How Dose Prosocial Motivation Congruence Frontline Followers’ Service Quality:A P-E Fit Perspective

Abstract

Based on P-E fit theory and research on goal congruence, the current research analyzed the relationship of leader-follower congruence in prosocial motivation and follower’s service quality in hospitality organizations. It further explored how leader-follower congruence in prosocial motivation influenced follower’s service quality. We conducted a field study to get a sample of 176 leader-follower dyads from a large-sized hotel in China. All the theoretical hypothesis was tested with polynomial regression and response surface analysis. The results indicated that leaders and followers in the congruent dyads with high prosocial motivation lead to higher levels of service quality than those in the congruent dyads with low or moderate prosocial motivation. Interestingly, we also found that service quality is higher when followers’ prosocial motivation is lower than leaders’ rather than when leaders’ prosocial motivation is lower than followers. Additionally, leader-follower congruence in prosocial motivation had an indirect effect on service quality through followers’ task proactivity. Our research sample is a mature team data collected in China with a high collectivist culture, which may affect the stability and universality of the results. Future studies can also examine the influence of the congruence of prosocial motivation on service quality according to the different dimensions of prosocial motivation in different cultural contexts. Hospitality organizations should pay more attention to the importance of leader-follower congruence in prosocial motivation. Leaders should strengthen communication and feedback with followers to enhance mutual understanding, and prosocial motivation can be an important reference indicator for recruitment, promotion and corporate training. These findings highlight the pivotal role played by leaders in promoting followers’ service quality, and provide deeper comprehension into the role of prosocial motivation congruence between leaders and followers in influencing followers’ service quality.