Role Stress and Prosocial Service Behavior of Hotel Employees: A Moderated Mediation Model of Job Satisfaction and Social Support.

Yingda Wang,Lin Cheng,Yixing Jin,Ying Li

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.698027

Abstract

Hotel employees’ positive behavior is prone to increase customer satisfaction, and thus, exploring the influencing mechanism of role stress on prosocial service behavior is critical to relieving their stress and improving service quality and hotel performance. This study aims to develop and test a moderated mediation model that links hotel employees’ role stress to prosocial service behavior. Based on the conservation of resources theory and job demands-resources model, this study suggests that the effect of role stress on prosocial service behavior is mediated by the level of job satisfaction, whereas the relationship between role stress and job satisfaction is moderated by social support. Data from 256 hotel employees in China largely support the hypotheses that role stress reduces job satisfaction, and that job dissatisfaction is related to low levels of prosocial service behavior. The data also show that job satisfaction partly mediates the relationship between role stress and prosocial service behavior, and social support weakens the relationship between role stress and job satisfaction. The results can help us understand the role of organization-level resources in the workplace and how role stress and job satisfaction affect prosocial service behavior.

Highlights

In a highly competitive environment, such as the hotel industry, the focus is usually on providing excellent quality service and creating customer satisfaction to obtain and retain loyal customer groups, thereby sustaining competitive advantages (Karatepe and Uludag, 2008; El-Adly, 2019; González-Mansilla et al, 2019; Zhao and Guo, 2019)
This study proposes the development of a structural model of role stress, job satisfaction, prosocial service behavior, and social support (Figure 1)
This study aims to explore whether role stress negatively affects prosocial service behavior, whether job satisfaction mediates the relationship between role stress and prosocial service behavior, and whether the indirect path between role stress and prosocial service behavior is moderated by social support

Summary

Introduction

In a highly competitive environment, such as the hotel industry, the focus is usually on providing excellent quality service and creating customer satisfaction to obtain and retain loyal customer groups, thereby sustaining competitive advantages (Karatepe and Uludag, 2008; El-Adly, 2019; González-Mansilla et al, 2019; Zhao and Guo, 2019). From the perspective of relationship marketing, improving customers’ cognition and satisfaction with the quality of service depends on establishing and maintaining a long-term harmonious relationship between employees and customers. The interaction between hotel employees and customers is an important task and an essential factor to allow customers to perceive, experience, and evaluate the quality of service rendered (Huang and Xie, 2017). Frontline hotel employees play a crucial role in creating positive customer experiences and serve as a reference for customers when evaluating the quality of the service and their satisfaction with it (Elmadağ and Ellinger, 2018). If organizations fail to take effective measures to control employees stress, it may have a negative effect on their job satisfaction, and even trigger burnout (Lambert et al, 2018) and high occurrence of turnover intention (Tongchaiprasit and Ariyabuddhiphongs, 2016), which could affect customers’ perception of service quality

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Conclusion