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Service Climate Effects on Customer Attitudes: An Examination of Boundary Conditions
... Table 9 lists the information and measurement items for all study variables, while Table 10 summarizes the correlations and descriptive statistics, including AVEs and composite reliabilities. (Dietz et al., 2004;Schneider et al., 1998) The quality of support I get from other employees and management allows me to excel at providing superior customer service. ...
... Table 19 lists the information and measurement items for all study variables, while Table 20 summarizes the correlations and descriptive statistics, including AVEs and composite reliabilities. (Dietz et al., 2004;Schneider et al., 1998) .913 Ich versuche die Sichtweise des Kunden zu verstehen,während ich eine Serviceleistung erbringe. ...
... 15 Bitte geben Sie an, inwiefern Sie den folgenden Aussagen zu Ihrer Arbeit zustimmen. (Dietz et al., 2004;Schneider et al., 1998) ...
Delivering excellent service offerings is critical to physical retailers’ long-term success. In this context, frontline employees (FLEs) have become the key players in creating value for customers and represent a key opportunity, particularly for service-focused retailers, to strengthen the future of physical retail. Facing changing consumer behaviors due to the aftermath of COVID-19 and increasingly fierce competition from established offline and new online competitors, physical retailers struggle to stay competitive without cutting payroll expenses for FLEs. In response to this dilemma, scholars recognized the importance of FLEs customizing their services to customer needs to enhance service interactions at the physical point of sale (POS) in so-called adaptive service offerings. Understanding the factors that affect adaptive service offerings, specifically in retail, is important because physical retail is heavily disrupted by the progressive shift from product to customer experience. As a result, retailers must educate FLEs on why and how to adapt service offerings and provide the right work settings. Consequently, physical retailers need to reengage with their customers by positioning themselves as providers of inspiring shopping experiences to increase their share of wallets, cross-selling, and profitability. FLEs are one important source of such inspiring shopping experiences. This dissertation contributes to a better understanding of how retailers can promote FLE inspiration by extending Wilder et al.’s (2014) study and testing a more comprehensive framework of adaptive service offerings that considers psychological mechanisms, namely FLE inspiration. My findings can help physical retailers train their FLEs more effectively. Building on the qualitative data from 293 FLEs in the DACH region (Study 1), two online survey studies were conducted, in the UK (Study 2) with 248 FLEs, and with 525 FLEs from the German-speaking DACH area (Study 3) to test this new model. The findings showed that FLE inspiration significantly mediates the effect of retailers’ perceived service climate and FLEs’ structural empowerment on three FLE variables, namely empathy, anticipation, and creativity. These three FLE-level variables precede adaptive service offerings. Most importantly, the combined findings of the three studies provide strong support for FLE inspiration mediating the relationship between FLEs’ immediate work environment and their attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. These findings offer managers practical insights into how they can inspire their FLEs and improve service offering adaptation.
... In service pseudorelationships, these interactions occur repeatedly within a unit but with different employees and customers. These repeated, frequent individual encounters with multiple customers are blended by employees to become shared unit-level constructs (Barger & Grandey, 2006;Dietz, Pugh, & Wiley, 2004;García-Murillo & Annabi, 2002). Differences in a unit's leadership, the manager's interpretation and implementation of service systems, and coworkers and customers further contribute to variability across branches. ...
... Employees must follow organizationally mandated routines and workflow structures when engaging with customers, whereas customers have considerably more latitude in the affect, behavior, and information they transmit (Grandey, Dickter, & Sin, 2004). Second, more frequent service interactions produce stronger effects (Dietz et al., 2004;Mayer, Ehrhart, & Schneider, 2009). Customers have fewer service encounters of shorter durations compared to employees, who must interact with customers all day. ...
... mean rwg 2012 ϭ .91). These ICC estimates are consistent with past empirical research on customer perceptions (e.g., Dietz et al., 2004;Hausknecht et al., 2009) and fairly common in practice (e.g., Glick, 1985). The lower ICC1 values are also consistent with the pseudorelationship nature of service in this context, as well as the fact that the bank held managers and branch employees accountable to their service scores. ...
Although the service-profit chain posits that employees and customers are interrelated at the unit level (Heskett, Sasser, & Schlesinger, 1997), most theory and practice give primary emphasis to the employee. In this study, we sought to draw attention to the relatively neglected influence that customers may collectively have on employees. Specifically, we examined how collective customer perceptions of service quality relate to collective employee job satisfaction, service climate, and collective turnover (voluntary and involuntary). Using a sample of 294 bank branches, 1,975 employees, and 52,920 customers, modeled at the branch level over 2 years, we found that collective customer perceptions of service quality produced a stronger effect on collective employee job satisfaction and service climate than vice versa. We also provided the first tests demonstrating that collective customer perceptions of service quality significantly and independently influence collective voluntary turnover, even while simultaneously modeling collective employee job satisfaction and service climate. Further, we showed that the effects of collective turnover (voluntary and involuntary) are primarily related to collective customer perceptions and service climate, but through different paths. Although the turnover base rates are modest, these empirical findings highlight the role that collective customer perceptions can have in shaping collective employee attitudes, climate, and turnover and, thus, should be considered and replicated in future theory and research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
... ~ 392 ~ These centers provide a sense of ease, allowing women to exercise without the uneasiness or embarrassment they might feel when performing cardio exercises in the presence of the opposite sex. Women often fear being judged or mocked for their bodies in unisex settings, but in the presence of other women, they feel more at ease and supported., [57] and Dietz, Pugh, and Wiley (2004) [119] highlighted that in settings with high levels of customer interaction, the service climate plays a significant role in shaping customer experiences. Whether it is a unisex fitness center or a women-only facility, women consistently demand a comfortable service climate. ...
... ~ 392 ~ These centers provide a sense of ease, allowing women to exercise without the uneasiness or embarrassment they might feel when performing cardio exercises in the presence of the opposite sex. Women often fear being judged or mocked for their bodies in unisex settings, but in the presence of other women, they feel more at ease and supported., [57] and Dietz, Pugh, and Wiley (2004) [119] highlighted that in settings with high levels of customer interaction, the service climate plays a significant role in shaping customer experiences. Whether it is a unisex fitness center or a women-only facility, women consistently demand a comfortable service climate. ...
This study aims to conceptualize service quality and customer satisfaction in fitness services from women's perspectives, particularly within the Indian context. Using a qualitative approach, the research integrates findings from an extensive literature review and qualitative interviews conducted with 57 women across three major cities of an Indian State. The study identified seven factors of service quality: workout facilities, ambiance quality, assurance, responsiveness, convenience, sincerity, and comfortable service climate. These dimensions reflect women's unique expectations from gym service providers, emphasizing the importance of culturally sensitive and comfortable service delivery. Findings reveal that customer satisfaction is predominantly driven by health and psychological benefits, while factors like gym attendance, social environment, proximity, fee adjustments, and positive work life balance enhance satisfaction. Satisfaction was reported as the feeling of contentment and fulfilment of needs and was positive, even when service quality was perceived as adequate rather than exceptional. This highlights that service quality and customer satisfaction are distinct constructs in fitness services, with the outcome quality of achieved health and psychological benefits playing a critical role in satisfaction. This study also found that women prioritize safe, comfortable, and women-only spaces (If available), as well as respectful interactions and flexibility in services, reflecting socio-cultural influences unique to the Indian context. This research contributes theoretically by proposing a culturally contextualized service quality model and practically by providing cost efficient recommendations for fitness centers to enhance service delivery and customer retention. These include focusing on staff training, fostering sincerity, and creating inclusive environments tailored to women's preferences. Future research can quantitatively validate the proposed dimensions and explore their applicability in similar and broader contexts.
... Companies benefit from having a stable service climate (Schneider et al., 1998;Dietz et al., 2004). In the service literature, the climate is defined as employees' shared perceptions of how methods and behaviors are rewarded and supported in a particular context (Ma et al., 2021). ...
... They describe employee perceptions as a measure of service. This perception determines whether a company has a solid or weak service climate (Dietz et al., 2004). Service development is the end-to-end process of developing and launching a new customer service (Bowen & Schneider, 2014). ...
Purpose
In this study, the authors develop a path model and investigate the effect of pandemic-oriented customer mistreatment on service sabotage through the lens of self-presentation theory. Moreover, the authors question the role of service climate as a moderator of the relationship between service sabotage and service performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected via a survey of 165 F&B frontline employees in restaurants in Iran. The hypotheses are examined using confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling and ordinary least squares regression.
Findings
The findings reveal that POCM has a substantial and positive effect on service sabotage, and service climate mitigates the effect of service sabotage on service performance.
Practical implications
The study introduces and conceptually defines the term POCM. Furthermore, the authors apply the self-presentation theory as the overarching theory to explain underlying conditions in customer mistreatment and service sabotage. Moreover, although prior literature has described the saboteur–customer relationship as a one-line interaction, this study contributes to employee sabotage as a multi-linear transaction.
Originality/value
In this study, the authors identify new perspectives on the dark side of hospitality services in crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors argue that pandemic-induced changes are essential not simply because they change customers’ moods and lower their patience threshold, but they further provoke ostentatious behaviors in saboteur–customer relations. These findings shed new light on the literature and provide managerial implications for enhancing hospitality performance.
... According to linkage research, durable and mutually valuable relationships between the firm, employees and customers lead to firm profitability and growth (Pugh et al., 2002). By identifying the intra-organizational drivers of customer attitudes and behaviours (Borucki and Burke, 1999;Dietz et al., 2004;Heskett et al., 1994), linkage research helps determine which elements to focus on and change to improve the quality of service that customers receive. ...
... Service climate refers to the perception of the existence of practices, policies and procedures in the organization that value, support and reward employees for meeting customer needs (Schneider et al., 1998). Various studies point to a positive relationship between service climate and service quality (Borucki and Burke, 1999) and customer satisfaction (Dietz et al., 2004). ...
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relationship between the interaction of the social media manager’s customer orientation and the service climate perceived by supervisors, on the customer’s perception of brand authenticity and, through it, on the willingness to pay a price premium.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses triadic data from 200 social media followers, 20 social media managers and 20 supervisors from a range of industries.
Findings
The findings show that the customer orientation of the brand social media managers interacts with their work context to influence social media followers’ perceptions of brand authenticity, and ultimately, their willingness to pay a premium price. Finally, product involvement moderates the relationship between brand authenticity and willingness to pay a premium price.
Research limitations/implications
This study shows how and when the disposition of brand social media managers affects the attitudes and intentions of the social media followers. Further research should continue this novel line of research and explore in greater depth the impact of social media managers and their environments.
Practical implications
Social media managers’ values should fit those of their organization. This organization-person fit reflects on social media and improves social media followers’ perceptions of brand authenticity and, consequently, their willingness to pay a premium price.
Originality/value
Leveraging participation in social media is currently a key issue for firms. However, the internal determinants of successful social media usage have received limited attention from researchers. Therefore, this research contributes to the social media literature by suggesting the need to consider the characteristics of social media managers and their context to promote the outcomes of social media usage, specifically brand authenticity and willingness to pay a premium price.
... In addition to these aspects, awareness of the ability to control the functioning of the service for the public through quantitative control indicators for examining the satisfaction and public image of the public has increased in recent years (Vigoda-Gadot, Drory, 2016). Wiley, Pugh and Dietz (2004) argued that the interaction between the organization and its clients is all the more important as the service climate as a factor of influence, perception and attitude of the beneficiaries of the organization's services. When we notice the changes that public institutes and organizations have implemented in managing and perceiving services in recent years, implementing the new public management (NPM), we come to the conclusion that there is no way to return to the traditional public service. ...
... In addition, awareness has grown in recent years regarding the control of the functioning of the service provided to the public through quantitative control measures to examine the public image's satisfaction and image (Vigoda-Gadot and Drory, 2016). Wiley, Pugh and Dietz (2004) claim that the higher the interaction between the organization and its customers, the greater the importance of the service climate as a factor influencing the perceptions and attitudes of service recipients. When we examine the change that public organizations and institutions have undergone in management and service concepts in recent years, the concepts of new public administration (NPM) we understand that there is no turning back to traditional public administration. ...
The paper discusses the findings of a doctoral research project about the relation between accountability and the climate of service in Israeli public organizations. It used a quantitative approach and targeted a number of 2798 respondents. The research population included managers and employees from six public organizations from Israel in autumn 2018l. The final sample comprised 1036 valid questionnaires. The four hypothesis related to the topic were validated, and a positive correlation was found between accountability and service climate. It should be noted that the organization's “general accountability” showed weak correlation with “service climate”. The conclusions point out that accountability of public organizations and of their employees is perceived as an important factor for enhancing the service climate in the public organizations, for increasing the citizen's confidence and creating public system fairness.
... In the process of service consumption, employees and customers inevitably come into contact, and therefore human contact forms the basis of the service climate influence. It has been inferred that a possible mechanism by which service climate influences customer perception is the actual interpersonal behavior of employees when interacting with customers [47]. Increasing interpersonal and emotional interaction requires more frequent contact activities. ...
... In addition, employees and customers are frequently in contact during service consumption. For this reason, Dietz et al. [47] argued that human contact is the basis for influencing service climate and inferred that the possible mechanism by which service climate affects customer perceptions is the actual interpersonal behavior of employees when interacting with customers, and that to experience more interpersonal and emotional interaction requires more frequent contact activities. Accordingly, the service environment of the employees' workplace is a precursor to work well-being, and employees who invest a lot of energy in providing a quality service to satisfy customers will be happy if they have access to specific resources from their service environment that meet their work needs [48]. ...
Based on the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) model, this study explored customer behavioral intentions and influencing factors in the service industry, represented by hotels. It studied the servicescape, customer emotions, and customer behavioral intentions. PROCESS analysis was conducted on 305 valid questionnaires collected from hot spring resorts. The study found that servicescape can predict customer behavioral intentions, that customer emotions have a partial mediating effect in the influence of servicescape on customer behavioral intentions, and that service climate and employee engagement have multiple mediation effects in the SOR model. Therefore, the researchers suggest that hotels can improve customer perceptions through decoration and staff management, and thereby develop the hotel in a sustainable way.
... An organization's service climate refers to an environment that employees have to adapt to and contains resources which staff members can exploit (Lam et al., 2010). Although service climate has received more academic attention, through the lens of external customers, to conjecture how it influences customer perceptions and behaviors (Dietz et al., 2004;Mayer et al., 2009), it is at least as important to assess service climate through the employee lens (Dimitriades and Maroudas, 2007;Zhang et al., 2011). Drawing on the service-profit chain, internal services are the ultimate driver for favorable employee dispositions and behaviors, which are key success factors in the hospitality industry (Heskett et al., 1994). ...
... This approach has its limitations, as institutions theory (Scott, 2001) and person-in-situation theory (Mischel, 1977) both point to the social influence of the organizational context on individual employees (Wong, 2016); while the climate literature has also set guidelines to evaluate this issue (Glick, 1985), and it calls for a multilevel approach. From a different perspective, service climate studies commonly focus primarily on the role of service climate on customer responses (Dietz et al., 2004;Ehrhart et al., 2011;Schneider et al., 1998). The current research thus addresses the conundrum in the literature by conceptualizing and then operationalizing internal service climate as an organizational construct by assessing its cross-level direct and moderating effects on employee dispositions. ...
... The effects of the service climate on various outcomes may not be consistent across different types of services (De Jong, De Ruyter, & Lemmink, 2004;Hong et al., 2013). When services involve frequent customer interactions, the effects of the service climate tend to be stronger than with less-frequent customer interactions; the employees exert a greater effort in displaying desirable service behaviors repeatedly and often (Bowen & Schneider, 2014;Dietz, Pugh, & Wiley, 2004;Mayer, Ehrhart, & Schneider, 2009). ...
... Prior studies have revealed the positive effect of the IT service climate on IT service quality (Jia & Reich, 2013;Lowry & Wilson, 2016), but there has been no such exploration of the conditions under which this effect exists or changes. Previous scholars have suggested that customer contact moderates the relationship between the service climate and service outcomes (Bowen & Schneider, 2014;Dietz et al., 2004;Mayer et al., 2009). However, this effect of customer contact has not been examined in the IT service context. ...
Developing a strong and positive information technology (IT) service climate is important to ensure high-quality IT services. The influence of job resources and personal resources on the IT service climate and the mediating effect of the IT service climate on IT service quality were explored in this study qualitatively and quantitatively. Among the various job resource factors, we found that training, reward, and information system (IS) support can improve the IT service climate. Coworker support shows a non-significant effect on IT service climate. Among the personal resource factors, self-efficacy and hope have significantly positive effects on the IT service climate. Optimism and resilience do not appear to significantly affect the IT service climate. Our results confirm that the IT service climate is an important mediator in enabling certain antecedents to properly impact IT service quality. The IT service climate was found to fully mediate the effects of training, reward, IS support, and hope while partially mediating the effect of self-efficacy. The effect of the IT service climate on IT service quality is also strengthened by a high customer contact frequency. The results presented here may provide scholars and practitioners with a comprehensive, workable understanding of the IT service climate.
... What is frequently used to denote factors that can determine or alter our understanding of a phenomenon; How is used to refer to relations between factors; and Who and Where are used to capture contextual conditions (Busse et al., 2017;Whetten, 1989). Some researchers have applied these questions to explore boundaries in specific topical areas (Dietz et al., 2004;Mayer et al., 2009;Mitchell et al., 1997;Noble et al., 2019;Okhuysen & Waller, 2002). In our article, we follow Markoulli et al.'s (2017) example that applied the What, How, Who, and Where framework to a topic mapping analysis of the HRM field. ...
... We decided to use this framework to add an additional layer to our analysis and further explain our findings. What, How, Who, and Where questions have been recommended as useful analytical tools to define boundaries (Dubin, 1978;Whetten, 1989) and have been applied to determine boundaries of topic areas (Dietz et al., 2004;Mayer et al., 2009;Mitchell et al., 1997;Noble et al., 2019;Okhuysen & Waller, 2002). ...
Using topic mapping techniques, we provide a review of the 3,236 articles published in the five premier HRD journals between 1990 and 2019. We map the key terms evidencing the emergence of five major topic clusters within HRD scholarship: nature and identity of HRD, HRD interventions and outcomes, national HRD, career development, and HRD in academia. Nature and identity of HRD depicts a movement from establishing foundations to expanding horizons. HRD interventions and outcomes reflects a spectrum of research interests from exploring processes to examining desired outcomes. National HRD shows that research topics are increasingly moving toward international and global settings. Career development demonstrates a shift from emphasizing organizational careers to advocating for under‐represented career actors. HRD in academia encompasses topics related to educating HRD professionals and supporting professional development in other fields. We provide a synthesis of the clusters, create a taxonomy of topic areas, and identify the mature, nascent, trending, and growing concepts in HRD. In doing so, our paper provides an overview of where we are in HRD scholarship. We then suggest collaborative, competitive, and configurational boundary work as strategies that HRD scholars can use purposefully to influence future HRD research directions. Our findings inform HRD researchers and can guide interested practitioners in their search for actionable knowledge in HRD.
... Similar to other relationship variables (Verhoef et al., 2002;Dietz et al., 2004), relationship age and frequency of visits may influence the rapport-service features-dependency link. Over time, as the customer's relationship with the firm evolves, using the "experiential model of learning" (Wolfe and Kolb, 1984), it can be argued that customers will become more knowledgeable about the firm's offerings and will have greater confidence in service outcomes (Gwiner et al., 1998). ...
... Similarly, the frequency of interactions between customers and employees offers many benefits, including the exchange of information and a higher level of sharing beliefs and knowledge (Dietz et al., 2004;Nelson, 1989). Customers become less frustrated and more confident in their expectations of the firm's service-quality features, and are more able to ignore unexpected surprises, resulting in positive emotion that supports a continuing dependent relationship with the firm. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the mediation impacts of core, relational and tangible service-quality features on the relationship between customer–frontline employee rapport and customer dependency in an emerging market context. The study examines the moderating effects of relationship age and frequency of customers’ physical visits.
Design/methodology/approach
Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling was used to analyse data from a survey of 290 financial services customers in Dhaka, Bangladesh using the convenience sampling technique.
Findings
Results show that relational service-quality features had the largest mediation impact on the rapport–dependency relationship, followed by core and tangible service-quality features. Relationship age was not found to be a significant moderator for any relationship. However, the moderation effect of the frequency of customers’ physical visits to the service premises was significant, but only for the link between relational service-quality features and customer dependency and not for the other two types of service-quality features.
Research limitations/implications
Data collected from several other emerging markets would provide more rigorous findings: this is recommended as an avenue for further research.
Practical implications
Practitioners can manipulate specific relational or tangible service-quality features to increase customer dependency on their firms, thus ensuring longer-term customer retention.
Originality/value
This study is the first one to examine the relative significance of the impacts of relational features vs tangible features of services on customer dependency in the emerging market context, with rapport serving as an antecedent.
... An organization's service climate refers to an environment that employees have to adapt to and contains resources which staff members can exploit ( Lam et al., 2010). Although service climate has received more academic attention, through the lens of external customers, to conjecture how it influences customer perceptions and behaviors (Dietz et al., 2004;Mayer et al., 2009), it is at least as important to assess service climate through the employee lens ( Dimitriades and Maroudas, 2007;Zhang et al., 2011). Drawing on the service-profit chain, internal services are the ultimate driver for favorable employee dispositions and behaviors, which are key success factors in the hospitality industry (Heskett et al., 1994). ...
... This approach has its limitations, as institutions theory (Scott, 2001) and person-in-situation theory (Mischel, 1977) both point to the social influence of the organizational context on individual employees (Wong, 2016); while the climate literature has also set guidelines to evaluate this issue (Glick, 1985), and it calls for a multilevel approach. From a different perspective, service climate studies commonly focus primarily on the role of service climate on customer responses ( Dietz et al., 2004;Ehrhart et al., 2011;Schneider et al., 1998). The current research thus addresses the conundrum in the literature by conceptualizing and then operationalizing internal service climate as an organizational construct by assessing its cross-level direct and moderating effects on employee dispositions. ...
The objective of the study is to improve the current understanding of frontline employee perceptions of health by investigating the role of job security and satisfaction. The linkage between perceived health and organizational commitment is also explored. This study further tests the cross-level moderating effect of internal service climate based on a multilevel design. Based on a multilevel study that involved 1251 employees, including both frontline employees and supervisors from 29 casinos, results reveal that the relationship leading from job security and job satisfaction to organizational commitment through perceived health is contingent on organizational-level service climate; and the relationship is more salient for casinos with low-quality internal service climate. Theoretical and managerial implications are presented in the study.
... Over the ensuing period of nearly four decades, the term has evolved from one that merely captured the customer's physical presence, to a multi-dimensional construct. Academic research on customer contact in service operations management has discussed its usefulness to the classification of services (Wemmerlöv, 1990;Patterson and Cicic, 1995;Noone et al., 2012;, also highlighted other aspects of contact such as customer-provider interaction and service customization (Schmenner, 1986;Mersha, 1990), customer input (Wemmerlöv, 1990;Sampson and Froehle, 2006), intimacy and richness in the interaction (Kellogg and Chase, 1995), and frequency of visit and revisits needed to complete the service (Dietz et al., 2004;Mayer et al., 2009;Lin and Hsieh, 2011). ...
... A few other studies also deserve mention. Some of these, used single-item scales (Mayer et al., 2009;Lin and Hsieh, 2011;Xu et al., 2006) and some, two-item scales (Dietz et al., 2004;Skaggs and Youndt, 2004;Skaggs and Galli-Debicella, 2012). Kimes and Mutkoski (1991) measured time durations of different activities in a restaurant, and assessed customer contact as the proportion of time that a waiter spent interacting with a guest. ...
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop measurement scales for customer contact in a technology-generated context.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors adapted the scales of Froehle and Roth (2004), by following a systematic scale adaptation and development process. The adapted scales were tested for psychometric properties and refined by building measurement models using partial least squares structural equation modeling.
Findings – The authors found it necessary to revise Froehle and Roth’s (2004) original items in most of the scales. After testing, the “attitude towards the episode” scale was dropped and remaining nine scales
were retained.
Research limitations/implications – The scales will be useful to future researchers on online shopping to advance their research. The scales can be tested and validated with data from multiple empirical contexts and adapted to those contexts as necessary. Future studies must examine path relationships between belief, attitude, and intention constructs.
Practical implications – The adapted scales can be useful to practitioners in the domain of online shopping to measure the beliefs, attitudes, and intentions of their customers. Potential beneficiaries include service providers, service designers, industry associations as well as regulators in the government.
Originality/value – The overarching contribution of this paper lies in developing scales pertaining to the online shopping context of technology-generated customer contact. The paper has simultaneously addressed two relatively less attended areas of research on service operations – the role of technology in customer
contact and measurement of customer contact.
... Due to intense competition in the service industries and increasing demands from customers, the service climate has been found to have a significant impact on customer service quality perceptions (e.g., Dietz, Pugh, & Wiley, 2004;Jerger & Wirtz, 2017) and loyalty (e.g., Chang, 2016). Service climate at an organizational level refers to a supporting work environment that facilitates service delivery and transactions (Schneider, White, & Paul, 1998). ...
... Service climate has been discussed in the literature as a premise or an antecedent of customer perception of service quality (Schneider et al., 1998), customer attitudes (Dietz et al., 2004), employee performance, and customer loyalty (Salanova et al., 2005;Walumbwa, Hartnell, et al., 2010), and organizational commitment (Paulin et al., 2006). In the case of frontline employees, we argue that internal service climate plays a facilitating role in employee behaviors and attitudes. ...
This study proposes a linear relationship between employee performance, job satisfaction and organizational commitment in the hospitality industry. Employees’ sense of achievement intervenes in the relationship between employee performance and satisfaction. In particular, this study models service climate as a cross-level moderator in this chain relationship. The data were collected at 27 casino hotels in Macau. The study finds that job performance has significant direct and indirect effects on job satisfaction. Employees’ sense of achievement significantly intervenes in the relationship between job performance and satisfaction. Service climate has significant cross-level direct and moderating effects on employee sense of achievement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. The study provides a fresh look into the relationship between employee performance, sense of achievement, job satisfaction and organizational commitment in the case of hospitality industry.
... Firstly, we bring attention to processes through which customers can harm companies (Dietz et al., 2004;Liao & Chuang, 2004). The existing literature has conceptualized the different negative behaviors, their antecedents and consequences, and the underlying emotions and cognitions in a disjointed, and surprisingly unconnected manner. ...
Customers are increasingly empowered in their interactions with firms. Sometimes they help firms but, unfortunately, they can also become “toxic” and hurt them. Customers are toxic when they engage in deliberate and potentially harmful acts towards a firm driven either by a reparatory or damaging mental state following a transgression. Whilst the existing literature has studied customers’ negative actions against organizations, critical questions remain as to how and why customers become toxic. We structure a fragmented field of research on customer toxicity and explore customers’ mental state before they decide to do nothing (non-complainers), avoid the brand, act against firms with either a reparatory mental state—and, thus, often constructive in nature (e.g., to initiate change)—or with a toxic mental state and destructive objectives (e.g., to harm and punish a firm). We highlight that the impact of these actions on a firm can still be “toxic” even without intention of harming and punishing. Furthermore, we outline the conceptual domain of customer toxicity and shift the focus from negative behavior to customers’ mental state, by integrating the marketing, aggression, and psychology literatures. We discuss the theoretical implications of our study and explore how future work may further examine organizations’ interactions with toxic customers. Finally, we provide managerial recovery techniques depending on customers’ mental state at a particular time.
... With regard to cognition, it has been argued in the literature that marketing communication strategies, mass media information, reference group influence, and social interaction will all significantly affect cognition (Kai et al. 2021). With regard to attitudes, some scholars have found that trust, online video advertising, the influence of reference groups, brand concept, the interaction between social crowding and advertising orientation, Internet word-of-mouth, situational influences, firms' ethical and unethical actionscorporate social responsibility, and service climate significantly impact consumers' attitudes towards products (Dietz et al. 2004;Ferrell et al. 2018;Folkes and Kamins 1999;Foxall and Yani-de-Soriano 2005). ...
Aim
With the development of the social economy, commercial health insurance in China has gradually been recognized by residents, but it is still in the initial stage of the market. To identify influencing factors of residents' intention to purchase commercial health insurance and to explore the influencing mechanism and heterogeneity of intention, this study aimed to reveal the formation mechanism of intention to purchase commercial health insurance.
Methods
This study introduced water and air pollution perceptions as moderating variables and, constructed a theoretical framework combining the stimulus–organism–response model and the theory of reasoned action models. The structural equation model was developed, and multigroup analysis and moderating effect analysis were carried out.
Results
The results show that advertising marketing and the behavior of relatives and friends positively influence cognition. Cognition, as well as advertising marketing and behavior of relatives and friends, has a positive impact on attitude. Furthermore, purchase intention is positively affected by cognition and attitude. Both gender and residence play a significant moderating role in influencing purchase intention. Air pollution perceptions positively moderate the path from attitude to purchase intention.
Conclusion
The validity of the constructed model was verified and could be used to predict the willingness of residents to purchase commercial health insurance. Furthermore, policy recommendations to promote the further development of commercial health insurance were proposed. This study provides a valuable reference for insurance companies to expand the market and for the government to improve commercial insurance policies.
... ICC (2) was .70, supporting aggregation (e.g., Dietz, Pugh, & Wiley, 2004;James, 1982). ...
Previous research has predominantly regarded self-sacrificing leaders as role models that can drive desirable outcomes. We challenge this notion and demonstrate the dual effects of self-sacrificial leadership on team prosocial and change-oriented behaviors. Drawing upon social learning theory, we develop a nuanced model that simultaneously examines self-sacrificial leadership's beneficial effects on team helping and its detrimental effects on team change-oriented behavior via unique mechanisms. Our analysis of two time-lagged, multisource data revealed that self-sacrificial leadership has an indirect positive effect on team helping via team other-focus and an indirect negative effect on team change-oriented behaviors (i.e., team creativity and team proactivity) via team dependence on the leader. Furthermore, team leader competence amplifies these indirect effects, such that the effects are stronger for more competent leaders. Taken together, our research challenges the prevailing assumption that self-sacrificial leadership is always beneficial and calls for further attention to be paid to the unintended impacts of role model leaders.
... In order to measure the service climate, this study used Dietz et al. (2004)'s scale, which has been previously proved to have a desirable reliability (0.89; Chan et al., 2017). Participants responded to four items regarding the extent to which customer services are valued in a given organization, for example, "In my restaurant, delivering high service quality is a top priority." ...
Drawing on social exchange theory and affective events theory, this study argues employees’ perceived customer citizenship behavior (CCB) as positive affective events at work influences employees’ organizational citizenship behavior toward customers (OCB-C). Further, the current study examines the process of CCB leading to OCB-C with employees’ customer-orientation attitude as a mediator and service climate as a moderator. The results of a survey reveal that when employees perceive customers perform CCB, employees are more likely to have customer-orientation attitude, which leads to the display of OCB-C. This study serves as one of the first to shed light on the positive impact of customer behaviors on employees and advances both streams of research on CCB and OCB-C by proposing CCB as a potential yet untapped source of OCB-C.
... We used a four-item scale developed by Dietz, Pugh, & Wiley (2004) to measure service climate. The items asked employee supervisors to respond to each question based on what they personally observed in the hotel. ...
To date, research on the deontic model and third-party reactions to injustice has focused primarily on individuals' tendency to punish the transgressor. In this study, we seek to extend the extant research by arguing that punishment may not be the only deontic reaction and that third-party observers of injustice should engage in activities that help the victim. More specifically, we explore employee's customer-oriented constructive deviance as a reaction to organizational injustice toward customers. We also investigate how this deviance influences customer satisfaction. In addition, we explore service climate, driven by servant leadership as a moderator on the relationship between employees' perceptions of organizational unfairness and customer-oriented constructive deviance. The study collected three-level survey data from 95 hotel managers, 396 employees, and 1848 customers. We find that servant leadership increases service climate, which in turn strengthens the relationship between organizational injustice toward customers and customer-oriented constructive deviance. The findings also reveal that customer-oriented constructive deviance increases perceived service quality, leading to customer satisfaction. Our study significantly contributes to the emerging theory concerning customer-oriented constructive deviance by explaining the antecedents, consequences, and moderators. The study also helps managers deal with customer-oriented constructive deviance in the workplace.
... Despite earlier research confirmed that service climate plays a critical role in associating service firm's internal and external frameworks, these associations still lack wider theoretical support (Dietz et al. 2004;Schneider et al. 1998). This study aims to extend the service management literature by inspecting the effects of a firm's management practices, efforts, and employee competency on delivering excellent service. ...
This study investigates the influence of leader humility on employee service performance. New conceptual observations are presented through the integration of leadership and service climate literature. Grounded in social information processing theory, this study explores how leader humility and customer mistreatment support the improvement of service climate and employee service performance. Data are collected from multiple sources of 294 hotel employees at three points of time in China. Results reveal that leader humility positively influences employee service performance through service climate. Besides, leader humility shows a strong relationship with the service climate for employees when frontline service employees observe customer mistreatment.
... Customer service is one of the most important elements in achieving customer satisfaction and repeat business with the ultimate goal of developing a sustainable competitive advantage (Christofi et al., 2013(Christofi et al., , 2014(Christofi et al., , 2018Dietz et al., 2004;McCance et al., 2013;Salanova et al., 2005;Stabler et al., 2010). To achieve customer satisfaction and loyalty, service employees are often required to apply organisationally-imposed display rules and guidelines regulating emotional conduct towards customers (Diefendorff & Richard, 2003;McCance et al., 2013;Thrassou et al., 2020). ...
Emotional labour (EL) is a self-controlling process during which employees monitor and regulate their moods and expressions when interacting with customers. Such self-monitoring takes place through employees engaging with either deep acting (DA) or surface acting (SA) EL strategies. Although empirical evidence indicates that employees are capable of deploying both strategies, it acknowledges a predominant use of SA when employees deal with aggressive customers, something which in turn creates resource-depleting effects. Nevertheless, there is lack of a holistic understanding of the conditions under which employees engage in either strategy. Also, research is inconclusive on the negative effects of SA; how these can be overcome; whether the means for overcoming these effects associate with the deployment of DA; and what the effects of DA are in conditions of customer mistreatment. Motivated by the above knowledge gap, we drew on contagious emotions, affective events and emotional labour and emotional intelligence theories to conduct 70 in-depth, semi-structured interviews within the hotel industry. While findings confirm extant research on the conditions that lead to the deployment of SA and its effects to employee welfare and performance, they contribute that the means used to overcome the negative effects of SA, stimulate the development of conditions that lead the way to the deployment of DA. The study also contributes positive organisational and employee effects from applying DA in aggressive customer contexts, which reinforce the very conditions that enable it.
... In this circumstance, employees are more likely to perceive a rapid loss of resources and severe suffering of their physical and psychological health (Hobfoll, 1989;O'Neill & Davis, 2011), which can trigger the occurrence of negative work behavior (Chi et al., 2015;Kao et al., 2014;Lee & Ok, 2014;Yen & Teng, 2013), such as service sabotage, which produces detrimental effects on service quality and hospitality organization effectiveness (Hon, Chan, & Lu, 2013;Jex, Bliese, Buzzell, & Primeau, 2001). Existing research on customer service management has concluded that supervisors' leadership styles can shape subordinates' attitudes, behaviors, and performance (e.g., Borucki & Burke, 1999;Dietz, Pugh, & Wiley, 2004;Lyu, Zhu, Zhong, & Hu, 2016). Empowering leadership, unlike other leadership styles, provides greater decision-making autonomy, expresses confidence in subordinates' capabilities, and provides persuasive and encouraging communication to subordinates (Arnold, Arad, Rhoades, & Drasgow, 2000;Zhang & Bartol, 2010), which can serve as an effective instrument for employees to reduce work stress and replenish their resource pool (Hobfoll, 1989;Hobfoll, Freedy, Lane, & Geller, 1990;Ng & Sorensen, 2008) and enhance their motivation and investment in work (Ahearne, Mathieu, & Rapp, 2005;Kirkman & Rosen, 1999;Zhang & Bartol, 2010). ...
h i g h l i g h t s Empowering supervision negatively related to service sabotage. Work engagement mediated the relation of empowering supervision and service sabotage. General self-efficacy moderated the relation of empowering supervision and work engagement. Conservation of resources theory provided the theoretical foundation. a b s t r a c t In this study, we examine the relationship between empowering supervision and service sabotage by hospitality service employees. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we explain the mediating role of work engagement. In addition, we further investigate the moderating role of general self-efficacy in strengthening the relationship between empowering supervision and work engagement. Using time-lagged data from eleven hotels in China, we found that, by enhancing work engagement, empowering supervision negatively influenced service employees' service sabotage. Furthermore, our findings suggested that general self-efficacy strengthened both the direct effect of empowering supervision on work engagement and the indirect effect of empowering supervision on service sabotage via work engagement such that the relationships were stronger when general self-efficacy was high rather than low. Based on the study findings, theoretical and managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.
... Previous research examining how organizational customer orientation might affect employee psychological empowerment is limited (Kralj and Solnet, 2010;Yagil and Gal, 2002). However, emerging evidence emphasizes that managers cannot supervise every interaction between employees and customers, and the presence of a positive customer-oriented culture gives autonomy and guidance to FLEs' behaviors (Dietz et al., 2004). The effect of an organizational service climate is stronger and more visible in those service contexts where FLEs have frequent interactions with customers, thus their closeness with customers makes organizational practices visible to customers (Tornow and Wiley, 1991). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to examine the indirect effect of perceived organizational customer orientation on frontline employees' (FLE) innovative behaviors (via perceived empowerment) as well as the contextual factor of supervisory fairness, which affects the strength of the indirect effect. Drawing on social exchange theory, the authors propose that FLEs' perceived organizational customer orientation positively affects their empowerment and indirectly affects innovative behaviors, and that effect is stronger in a high supervisory fairness condition.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling of the data collected through a time-lagged survey of 184 employee–supervisor dyads provides support for the hypotheses. From the practitioners' perspective, this study highlights the mechanism through which perceived organizational customer orientation can affect the display of FLEs' innovative behaviors as well as the conditions that strengthen this process.
Findings
Perceived organizational customer orientation was positively related to employees' perceived empowerment. Empowerment was positively associated with supervisor-reported innovative behaviors. The indirect effect of perceived organizational customer orientation through employee empowerment on supervisor-reported innovative behaviors was also confirmed. Supervisory fairness significantly moderated the perceived organizational customer orientation and employee empowerment relationship. Finally, the indirect effect of customer orientation on supervisor-reported innovative behaviors through empowerment was significant for both high supervisory fairness and low supervisory fairness; however, the effect was stronger in a high fairness condition.
Practical implications
Service managers can benefit from these findings by improving the work environment characteristics.
Originality/value
This study makes an important contribution to existing research on perceived organizational customer orientation and FLEs' innovative behaviors as extant research has only examined the direct unmediated effect of customer orientation on innovative behaviors. Moreover, the authors’ moderated mediation model presents a new insight into how perceived organizational customer orientation influences FLEs' innovative behaviors and when this effect is more pronounced.
... Individual outcomes to which climate has been found to relate include job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intention. Another set of studies have found climate to correlate with organization-level outcomes such as sales performance (McKay et al., 2008), injury rates (Hofmann & Mark, 2006), and customer satisfaction (Dietz et al., 2004). ...
The Federal Employees Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) has gained prominence as the primary vehicle through which agencies assess the work-related attitudes of their employees. Within the discipline, the FEVS results have proven a fertile source of data on the job-related attitudes of public employees. However, concerns have been raised with the instrument and with how the FEVS data has been used by scholars. This article highlights a concern with the use of ambiguous terms which impede interpretation of the FEVS results. An investigation in partnership with officials from the regional office of a federal agency confirmed the divergent meanings respondents assign terms such as “my organization” and brought to the fore the extent to which, in large organizations, employee attitudes are distinctive to the units to which they belong at different hierarchical levels. The literature on organizational climate provides a useful framework within which the phenomenon can be understood and analyzed.
... Employee loyalty was assessed based on three items adapted from Gong et al. (2014) that capture the intention to remain with the company and willingness to recommend the company as a good place to work. Service climate was measured based on four items from Dietz et al. (2004) that capture frontline service employees' perceptions of the importance of customer service in organization, such as the priority of delivering high-quality service. Ethical climate was assessed based on three items developed by Cullen et al. (1993) that capture frontline service employees' perceptions of the importance of following the organization's rules and procedures. ...
Prior research has illustrated the antecedents of customer-oriented constructive deviance. However, research on their consequences has been limited. To clarify the relationship between customer-oriented constructive deviance and its outcome, the present study is based on affective event theory and posits that customer-oriented constructive deviance predicts customer gratitude and employee guilt, which in turn lead to customer and employee satisfaction and loyalty, respectively. This research also investigates how service and ethical climates moderate these relationships. Based on a dataset comprising 223 matched employee-customer pairs collected from luxury hotel restaurants, we found that customer-oriented constructive deviance is positively related to customer loyalty, but negatively related to employee loyalty. Furthermore, service and ethical climates are found to have disparate impacts on these relationships. Our findings call attention to a potential risk that managers should be aware of when they manage customer-oriented constructive deviance to achieve greater customer service.
... In their study, Chen et al. (2015) showed the significance of identifying the customer-company relationships and stated that customer behaviour was influenced by the favourable climate established by the organisation. Service conditions also significantly affected customer satisfaction (Abdallah et al., 2016;Dean, 2004;Dietz et al., 2004). Development of existing services and presenting novel and innovative idea was necessary for maintaining an organisation's sustainability (Chai et al., 2005). ...
... In their study, Chen et al. (2015) showed the significance of identifying the customer-company relationships and stated that customer behaviour was influenced by the favourable climate established by the organisation. Service conditions also significantly affected customer satisfaction (Abdallah et al., 2016;Dean, 2004;Dietz et al., 2004). Development of existing services and presenting novel and innovative idea was necessary for maintaining an organisation's sustainability (Chai et al., 2005). ...
The increasing pace of globalisation requires organisations to be innovative in their service provision to remain competitive in their industry. Higher education is one of the examples. Service innovation plays a critical role in helping universities to sustain their operations and gain a competitive edge. Therefore, the study examines the impact of service innovation on student satisfaction, and the extent to which this level of satisfaction can be translated to perceived institutional image and loyalty. The mediation effect of the institutional image is also addressed. Data was collected from 400 respondents and were analysed using structural equation modelling. All factors in service innovation (i.e., product, process, organisational and marketing 290 B.L. Cheng et al. innovations) have a significant effect on student satisfaction, which positively relates to perceived institutional image and loyalty. Institutional image also mediates the relationship between student satisfaction and loyalty. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are then discussed.
... Following the last financial crisis, the pendulum has swung towards greater regulation and supervision, not only of solvency, but also of banking culture. Dietz et al. (2004) study under what conditions the service climate is useful for predicting consumer satisfaction. They observed that the service climate differed across different branches in their survey of 160 branches of a retail bank in the US, verifying that the more proximal and relevant the target of a service climate (a subunit versus an organization as a whole) to customers, the stronger the relationship between service climate and customer attitudes would be. ...
Misconduct and risk culture are two critical issues in bank supervision today. This paper reviews recent studies and regulatory documents on both topics to further our understanding of the dimensions that underlie these new, distinct risks to the global banking sector. Based on this review, a multidimensional measurement scale for misconduct and risk climate (M&R climate) is subsequently developed and validated. The scale obtained provides a tool in line with the leading guidelines and recommendations issued by international standard‐setting bodies aimed at assessing M&R climate and monitoring the prevalence of misconduct and excessive risk‐taking behaviours in banking. Culture and climate represent different perspectives on the same phenomenon, with climate being a manifestation of culture. The climate perspective on organizational behaviour offers a more empirical approximation to identify and measure those cultural, organizational, and situational characteristics influencing the behaviour of the organization's members.
... In addition, the awareness to the ability to control the functioning of the service to the public through quantitative control indicators for examining satisfaction and the image of the public organization in the public's eyes has risen in the last years(Vigoda-Gadot&Drory,2016). Wiley, Pugh & Dietz (2004) claim that as higher the interaction between the organization and its clients the more important is the service climate as an influencing factor of the perceptions and attitudes of the organization's service recipients. When we examine the change that organizations and public institutes have implemented in their management and service perception during the last years, implementing the new public management (NPM), we understand that there is no way back to the traditional public service. ...
... Previous emotional labor researchers have found that the degree of organizational efforts on service ethics are positively associated with service employee emotional performances (e.g., appropriate emotional expression) (Ashforth and Humphrey, 1993). For example, Dietz et al. (2004) found that service workers provided enhanced customers services when excellent service is an important theme in an organization. Lam et al. (2010) also found that the service climate has a positive impact on positive emotional display and buffers negative influences from supervisors. ...
This study examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) perception and emotional labor strategies, and the effects of the interaction between CSR perception and moral identification on emotional labor strategies via affective organizational commitment. Our data from 352 frontline employees in the service industry show the main effect of CSR perception on emotional labor strategies. We find that CSR perception is positively (negatively) related to deep acting (surface acting). Affective organizational commitment mediates the relationship between CSR perception and surface acting but not between CSR perception and deep acting. Moral identification moderates the effects of CSR perception on surface acting through affective organizational commitment. This paper reveals that the employees’ views on their organization’s social responsiveness and morality affect their emotional labor strategies.
... Since customers are the lifeblood of an organization (Gupta & Zeithaml, 2006), it is critical to uncover the key factors that influence customer attitudes. Customer attitudes, including customer satisfaction, have been linked to important organizational outcomes, including customer retention and profits (Dietz, Pugh, & Wiley, 2004). Customers' interactions with frontline employees in organizations, such as salespeople, tellers, and customer service representatives, often shape customer attitudes (Verbeke, 1997). ...
Leveraging the wealth of research insights generated over the past 25 years, we develop a model of emotional contagion in organizational life. We begin by defining emotional contagion, reviewing ways to assess this phenomenon, and discussing individual differences that influence susceptibility to emotional contagion. We then explore the key role of emotional contagion in organizational life across a wide range of domains, including (1) team processes and outcomes, (2) leadership, (3) employee work attitudes, (4) decision-making, and (5) customer attitudes. Across each of these domains, we present a body of organizational behavior research that finds evidence of the influence of emotional contagion on a variety of attitudinal, cognitive, and behavioral/performance outcomes as well as identify the key boundary conditions of the emotional contagion phenomenon. To support future scholarship in this domain, we identify several new frontiers of emotional contagion research, including the need to better understand the “tipping point” of positive versus negative emotional contagion, the phenomenon of counter-contagion, and the influence of computer mediated communication and technology within organizations and society on emotional contagion. In closing, we summarize our model of emotional contagion in organizations, which we hope can serve as a catalyst for future research on this important phenomenon and its myriad effects on organizational life.
... Extensive government regulations in this industry make the relationship between firm compliance with government regulations and firm performance particularly relevant, because going above compliance with government regulations is one way a firm can differentiate itself from its peers. The banking industry sample has also been utilized in many empirical studies in management (e.g., Campbell et al. 2012;Dietz et al. 2004;Kim and Miner 2007;Miller and Eden 2006). ...
Many countries have regulations that require firms to engage in minimum levels of corporate social (CS) activities in areas such as the environment and social welfare. In this paper, we argue that changes in a firm’s compliance with CS regulations are reflected in its reputation for corporate social responsibility (CSR), which affects the firm’s performance. The performance impacts depend on whether the firm’s CSR reputation in the current and prior periods is positive (i.e., the firm exceeds CS regulations), neutral (the firm meets CS regulations), or negative (the firm fails to comply with CS regulations). Our theoretical framework draws on the reputation literature and on the concepts of recency bias, which weights the present more heavily than the past, and negativity bias, which weights negative assessments more heavily than neutral or positive assessments. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 7317 banks over 1992–2007 where we compare a bank’s return on assets (ROA) with its current and prior compliance ratings under the U.S. Community Reinvestment Act. We find that changes in CSR reputation have predictable, asymmetric, and sizeable impacts on firm performance. For example, for an average bank with $1 billion in assets, gaining a positive CSR reputation translates into a rise in profits of 4.04%; gaining a negative CSR reputation results in a drop in profits of − 7.8%.
This paper investigates whether and how organizational climate (OC) in brokerage firms affects analyst turnover and performance. We find that firms with a lower‐rated OC have a higher likelihood of analyst turnover. Also, when analysts leave and switch brokerage firms, they are more likely to move to a firm with a higher‐rated OC and will deliver more accurate forecasts after switching firms. However, the performance improvements in better‐rated OC firms are significant only for the initial years of the analysts’ employment in the new firms. We also show that OC‐related analyst turnover negatively affects the performance of incumbent analysts, especially for those non‐All‐Star incumbent analysts, while these adverse performance effects are also transitory and last for two years only. Thus, our findings indicate that OC only has a short‐lived effect on the behaviour of both leaving and remaining analysts, which challenges the long‐held assumption that investments in a positive OC will always be associated with lower employee turnover and higher individual performance. We explain our results as arising from the high levels of labour mobility within the brokerage industry and the transparency of analyst forecasts as a public performance measure.
This thesis explores interpretations of Turkish Islamic bankers with regard to the Islamic Banking phenomenon in Turkey. It attempts to understand religion's impact on financial institutions in special banks. The case of Turkey distinguishes it from other countries in two ways: first, Turkey is a secular country; it is ruled by secular laws and has never been governed in line with religious law. Second, even though the majority of the population claims to be Muslim, at around 99 per cent, the share of Islamic banking is limited just to 5 per cent of the total banking sector. The research leans towards an interpretivist approach. It adopts case study as a methodology and benefitted from the use of a qualitative approach. Research material was collected via semi-structured interviews, observation, and documental analysis. Thirty-one Islamic banking professionals participated in interviews in five different major Turkish cities. The data collected during the field study was analysed through thematic analysis and the results represented in three separate chapters. The study revealed that there appear to be three levels-the macro, meso, and micro-in the Islamic banking phenomenon. Institutional theory helped to understand the business environment of the phenomenon at the macro-level. This included legitimacy, institutional logics, isomorphism, and other concepts underlying the challenges to the Turkish Islamic banking sector. It also covered future projections of Islamic banking. The meso-level unveiled organisational explorations of corporate culture, HRM, and miscellaneous issues. Finally, the micro-level was concerned with the individual identities of Islamic bankers. The findings explained according to themes such as belongingness, spirituality, and work-life balance. ii "Count no man happy until he is dead" Solon (c.630-c.560 BC) iii
The paper proposes that industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology will benefit greatly from expanding our research focus from predominantly individual differences to studying organizational differences. We argue here that an increased organizational frame of reference on variables of interest to I-O psychology (e.g., selection, job design, performance management (PM), work motivation) is important because it will enhance our understanding of organizational behavior and make I-O research more effective in practice. After noting some organizational-level research already being done, several examples are provided for how an organizational mindset and methods can provide new insights into traditional areas of I-O effort. Also discussed is how methodological issues that may have constrained the study of organizational differences in the past and the potential new issues such research may yield can be addressed. We conclude that the future maintenance and enhancement of the I-O psychology brand as a science–practice profession requires enhanced attention to the organization level of analysis as our frame of reference for research.
L’objectif de cet article est d’étudier l’effet de l'atmosphère du point de vente sur le choix des marques de distributeurs. Précisément, il s’agit d’identifier les différentes composantes atmosphériques susceptibles d’influencer les réponses et les comportements des consommateurs envers les MDD. En s’appuyant sur une revue de la littérature conjuguée à une étude qualitative exploratoire multi cibles, 10 entretiens semi-directifs auprès des responsables achat au sein de deux enseignes de distribution et trois discussions de groupes associées à des tests projectifs auprès de 24 consommateurs, les résultats de l’étude attestent de l’importance des trois dimensions atmosphériques, telles que le design du magasin, les facteurs d’ambiance et l’environnement social dans l’évaluation et la décision d’achat des marques de distributeur.
Purpose
This research aims to address the transformative service research (TSR) agenda by examining the issue of caste-based financial exclusion in microcredit lending services in India. To do so, it draws on statistical discrimination theory from labour economics to develop and test a multi-level prosocial service orientation framework.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data come from 238 loan officers and 250 lower caste loan applicants across 43 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India. The data are analysed using hierarchical linear modelling, a method appropriate for investigating micro- and macro-level organisational variables.
Findings
At the micro level, the service orientation factors of social dominance orientation and algorithmic-driven lending decisions affect financial exclusion of lower caste bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) vendors. At the macro level, the service orientation mechanism of inclusive service climate reduces caste-based financial exclusion, while the level of lending risk to reduce discrimination receives no support.
Research limitations/implications
Research in other contexts is warranted to confirm the prosocial service orientation model. Methodological challenges at the BoP also present avenues for insightful work.
Social implications
The study shows the importance of an inclusive service climate and reassessment of algorithmic-driven lending decisions to eliminate caste-based indicators in lending decisions. It also recommends policy reform of caste-based affirmative action at the macro- and micro-levels of lending decisions.
Originality/value
This research extends the TSR agenda to include caste-based discrimination in prosocial services. It takes a multidisciplinary perspective on services research by incorporating statistical discrimination theory from labour economics to extend understanding of service orientation.
Purpose-This research aims to address the transformative service research (TSR) agenda by examining the issue of caste-based financial exclusion in microcredit lending services in India. To do so, it draws on statistical discrimination theory from labour economics to develop and test a multi-level prosocial service orientation framework. Design/methodology/approach-Survey data come from 238 loan officers and 250 lower caste loan applicants across 43 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India. The data are analysed using hierarchical linear modelling, a method appropriate for investigating micro-and macro-level organisational variables. Findings-At the micro level, the service orientation factors of social dominance orientation and algorithmic-driven lending decisions affect financial exclusion of lower caste bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) vendors. At the macro level, the service orientation mechanism of inclusive service climate reduces caste-based financial exclusion, while the level of lending risk to reduce discrimination receives no support. Research limitations/implications-Research in other contexts is warranted to confirm the prosocial service orientation model. Methodological challenges at the BoP also present avenues for insightful work. Social implications-The study shows the importance of an inclusive service climate and reassessment of algorithmic-driven lending decisions to eliminate caste-based indicators in lending decisions. It also recommends policy reform of caste-based affirmative action at the macro-and micro-levels of lending decisions. Originality/value-This research extends the TSR agenda to include caste-based discrimination in prosocial services. It takes a multidisciplinary perspective on services research by incorporating statistical discrimination theory from labour economics to extend understanding of service orientation.
We examine the process through which ethical leadership and ethical training contribute to the performance of employees through linking business ethics to customer orientation. Underpinned by social learning, we examine sequential mediation models of the process through which ethical climate, service climate and customer orientation mediate the relationships between ethical leadership and ethical training on employee performance. Utilising a sample of 187 employees from an Australian bank, we found support for our four hypotheses: ethical climate and customer orientation sequentially mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and employee performance; service climate and customer orientation sequentially mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and employee performance; service climate and customer orientation sequentially mediates the relationship between ethical training and employee performance; ethical climate and customer orientation sequentially mediates the relationship between ethics training and employee performance. Ethical leadership will have a stronger influence on improving employee performance relative to ethical training.
A variety of collective phenomena are understood to exist to the extent that workers agree on their perceptions of the phenomena, such as perceptions of their organization’s climate or perceptions of their team’s mental model. Researchers conducting group-level studies of such phenomena measure individuals’ perceptions via surveys and then aggregate data to the group level if the mean within-group agreement for a sample of groups is sufficiently high. Despite this widespread practice, we know little about the factors potentially affecting mean within-group agreement. Here, focusing on work climate, we report an investigation of a number of expected contextual (social interaction) and methodological predictors of mean rWG, a common statistic for judging within-group agreement in applied psychology and management research. We used the novel approach of meta-CART, which allowed us to assess the relative importance and possible interactions of the predictor variables. Notably, mean rWG values are driven by both contextual (average number of individuals per group and cultural individualism-collectivism) and methodological factors (the number of items in a scale and scale reliability). Our findings are largely consistent with expectations concerning how social interaction affects within-group agreement and psychometric arguments regarding why adding more items to a scale will not necessarily increase the magnitude of an index based on a Spearman-Brown “stepped-up correction.” We discuss the key insights from our results, which are relevant to the study of multilevel phenomena relying on the aggregation of individual-level data and informative for how meta-analytic researchers can simultaneously examine multiple moderator variables.
This study examines the effect of management commitment to service quality on customer satisfaction through the mediating links of service climate and core and relational service performance in a high-power distance culture. Data were collected using a survey distributed to the FLEs and customers of branches of a Russian retail bank. Study findings demonstrate that branch service climate mediates the management commitment to service quality – service performance relationship and that this indirect effect is stronger on core service performance relative to relational service performance. Contrary to expectations, our findings demonstrate the importance of relational service performance relative to core service performance as a mediator of the branch service climate – branch customer satisfaction relationship. Implications of these novel findings and future research directions are discussed.
La plupart des nouvelles entreprises ne parviennent pas à maintenir leur activité au-delà des premières années qui suivent leur émergence. Plusieurs influenceurs de renoms en entrepreneuriat suggèrent que ces échecs sont largement dus à l’inadaptation des projets entrepreneuriaux à la réalité de l’environnement. Dans cette thèse, nous étudions les efforts initiaux des entrepreneurs pour interagir avec certains acteurs (clients potentiels, financeurs) de leur environnement et développer leur projet entrepreneurial. Ces efforts initiaux vont en partie favoriser le développement et la survie du projet entrepreneurial. En même temps, une surcharge d’informations lors de ces interactions pourra au contraire ralentir son développement et altérer les ambitions de croissance des entrepreneurs.
Objective - This study proposed a model to test the impacts of the four dimensions of service innovation (i.e., process innovation, organisational innovation, marketing innovation and product innovation) on tourist satisfaction in the Malaysian tourism. Methodology/Technique - Measurement items for the dimensions of service innovation were developed through focus group interviews. A convenience sampling approach was adopted with the distribution of 400 questionnaires among local and foreign tourists. Statistical tolls in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) were adopted to analyse the reliability of items and the hypothesised relationships in the proposed research model. Findings - The findings reveal that the respective dimensions of service innovation are significantly related to tourist satisfaction. These findings contribute to the services marketing body of knowledge by providing insight on the impact of service innovation on tourist satisfaction. Novelty - Limited studies have been done to examine the impact of service innovation dimensions on tourist satisfaction.The findings of this study contribute to the services marketing body of knowledge by providing insight on the impact of service innovation on tourist satisfaction. At the same time to address the practical implications by recommending relevant and effective service innovation strategies for the tourism industry in Malaysia. This knowledge is useful for benchmarking better service innovation practices among the industry practitioners. Type of Paper - Empirical Keywords: Service Innovation; Process Innovation; Organisational Innovation; Marketing Innovation; Product Innovation; Tourist Satisfaction
Banking industry is one of the most important service provider industries in Iran. Given the crucial role of human resources and employee behavior in Quality Management Services, the aim of this study is to survey the impact of perceived organizational support, psychological empowerment and leader-member exchange on organizational commitment and its consequences on the quality of service in the banking industry. This is descriptive, correlational and practical study. Statistical population is all of employees of pasarged bank branches in Tehran and its customers. By Clustering method, 322 employees have been selected and by simple random sampling 322 customers were selected. In this paper Eisenberger perceived organizational support questionnaire, Spreitzer psychological empowerment questionnaire, Liden & Maslyn LMX questionnaire, Allen & Meyer organizational commitment questionnaire and Parasuraman SERVQUAL questionnaire have been used for data gathering. For analyzing data Lisrel and SPSS softwares were used. Results showed that POS, PE and LMX affect OC and have relationship with QOS. A suggestion in human resource development strategies in order to compete in the service sector of the banking industry is that manager should pay more attention to the factors affecting organizational commitment, that is not only creating a reward system. Success of a bank in attracting customers and maintaining them depended on the service that employees provide to customers, hence, the role of employees and their organizational behavior is highlight and providing services quality is one of challenges in organizational behavior and human resources field and is related to organizational commitment, Leadership, perceived of organizational support and psychological empowerment of employees.
cite: Afjei, S. A. A., Yazdanshenas, M., & zargaran khouzani, F. (2019). Explaining the Pattern For Perceived Organizational Support Impact. Management Studies in Development and Evolution, 28(91), 87-118. doi: 10.22054/jmsd.2019.9662
Does improving employee happiness affect customer outcomes? The current study attempts to answer this question by examining the impact of employee satisfaction trajectories (i.e., systematic changes in employee satisfaction) on customer outcomes. After accounting for employees’ initial satisfaction levels, the analyses demonstrate the importance of employee satisfaction trajectories for customer satisfaction and repatronage intentions, as well as identify customer-employee contact as a necessary conduit for their effect. From a macro perspective, employee satisfaction trajectories strongly impact customer satisfaction for companies with significant employee–customer interaction, but not for companies without such interaction. From a micro perspective, employee satisfaction trajectories influence customer repatronage intentions for frequent customers, but not for infrequent customers. These effects are robust to controlling for previous customer evaluations and recent employee evaluations. Overall, these findings extend the dominant view of examining static, employee satisfaction levels and offer important implications for the management of the organizational frontline.
المستخلص الغرض : تحديد تأثير اللقاء الخدمي الملائم في تحفيز سلوكيات الزبون التطوعية . المدخل/ المنهجية : تم إختيار عينة من زبائن مصرف التجارة العراقي (TBI)، بلغ قوامها (105) افراد، وباستخدام إستبانة المصممة في ضوء دراسات سابقة، تمت صياغة المقياس وأختباره في ضوء مجموعة من الأساليب الإحصائية المتقدمة (معامل الثبات ومعامل الثبات المركب وصدق التقارب) . ومن ثم إختبار الفرضيات من خلال نمذجة المعادلة الهيكلية . النتائج : إن لسلوكيات وخصائص مقدم الخدمة تأثير في حث زبائن المصرف في أداء أدوار إضافية تطوعية، كما إن بيئة اللقاء الخدمي تؤدي دور كبير في حفز زبائن المصرف على السلوك التطوعي. الأصالة/ القيمة : تتمثل قيمة البحث الحالي في تقديم أطر لنظرية اللقاء الخدمي، والتركيز على السلوكيات التطوعية للزبون، وأنفرد البحث بتحديد تأثير اللقاء الخدمي في السلوكيات التطوعية وقد توصل البحث الى الكثير من الاستنتاجات من اهمها وجود عمالة ماهرة تمتاز بمارات تفاعلية جيدة للبيئة والدلائل المادية دور كبير في اظهار ملموسية الخدمات المصرفية وتحسين المدركات المعرفية لتحديد مستوى الخدمات المصرفية. واهم التوصيات التي توصل لها البحث تحقيق رضا الزبون من خلال اجراء المسوحات المستمرة للزبائن وسرعة التصدي لمشكلات الزبائن من خلال تشجي الزبون على توافر تغذية عكسية عن حالات الفشل وتوفر البدائل بمرونة وسرعة فائقة وتنمية ثقافة الخدمة لدى العاملين وتقليل الفجوة بين سياقاته وتطلعات الزبون.
Zur Steuerung der Dienstleistungsqualität werden Prozeduren und Aktivitäten beeinflusst, die in der Organisation die Leistungserbringung vorbereiten und unterstützen. Dazu zählt das Dienstleistungsklima, durch dessen gezielte Gestaltung die Qualitätswahrnehmung der Kunden gesteuert werden kann. Zur Beeinflussung der Kunden kann das Setting, d. h. das räumliche und zeitliche Umfeld, in dem die Dienstleistung erbracht wird, gestaltet werden. Durch gezielte Auswahl wird versucht, solche Mitarbeiter zu gewinnen, die den Anforderungen an die Tätigkeit im Kundenkontakt entsprechen. Durch Training lässt sich das Verhalten der Mitarbeiter im Kontakt mit Kunden verbessern. Ein wichtiges Prinzip der Arbeitsgestaltung für Kundenkontaktpersonal bildet das Empowerment: Der damit verbundene, erweiterte Handlungsspielraum ermöglicht es den Mitarbeitern, sich besser auf die jeweiligen Kunden einzustellen.
Linkage research provides a powerful tool for service organizations because it identifies those elements of the work environment that are connected, or linked, with important organizational outcomes including customer satisfaction and financial performance. In doing so, linkage research integrates functional areas across the organization, providing managers with a common language and framework for a holistic, strategic measurement system focusing on the shared objective of serving the customer. Data from linkage studies are also used to establish an agenda for improving the practices that matter most for customer satisfaction, and the data serve as useful predictors of future firm performance. This article describes the basic linkage model that connects employees and customers in service organizations. We describe the contexts in which employee opinions are most strongly related to customer outcomes and identify the eight practices that have been found to be important drivers of customer satisfaction.
A systems-based, guided examination of employee involvement (EI) in the context of participative climates is presented. The authors proposed a theoretical multi-cross-level model to examine the relationship between participative climates as they exist at top and middle organizational levels and employee attitudes and behaviors. Data from an organization consisting of 11 relatively autonomous districts further divided into 88 units were used to examine the relationship of EI practices, participative climates, and individual (n = 483) work-related attitudes and involvement in the EI process. Results indicated that district and unit participative climates interacted with one another in influencing work-related attitudes and behaviors. The importance of multiple participative climates operating in relation to one another to influence individual attitudes and behaviors, and how these climates are supported, is discussed.
A model was developed to describe the roles of organizational obstacles (social and technical) in relation to three types of performance outcomes (customer satisfaction, financial performance, and employee job satisfaction), as well as to various moderators associated with different job types (e.g., customer contact, organizational commitment). In a test of this model, employee perceptions of organizational obstacles were measured in a retail banking environment. For employees in highest contact with customers (i.e., tellers), reports of co-worker obstacles, work environment obstacles, and workbreak scheduling obstacles were associated with lower levels of customer satisfaction. However, there was very little relationship between tellers' perceptions of obstacles and tellers' job satisfaction. For employees in positions associated with more experience and commitment (i.e., account representatives), information timeliness obstacles were linked with higher customer satisfaction, while materials, workspace sharing, and work environment obstacles were linked with lower customer satisfaction. Also for account representatives, the majority of obstacle types negatively affected their job satisfaction. These results are interpreted and discussed and managerial implications are examined.
The research domains of climate and leadership are implicitly entwined, yet there has been little theoretical development or empirical research directly addressing the linkage between these constructs. In this study we developed a framework integrating interactionist-based climate theory (B. Schneider, 1983) and the vertical dyad linkage theory of leadership (G. Graen, 1976; Graen and J. F. Cashman, 1975). Three propositions derived from the integrative framework were supported. Subordinates with high-quality supervisor relations had more positive climate perceptions, exhibited greater consensus on climate, and had perceptions more similar to those of their supervisors than did subordinates with low-quality relations. The value of a synthesis of the two research domains is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Replicated the 1st author and J. J. Parkington's (1979) research on the relationships between employees and customers in service organizations by analyzing survey data from 142 employees and 968 customers from 28 branches of a bank. Moderate support was found for the 1st author and Parkington's work on correlates of stress for boundary role employees. Support was also found for relationships between branch employees' and branch customers' service perceptions and attitudes as reported by the present 1st author et al (1980). Significant relationships were reported between branch employees' perceptions of organizational human resources practices and branch customers' attitudes about service. Employee attitudes and customer attitudes were related to their own and one another's turnover intentions. Results are discussed from the perspective of promoting an integration of consumer and organizational behavior in the service sector. (51 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
L. R. James et al (1984) developed an index,
rWG, for assessing within-group agreement appropriate when only a single target is rated. F. L. Schmidt and J. E. Hunter (1989) criticized the conceptual foundation of
rWG because it is not consistent with the classical model of reliability, and proposed an alternative approach, the use of the rating standard deviation (
SDx), the standard error of the rating mean (
SEM), and the associated confidence intervals for
SEM to index interrater agreement. This comment argues that the critique of
rWG did not clearly distinguish the concepts of interrater consensus (i.e., agreement) and interrater consistency (i.e., reliability). When the distinction between agreement and reliability is drawn, the critique of
rWG is shown to divert attention from more critical problems in the assessment of agreement. The approach for assessing within-group agreement proposed by Schmidt and Hunter has several limitations.
rWG should not be used as an index of interrater reliability but, within certain bounds, it is suitable as an index of within-group interrater agreement.
SDx and
SEM are not acceptable substitutes for extant indexes of interrater agreement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Discusses the need to demonstrate agreement among individuals' perceptions of climate prior to averaging climate scores from the perspective of aggregation. It is shown that estimates of agreement based on group mean scores have been incorrectly interpreted as perceptual agreement among individuals. Of initial importance is a study by J. A. Drexler (see record
1977-22375-001), who concluded that a considerable proportion of the variance in climate perceptions was accounted for by organizational membership. This conclusion has been employed recently by other authors to support the assumption that individuals in the same environment tend to agree with climate perceptions (e.g., J. R. Hackman and E. E. Lawler, Hackman and G. R. Oldham, and Oldham et al—see PA, Vols 46:9858, 54:2031, and 57:2102, respectively). It is demonstrated that Drexler's analysis provided inflated estimates of agreement among individuals, and the logic of the approach is extended to other studies in which inflated estimates of agreement appeared likely. (54 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In psychological research, it is desirable to be able to make statistical comparisons between correlation coefficients measured on the same individuals. For example, an experimenter (E) may wish to assess whether 2 predictors correlate equally with a criterion variable. In another situation, the E may wish to test the hypothesis that an entire matrix of correlations has remained stable over time. The present article reviews the literature on such tests, points out some statistics that should be avoided, and presents a variety of techniques that can be used safely with medium to large samples. Several numerical examples are provided. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study focuses on the antecedents and consequences of displayed emotion in organizations. I propose that customers "catch" the affect of employees through emotional contagion processes. Results indicate that the display of positive emotion by employees is positively related to customers' positive affect following service encounters and to their evaluations of service quality. In a replication and extension of prior research, transaction busyness and employee emotional expressiveness are shown to predict displays of emotion by employees.
Although a common theme in the service quality literature is that organizations must create and maintain a climate for service in order for employees to effectively deliver service, few studies exist that evaluate climate for service components against a criterion of customer satisfaction. The effectiveness of different aspects of a climate for service is evaluated by determining the relationships between service climate components and facets of customer satisfaction, as rated by 538 employees and 7,944 customers across 57 branches of a large bank. All service climate components were significantly related to at least one facet of customer satisfaction (e.g., teller service). Seeking and sharing information about customers' needs and expectations, training in delivering quality service, and rewarding and recognizing excellent service were the practices that were most highly related to satisfaction with service quality.
A set of foundation issues that support employee work and service quality is conceptualized as a necessary but not sufficient cause of a climate for service, which in turn is proposed to be reflected in customer experiences. Climate for service rests on the foundation issues, but in addition it requires policies and practices that focus attention directly on service quality. Data were collected at multiple points in time from employees and customers of 134 branches of a bank and analyzed via structural equation modeling. Results indicated that the model in which the foundation issues yielded a climate for service, and climate for service in turn led to customer perceptions of service quality, fit the data well. However, subsequent cross-lagged analyses revealed the presence of a reciprocal effect for climate and customer perceptions. Implications of these results for theory and research are offered.
This article presents and tests a group-level model of safety climate to supplement the available organization-level model. Climate perceptions in this case are related to supervisory safety practices rather than to company policies and procedures. The study included 53 work groups in a single manufacturing company. Safety climate perceptions, measured with a newly developed scale, revealed both within-group homogeneity and between-groups variation. Predictive validity was measured with a new outcome measure, microaccidents, that refers to behavior-dependent on-the-job minor injuries requiring medical attention. Climate perceptions significantly predicted microaccident records during the 5-month recording period that followed climate measurement, when the effects of group- and individual-level risk factors were controlled. The study establishes an empirical link between safety climate perceptions and objective injury data.
The authors proposed and tested a model describing the relationship between customer service providers' perceptions and attitudes toward their service-related duties and their customers' perceptions of satisfaction with their service experiences. Results indicated that the perception of having standards for service delivery in an organization is strongly related to line-level employees' perceptions of support from coworkers and supervisors. Perceived support from coworkers was significantly related to service providers' customer orientation, whereas perceived support from supervisors showed a weaker relationship to a customer orientation. Ultimately, service providers' customer orientation was strongly related to customers' satisfaction with service. Finally, a set of post hoc analyses indicated that coworker and supervisory support explained a greater proportion of incremental variance in the model than did perceived organizational support alone.
The article discusses research on organizational climate (OC), the question of whether OC is an individual or organizational property, and the idea that OC exists at subsystem levels and is independent from them. The OC perceived by an individual employee—for example, a departmental climate—is considered a subsystem climate of the organization. Studies mentioned include: “Organization and Environment,” by P. R. Lawrence and J. W. Lorsch; and “Organizational Climate and Job Satisfaction: A Conceptual Synthesis,” by R. L. Payne, S. Fineman, and T. D. Wall.
A representative design for diagnosing effectiveness in retail service organizations is presented and operationalized in a study of the employees and customers from twenty-three bank branches. The design builds on some boundary-spanning theory and on some practical realities which suggest that data should be collected from both employees and customers when diagnosing and evaluating service organizations. Assumptions underlying the use of perception-based diagnoses are also explained. Results revealed some strong relationships between employee perceptions of branch practices and procedures in relation to service and customer perceptions of service practices and quality. Results are discussed with reference to organizational diagnosis and the potential integration of organizational and consumer behavior.
Organizational and psychological climate research has been plagued by cross-level inference problems. This paper advocates treating the organization as the unit of theory for organizational climate while preserving the individual as the unit of theory for psychological climate. It examines multilevel conceptual problems in climate research and discusses strategies for improving the validity and assessing the reliability of measurement. Additional multilevel research on climate and other areas of organizational science, particularly organizational culture, is encouraged.
The relationship between social networks and conflict in 20 organizational units was investigated. Results indicated that low-conflict organizations are characterized by higher numbers of intergroup strong ties, measured as frequent contacts, than are high-conflict organizations. Further, comparison of the network configuration of the organizations studied suggested that high- and low-conflict organizations feature significantly different sociometric structures. As a ubiquitous feature of social systems, intergroup conflict has been studied from a variety of perspectives with a wide array of methodologies. Exchange theory, game theory, Marxist and functionalist perspectives, and psychiatric and psychological approaches are all represented in the extant research. The different methodological approaches taken include laboratory experiments, survey research, and case and ethnological studies. Despite the considerable variety of approaches available, most studies are concentrated in a few traditional areas, although a number of promising new avenues await investigation. The present study followed one of those avenues by examining the relationship between social networks and conflict in organizations across 20 organizations. The bulk of empirical research on conflict in organizations has been micro in orientation, and experimental or quasiexperimental paradigms have predominated. Despite prominent psychologists' admission that studies of intergroup conflict need to consider structural variables (Alderfer & Smith, 1982; Billig, 1976; Ring, 1967; Steiner, 1974), most research has continued to focus on attitudes, traits, or interpersonal dynamics, with occasional work on ethnicity or organizational subunits. Consistent with this micro focus, empirical studies of conflict have been limited to people or groups within single organizations. To date, research analyzing antecedents or correlates of conflict across a sample of organizations has not taken place. This lack limits theoretical knowledge as well as practical application because considering only one organization at a time makes it difficult to tell whether levels of conflict are comparatively high or
The purpose of this article is to present a strategy for the evaluation and modification of covariance structure models. The approach makes use of recent developments in estimation under non-standard conditions and unified asymptotic theory related to hypothesis testing. Factors affecting the evaluation and modification of these models are reviewed in terms of nonnormality, missing data, specification error, and sensitivity to large sample size. Alternative model evaluation and specification error search strategies are also reviewed. The approach to covariance structure modeling advocated in this article utilizes the LISREL modification index for assessing statistical power, and the expected parameter change statistic for guiding specification error searches. It is argued that the common approach of utilizing alternative fit indices does not allow the investigator to rule out plausible explanations for model misfit. The approach advocated in this article allows one to determine the extent of sample size sensitivity and the effects of specification error by relying on existing statistical theory underlying covariance structure models.
Using two waves of store financial data and survey data collected from 34,866 and 34,365 employees and 30,239 and 33,299 customers who shopped at 594 stores of a large U.S. retail company we tested path models relating importance of service to management, service climate variables, sales personnel service performance, and store financial performance. At the store-level of analysis, the results indicated that (a) importance of service to management does relate positively to service climate variables (b) service climate variables are predictive of sales personnel service performance, and (c) sales personnel service performance in turn is predictive of store financial performance. Issues concerning the generalizability of the present findings as well as the implications of these results for effectively managing the internal and external task environments of retail service organizations are discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.