Effects of co-worker support and customer cooperation on service ...

Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 20 (2013) 23e33

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Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management journal homepage: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-hospitalityand-tourism-management

Effects of co-worker support and customer cooperation on service employee attitudes and behaviour: Empirical evidence from the airline industry Thanawut Limpanitgul a, *, Matthew J. Robson b, Julian Gould-Williams c, Weerawit Lertthaitrakul d a

Faculty of Management Sciences, Kasetsart University, 199 M.6 Sukhumvit Road, Si Racha, Chonburi 20230, Thailand Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, United Kingdom c Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, United Kingdom d Faculty of Business Administration, Sripatum University, Thailand b

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 3 October 2012 Accepted 24 May 2013 Available online

The service marketing literature promotes the importance of customers and co-workers in providing excellent service delivery. Using a sample of 335 cabin service attendants of a major flag-carrier airline, we examine structural effects of support received from customers and co-workers on service employees’ attitudes and behaviours. In support of our hypotheses, we identify that the relationships between customer cooperation and external representation (i.e. the willingness of employees to promote the organization to outsiders), and the relationship between co-worker support and internal influence (i.e. employees’ involvement in recommending service improvements) are fully mediated by job satisfaction and organizational commitment. However, the data did not support two of our hypotheses, namely the effect of organisational commitment on internal influence, and the effect of customer cooperation on organisational commitment. It is possible that these non significant findings are a consequence of our respondents’ collectivistic values along with their differentiating between the organization and customers. Ó 2013 The Authors.

Keywords: Airline Co-worker support Customer cooperation Service employee Job attitude Mediation

1. Introduction The tourism industry has grown to become one of the largest and most important sectors in many countries. The industry contributes more than nine percents of world GDP and represents ten percent of employment worldwide (World Travel and Tourism Council, 2011). This said, there are growing numbers of tourismrelated firms, resulting in intense competition between rival companies. As such, the pursuit of service excellence is considered an essential strategy (Gould-Williams, 1999). Increasing numbers of service providers seek to deliver superior service to customers in order to exceed customer expectations (Peccei & Rosenthal, 2001). Scholars have suggested that quality can be enhanced when employees do “that little bit extra” for the customer (Ennew & Binks, 1999). As a result, a significant number of studies of employee extra-role behaviours have been carried out in various service contexts. The empirical evidence to date supports the significant role of organisational citizenship behaviour (hereafter OCB), which is defined as employee discretionary behaviour that is intended to

* Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (T. Limpanitgul). 1447-6770/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 The Authors. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2013.05.004

help either individuals or organisations (see Podsakoff, Whiting, Podsakoff, & Blume, 2009 for review). However, Bell and Menguc (2002) reported that most studies rely on generic measures of OCB which are assumed to be applicable across contexts. To date, little is known about citizenship behaviours that are service-specific. The significance of these service-specific behaviours stems from an observation that some forms of OCB might be more appropriate for some sectors than others (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993). In the service sector, where employees “have special requirements on dimensions related to dealing with customers and representing the organisation to outsiders” (p. 90), studies have attempted to identify specific forms of service employee citizenship behaviour (SECB). One prevalent stream of work (e.g. Bettencourt & Brown, 1997) has emphasised prosocial service behaviour (PSB), which represents positive behaviours that service employees direct at customers and coworkers. The service literature reveals two other dimensions of employee behaviour, namely internal influence and external representation which are critical to the success of service organisations (cf. Bowen & Schneider, 1985). According to Bettencourt, Gwinner, and Meuter (2001), external representation reflects allegiance to the organisation through the promotion of its interests and image to outsiders whereas internal influence refers to involvement and

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T. Limpanitgul et al. / Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 20 (2013) 23e33

contribution of constructive ideas to improve service quality delivered by the company and its workers. While the literature has paid some attention to identifying drivers of PSB, the origins of internal influence and external representation remain largely unknown. This is an issue as the drivers of internal influence and external representation may be different to those of PSB. In the absence of evidence, it is possible for practitioners to assume that components of SECB (i.e. PSB, internal influence and external representation) are equivalent, as in the recent case of Virgin Atlantic, who fired employees for negatively representing the organisation to outsiders on Facebook on the basis that these individuals ‘could not possibly be good service providers’ (The Sun, 1 November 2008). In service organisations, co-workers and customers are considered important elements of service work (Korczynski, 2002; Susskind, Kacmar, & Borchgrevink, 2007; Zeithaml, Bitner, & Gremler, 2009). There are recognitions of the service providercustomer interdependence (Netemeyer, Boles, McKee, & McMurrian, 1997; Schneider & Bowen, 1992; 1995; Schneider et al, 2003) and the essence of co-worker cooperation (Azzolini & Shillaber, 1993) in the delivery of excellent service. However, only few studies have examined these interpersonal exchange relationships (Ladd & Henry, 2000; Sherony & Green, 2002). Specifically in the service context, little attention has been given to the support that employees may receive from other concerned parties during service provision despite its promising effects on employee responses (Yoon, Seo, & Yoon, 2004). The main objective of this study is to provide a holistic understanding of SECB and support received from co-workers and customers. In this respect, we make two main contributions to the literature. First, the extant literature review reveals that only a limited number of studies have considered the effects of support on psychological and behavioural responses of the service employee. In addition, existing conceptualisations of relationships among these variables are somehow mixed. Therefore, the present study seeks to empirically provide evidence of the theoretically-anchored structural explanation between support and service behaviour. Second, we focus on identifying the drivers of multi-component SECB. To our knowledge, no prior work has focused on the drivers of SECB as a whole (incorporating PSB, internal influence, and external representation), limiting managerial understanding of the facets of citizenship behaviours. Following the section addressing the development and conceptualisation of service employee citizenship behaviour, we introduce our theoretical model and develop our hypotheses. Then, the paper describes the measurement process, including the sample characteristics obtained from a major flag-carrier airline designed to test our proposed model and hypotheses. Finally, we conclude the paper with discussions of the implications and limitations of the findings and suggest avenues for future research. 2. Conceptual background 2.1. Development of service employee citizenship behaviour Based on the OCB literature, with particular reference to the role of service employees, Bettencourt and Brown (1997) conceptualised PSB as comprising of two dimensions of discretionary behaviours which employees directed at external customers (i.e. extra-role service delivery) and, internally, at their co-workers (i.e. cooperation), as well as role-prescribed tasks that employees are required to perform for customers. Taken together, PSB can be defined as behaviours, both in-role and extra-role, directed towards customers and co-workers that ultimately affect service performance as perceived by customers (Bettencourt & Brown, 1997).

Later, Bettencourt et al. (2001) introduced a new tailored form of OCB called ‘service-oriented OCB’ which consists of three fundamental roles of service employees that derive from the position of boundary spanners including loyalty, participation and service delivery. Their conceptualisation of ‘service-oriented OCB’ was largely influenced by concept of loyalty, participation, and conscientiousness introduced by Van Dyne, Graham, and Dienesch (1994). In subsequent work (i.e. Bettencourt & Brown, 2003; Bettencourt, Brown, & MacKenzie, 2005), two of the three components of service-oriented OCB, loyalty and participation have been renamed ‘external representation’ and ‘internal influence’, respectively. Surprisingly, the later studies (i.e. Bettencourt & Brown, 2003; Bettencourt et al., 2005; Bettencourt et al., 2001) mainly focus on organisational-related citizenship behaviours (i.e. external representation and internal influence) and ignore the importance of the extra-role customer service delivery element and cooperation among co-workers proposed earlier (cf. Bettencourt & Brown, 1997). To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study has simultaneously examined all these five aspects of service-specific OCB. Given that there is no existing term for the construct that includes all these dimensions, the present study employs the label SECB to distinguish this concept from other terms of service-related OCB. 2.2. Conceptualisation of service employee citizenship behaviour Inconsistency in OCB conceptualisations, that is, multidimensional versus multi-component approaches, is evident in the literature. This is also the case with tailored forms of OCB in the services marketing context. The problem seems to be exacerbated by the very small number of papers on tailored OCB related to the service context. This said, there is growing evidence supporting the conceptualisation of the three service delivery behaviours (i.e. inrole service delivery, extra-role service delivery, and cooperation) within a higher-order construct. There is no easy distinction between in-role and extra-role service behaviours. To this point, Morrison’s (1994) study showed that variation exists in how individuals implicitly define and measure OCB. The boundary between what is perceived as in-role and extra-role varies; some individuals view specific behaviours as in-role, while others view these same behaviours as beyond their duties (Kwantes, Karam, Kuo, & Towson, 2008). Lam, Hui, and Law (1999) demonstrated empirically that employees in collectivistic societies (Hong Kong and Japan) were more likely to define OCBs as part of expected job behaviour than employees in individualistic societies (Australia and the United States). Employee perceptions of extra-role behaviours as in-role may result in employee engagement of such behaviours (Coyle-Shapiro, Kessler, & Purcell, 2004). It is, therefore, more appropriate to consider extra-role and in-role behaviours within a higher-order construct (Ackfeldt & Wong, 2006). Accordingly, we employed a higher-order conceptualisation of the individualdirected service-related behaviour constructs that comprise PSB. Following prior studies (Bettencourt & Brown, 2003: Bettencourt et al., 2005), the remaining two parts of SECB (i.e. internal influence and external representation) are modelled as separate, distinct components. The justification is that: (1) These constructs are not closely connected to customer service delivery, thus allowing the employee to more easily separate themselves from their role-prescribed duties. Moornman and Blakely (1995) concluded that individual initiative and loyal boosterism (i.e. internal influence and external representation in our study) are easily distinguishable from in-role behaviour. Additionally, external representation, by definition, occurs outside the work setting; (2) With reference to Williams and Anderson’s (1991) two-factor approach


to OCB (i.e. organisation-directed OCB and individual-directed OCB), internal influence and external representation constructs are a conceptually distinct group of behaviours that is targeted to improve the organisation rather than promoting customer service per se. 3. Research hypotheses 3.1. Job satisfaction and organisational commitment Although existing research has produced a considerable amount of empirical evidence concerning the relationships between employee job satisfaction, organisational commitment and OCB, few OCB studies have examined these two attitudinal constructs at the same time. With recognition of the interdependence between job satisfaction and organisational commitment (Luthans, 2002; Rayton, 2006) and the importance of both constructs in understanding employee behaviour (Harrison, Newman, & Roth, 2006; Tett & Meyer, 1993), services scholars have called for further studies to investigate and to incorporate both attitudinal variables in future research on prosocial service behaviour (Ackfeldt & Wong, 2006; Bettencourt & Brown, 1997). Although job satisfaction and organisational commitment are job attitudes, job satisfaction is believed to cause organisational commitment because it is more specific, less stable, and more rapidly formed (Williams & Hazer, 1986). Job satisfaction reflects immediate reactions to job facets (Locke, 1976), thus forming soon after organisation entry. On the other hand, commitment is thought to develop more slowly in the workplace, and after the individual possesses a good understanding not only of the job but also of organisational goals and values, performance expectations and their consequences, and the implications of membership maintenance (Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982). Thus, organisational commitment is seen as “forming and stabilising sometime after organisational entry with more immediate formation of job satisfaction acting as one of its many determinants” (Vanderberg &Lance, 1992, p. 154). Previous evidence consistently supports the view that job satisfaction among service employees leads to higher levels of organisational commitment (e.g. Bettencourt & Brown, 2003; Bettencourt et al., 2005; Brown & Peterson, 1994; Lee, Nam, Park, & Lee, 2006; MacKenzie, Podsakoff, & Ahearne, 1998). In particular, prior work appears to favour the causal precedence of job satisfaction in the development of emotional attachment of employees. We thus propose positive relationships between job satisfaction and organisational commitment. H1: There is a positive relationship between job satisfaction and organisational commitment 3.2. Job satisfaction and SECB The notion that job attitudes are related to job performance continues to attract much attention in organisation studies (Bowling, 2007). Job satisfaction is asserted to be the focal employee attitude from both research and practical perspectives (Saari & Judge, 2004). Two influential definitions of job satisfaction were offered by Locke (1969, 1976). Locke first defined job satisfaction as the “pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job as achieving or facilitating one’s job values” (1969, p. 317), and subsequently in his chapter in the Handbook of Industrial Psychology as “a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from an appraisal of one’s job or job experiences” (Locke, 1976, p. 310). Thus, as an attitude, job satisfaction is a “positive (or negative) evaluative judgement one makes about one’s job or job situation” (Weiss, 2002, p. 175).

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Reciprocity norms suggest that employees who are satisfied with their job are more likely to engage in service-oriented behaviours than those who are dissatisfied with their jobs (Bettencourt et al., 2001; Netemeyer et al., 1997). Additionally, it is proposed from a social exchange perspective that extra-role behaviour is a means by which employees reciprocate organisational situations with which they are satisfied. Exchange of socio-emotional resources between employees and organisations was implicitly supported by the metaanalytic study of Hoffman, Blair, Meriac, and Woehr (2007), which suggested that OCB related more closely to work attitudes than task performance. Prior work has revealed that job satisfaction appears to be one of the most robust predictors of various traditional forms of OCB (e.g. Bettencourt & Brown, 1997; 2003; Donavan, Brown, & Mowen, 2004; Farh, Podsakoff, & Organ, 1990; Hoffman et al., 2007; Lee et al., 2006; MacKenzie et al., 1998; Netemeyer et al., 1997; Niehoff & Moorman, 1993; Organ & Ryan, 1995; Organ, 1988; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, & Bachrach,, 2000; Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983; Todd & Kent, 2006). Thus, the present study hypothesises: H2: There are positive relationships between job satisfaction and prosocial service behaviour (H2a), internal influence (H2b), and external representation (H2c) 3.3. Organisational commitment and SECB Organisational commitment is another job attitude that has attracted considerable research attention among management theorists as it has been found to lead to important work-related behaviours (Meyer & Allen, 1997). Organisational commitment involves the emotional attachment of individuals to the organisation (Meyer & Allen, 1991). As a result of such attachment, it is likely that individuals will perceive the organisation’s problems and outcomes as their own. Indeed, all forms of behaviour that are beneficial to the organisation can be anticipated as a result of employee commitment. Based on social exchange theory, it is asserted that employees who are committed to their company will exert themselves on the job (Organ, 1988), with increased effort being the means by which employees reciprocate rewards or benefits received from co-workers, supervisors and/or the organisation as a whole (Lee, 2001). Morrison (1994) pointed out that employees with a high level of affective commitment perceive their roles more expansively and, thus, are more likely to engage in prosocial organisational behaviours. Previous studies have found empirical support that a high level of commitment is related to manifestations of behaviours that fall beyond role-prescribed duties (e.g. Ackfeldt & Wong, 2006; Baruch, O’Creevy, Hind, & Vigoda-Gadot, 2004; Bettencourt & Brown, 2003; Chen & Francesco, 2003; Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005; Kwantes, 2003; MacKenzie et al., 1998; Organ & Ryan, 1995). Thus: H3: There are positive relationships between organisational commitment and prosocial service behaviour (H3a), internal influence (H3b), and external representation (H3c) 3.4. Co-worker support and job attitudes The shift of job content from steady and routine individual tasks to more complex and collective tasks (Harrison, Johns, & Martocchio, 2000) has enhanced co-workers’ salience and their essential influence (Chiaburu & Harrison, 2008). Co-workers are not only an important part of the social environment, they can also literally define it (Schneider, 1987). Scholars observe that service employees who experience conflict between their true feelings and their expressed feelings d emotional labour (see Hochschild, 1983) d often form a community with fellow co-workers at which they can express their true feelings in order to cope and thus

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reduce stress at work (Hochschild, 1983; Korczynski, 2003). Additionally, co-workers themselves influence working environments and depending on whether the influence is perceived as positive or negative, this in turn will further effect employee attitudes at work. According to Thoits (1983), the provision of support from people who are similar to the support recipients and who share similar work experiences is likely to be more effective than support received from persons in out-groups. Ladd and Henry (2000, p. 2034) define co-worker support as “employees’ global beliefs concerning their co-workers’ attitudes toward them”. On this basis, perceived co-worker support is the team-level equivalent of perceived organisational support. The difference is that co-worker support is likely to be more discretionary than vertical support (i.e. organisational/supervisor support) which is governed by authority ranking (Chiaburu & Harrison, 2008). Job satisfaction is considered a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience (Locke, 1976). As such, job satisfaction should be positively associated with co-worker support. A possible rationale for this assertion is that the employee’s evaluation of co-workers is one of the most important determinants of overall job satisfaction (Luthans, 2002; Smith, Kendall, & Hulin, 1969). Research has shown that job satisfaction and organisational commitment are highly correlated (Rayton, 2006), and as such, it can be expected that determinants of job satisfaction will also influence organisational commitment. Empirical research has also found that co-worker support effects job satisfaction and organisational commitment (Chiaburu & Harrison, 2008; Ducharme & Martin, 2000; Iverson, 1996; Iverson & Bittigieg, 1999; Iverson & Deery, 1997; Lance, 1991; Paulin, Ferguson, & Bergeron, 2006). Thus we hypothesise; H4: Co-worker support has positive effects on job satisfaction (H4a) and organisational commitment (H4b) 3.5. Customer cooperation and job attitudes Customer cooperation is one of the three components of ‘customer voluntary performance-CVP’ (i.e. loyalty, participation, and cooperation) introduced by Bettencourt (1997). Customer cooperation is regarded as an important fundamental part of the customer’s experience and perceived quality. Research has indicated, from both customers’ and providers’ perspectives, that smooth cooperation is important and is valued as a fundamental component of a service (Bostrom, 1995). As CVP has just recently started attracting research attention (see Rosenbaum & Massiah, 2007) and the available studies on CVP place focus only on exploring determinants of such behaviour (cf. Bettencourt, 1997; Rosenbaum & Massiah, 2007), the employee psychological and behavioural consequences of CVP, and in particular customer cooperation, remain largely unknown. As service providers are on the interface between the organisation and the customer (Schneider & Bowen, 1995), their behaviours are not only affected by organisational practices but also by customer behaviours (Ryan, Schmit, & Johnson, 1996; Schneider, White, & Paul, 1998). Several commentators consider the role played by customers in the service process to be so important that customers should be considered as ‘partial employees’ (see Bowen, 1986; Mills, 1986). When customers are considered a part of the service team, the argument regarding effects of their behaviours on service employee attitudes are strengthened. As was argued in the case of co-workers, Korczynski (2003) points out that the customer can be a vital source of work experience for service employees. Several scholars have suggested that positive customer behaviours (e.g. participation and cooperation) can co-create pleasant service experiences (Bitner, Faranda, Hubbert, & Zeithaml, 1997; Ennew & Binks, 1996; Van Dolen, De Ruyter, & Lemmink, 2004). We believe

that such pleasant service encounters created by positive customer behaviour not only results in customer positive emotional outcomes (e.g. customer satisfaction), but also employee’s psychological responses to the service work. Drawing from the above discussion, the following hypotheses are proposed: H5: Customer cooperation has positive effects on job satisfaction (H5a) and organisational commitment (H5b) 3.6. Co-worker support, customer cooperation, and SECB The previous sections have discussed the effects of co-worker support and customer cooperation on job satisfaction and organisational commitment. As of yet it is unclear how co-worker support and customer cooperation should be integrated into explaining service employee behaviour. Several studies report direct effects of social support on performance, whereas others found that the effect of social support on job performance is mediated by job attitudes. Bagozzi (1992) suggests that individual behaviour is a function of the experiences they encounter in the work environment, referred to as ‘outcome-desired experiences’. Such experiences have been classified as outcome-desired conflict or fulfilment. Outcome-desired conflicts occur when an individual fails to meet a goal or experiences an unpleasant event whereas, outcome-desired fulfilment occurs when a goal is met or the individual has a pleasant experience. These outcome-desired experiences are followed by negative or positive emotional responses respectively. Consequently, negative responses will result in coping intentions to reduce the conflict while positive responses will result in coping intentions to maintain, increase, or share the experience. In turn, behaviours follow each of the coping intentions. According to Schmit and Allsecheid (1995), the essential attribution of this model is that it elaborates on a more general framework developed by Lazarus (1991) that links appraisal, emotional responses, and coping in a sequential process. This attitude-intention-behaviour framework has been successfully applied to explain both consumer behaviours (e.g. Gotlieb, Grewal, & Brown, 1994; Schoefer & Ennew, 2005) and employee behavioural intentions (e.g. Chen & Chiu, 2008; Paulin et al., 2006; Schmit & Allsecheid, 1995). Also, it was found that conceptual models of several scholarly studies appear to correspond with Bagozzi’s (1992) framework (e.g. Bettencourt et al., 2005; Lee et al., 2006), even though there was no explicit reference to this framework. As outlined earlier, co-worker support and customer cooperation affect the extent to which employees can achieve their servicerelated goals and, subsequent work experience. Another factor involves the employee’s own appraisal (or assessment) of the support provided by co-workers and/or customers which has been shown to be substantially related to job attitudes (e.g. Chen & Chiu, 2008; Ng & Sorensen, 2008; Paulin et al., 2006; Sherony & Green, 2002; Yoon et al., 2004). The extant literature has also revealed a robustness of the job attitude-performance link. The present study was therefore designed to put the relationship between co-worker support, customer cooperation, employee attitudes and SECB into the comprehensive conceptual framework (Bagozzi, 1992; see Fig. 1). Thus, H6: The effects of co-worker support on SECB are mediated by job attitudes. H7: The effects of customer cooperation on SECB are mediated by job attitudes. 4. Research methodology 4.1. Context of the study Among travel and tourism industries, the airline industry is considered as an ideal context for employee citizenship behaviour


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4.3. Measures

Fig. 1. Conceptual model.

studies for three main reasons. First, the airline industry is widely recognised as a vital component of the world economy, facilitating international trade and investment. According to IATA (2008), the global commercial aviation industry generates approximately $510 billion in revenue in 2007 and is forecast to generate this amount throughout the next decade. In the United States alone, the airline industry employs about half a million people (Bureau of Labour Statistics, 2011). Second, air transport is considered as the key element in the tourism industry (Hanlon, 1999). The interplay between air transport and the tourism industry is well recognised as it facilitates the growth of tourism (Wheatcroft, 1998). Air transport can be viewed as the main door to a nation’s tourism industry. For example, approximately 85 percent of international tourists arrive by air when visiting Thailand (Tourism Authority of Thailand, 2011). Third, the characteristics of cabin service work are conducive to the study of citizenship behaviours. For instance, cabin service work is of relatively long duration (usually involving many hours of interactions between flight attendants and passengers) in comparison to other service work (i.e. retail banking or grocery store work), providing flight attendants increased opportunities to engage in citizenship behaviours. Although it is recognised that the main activities of cabin work are safety and customer services, in normal flight conditions excellent customer service is likely to be the main focus of the crew. However, to the best knowledge of the author, no citizenship behaviour study has been conducted in the airline industry, thus suggesting a need for research to explore this industry. Thus, we would argue that this research context is particularly important and relevant to the study of citizenship behaviours. 4.2. Sample and data collection The present study collected data using a questionnaire. A total of 650 copies of the questionnaire were distributed among a national airline’s cabin crew. The questionnaires were distributed and collected (in sealed envelopes) through the company’s management structure. Accordingly, it was important to guarantee respondent anonymity in order to limit social desirability. This process resulted in the return of 341 completed questionnaires. Due to missing values six of the returned questionnaires were discarded. Thus, the final number of usable questionnaires was 335, creating an effective response rate of 53.60%. To confirm the generalizability of the research findings, testing of non-response bias was conducted. A series of t-tests (two-tailed) were conducted for the main study variables and demographic variables for early and late respondents. The results showed no significant differences in responses between the two groups. Hence, non-response bias was assumed not to be a serious problem in this study. The respondents consisted of male (45.4%). Approximately, 80 percent of the respondents were single and aged below 35 years old. Almost all of them hold at least a first degree and identified themselves as of Thai ethnic background. Their average annual income was 12,120 GBP. Most of the respondents held a position of full flight attendant and had worked in the organisation for no more than five years.

All the constructs were operationalised using Likert-type rating scales anchored by 1 ¼ ‘strongly disagree’ and 7 ¼ ‘strongly agree’. Job satisfaction was measured by the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (Weiss, Davis, England, & Lofquist, 1967) consisting of twenty positively worded items measuring three different aspectsdintrinsic, extrinsic and globaldof job satisfaction. This twenty-item measure has been shown to possess good psychometric properties (Weiss et al., 1967). Questions developed by Meyer and Allen (1991) were used to measure the affective component of organisational commitment. This scale has been used frequently in prior marketing research, and found to have generalizability across cultures (e.g. Ko, Price, & Mueller, 1997; Lee, Allen, Meyer, & Rhee, 2001). Prosocial service behaviour comprising three latent dimensions was measured by 15 items developed in Bettencourt and Brown’s (1997) study, five questions capturing each dimension. Internal influence and external representation were measured by ten items developed by Bettencourt et al. (2005). As a result of pre-study fieldwork, some items relating to employee behaviours were slightly reworded to suit the research context. Coworker support was measured by four items followed from Ladd and Henry (2000). Three items modified from Graham (1991); Van Dyne et al. (1994); & Bettencourt (1997) was used to measure Customer cooperation. Modifications on items measuring customer cooperation were made with accordance to the interview data conducted beforehand. (See Appendix for items used in the present study). The present study followed the questionnaire development process outlined by Churchill and Iacobucci (2002). Once the questionnaire had been generated, the source version was translated into Thai following Douglas and Craig’s (2006, 2007) robust procedures for conducting cross-culture research. To detail, the source questionnaire was separately translated from English to Thai by two independent translators who hold a PhD in the field of English linguistics and are familiar with technical terms in business areas, thus resulting in two versions of target questionnaire. The translators along with an independent academic researcher were then invited to a meeting to adjust and finalise the Thai-version questionnaire. The refined version of the questionnaire was then sent to an academic officer who is a specialist in Thai linguistic to check for wording ambiguities and appropriate use of the language. The target questionnaire was then extensively pretested with potential informants prior to the main data collection phrase. Amendments were made accordingly. This collaborative translation approach brings together disciplinary expertise and cultural knowledge so that the conceptual equivalence between the source and target questionnaires is ensured. 4.4. Common method bias In this study, it was not appropriate to handle the issue of common method bias by using other-rating (e.g. supervisor-rating) for OCB. Due to the nature of service delivery in the airline business (i.e. space and logistical issues), many of the OCBs investigated would not readily be evident to an alternative rating source (Allen, Barnard, Rush, & Russell, 2000; Organ & Konovsky, 1989). For pragmatic reasons, prospective informants were asked to rate their perceptions of own service delivery performance. Nevertheless, we employed procedural (i.e. psychological separation and assuring anonymity and confidentiality) as well as statistical remedies suggested by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, and Podsakoff (2003), to control the common method variance. Due to the fact that theory and research on the topic of prosocial behaviour has presumed a social desirability element to the

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behaviours (Nienoff, 2001), the present study therefore identifies social desirability as the main source of OCB. We were able to directly measure and assess social desirability bias with five items borrowed from Reynolds (1982) short-form social desirability measure. 5. Analysis and results The present study utilised AMOS 6 to examine the measurement model and test the proposed structural relationships between the constructs. Prior to the analysis, multivariate assumptions (i.e. normality, multicollinearity, and outliers) were diagnosed. The results revealed that the data met all requirements so that normality and other assumptions were not a serious concern in interpreting the study results. 5.1. Measurement validation The first step in the analysis was to examine the measurement relationships and evaluate the reliability and validity of the constructs. To do this, all constructs with original numbers of items were entered into exploratory factor analysis with Varimax rotation. The results showed relatively few items with cross-loadings over .30 (Rentz, Shepherd, Tashchian, Dabholkar, & Ladd, 2002). Such items were removed after careful scrutiny of the impact on scale content validity. The items retained from this stage were subject to confirmatory factor analysis. Overall the measurement model fitted the data well (all factor loadings were significant at p < .001, and the goodness of fit indices were: c2(df) ¼ 592.730(327), CFI ¼ .939, TLI ¼ .929, RMSEA ¼ .049). All of the factor inter-correlations are significant (p < .05). Composite reliability and variance extracted (calculated by the formula provided by Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1998) scores show that all constructs possess internal consistency (Composite reliability > .70) and convergent validity (average variance extracted > .50). The presence of discriminant validity was demonstrated by the fact that of all square roots of variance extracted estimates are larger than the corresponding interconstruct correlation estimates (see Table 1). 5.2. Structural model The goodness-of-fit statistics for the conceptual model indicate that the model fits the data well and provide the support for the model (c2(df) ¼ 673.757(337), CFI ¼ .922, TLI ¼ .913, RMSEA ¼ .055). The standardized parameter and their t-values displayed in Table 2 were examined to test hypotheses. Overall, nine of the eleven relationships hypothesising direct effects are found to be statistically significant (p < .01). Consistent with the majority of previous studies, the results show significant associations between job satisfaction and organisational commitment (b ¼ .38, p < .001),

Table 2 Results of hypotheses concerning direct relationship. H

Hypothesised relationship

Std. estimate

t-value

Result

H1 H2a H2b H2c H3a H3b H3c H4a H4b H5a H5b

JS / AC JS / PSB JS / INT JS / EXT AC / PSB AC / INT AC / EXT CWS / JS CWS / AC CSC / JS CSC / AC

.38 .57 .68 .51 .28 .04 .28 .44 .21 .25 -.11

4.599*** 5.858*** 9.631*** 6.836*** 3.595*** 0.701 4.020*** 6.653*** 2.852** 3.875*** 1.692

Supported Supported Supported Supported Supported Not supported Supported Supported Supported Supported Not supported

c2(df) 673.757(337), CFI ¼ .922, TLI ¼ .913, RMSEA ¼ .055. ***p < .001, **p < .01.

prosocial service behaviour (b ¼ .57, p < .001), internal influence (b ¼ .68, p < .001), and external representation (b ¼ .51, p < .001). Therefore, H1 and H2 are accepted. H3 is only partially supported as the results reveal that organisational commitment only has direct relationships with prosocial service behaviour (H3a, b ¼ .28, p < .001) and external representation (H3c, b ¼ .28, p < .001), but not internal influence (H3b, b ¼ .04, p > .05). The paths from coworker support to job satisfaction and organisational commitment are positive and significant (b ¼ .44, p < .001 and b ¼ .21, p < .01, respectively), thus lending support H4. H5 predicting positive relationships between customer cooperation and employee job attitudes received partial support as only the estimates from customer cooperation to job satisfaction is found to be significant (H5a, b ¼ .25, p < .001). 5.3. Test of mediation effect Hypothesis 6 and 7 predicted that job attitudes would mediate the effects of co-worker support and customer cooperation on SECB, respectively. To test for mediation effects we followed the requirements outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986). In doing so, three different structural models were estimated (see Table 3). The basic requirements for mediation are that independent variables must significantly affect proposed mediators in the first model, and, in the second model, the independent variables must have significant direct relationships with dependent variables. The third model included all the variables (i.e. independent, mediator, and dependent variables). The specific requirements for partial mediation are that the mediator must affect the dependent variables in this model, the direction of effect must be as hypothesised, and the effect of the independent variables in this model must be less than that noted in the second model. For full mediation, the significant relationships between independent variables and dependent variables in Model 2 must become non-significant in Model 3 after the mediator is added to the analysis (see Table 3).

Table 1 Means, SD, latent construct inter-correlations, and reliability estimates. Construct

Means (SD)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

5.79 5.29 5.78 5.60 5.13 5.00 4.00

.68, .72 .62 .62 .51 .61 .31 .21

.75, .84 .60 .38 .66 .38 .24

.72, .76 .51 .56 .25 .22

.83, .87 .45 .38 .13

-, .86 .57 .43

.78, .86 .37

.81, .85

PSB Internal influence External representation Organisational commitment Job satisfaction Co-worker support Customer cooperation

(.74) (.90) (.85) (1.15) (.69) (.91) (1.33)

Sub-diagonal entries are the latent construct inter-correlations. The first entry on the diagonal is square root of the AVE, whilst the second entry is the composite reliability score.

T. Limpanitgul et al. / Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 20 (2013) 23e33 Table 3 Comparing the estimates between Models 1, 2 and 3.

Relationship Model 1

CWS / JS CWS / AC CSC / JS CSC / AC CWS / PSB CWS / INT CWS / EXT CSC / PSB CSC / INT CSC / EXT JS / PSB JS / INT JS / EXT AC / PSB AC / INT AC / EXT

Model 2

Model 3

Std. t-value estimates



.49 .41 .25 -.02 e e e e e e e e e e e e

e e e e .30 .37 .23 .12 .12 .16 e e e e e e

.52 .41 .25 .02 .31 .11 .35 .08 .08 .02 .81 .78 .74 .38 .11 .39

7.287*** 5.719*** 3.845*** -.266ns e e e e e e e e e e e e

e e e e 3.421*** 5.174*** 3.025** 1.423ns 1.730ns 2.125* e e e e e e

7.623*** 5.743*** 3.902*** .279ns 2.839** 1.318ns 3.776*** .928ns 1.165ns 2.98ns 5.770*** 8.369*** 7.041*** 4.602*** 1.793ns 5.409***

***p < .001, **p < .01,*p < .05 ns non significant. Model 1: c2(df) ¼ 94.325(40), CFI ¼ .969, TLI ¼ .958, RMSEA ¼ .064. Model 2: c2(df) ¼ 659.1962(242), CFI ¼ .880, TLI ¼ .864, RMSEA ¼ .072. Model 3: c2(df) ¼ 670.714(331), CFI ¼ .922, TLI ¼ .911, RMSEA ¼ .055.

The results revealed that co-worker support (i.e. an independent variable) significantly affected both job attitude variables (i.e. proposed mediators) in Model 1, and also significantly affected all of the dependent variables (SECB) in the second model. The significant relationship between co-worker support and internal influence in Model 2 (b ¼ .37, p < .001) became insignificant (b ¼ .11, p > .05) in Model 3 in which the mediators are added, thus providing evidence to support the mediation effect of job attitudes on the CWS / INT relationship. Even though, the CWS / PSB and CWS / EXT relationships are significant, the effects are negative (i.e. not in the proposed direction). As a result, H6 is only partially supported. Regarding the moderating effect of job attitudes on the relationship between customer cooperation and service employee citizenship behaviours, the results provide partial support to H7 as job satisfaction mediates only the effect of customer cooperation on external representation. To detail, customer cooperation significantly affects only job satisfaction in the first model, leaving organisational commitment irrelevant for further analysis. The results in Model 2 indicate no direct associations between customer cooperation and prosocial service behaviour (b ¼ .12, p > .05) and internal influence (b ¼ .12, p > .05). As such, there can be no mediation effect.

5.4. Assessment of social desirability bias Once the trimmed model was established, the effects of social desirability bias on the structural paths were examined. A stringent procedure was conducted to assess the extent to which ‘social desirability bias’ influenced the results. Specifically, the recommendations of Williams and Anderson (1994) and Podsakoff et al. (2003) were followed. Because tests for common method bias using structural equation modelling require direct effects and multiitem construct measures (Andrews, Netemeyer, Burton, Moberg, & Cristiansen, 2004; also see Robson, Katsikeas, & Bello, 2008), the current study estimated the impact of such bias for the CWS / AC, AC / PSB, and AC / EXT paths. Social desirability1 was loaded on all indicators of the constructs of interest. The

1 Measurement properties for social desirability construct are adequate (standardised loadings > .50 and Cronbach’s alpha ¼ .74).

29

goodness-of-fit indices (c2(df) 735.439(347), CFI ¼ .903, TLI ¼ .886, RMSEA ¼ .058) showed that the model with social desirability bias fits the data adequately. However, the results revealed that the inclusion of social desirability bias did not attenuate the significance level of the path estimates between the constructs of interest (the three paths remained at p < .001). Thus, such bias does not fully explain the results. 6. Discussion The basic premise of this study is that the support received from co-workers and customers has indirect effects, mediated by job satisfaction and organisational commitment, on levels of SECB engaged by employees. To a large extent, the study’s results presented here are consistent with the theoretical framework and previous OCB studies in that our data provide evidence supporting nine of the eleven sub hypotheses outlined in Table 2. In keeping with the conceptual model, there is evidence of direct relationships between job satisfaction and all three forms of service employee citizenship behaviours (i.e. PSB, INT, and EXT). The results provide additional evidence supporting job satisfaction as an importance predictor of various forms of OCB. Organisational commitment was not found to have effects on levels of internal influence amongst service employees. This finding does not support our conceptual model nor is it consistent with the evidence presented in previous studies. There are several explanations for this non-significant relationship. First, organisational commitment amongst participants in this study and the nature of internal influence are culturally different. Whereas organisational commitment reflects the extent to which individuals identify with organisational values and goals (Mowday et al., 1982), internal influence is a function of both commitment and culture (Kwantes, 2003). Here it is likely that collectivist values undermine individuals’ willingness to engage in activities that promote internal influence, and thus is less likely to be predicted by organisational commitment. Also, internal influence may be perceived as subordinates’ willingness to challenge the leader’s authority (Paine & Organ, 2000), along with breaking the harmony of the group/society (i.e. the core value of collectivism). Hence, the extent to which employees show and engage in activities that influence the internal workings of the organisation would largely depend on factors other than organisational commitment. Taken together, it is plausible to believe that the non-significant relationship between organisational commitment and internal influence is culturally specific. A thorough scrutiny of previous work implicitly supports our assumption here because the authors found that studies reporting significant relationships between organisational commitment and internal influence were conducted in individualist societies (e.g. Bettencourt & Brown, 2003; Bettencourt et al., 2005) Contrary to our expectation, the relationship between customer cooperation and organisational commitment was insignificant whereas customer cooperation had a significant impact on job satisfaction. This finding suggests that an increase in customer cooperation does not directly have any impact on employees’ level of organisational commitment. The results support the argument that job satisfaction and organisational commitment are two different psychological responses to customer cooperation and that organisational commitment is viewed as a more robust construct which takes time to develop or change (Mowday et al., 1982). Therefore, work related factors that vary on a day-to-day basis are less likely to lead to changes in affective commitment but may influence a worker’s job satisfaction. The effects reported here may also reflect that employees differentiate between customers and the work organisation and as such, do not associate customer cooperation with

30


organisational values, thus resulting in the non significant effect on organisational commitment. Both explanations are supported by the result that co-worker support, which varies less on a dayto-day basis and has a stronger relation to the organisation, has an impact on affective commitment. Regarding the effects of support on SECB, job satisfaction was found to fully mediate the effect of customer cooperation on external representation whereas the effect of co-worker support on internal influence was found to be fully mediated by job satisfaction and organisational commitment. This study provides a better understanding of the mechanism by which one’s support relates to service employee behaviours. Although there are hypotheses concerning mediation effect which were not supported, this is an area that was lacking in the literature and therefore such findings are important as they provide new information to the literature.

In-role customer service 1. I perform all those tasks for passengers that are required of them 2. I meet formal performance requirements when serving passengers 3. I fulfil responsibilities to passengers as specified in the job description 4. I adequately complete all expected passenger-service behaviours 5. I help passengers with those things which are required of them

Cooperation 7. Limitations and avenues for future research Caution should be exercised in attempts to generalise from these findings. The study respondents are employees of a single organisation operating in the airline industry based in Thailand, which may limit the generalizability of our findings. On the other hand, the company is a founder member of a global code sharing strategic alliance. Whether or not the findings possess external validity is a matter for future research work. As the AC / INT and CSC / AC paths were not found to be statistically significant in the present study’s sample which was collected from just one organisation, it may be interesting to see if this result is generalisable to a sample collected from many organisations based in different industries. Also, future studies may also wish to consider the moderating roles of other factors, such as individual dispositions and traits and/or different types of organisational cultures. Moreover, the study is cross-sectional. We can only conclude that our model is a feasible explanation of the observed relationships in the data, hence meaning that our ability to infer causality of behaviour is limited. The direction of paths in our model relies heavily on prior empirical and conceptual studies. Finally, our findings shed light on the mediating role of different job attitudes on the relationship between support and behaviours. In particular, it is possible that the structural relationships between support, job attitudes and behaviours of various types are different. Future studies may investigate whether this assumption holds. Conflict of interest We certify that we have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or nonfinancial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. Appendix 1. Items used in the present study Service employee citizenship behaviour Extra-role customer service 1. I voluntarily assist passengers even if it means going beyond job requirements 2. I do not help passengers with problems beyond what is expected or required* 3. I often go above and beyond the call of duty when serving passengers 4. I willingly go out of my way to make a passenger satisfied 5. I frequently go out the way to help a passenger

1. I help other employees who have heavy workloads 2. I am always ready to lend a helping hand to those employees around me 3. I help orient new employees even though it is not required 4. I do not voluntarily give my time to help other employees* 5. I willingly help others who have work related problems 6. I do not tell outsiders this is a great place to work*

Internal influence 1. I make constructive suggestions for service improvement 2. I contribute many ideas for customer promotions and communications 3. I share creative solutions to customer problems with other team members 4. I encourage co-workers to contribute ideas and suggestions for service improvement

External representation 1. 2. 3. 4.

I do not tell outsiders this is a great place to work* I generate favourable goodwill for the company I say good things about the company to others I encourage friends and family to use the company’s products and services

Job attitudes. Job satisfaction 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

I am able to keep myself busy all the time I have chance to work alone on the job I have chance to do different things from time to time I have chance to be “somebody” in the community I am satisfied with the way my boss handle his/her workers My supervisor has competence in making decisions I am able to do things that don’t go against my conscience I am satisfied with the way my job provides for steady employment 9. I have chance to do things for other people

T. Limpanitgul et al. / Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 20 (2013) 23e33 (continued )

10. I have chance to tell people what to do 11. I have chance to do things that make use of my ability 12. I am satisfied with the way company policies are put into practice 13. I am satisfied with my pay and amount of work I do 14. I have chance for advancement on this job 15. I have freedom to use my own judgement 16. I have chance to try my own methods of doing the job 17. I am satisfied with the working conditions 18. My co-workers get along with each other 19. I get praise for doing a good job 20. I get the feeling of accomplishment from the job

Organisational commitment

1. I would be very happy to spend the rest of my career with this organisation 2. I really feel as if this organisation’s problems are my own 3. I do not feel a strong sense of belonging to my organization* 4. I do not feel emotionally attached to this organisation* 5. I do not feel like part of the family at my organisation* 6. This organisation has a great deal of personal meaning for me

Support Co-worker support

1. My co-workers are supportive of my goals and values 2. Help is available from my co-workers when I have a problem 3. My co-workers really care about my well-being 4. My co-workers are willing to offer assistance to help me to perform my job to the best of my ability 5. Even if I did the best job possible, my co-workers would fail to notice* 6. My co-workers care about my general satisfaction at work 7. My co-workers show very little concern for me* 8. My co-workers care about my opinions 9. My co-workers are complimentary of my accomplishment at work

Customer cooperation

1. Passengers try to keep the plane clean (e.g. not leaving rubbish in the floor) 2. Passengers carefully observe the rules and policies of the airline 3. Passengers always treat the airline’s staff with kindness and respect 4. Passengers do things to make my job easier (e.g. they are ready to accept substitutes when something is not available)

31

(continued )

5. Passengers give me full cooperation when requested 6. Passengers endeavour to avoid requesting tasks that are not required of me (e.g. putting carry-on bag in overhead bin) * Reverse coding.

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