How servant leadership leads to employees’ customer-oriented behavior in the service industry? A dual-mechanism model

Mengru Yuan; Wenjing Cai; Xiaopei Gao; Jingtao Fu

doi:10.3390/ijerph17072296

How servant leadership leads to employees’ customer-oriented behavior in the service industry? A dual-mechanism model

Mengru Yuan, Wenjing Cai^*, Xiaopei Gao, Jingtao Fu

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Although servant leadership has been acknowledged as an important predictor of employees’ behavioral outcomes in the service industry, there is still no cohesive understanding of the positive association between servant leadership and employees’ customer-oriented behavior (COB). This research, drawing on cognitive affective processing system theory (CAPS), empirically investigates the influence of servant leadership on employees’ COB by exploring two mediators (i.e., organizational identification and vitality). We conducted two studies in China, using a cross-sectional design to survey employees in service-oriented technical organizations (Study 1) and a time-lagged design to survey hospitality employees with frontline service jobs in star-level hotels (Study 2). Across both samples, we found that servant leadership enhanced employees’ COB by simultaneously increasing their organizational identification and vitality. We discuss the implications of these results for future research and practice.

Original language	English
Article number	2296
Pages (from-to)	1-19
Number of pages	19
Journal	International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Volume	17
Issue number	7
Early online date	29 Mar 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072296
Publication status	Published - 1 Apr 2020

Funding

Funding: This research was funded by HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES RESEARCH PROJECTS OF ANHUI, grant number 22020819018, by FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH FUNDS FOR THE CENTRAL UNIVERSITIES, and by NATURE SCIENCE FUND OF HAINAN PROVINCE, grant number 717044.

Funders	Funder number
FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH FUNDS
HUMANITIES	22020819018
NATURE	717044
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

Keywords

Customer-oriented behavior
Dual-mechanism
Organizational identification
Servant leadership
Vitality

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10.3390/ijerph17072296

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abstract = "Although servant leadership has been acknowledged as an important predictor of employees{\textquoteright} behavioral outcomes in the service industry, there is still no cohesive understanding of the positive association between servant leadership and employees{\textquoteright} customer-oriented behavior (COB). This research, drawing on cognitive affective processing system theory (CAPS), empirically investigates the influence of servant leadership on employees{\textquoteright} COB by exploring two mediators (i.e., organizational identification and vitality). We conducted two studies in China, using a cross-sectional design to survey employees in service-oriented technical organizations (Study 1) and a time-lagged design to survey hospitality employees with frontline service jobs in star-level hotels (Study 2). Across both samples, we found that servant leadership enhanced employees{\textquoteright} COB by simultaneously increasing their organizational identification and vitality. We discuss the implications of these results for future research and practice.",

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How servant leadership leads to employees’ customer-oriented behavior in the service industry? A dual-mechanism model

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