Organizational pride and its positive effects on employee behavior

Abstract

PurposeOrganizational pride of service employees presents a vital, but mostly unexplored, factor for business success. In detail, two kinds of organizational pride exist. First, service employees can experience short, persistent affective emotions of pride based on the perception of a successful event related to the organization. Second, employees can have a cognitive and durable attitude of pride resulting from the general perception of the organization. Prior research neglects not only to analyze empirically the relationship between emotional organizational pride and attitudinal organizational pride, but also to examine positive effects from them. The objective of this paper is to investigate the relationship and the effects of the two kinds of organizational pride with commitment to customer service, creativity and turnover intention.Design/methodology/approachThe first study is an exploratory pre‐study and deals with spontaneous impressions of 53 customer consultants regarding their emotional and attitudinal organizational pride. Data used for the main study were collected through an online panel provider. A sample of 733 service employees was generated and structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypotheses.FindingsResults from the main study suggest that there is a strong relationship between emotional organizational pride and attitudinal organizational pride. Whereas the former has a direct, positive effect on commitment to customer service and creativity, the latter directly influences commitment to customer service and turnover intention. An indirect effect on creativity was also found.Research limitations/implicationsTo reduce the complexity of the model, no moderating variables were integrated. In a subsequent step, it is important to analyze empirically the drivers and conduct a longitudinal analysis to test the relationship between the two kinds of organizational pride and their effects over time.Practical implicationsThe measurement and management of organizational pride are vital sources for improving service behaviors; they represent new challenges for service‐oriented human resource management.Originality/valueThe paper is novel for three reasons. First, the affective events theory (AET) is advanced by additional substantial relationships. Second, links between the two kinds of organizational pride are analyzed for the first time. Finally, the paper suggests empirical evidence for the positive effects of the two kinds of organizational pride.