.Creativity. We borrowed and modified the items from Zhou and George (2001).
The following is an example of item used: “I contribute with creative ideas to
solving different tasks at my work”.
.Humorous work climate. We developed these items specifically for this study. The
following two were used: “Humour is characteristic of this place of work” and
“I use humour as a part of my communications with organizational members”.
.Empowering leadership. We borrowed and modified the items from Babakus et al.
(2003). The following is an example of an item we used: “I get encouraged to
solve different tasks single-handedly”.
Subjects responded to seven-point Likert-scales for all variables. These measures were
set at (7) strongly agree and (1) strongly disagree.
Figure 1.
Research model
Creativity
Empowering
leadership
H1
Innovative
behaviour
H2
H3
Humorous
work climate
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Sample characteristics
In total, 72 hotel frontline service employees participated in the survey. The sample
consisted of 59 per cent female, and the mean age of the respondents was 32 years.
Moreover, 50 per cent of the sample had a degree from higher education. Their working
arrangements were predominantly permanent and full-time (53 per cent).
Analysis and results
Before performing a regression analysis to test the proposed hypotheses, we checked
all items for normality. Furthermore, the convergent properties of formative variables
were tested by principal component extraction and varimax rotation. The results
showed satisfactory convergent properties for the variables used in the study. Table I
shows the descriptive statistics, means, standard deviations, and correlations of all
constructs.
Regression analysis
In the first regression analysis, we tested the dependent variable of employee innovative
behaviour against the independent variable of employee creativity. In the second
regression analysis, the dependent variable of employee creativity was tested against
the variables of empowering leadership and humorous work climate. Table II shows the
results.
As can be seen in the Table II, the results show that employees’ creativity positively
relates to employees’ innovative behaviour, and this supports H1. Specifically, with
respect to the objective of this study, employee creativity explains about 58 per cent of
the variance in employees’ innovative behaviour. Moreover, Table II shows the results
from the test of the antecedents to employees’ creativity. The
b
-coefficients for the two
independent variables of empowering leadership and humorous work climate are
470 and 0.410, respectively, thus supporting hypothesis H2 and H3. In summary, this
study finds support for all three tested hypotheses.
Construct Min. Max. Mean SD aIB C EL HC
Innovative behaviour (IB) 1 7 4.76 1.33 a 1.00
Creativity (C) 1 7 5.15 1.21 0.806 0.762 *1.00
Empowering leadership (EL) 1 7 5.09 1.21 0.797 0.768 *0.658 *1.00
Humorous work climate (HC) 1 7 5.56 1.18 0.808 0.622 *0.622 *0.456 *1.00
Notes: *Correlations are significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed);
a
Only one item for this construct
Table I.
Descriptive statistics,
means, standard
deviations, and
inter-correlations for all
major variables
Standardized regression coefficients
Predictors Creativity Innovative behaviour
C 0.762 *
EL 0.470 *
HC 0.410 *
Overall F41.83 *92.59 *
Adj. R
2
0.549 0.574
Notes: *p,0.001; C, creativity; EL, empowering leadership; HC, humorous work climate
Table II.
Regression results of
testing the consequences
of employees’ creativity
on employees’ innovative
behaviour and of testing
empowering leadership
and humorous work
climate as antecedents to
employees’ creativity
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The tested hypothesized relationships suggest that we can label one variable related to
innovative behaviour intentions as a mediating variable. Specifically, this study
examined the mediating effects of service employees’ creativity. In order to examine the
mediating effects of service employees’ creativity, this study applied the procedures
recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986). First, according to Baron and Kenny (1986),
in order for mediation to be established, one should relate the antecedents to the
mediating variables. Second, the mediating variables should relate to the outcome
variables. As can be seen in Table II, these two criteria are fulfilled for service employees’
perceived service quality. Third, again according to Baron and Kenny’s (1986)
recommendation, the mediating variable should diminish the effect of the antecedents on
the outcome variable. This is the case; the results in Table III (which compares models 1
and 2) show that the presence of service employees’ creativi ty diminishes the influence of
empowering leadership and humorous work climate.
On the basis of the different tests, the findings reveal that the conditions for mediation
are met. In summary, the results show that service employees’ creativity in frontline
service jobs appears to be a mediating variable in the relationship between the two
antecedent variables (empowering leadership and humorous work climate) and service
employees’ innovative behaviour.
Discussion
Generally, this study makes a contribution to the call for more research related to
innovation in services (Miles, 2000), specifically, on the topic of the relationship
between creativity and innovation in a specific work role. This study has focused on:
(1) empowering leadership and humorous work climate;
(2) employee creativity; and
(3) the relationship between these factors and employee innovative behaviour.
Specifically, the two independent variables (empowering leadership and humorous
work climate) had a direct effect on employee creativity, which in turn affected
employee innovative behaviour. Consequently, it seems that employee creativity and
innovative behaviour relate closely to both employees perception concerning
leadership and work climate in service organizations. Consequently, this study
contributes to our understating of the critical factors related to the people element of
the services marketing mix (Zeithaml et al., 2008).
Standardized regression coefficients
Innovative behaviour
Predictors Model 1 Model 2
EL 0.634 *0.457 *
HC 0.293 *0.154 **
C 0.367 *
Overall F65.23 *55.80 *
Adj. R
2
0.647 0.708
Notes: *p,0.001, **
p,0.05; C, creativity; EL, empowering leadership; HC, humorous work
climate
Table III.
Results of employee
creativity as a mediating
variable between the
antecedent variables and
the consequent variable
Empowering
leadership
277

In this study employee creativity refers to the production of novel ideas (Mumford and
Gustafson, 1988). The findings reveal that employee creativity exerts a significant
influence on employees by contributing to their innovative behaviour. To these authors’
knowledge, no previous study has empirically examined the direct link between
creativity and innovative behaviour from a frontline employee perspective. However,
the results support the suggestions in the literature that stress the importance of
creativity for innovation (Madjar and Walters, 2008; West et al., 2004). Moreover, the
findings support the idea that creative ideas make a substantial contribution to
innovation (Amabile et al., 1996).
The literature has suggested that leadership approaches are effective means for
encouraging creativity. However, it seems that previous research on leadership and
creativity has most often focused on such leadership factors as controlling versus
supportive leadership style (Amabile et al., 2004) or different aspects of transformational
leadership style (Zhou and George, 2003). According to Zhang and Bartol (2010),
“empowering leadership has been surprisingly absent from consideration” (p. 118).
Consequently, the role of empowering leadership in relation to creativity has been an
open question (for the single exception, see Zhang and Bartol, 2010). To answer this open
question, this study has both theoretically modelled and empirically examined the
linkage between empowering leadership and employee creativity. The findings reveal
that empowering leadership plays a fundamental role for employee creativity in
frontline jobs. Although no study (with one exception) has empirically examined the
relationship between empowering leadership and employee creativity, the results from
this study are generally congruent and supported within the frame and ideas of the
leader-member exchange theory (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995).
According to Schneider (1980) work climate is “crucial” in service organizations (p. 52).
This study has focused on employees’ perception of the existence of what is labelled as a
humorous work climate and employee creativity. A humorous work climate referredto an
employee’s use of humour in his or her communication and the general use of humour in
one’s service organization. To these authors’ knowledge, no previous study has
empirically examined the linkage between humorous work climateand creativity from a
frontline service job perspective and thus makes a unique contribution to the service
literature in this respect. The findings reveal that a humorous work climate is an
important driver to employee creativity. It is notable that the effect of humour is almost
comparable to the effect of empowering leadership. Consequently, in line with
Schneider’s assertion, we can state that humorous work climate is “crucial” or plays an
important role for employee creativity. The results from this study support previous
research by Ekvall (1996), who found that those organizations that had higher humorous
climateprofilesreportedhigherlevels of product innovation. Moreover, the resultssupport
the broaden-and-build theory in positive psychology (Fredrickson, 2001).
Managerial implications
Service employees in frontline service jobs are a critical asset for service organizations
due to the interactive nature of service delivery. Given the importance of frontline
service employees as a competitive advantage, managers should emphasize
organizational conditions that positively cultivate and promote service employees’
creativity and innovative behaviour. This study offers two practical implications for
managers of service organizations.
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First, in cultivating and promoting service employees’ creativity and their innovative
behaviour, leadership does matter. Specifically, empowering leadership is the factor
most influential in driving service employees’ creativity. Although empowering
leadership is undoubtedly positively linked to service employees’ creativity, managers
should be aware of some possible negative aspects of leadership that emphasizes
one-sided empowerment. Specifically, managers should keep in mind what Forrester
(2000) has labelled as the “one-size-fits-all empowerment approach” (p. 69). Managers
should think carefully about whom to empower and to what degree; in short,
empowering leadership needs to be properly implemented. Implicitly, this means that
managers should offer and encourage their frontline service employees to acquire the
knowledge, tools, and appropriate guidelines to build the necessary confidence in their
specific work roles. Consequently, managers should consider three aspects before
deciding on the level of empowering leadership in their respective organizations.
Specifically, managers should consider the characteristics of the individual member, the
organization (e.g. high versus low centralization and formalization), and the work task
(e.g. repetitive tasks versus unstructured tasks). These factors can either facilitate or
limit the success of managers’ efforts to empower the frontline service employees in the
service organizations.
Second, in cultivating and promoting frontline service employ ees’ creativity and their
innovative behaviour, work climate does matter. Specifically, an important managerial
implication from this study is take humour seriously. As pointed out above, the
empirical findings reveal that service organizations’ humorous work climate is strongly
related to frontline service employees’ creativity. It is reasonable to assume that most
managers believe it is difficult to manage humour in their organizations, since it is a way
of communicating that often is indirect, ambiguous, situation-specific, and (socially)
contextual (Lang and Lee, 2010). Although humour can be difficult to grasp, there are a
possible action strategies that can provide valuable insights. A natural and rather easy
step is to ask the frontline service employee about their perceptions of the actual
existence of humour in the organizations. Both qualitative techniques (e.g. focus groups)
and quantitative techniques (e.g. quest back) can be useful tools when collecting
information about the presence of a humorous work climate. A focus on a humorous
work climate requires the posing of three critical questions:
(1) Is humour a natural part of how the organizational members communicate with
each other?
(2) Do organizational members generally experience the use of humour in a
positive or negative manner?
(3) What type of humour is most prevalent in the organization?
The last question relates closely to the second one, because it helps to identify the type
of humour according to the functions they serve (e.g. liberating humour versus
controlling humour). The answers to these questions make it possible for the manager
to take the necessary actions that can maintain the existence of a positive humorous
work climate, if at happens to be the case. However, in the case of a negative humorous
climate, managers must gradually try to manoeuvre the service organization towards a
more positive humorous work climate. In these situations, it important for managers to
have a long-term and a realistic view on the process of change, for the change from one
climate to another does not happen quickly. However, those managers who take
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humour into account may be able to promote a work climate in their service
organization that is able to promote frontline service employees’ creativity and their
innovative behaviour.
Conclusions, limitations and suggestions for further research
This study has reported the findings on service employees working in frontline service
jobs in hotels. A research model was introduced of the selected drivers to frontline
service employees’ creativity and innovative behaviour. This study has examined the
role of empowering leadership and a humorous work climate in relation to creativity and
innovative behaviour. The results indicate that empowering leadership and a humorous
work climate have a strong positive effect on service employees’ creativity. Moreover,
service employees’ creativity mediates the relationship between empowe ring leadership,
humorous work climate, and service employees’ innovative behaviour. Previous
research has rarely studied the relationships between these constructs. Subsequently,
this study makes a significant contribution to address in part the current void. Yet, there
are limitations, which offer opportunities for further research.
A more comprehensive approach would to study the significance of humour in the
workplace offers a research opportunity due to the current study’s limited approach.
Although this approach contributes to some insight on the role of humour, we suggest that
future research should focus on the effects of different types of humour. For example, it
would be valuable to examine Lang and Lee’s (2010) three humour types. According to
them, liberating humour is the kind that facilitates the freeing of old mindsets and the seeing
of things in new light; stress-relieving humour helps to reduce both tension and stress in the
workplace; and controlling humour refers to acts that are actually veiled commands or
reprimands, which exert subtle control over the behaviour of others. A focus on these three
types of humour styles would offer more detailed knowledge about the factors of a
humorous work climate that drive service employees’ creativity and innovative behaviour.
Second, this study focused on the role of one aspect of leadership style. Future
research could examine leadership styles. One aspect is leader encouragement of service
employees’ creativity, which is a construct that refers to the extent of a leader’s emphasis
on being creative (Zhang and Bartol, 2010). This emphasis has in the literature been
associated with employees’ effort striving to be creative (Scott and Bruce, 1994).
Moreover, future research could take a closer look at transformational leadership and
other aspects mentioned in the leader-member exchange. Until now no one, to our
knowledge, has applied a frontline perspective for studying these aspects of leadership
and examined their role for creativity and innovative behaviour.
Third, this study did not account for individual difference variables. An interesting
suggestion for future research would be to take these into consideration. One example of
an individual factor would be creative self-efficacy. According to Tierney and Farmer
(2002), who were the first to introduce the construct of creative self-efficacy, because it
“may be a key personal attribute for creativity in the workplace” (p. 1137), creative
self-efficacy is the belief that one has the ability to produce creative outcomes. Clearly,
the creative self-efficacy construct is highly relevant for a focus on creativity and
innovative behaviour from a frontline perspective. Addressing this issue, among others
mentioned, would contribute to our theoretical understanding and would also
demonstrate important practical implications for optimizing managerial practice in
service organizations.
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About the authors
Terje Sla
˚tten is Associate Professor in the Department of Tourism at Lillehammer University
College, Norway. His research interests include service quality, service management, creativity
and loyalty. He is currently doing research on the role of emotions in service encounters, both from
an employee and customer perspective. His work has been published in several journals such as
Marketing Intelligence & Planning,International Journal of Service Industry Management,
Managing Service Quality, Australasian Marketing Journal and European Business Review.
Terje Sla
˚tten is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: Terje.Slatten@hil.no
Go
¨ran Svensson is Professor at Oslo School of Management, Norway. He is also Professor at
Halmstad University, Sweden and Honorary Professor at Deakin University, Australia. He is
regular Guest Professor at National Chung Hsing University in Tai Chung, Taiwan. He holds a
PhD at the School of Economics and Commercial Law, Go
¨teborg University, Sweden. Furthermore,
he is a committed member of the international research community as journal editor, numerous
editorial boards and scholarly/research networks and associations. He is a frequent author of
international journal articles, international conference contributions and engaged as a book
author. His research agenda consists of various research subjects and he has published in areas
such as: business ethics, leadership, logistics, marketing, sustainability, public sector
management, quality management, academic journals and publishing. More details about him
may be found at: www.nordinavia.se
Sander Sværi works as Assistant Professor and Head of Department at Oslo School of
Management. He is a PhD student in Service Marketing at Karlstad University, and has his main
field of research within service, consumer behaviour and tourism.
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