Impact of service climate and psychological capital on employee engagement: The role of organizational hierarchy

Abstract

Despite the important role of employee engagement, research on the psychological factors affecting employee engagement is scarce. Furthermore, engagement research has focused on frontline employees, overlooking management employees. This study tested a conceptual model of the interrelationships among service climate, psychological capital, employee engagement, and turnover intention and explored the mediating effects of employee engagement. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the hypothesized relationships and an invariance test was employed to determine the effect of organizational hierarchy with a sample of hospitality frontline and management employees. Psychological capital and service climate were critical to elevating employee engagement and showed a stronger impact for managers’ engagement than frontline employees’ engagement. Furthermore, employee engagement was a critical mediator. The study fills important gaps in the hospitality literature and extends social exchange theory by showing reciprocal relationship differences between frontline employees and managers through an examination of organizational hierarchy.