Antecedents of job embeddedness and its effect on proactive customer service performance of frontline employees in the hospitality industry

The highly competitive hospitality business environment and the ever rising customer expectations have urged scholars and managers to pay constant attention to employees’ customer service performance. On top of in-role behaviours, employees are expected to proactively demonstrate extra-role behaviou...

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Main Author: Chan, Wei Leong
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2018
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Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/84120/1/GSM%202019%2014%20-%20IR.pdf
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spelling my-upm-ir.841202020-11-09T05:42:13Z Antecedents of job embeddedness and its effect on proactive customer service performance of frontline employees in the hospitality industry 2018-10 Chan, Wei Leong The highly competitive hospitality business environment and the ever rising customer expectations have urged scholars and managers to pay constant attention to employees’ customer service performance. On top of in-role behaviours, employees are expected to proactively demonstrate extra-role behaviours to enhance customer experience. However, what galvanizes such proactive extra-role service behaviours, theoretically termed as proactive customer service performance, remains an underexplored issue. Anchoring in the hospitality, customer service performance, and human resource management literature, this study captured job embeddedness as a likely antecedent. In addition, given the utility of job embeddedness, several other research gaps pertaining to its antecedents and mediating roles, as well as the relationship between off-the-job and on-the-job embeddedness, were also examined. Using self-administered questionnaires, 163 paired responses were gathered from frontline employees and their supervisors/managers in 16 hotels/resorts with a rating of four stars and five stars in Malaysia. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) analyses supported six out of the 15 hypotheses. In particular, on-the-job embeddedness had a positive relationship with proactive customer service performance but off-the-job embeddedness had no relationship with it. The associations of level of control over work hours and felt obligation with on-the-job embeddedness were marginally and significantly positive, respectively. The association between perceived organizational work-life support and on-the-job embeddedness, however, was null. Against the hypotheses, none of the proposed antecedents predicted off-the-job embeddedness and the mediating roles of off-the-job and on-the-job embeddedness were all insignificant except for the relationship between felt obligation and proactive customer service performance which was mediated by on-the-job embeddedness. As expected, off-the-job and on-the-job embeddedness correlated positively, level of control over work hours influenced perceived organizational work-life support positively, and perceived organizational work-life support affected felt obligation positively. Taken together the findings, a meaningful social exchange process from level of control over work hours to proactive customer service performance was evident. The study concluded that employees’ proactive customer service performance was contingent upon their level of control over work hours, and their job embeddedness played a sizable social exchange role in between. On-the-job embeddedness was more proximate to proactive customer service performance than was off-the-job embeddedness. Employees - Attitudes Hospitality industry - Customer services Tourism - Customer services 2018-10 Thesis http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/84120/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/84120/1/GSM%202019%2014%20-%20IR.pdf text en public doctoral Universiti Putra Malaysia Employees - Attitudes Hospitality industry - Customer services Tourism - Customer services Ho, Jo Ann
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
collection PSAS Institutional Repository
language English
advisor Ho, Jo Ann
topic Employees - Attitudes
Hospitality industry - Customer services
Tourism - Customer services
spellingShingle Employees - Attitudes
Hospitality industry - Customer services
Tourism - Customer services
Chan, Wei Leong
Antecedents of job embeddedness and its effect on proactive customer service performance of frontline employees in the hospitality industry
description The highly competitive hospitality business environment and the ever rising customer expectations have urged scholars and managers to pay constant attention to employees’ customer service performance. On top of in-role behaviours, employees are expected to proactively demonstrate extra-role behaviours to enhance customer experience. However, what galvanizes such proactive extra-role service behaviours, theoretically termed as proactive customer service performance, remains an underexplored issue. Anchoring in the hospitality, customer service performance, and human resource management literature, this study captured job embeddedness as a likely antecedent. In addition, given the utility of job embeddedness, several other research gaps pertaining to its antecedents and mediating roles, as well as the relationship between off-the-job and on-the-job embeddedness, were also examined. Using self-administered questionnaires, 163 paired responses were gathered from frontline employees and their supervisors/managers in 16 hotels/resorts with a rating of four stars and five stars in Malaysia. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) analyses supported six out of the 15 hypotheses. In particular, on-the-job embeddedness had a positive relationship with proactive customer service performance but off-the-job embeddedness had no relationship with it. The associations of level of control over work hours and felt obligation with on-the-job embeddedness were marginally and significantly positive, respectively. The association between perceived organizational work-life support and on-the-job embeddedness, however, was null. Against the hypotheses, none of the proposed antecedents predicted off-the-job embeddedness and the mediating roles of off-the-job and on-the-job embeddedness were all insignificant except for the relationship between felt obligation and proactive customer service performance which was mediated by on-the-job embeddedness. As expected, off-the-job and on-the-job embeddedness correlated positively, level of control over work hours influenced perceived organizational work-life support positively, and perceived organizational work-life support affected felt obligation positively. Taken together the findings, a meaningful social exchange process from level of control over work hours to proactive customer service performance was evident. The study concluded that employees’ proactive customer service performance was contingent upon their level of control over work hours, and their job embeddedness played a sizable social exchange role in between. On-the-job embeddedness was more proximate to proactive customer service performance than was off-the-job embeddedness.
format Thesis
qualification_level Doctorate
author Chan, Wei Leong
author_facet Chan, Wei Leong
author_sort Chan, Wei Leong
title Antecedents of job embeddedness and its effect on proactive customer service performance of frontline employees in the hospitality industry
title_short Antecedents of job embeddedness and its effect on proactive customer service performance of frontline employees in the hospitality industry
title_full Antecedents of job embeddedness and its effect on proactive customer service performance of frontline employees in the hospitality industry
title_fullStr Antecedents of job embeddedness and its effect on proactive customer service performance of frontline employees in the hospitality industry
title_full_unstemmed Antecedents of job embeddedness and its effect on proactive customer service performance of frontline employees in the hospitality industry
title_sort antecedents of job embeddedness and its effect on proactive customer service performance of frontline employees in the hospitality industry
granting_institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
publishDate 2018
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/84120/1/GSM%202019%2014%20-%20IR.pdf
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