Linking team learning climate to service performance: The role of individual- and team-level adaptive behaviors in travel services

Abstract

This study explores the multi-level effect of team-learning climate on customer-oriented individual- and team-level service performance. Drawing on matching data from 230 travel consultants and 721 customers in 40 travel agencies’ business halls, results of hierarchical linear modeling suggest that team-learning climate directly motivates employees to adopt service-adaptive behaviors (SAB) and encourages them to form learning goal orientation. The latter has a positive effect on SAB. SAB is an important prerequisite for improving service performance: individual SAB mediates the impact of team-learning climate on employee service performance (performance-based service quality); team-level SAB mediates the impact of team-learning climate on team-level service performance (customer satisfaction). This study supplements the organizational learning theory and adaptive service research and has practical implications for the construction of learning organization and employee training of travel services.