An examination of service-related antecedents to retail store performance

Abstract

SummaryUsing two waves of store ®nancial 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 ®nancial 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 ®nancial performance. Issues concerning the generalizability of the present ®ndings as well as the implications of these results for eectively managing the internal and external task environments of retail service organizations are discussed.

Linking internal marketing with customer outcomes

“…Moreover, on the basis of the attraction-selection-attrition theory (Schneider, 1987), the shared branch climate often results in homogenous front-line employee behaviours which shape customer overall experience and better predict customer outcomes (Borucki and Burke, 1999) and therefore, customers' perceptions are shaped by the cumulative level of front-line employee service delivery efforts during their previous visits to the branch.…”

Human Resource Flexibility as a Mediating Variable Between High Performance Work Systems and Performance

“…Specifically, given the close interaction between employees in this area and the firm's customers, we included customer service effectiveness as an indicator of performance. Prior studies in the HRM field have used this measure (e.g., Borucki & Burke, 1999;Liao & Chuang, 2004;Youndt et al, 1996), and it refers to the extent to which relationships with customers are efficient and customers' needs and expectations are fulfilled. As shown in the appendix, the performance measures used in our research are relative because we asked informants to assess their performance over the past 3 years as compared with that of their competitors (Delaney & Huselid, 1996).…”

Perception of selection interview, selection test and employee performance: An empirical analysis

“…Without variability among individuals in abilities, aptitudes, interests and personality traits, one would expect all job candidates to perform comparably. Based on this, Boroucki and Burke (1999) expressed that as jobs become more complex, individual differences in output variability also increases. Hence the need to determine based on certain criteria and media, who is best fit to occupy a position among so many applicants.…”