The mobilization of employees’ psychological resources: how servant leadership motivates pro-customer deviance

Abstract

Purpose Drawing on social learning theory and conservation of resources theory, this study aims to investigate how servant leadership (SL) is linked to employees’ pro-customer deviance (PCD) through the serial mediating effects of perceived organizational support for creativity (POS) and creative self-efficacy (CSE), work autonomy (WA) and CSE. Design/methodology/approach This study used an online questionnaire survey platform to accurately distribute the questionnaire to the target population. Data were collected from 439 frontline employees working in hotels. The data were analyzed with a structural equation modeling approach to identify the complex relationship. Findings Using an online survey, this study demonstrated the significant positive effect of SL on PCD and further revealed the two serial mediating paths (POS → CSE; WA → CSE) of the SL effect. Practical implications The findings of this research generate valuable implications for practitioners and managers. Managers need to be aware of the objectivity and universality of PCD in service delivery scenarios and fully understand how their leadership style influences the internal motivation and external performance of employees engaged in this behavior. Originality/value This study makes a prominent contribution to the hospitality literature by focusing on PCD. This study enriches the research on the antecedents of PCD, constructs a cross-level multipath mechanism model of PCD in the context of SL and reveals the rationalization process and nature of employees’ PCD.

A Study on Paradoxical Leadership and Multiple Path Mechanisms of Employees’ Bootleg Innovation

“… 67 This study supports and responds to this call by understanding the bootlegging innovation of individuals from a paradoxical perspective. While bootlegging innovation has dual attributes 25 and is characterized by “paradoxes”, previous studies have examined employees’ bootlegging innovations in terms of ethical leadership, 68 authoritarian leadership, 15 servant leadership, 69 temporal leadership, 18 and other unidimensional leadership styles, lacking of thinking in terms of composite leadership styles. Paradoxical leadership is a kind of leadership style with contradictory characteristics, and employees’ bootleg innovation behavior is also a kind of behavior with contradictory characteristics.…”

“…Second, although existing research points out that paradoxical leadership can effectively deal with various contradictory innovation problems in the organization, the research on how to solve the problem is relatively lacking. When previous literature explored the relationship between leadership behavior and employees’ bootlegging innovation, the main line of research was dominated by psychological variables such as innovative self-efficacy, 69 prevention regulatory focus, 15 moral efficacy and moral identity, 68 and this paper designed the mediating variable of thriving at work as a useful addition to the existing research. On the one hand, this study confirms the separate mediating role of psychological capital and thriving at work in the relationship between paradoxical leadership and bootlegging innovation, and on the other hand, it constructs a logical process of “situation - cognition - emotion - behavior” through the cognitive-emotional personality system theory, which forms an overall transmission path between key research variables and verifies that psychological factors can stimulate and create thriving at work, 21 thus revealing more systematically and completely the mechanism of action of paradoxical leadership on employees’ bootlegging innovation.…”

Consumer engagement, stress, and conservation of resources theory: A review, conceptual development, and future research agenda

“…The consumer engagement concept, which has gained traction in the marketing literature in the last 15 years (Hollebeek, Sharma, et al, 2022; Santos et al, 2022), has been defined as a consumer's resource investment in his/her brand interactions (Hollebeek et al, 2019), exposing its theoretical alignment with the CORT (e.g., Hu et al, 2023). Despite debate surrounding the concept, authors typically agree regarding several of its theoretical hallmarks, as discussed further below.…”

Damping the Relationship Between Work Pressure and Presenteeism Through Servant Leadership in Hotels

“…Servant leadership is a leadership style promoted by service organizations that prioritizes the interests and needs of employees over the interests and requirements of individuals and organizations (Huertas-Valdivia et al, 2022;Elkhwesky et al, 2022). When compared to other leadership styles, servant leadership is very compatible with "serving others" (Kauppila et al, 2022), which is the key business necessity of service organizations (Qiu et al, 2020& Hu et al, 2022.…”