Improving service employee work affect: the transformative potential of work design
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to employ Self-Determination Theory to explain the mediated impact of work design – empowerment and serial and investiture socialization – on employee work affect. The theory proposes fulfilment of three psychological needs – autonomy, competence, and relatedness – will mediate individuals' ability to achieve contextually relevant well-being. An empirical study tests this claim and exposes the structure of the mediating effects.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey responses were collected from a sample of 239 front-line service employees using snowball data collection. SEM was used to test hypotheses.
Findings
Findings suggest that empowerment and serial and investiture socialization are significantly differentially related to need fulfilment. Additionally, all forms of need fulfilment do not directly influence employee affect. Instead, there are both direct and interactive effects that work simultaneously to influence employees' positive work affect.
Practical implications
This study exposes specific work design levers managers can manipulate to benefit employees. This research highlights the different effects of specific work design variables on employee work affect.
Originality/value
This paper extends understanding of Self-Determination Theory by exposing the direct and interactive effects of need fulfilment on work affect for service workers. Also, it delivers a deeper exploration of the impact of work design on employees by modelling multiple work design variables as well as process variables simultaneously to provide a more detailed picture of how work design influences employee work affect.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Tom J. Brown and Alex R. Zablah for their gracious guidance and support in his completion of this research. He would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful and insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Received 11 February 2012 Revised 10 September 2012 Accepted 24 October 2012
Citation
W. Rayburn, S. (2014), "Improving service employee work affect: the transformative potential of work design", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 71-81. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-02-2012-0042
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited