ArticleThe service organization: Climate is crucial
Abstract
These results may be summarized as follows: When branch employees perceive a strong service orientation in their branch, the customers of those branches report not only that they receive generally superior service, but that specific facets of service are handled in a superior manner. In addition, employees themselves experience less negative consequences at work when their branch has more of an enthusiastic orientation to service. Thus, employees are less dissatisfied and frustrated, more likely to plan to remain in their branch, and they experience less role conflict and role ambiguity when the branch is more like employees feel it should be— that is, more enthusiastic in its approach to service.
A major conclusion from this study: Employees and customers of service organizations will each experience positive outcomes when the organization operates with a customer service orientation. This orientation seems to result in superior service practices and procedures that are observable by customers and that seem to fit employee views of the appropriate style for dealing with customers.
More specifically, this research supports the following assumptions:
- •
⊎ Employees perceive themselves to be more enthusiastic and management to be more bureaucratic in service orientation. This suggests gaps between the goals of employees vis-à-vis service and the management goals that employees perceive. It is important for organizations to be aware of where these differences exist so they can take steps to remedy them. Figure 8 pinpointed these differences for the branch employees in this study and, thus, where the bank needed to change to be more congruent with the employees' more enthusiastic, less bureaucratic orientation to service.
- •
⊎ Employees who work in settings that are more congruent with their own service orientation experience less role ambiguity and role conflict and, as a result, are generally more satisfied, experience less frustration in their efforts to give good service, and are more likely to report they intend to keep working for the organization. This assumption was clearly supported; it also suggests that what management frequently perceives as employee disinterest or lack of motivation is really employees' lack of enthusiasm for carrying out management policies that are incongruent with their own desires. In fact, employees in this study seemed very interested in meeting customer service needs, but less interested in satisfying management's bureaucratic needs.
- •
⊎ Even though they view service from a different perspective, employee and customer perceptions of organizational effectiveness are positively related. Support for this assumption was quite strong; that is, when employees report that their branch emphasized service by word and deed, customers report superior banking experiences. These data, and my earlier work with bank customers also show that customers who report a more positive service climate are less likely to switch their accounts to other banks. These findings clearly indicate that management emphasis in a service organization cannot be hidden from those who are served: climate shows in service organizations.
This idea of an organization's climate being apparent to customers goes to the heart of issues presented in the introduction about the determination of organizational effectiveness. A finance-oriented conspiracy seems to promote a short-run productivity orientation rather than a more long-term, wholistic perspective to determine organizational effectiveness. A more succinct way of summarizing this issue is through he concept of “good will.”
An organization accrues good will over long periods of time by varied behaviors. Good will is reflected in the way people who have direct (that is, employees), indirect (that is, employees' families), and in-between (that is, customers, suppliers) contact with an organization think and speak about it; goodwill is the organization's reputation —that is, the way it is viewed by the multiple constituencies it affects and by which it is affected.
While the present study concentrated on the good-will perceptions of customers, there probably would have been similar results from research concentrated on other branch constituencies. Thus suppliers to the branches could have been asked for their opinions about the branch, and branch employees could have been asked about how suppliers are treated. Or employees' families could have reported their opinions about the way the bank affects their spouse/parent and so on, and employees might have reported on the general quality of consideration given them as employees. Perhaps more interestingly, potential branch employees could have been surveyed about what they think it would be like to work in a particular branch, and those perceptions could have been related to what incumbents report it is like to work there.
In each of these hypothetical research efforts, the interesting issue would be the way in which climates created in the branch are “picked up” by the various groups important to the long-term survival of the organization. I suspect these questions are infrequently asked, and rarely if ever pursued systematically. Yet, organizations need the good will of families when an employee is making turnover decisions; they need to have a positive reputation as a place to work in order to attract good employees; and, especially in a time of strife (for example, in a situation like that of the Chrysler Corporation), they need the good will of suppliers.
A very general conclusion, then, culled from this research effort: It is just as important for an organization to be interested in its relationships with the many groups that affect its long-term viability as it is for it to be concerned with the short-run financial considerations affecting stockholders and creditors, and so on.
References (5)
Cited by (291)
Employee engagement and the service profit chain in a quick-service restaurant organization
2021, Journal of Business ResearchThis study examines employee engagement in a quick-service restaurant’s (QSR’s) service profit chain. It addresses calls for new research from the service profit chain literature by using large sample sizes, a new employee perception construct (i.e., employee engagement), and financial data across multiple years. The findings support service management theory and the service profit chain, in that employee engagement was significantly linked to faster service value performance times, service value performance was significantly linked to customer perception of service, and customer perception of service was significantly linked to sales and controllable profit in year 1 and comparable (year-over-year) sales growth in year 2. The study shows that employee engagement, directly and indirectly, affects operational, customer, and financial performance measures in the QSR and provides initial support for the importance of fostering employee engagement in the workplace.
Climate
2020, Manual of Evidence-Based Admitting Orders and TherapeuticsPeople choose when or when not to engage in creative work and the decision to pursue creative work depends on their perception of their work environment or climate. Over the years, many models of climate have been proposed. It has been found that climate perceptions are strongly related to real-world creative achievement. The climate dimensions producing the strongest relationships with creative achievement are those marking a supportive, albeit intellectually challenging, and engaging work environment. The variables that moderate these relationships are discussed along with the steps that might be taken to establish a climate for creativity.
Improving frontline service employees’ innovative behavior using conflict management in the hospitality industry: The mediating role of engagement
2018, Tourism ManagementConflict within an organization is inescapable. However when frontline hotel employees can overcome conflicts their levels of engagement can increase and innovative behavior may emerge. The purpose of this study was to verify that the conflict management, as perceived by frontline employees, significantly affects their levels of engagement and innovative behavior. The results support this notion. Further, in the sample of 383, those employees expressing a high level of engagement were more likely to engage in innovative behavior. Also, employee engagement fully mediated the relationship between conflict management climate and innovative behavior. These findings have important implications for managing conflict management in the hospitality industry. Finally, limitations and future research directions are also discussed.
Customer-directed extra-role performance and emotional understanding: Effects on customer conflict, felt stress, job performance and turnover intentions
2017, Australasian Marketing JournalSales and customer service employees often face demanding or even abusive customers. This study utilized structural equation modeling to develop a preliminary model identifying relationships between interpersonal customer conflict, key consequences of such conflict, and potential means to avoid or reduce that conflict. Results confirm that interpersonal conflict with customers has a direct negative influence on job performance, and works through felt stress to increase turnover intentions among employees. However, results suggest that a salesperson's emotional understanding and customer-directed extra-role performance reduce that conflict and increase job performance. Comparisons with prior related studies, although none of those cover all relevant factors, indicate that these relationships are likely to be similar in developed and developing economies. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.
销售人员和客服人员常常面对苛刻的、甚至恶语伤人的客户。这项研究利用结构方程模型建立了一个初步模型,以确定人际的客户冲突关系、这种冲突的主要后果,以及避免或减少此类冲突的可能手段。结果证实,与客户发生人际冲突对工作绩效产生直接的负面影响,会通过压力感受提高员工的离职意向。然而,结果表明,销售人员的情感理解和以客户为导向的超角色表现能减少冲突并提高工作绩效。和以前的相关研究进行比较,虽然这些研究没有一项涵盖了所有相关因素,但这种比较表明,这些关系在发达经济体和发展中经济体中可能是相似的。还讨论了局限性和未来的研究方向。
Expanding the I-O psychology mindset to organizational success
2022, Industrial and Organizational PsychologyDo leader expectations shape employee service performance? Enhancing self-expectations and internalization in employee role identity
2020, Journal of Management and Organization