Service Sector Employment Research Articles

Understanding Sectoral Shifts In Labour Market And Wage Inequality In India: With Special Reference To Economic Reforms

The inception of economic reforms in 1991 was the starting point towards integrating the Indian economy with the global economy. India opens its eyes to the reality and realizes the vast potential of a market economy. Economic reform leads to gradual integration of economies through free movement of goods, services and capital. The idea that economic reform can create "losers" as well as "winners" has, after an initial resistance, begun to attract the attention of economic researchers and of policy makers at both the national and multilateral levels. This paper aims to explore two key aspects of the impact of economic reform on the labor market i.e. shift in labor market and wage inequality. The period of study is 1971-2021. Indian occupational structure was changed in the post reform period. The study finds that after economic reforms the share of employment in agriculture sector decline. The paper observed an increasing trend of employment in industrial sector especially in construction sector. Again employment in service sector also shows a rising trend. Wage disparities between skilled and unskilled labor have increased as a result of economic restructuring.

Understanding innovative work behaviour of women in service firms

Globalisation, digitalisation, and deregulation are megatrends that demand smarter, diverse, and inclusive workplaces for harnessing full innovative potentials of workforces in developed and emerging economies. Motivated by this line of reasoning, this article investigates factors influencing women’s participation in innovative work behaviour (IWB), in an emerging economy context. Based on a qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with 34 management employees in the Kuwaiti service sector, the article proposes a gender inclusive model supporting enhanced women’s IWB participation within service firms. The article concludes with discussions on the theoretical and managerial implications of the study and suggestions for future IWB research.

Working from home during COVID-19 and its impact on Indian employees’ stress and creativity

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented turmoil necessitating nations to impose lockdowns. Thus, organizations forced employees to work from home (WFH) by leveraging information technology. We explored the impact of WFH on employees during the lockdown. We conducted in-depth interviews of 24 employees across manufacturing and technology-enabled sectors in India and analyzed the data using Gioia’s methodology. Four dimensions emerged from the impact of WFH on employees: role improvisation, stress, isolation, and self-initiated creativity. While some themes were common between the two industrial sectors, other themes varied. For instance, service sector employees reported current work-related stress, whereas manufacturing sector employees reported future-related stress. Interestingly, we discovered sparks of creativity among employees during this period either towards nurturing themselves (technology-enabled sector) or towards solving long-pending organizational issues (manufacturing sector). Most importantly, these creativity sparks were self-initiated. The study is novel as it explores the impact of large-scale WFH enforced during crisis.

Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Social Support among Service Sector Employees

The main objective of this study is to determine whether perceived social support affects Emotional Intelligence. The hypothesis that is intended to be proven here is that Emotional Intelligence can be used to measure mental wellness in individuals. Emotional intelligence is said to have two main dimensions that is one of personal competence and the other that of social competence. Perceived social support has been accepted as support from family, friends, and significant others. Emotional Intelligence is important because it helps individuals regulate the overflow of emotional energy welling within oneself and helps others around them cope with those overflowing emotions; hence, this study is perceived as beneficial. This study targets the service sector employees as the sector faces a diverse variety of challenges emanating from the global pandemic. 536 responses were taken, and PLS-SEM was used and applied to analyze and test out the hypotheses. The results showed that social support affects both personal and social competencies. However, in the final analysis, perceived social support turned out to have a stronger influence on personal competency. Keywords: emotional intelligence; social support; personal competence; social competence; service sector eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under the responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians), and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v7iSI8.3914

Teleworking: role of psychological well-being and technostress in the relationship between trust in management and employee performance

PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic and technological advancements have enabled employees to telework. Referring to this emerging phenomenon, the authors aim to examine how employees' levels of trust in management mediated by psychological well-being impact their performance as they telework. Deploying the theoretical lens of person-environment misfit, the authors also explore the role of technostress in the trust-wellbeing-performance relationship.Design/methodology/approachThe data was collected from 511 full-time service sector employees across Indian organizations through a structured survey questionnaire. The proposed moderation-mediation model for this study was tested using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping method.FindingsStructural equation modeling results indicate that trust in management significantly impacts employee performance while teleworking. While psychological well-being was observed as a significant mediator, technostress played the moderator role in the trust-performance relationship. The moderated-mediation effect of psychological well-being in the trust-performance relationship was stronger when technostress was low and weaker when technostress was high.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors extend the person-environment misfit theory in the context of telework, highlighting the role of technostress that may impact the trust-wellbeing- performance relationship in such work settings.Practical implicationsThe study informs leaders and managers on balancing delicate aspects such as employee trust and well-being that significantly impact performance as they telework. The authors also highlight the critical role of managers in respecting employees' personal and professional boundaries to alleviate technostress.Originality/valueThe authors make a novel theoretical contribution to the emerging literature on teleworking by examining the trust-psychological wellbeing-performance link and the role of technostress in this relationship.

Pengaruh POS terhadap Service Oriented-Organizational Citizenship Behavior yang Dimediasi Oleh OC pada Karyawan Bidang Pelayanan BPJS Ketenagakerjaan Se-Jawa Timur

This study aims to determine the effect of POS on SOCB with the mediating role of OC. This study uses a quantitative approach with the analytical technique used is partial least square with 108 respondents in the service sector employees throughout East Java at BPJS Ketenagakerjaan. The dependent variable used is the service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior, the independent variable is the POS, and the mediating variable is the POS. The results of the study indicate that perceived organizational support can affect the behavior of service-oriented organizational citizenship of service employees with positive and significant results. Perceived organizational support also shows a positive and significant impact on service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior mediated by OC.

Linear and non-linear relationships between job demands-resources and psychological and physical symptoms of service sector employees. When is the midpoint a good choice?

Related to the research of working conditions, the link between organizational factors and health was traditionally analyzed using linear models. However, the literature analysis suggests inconsistencies in linear models predicting workers’ health levels. To clarify this issue, this exploratory research compares the linear and non-linear relationships between job demands-resources (task complexity, time pressure, contact with users, and job autonomy), and the psychological and physical symptoms of employees working in the main five service subsectors: commerce, horeca (hotels, restaurants, and cafés), public administration, education, and healthcare. With a final sample of 4,047 participants, our study data were extracted from the II Andalusian Working Conditions Survey. Following the theoretical framework of JD-R Model and considering the Vitamin Model theoretical approach for non-linear relationships, our results showed that there were significant differences among the five subsectors analyzed regarding the linear and non-linear relationships between job demands-resources and psychological and physical symptoms of employees. Furthermore, task complexity generated non-linear relationships in higher proportion than time pressure and contact with users. Likewise, non-linear relationships found showed a U-shape. Moreover, the findings of non-linear relationships suggested that medium levels of task complexity should not be exceeded to avoid further negative impact on psychological and physical symptoms for service sector employees, preserving their health. Finally, some general practical implications of work environment interventions are suggested.

Informality on the rise: Dissecting quasi-formal employment in the EU

AbstractIn spite of a growing body of literature on quasi-formal employment in the European Union (EU), there is still limited knowledge regarding the exact functioning of this illegal employment scheme. To fill this gap, we report data from the 2019 Special Eurobarometer on undeclared work, which reveals that 30.1% of European workers have higher income from employment than reported to tax authorities. Explicitly, 2.6% of registered dependent employees are entitled to cash top-ups to the official wage, for 7.8% of them the amount of supplementary payments depends on the work efforts, whereas 9.2% receive informal remuneration under multiple arrangements. In addition to these ‘regular recipients’, we also found that 10.5% of employees in the EU can be classified as ‘sporadic quasi-formal workers’. Besides showing that wage underreporting is far more pervasive than previously assumed, the study also offers a more nuanced insight into different manifestations of this illicit practice in the EU. Results of a two-level random intercept multinomial logit model reveal that women are less likely to receive fixed and variable cash-in-hand payments, whereas older individuals have a lower propensity to receive work-time-related income. The analysis also highlights that professionals, service sector employees, manual job workers and individuals whose jobs require travelling are more prone to variable wages compared to the rest of the population. Given a modest success in combating the phenomenon to this date, these findings will be particularly valuable for policymakers in their endeavours to devise tailored policy measures.

Green Behavior: Factors Influencing Behavioral Intention and Actual Environmental Behavior of Employees in the Financial Service Sector

The financial sector is a key industry to invest in sustainable products and services, and to help other companies to make sustainable investments. So far, research sheds little light on environmental attitudes and the behavioral patterns of employees in this sector. We investigated what motivation and motivators promote or inhibit “green” behavior among professionals in the financial service industry. A smartphone friendly online survey concerning the intention to improve and show ‘green behavior’ was sent to 1200 professionals working in 17 locations in 13 European countries, 470 of which responded to the survey (39%). From these participants, 20% are convinced of the need to act in a “green” manner, and only 5% are hardly accessible. Monetary benefits combined with social motives contribute to sustainable living, whereas financial benefits alone actually hinder it. The result of this study points to an intention-behavior gap; intention is built from various influences including moderating factors like sex, age and family status influencing individual decisions. It is recommended that we should evaluate the green attitude and behavioral patterns of employees based on a practical typology of “green behavior”, which is suggested in this study, helping companies to know what actions can be taken to close the intention-behavior gap.

Health Problems and Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors Experienced by Service Sector Employees

Amaç: Bu çalışmada amaç, hizmet sektörü çalışanlarının yaşadıkları sağlık sorunları ve sağlıklı yaşam biçimi davranışlarını belirlemektir.
 Yöntem: Çalışma, tanımlayıcı ve kesitsel türdedir. Çalışmanın evrenini, Doğu Karadeniz bölgesindeki bir ilde en büyük ilçedeki hizmet sektörü çalışanları oluşturmuştur. Örneklem evrenin bilindiği durumlardaki örneklem formülü ile belirlenmiş ve çalışma 102 katılımcı ile tamamlanmıştır. Çalışma verileri, Aralık 2019 - Şubat 2020 tarihlerinde yüz yüze toplanmıştır. Veriler literatür doğrultusunda hazırlanan Tanıtıcı Bilgi Formu ve Sağlıklı Yaşam Biçimi Davranışları Ölçeği II ile toplanmıştır.
 Bulgular: Katılımcıların %69.6’sının erkek, %54.9’unun lise mezunu, %61.8’inin günlük çalışma süresinin 8 saatten az olduğu ve %63.7’sinin algıladığı iş yükünü yoğun olarak ifade ettiği belirlenmiştir. Çalışmaya katılan bireylerin en sık yaşadıkları sorun %70.6 ile stres, en az yaşadıkları sorun % 13.7 ile hapsedilmişlik duygusudur. Sağlıklı Yaşam Biçimi Davranışları Ölçeği II toplam puanı 121.76±22.73 olup en düşük puan fiziksel aktivite alt boyutunda, en yüksek puan manevi gelişim alt boyutunda bulunmuştur. Katılımcıların cinsiyet, işten memnun olma, sağlık durumu ve kronik hastalık durumları ile ölçek puanları arasında anlamlı bir ilişki bulunmuştur (p

The role of tourism in service sector employment: Do market capital, financial development and trade also play a role?

Workers' living standards have recently deteriorated in the service sector throughout the world, although a few decades ago, service was among the fastest growing sectors in industrialised nations. However, in recent years, in service sectors tourism especially has been drying up. This paper examines the symmetric and asymmetric effects of tourism, market capital, financial development, and trade on service sector employment in Australia from the period 1991-2019. The results of the cointegration tests, notably the ARDL and NARDL bound tests, reveal that the variables are related in the long run. The positive effect of tourist arrival on service sector employment in Australia is confirmed by long-run estimates from both ARDL and NARDL approaches. Similarly, both approaches also confirm the long-run positive relation of financial development. However, while ARDL shows long-run negative and positive associations of market capital and trade, respectively, the opposite is found in the case of the NARDL approach. As a result, policy proposals like planning and initiating tools for ensuring consistent international arrivals and easing of entry requirements have been recommended by this study to assist Australia in enhancing service sector employment, thus promoting economic development.

Effect of Emotion Regulation at Work

Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory of stress and personal resource allocation perspective, we examined the direct relationship between emotional labor strategies (i.e. surface and deep acting), and outcomes (i.e. psychological strain, and creativity). In addition, we investigated the indirect relationship between emotional labor strategies and outcomes via job stressors (i.e. challenge and hindrance stressors). We collected lagged survey data from service sector employees in Italy. Further, we tested the data using regression analysis. We found that surface acting predicted both psychological strain and creativity and that indirect relationships between surface acting and outcomes via hindrance stressor were also significant. In contrast, deep acting predicted only psychological strain but not creativity and that indirect relationship between deep acting and psychological strain via challenge stressor was significant, our data failed to support indirect relationship with creativity. Our results showed that employee emotion regulation strategies are related to work stressors. Moreover, surface acting is negatively related to creativity, at the same time both emotional labor strategies lead to psychological strain. We have built and tested a theoretical model thereby we have attempted to expand the scope of emotion regulation, stress-related literature, and creativity research by investigating the mechanism and outcomes of emotion labor.

Work Engagement as Remedy of Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior

Unethical behavior within organizations is a very prevalent and costly problem. This study investigates employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), which is unethical behavior with the intention to help the organization. Leveraging social exchange theory and social exchange theory, this research evaluates the direct relationship between organizational commitment and unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) and the indirect relationship through employee work engagement. The theoretical model was tested using Structural Equation Modeling based on a sample of 499 U.S. service sector employees. Results indicate that while affective commitment can motivate employees to engage in UPB, if the commitment is channeled into work engagement, it can reduce employees’ motivation to engage in UPB. As such, the findings extend on the UPB literature, while providing practitioners with a clearer understanding of the importance of monitoring organizational commitment alongside work engagement.

Service sector employment in Great Britain 1841–2011

ABSTRACT The most detailed published census data on occupations and industries from nine British censuses between 1841 and 2011 have been computerised, and original methods developed both to re-district them from constantly changing historical districts to the 380 Local Authority Districts reported on by the 2011 census and to re-classify them to the 20 ‘Sections’ of the 2007 Standard Industrial Classification. This large dataset is then used to reveal new insights into the long-run evolution of geographical unevenness in the British economy. Initial analysis reported here maps the total percentage in the service sector for 1841, 1931, 1991 and 2011, with original data for key sectors presented for 1841, 1931 and 1991. While counts for individual districts and ‘Sections’ must be used carefully, overall trends appear robust: the localities of Britain have not just been moving steadily towards economies dominated by the service sector, they have steadily been becoming more similar.

COVID-19 outbreak: How do human resource management practices affect employee well-being?

The study examines the effect of human resource practices (HRPs), including ability, motivation, and opportunity practices, on employee well-being (EWB) in the Malaysian environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research surveyed 154 service sector employees at Klang Valley, Malaysia. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling. Based on the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) theory, the results indicate that motivation and opportunity practices have a significant positive effect on EWB, whereas ability enhancing practices have an insignificant effect. Human resource policies and practices must foster a conducive yet contented work environment, and leaders must provide opportunities and motivation for employees to participate actively in the workplace. By doing so, the organisation’s value of human resources can be significantly increased, and the organisation’s goals can be achieved while employees’ overall well-being is enhanced, resulting in a win-win situation. This study uncovers the important roles of AMO practices that can effectively increase EWB.

An Empirical Study On Gender Based Discrimination At Pakistani Workplaces: Determination Of The Causes Of Gender Based Discrimination In Pakistan's Private Service Sector Workplaces

Purpose: Gender-based discrimination in the workplace in the private service sector is well known all over the world phenomenon, but in developing states like Pakistan the issue is comparatively high. The purpose of this paper is to determine the causes and factors of Gender-based discrimination in the private service sector workplaces in Pakistan.
 Design/Methodology/Approach: The quantitative method was used. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire. The population of the research is the employees of the private service sector of Pakistan. The sample size was 120 (N=120). Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software is used for analysis.
 Findings: In this study, it is investigated that Unequal treatment of employees, favoritism, and educational qualification (Independent Variables) are causes of Gender-based discrimination (dependent variable), and this relationship is mediated by the human resource department’s rules and policies, unfortunately, the role of HR policies and the department is not satisfactory in the private service sector of Pakistan.
 Implications: Managers, policymakers, and educationists must reassess their dependence on stereotypical ideas of women as women become an increasingly important component of the workforce.
 Originality/Value: The paper explores the factors that contribute to gender-based discrimination and uses HR rules as a unique mediator between these factors and prejudice.

Impact of Workplace Ostracism on the Knowledge Flow in the employees of Service Sector of Pakistan

Knowledge management is considered one of the significant factors in service organizations that help the service organizations to improve their performance, and lack of it can actually cause major economic losses. The main idea of this research work is to explore the relationship that how ostracism produces a negative impact on knowledge sharing and a positive impact on knowledge hiding, in the context of a diversified environment of service organizations in Pakistan. In ostracism, the employees are excluded and sidelined by other employees within the organization. This reduces the overall productivity of the employees and they cannot better add towards achieving the goals of the firm. This also impacts the knowledge sharing and knowledge hiding behaviors of the individuals as well.

It’s not justice if it’s not for all: cross-level interaction of interactional justice differentiation and supervisory justice on psychological safety and conflict

PurposeBuilding on social exchange and deontic justice theory, this study aims to examine the relationship between supervisory justice (i.e. interactional, procedural and distributive) and conflict (i.e. relationship, process and task) through subordinates’ perceptions of psychological safety. Moreover, the authors hypothesize that interactional justice differentiation (IJD) within a workgroup at the group level interacts with supervisory justice at the individual level, affecting subordinates’ psychological safety and conflict.Design/methodology/approachData were collected using a survey conducted among 378 service sector (banks, hospitals and universities) employees working under 54 supervisors.FindingsMulti-level data analysis demonstrates that supervisory justice positively influences psychological safety, negatively affecting conflict. Moreover, psychological safety mediates the supervisory justice–conflict relationship. A cross-level interaction partially supports the conditional indirect effect of IJD in the supervisory justice–conflict relationship via psychological safety.Originality/valueFollowing moral principles based on a deontic perspective, this study stretches the understanding of how to treat employees in a workgroup while creating a healthier working environment to minimize conflict fairly. This study extends the limited research on supervisory justice by conceptualizing employees’ perceptions of justice beyond an individual-level analysis.

Earnings inequality and working hours mismatch

Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we document a significant rise in monthly earnings inequality between 1993 and 2018. The main contributors are inter-temporal increases in working hours inequality and increases in the covariance between working hours and hourly wages, while changes in the distribution of hourly wages play a minor role. Applying a novel double decomposition technique reveals that these results are particularly pronounced in the growing groups of female employees and service sector employees. If employees had been able to realize their desired optimal working hours, the increase in inequality would have been more moderate. This is mainly due to the fact that employees with low hourly wages work less than desired, a finding that is reinforced over time—even after controlling for various covariates.

Role of big data analytics capabilities to improve sustainable competitive advantage of MSME service firms during COVID-19 – A multi-theoretical approach

The extant literature suggests that digital technologies (big data analytics, artificial intelligence, blockchain) help firms gain a competitive advantage. However, the studies do not focus on the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector. Moreover, MSMEs face various challenges, including significant supply chain disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, there was an urgent requirement to shift to digital technologies to survive during this difficult time. In the context of MSME, various positive changes are discussed in the recent literature. However, a dearth of studies discusses the role of big data analytics capabilities (BDAC) to gain sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). Our study aims to fill this gap and answer this question – How do BDAC help MSMEs gain SCA? To understand the phenomenon, we receive theoretical support from organizational information processing theory (OIPT) and institutional theory (IT). We develop a conceptual framework that links BDAC and SCA through supply chain coordination, swift trust, and supply chain risk. Additionally, the age and size of the firm are used as control variables. The data is collected from Indian service sector employees of MSMEs, resulting in 497 usable responses. We use PLS-SEM using Warp PLS 7.0 to test the hypotheses. A critical finding is that the BDAC indirectly impacts the SCA. Finally, the other findings, limitations, and scope for future research are discussed.