Ji Miracle Qi, Yi Peng, Graham H. Lowman and Xingliang He
Employee gratitude is often associated with positive customer-related benefits. However, our understanding of employee gratitude is notably underdeveloped within the service…
Abstract
Purpose
Employee gratitude is often associated with positive customer-related benefits. However, our understanding of employee gratitude is notably underdeveloped within the service literature. To address this issue, this study aims to position employee gratitude within the service profit chain (SPC) framework as a complementary mediator. Further, the authors empirically examine service climate as a central antecedent to employee gratitude and employee customer-oriented behavior as an outcome that triggers an internal and external reciprocal social exchange.
Design/methodology/approach
The examination of the research questions was done across two studies, using employee self-reported data (Study 1) and employee–customer dyadic data (Study 2). In Study 1, the authors investigate how employee gratitude mediates the relationship between service climate and customer-oriented behavior, with employee interpersonal influence functioning as a moderator. In Study 2, the authors examine how customer-oriented behavior, an outcome of Study 1, influences customer satisfaction and customer avoidance, with customer gratitude functioning as a mediator.
Findings
Results from both Study 1 and Study 2 support the proposed relationships. These studies contribute to the service literature by evaluating how and why employee gratitude functions as a significant factor in determining employee and customer behavior within the service context.
Originality/value
This work enriches the gratitude literature by empirically testing a novel theoretical perspective on employee and customer gratitude in service encounters. In doing so, the authors provide a more nuanced understanding of how internal and external processes are connected and potentially reinforced in SPC.
Details
Keywords
Graham H. Lowman, Peter D. Harms and Dustin Wood
Central to the fit concept is that congruence between individual and environmental attributes leads to improved outcomes. However, when discussing fit, researchers often describe…
Abstract
Purpose
Central to the fit concept is that congruence between individual and environmental attributes leads to improved outcomes. However, when discussing fit, researchers often describe congruence as alignment between distinctive or unique individual and environmental attributes. We suggest that current approaches to examining fit do not adequately account for this assumption of distinctiveness because they fail to consider normative expectations and preferences. As such, we propose an alternative theoretical and methodological approach to conceptualizing and measuring fit.
Design/methodology/approach
We introduce the normative theory of fit, outline how researchers can decompose fit into distinctive and normative components and identify areas for future research.
Findings
Management researchers have largely ignored the importance of decomposing fit into distinctive and normative components. This shortcoming necessitates additional research to ensure a more accurate understanding of fit and its relationship with outcomes.
Originality/value
We provide a clarification and critical examination of a pervasive construct in the field of management by introducing the normative theory of fit, identifying areas where researchers can employ this theoretical lens and suggesting a reevaluation of the importance placed on differentiation that is traditionally employed in practice.
Details
Keywords
James A. Meurs, Graham H. Lowman, David M. Gligor and Michael J. Maloni
Supply chain has long faced a persistent workforce shortage. To help both organizations and the field create environments that are more conducive to employee retention, the…
Abstract
Purpose
Supply chain has long faced a persistent workforce shortage. To help both organizations and the field create environments that are more conducive to employee retention, the authors investigate the outcomes of supply chain employee trust in their supervisor.
Design/methodology/approach
Applying person-environment fit theory, the authors evaluate the well-established antecedents to trust in supervisor ability, benevolence and integrity (ABI) relative to person-job (P-J) fit and person-vocation (P-V) fit of US supply chain employees.
Findings
Confirmatory factor analysis indicates that ABI is best modeled as dimensions of a second-order formative trust construct rather than as its antecedents. However, PLS-SEM provides somewhat unconvincing support for the impacts of ABI-trust. Instead, qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) delineates that all three ABI dimensions are not always needed for P-J and P-V fit in supply chain. Some employees respond to affective-based (i.e. benevolence) trust and others to cognitive-based (i.e. ability and integrity) trust.
Practical implications
The QCA results offer specific recommendations for supply chain organizations to enhance employee trust in supervisors to succeed in the struggle for labor.
Originality/value
The results counter extant trust theory, encouraging scholars to consider ABI as distinct dimensions of trust. The study also demonstrates the importance of considering QCA in supply chain research to meaningfully expand contributions to theory and practice.
Details
Keywords
Reginald L. Tucker, Graham H. Lowman and Louis D. Marino
Machiavellian, narcissistic, and psychopathic traits are often viewed as negative or undesirable personality traits. However, recent research demonstrates that individuals with…
Abstract
Machiavellian, narcissistic, and psychopathic traits are often viewed as negative or undesirable personality traits. However, recent research demonstrates that individuals with these traits possess qualities that may be personally beneficial within the business contexts. In this chapter, we conceptualize a balanced perspective of these traits throughout the entrepreneurial process (opportunity recognition, opportunity evaluation, and opportunity exploitation) and discuss human resources management strategies that can be employed to enhance the benefits, or minimize the challenges, associated with Machiavellian, narcissistic, and psychopathic traits. Specifically, we propose that Machiavellian qualities are most beneficial in the evaluation stage of entrepreneurship, and Machiavellian, narcissistic, and psychopathic qualities are beneficial in the exploitation stage of entrepreneurship.
Details
Keywords
The British Medical Journal observes that there is overwhelming evidence that the digestive disorders to which many young children are subject have resulted from the practice of…
Abstract
The British Medical Journal observes that there is overwhelming evidence that the digestive disorders to which many young children are subject have resulted from the practice of feeding them upon certain foods largely composed of starch. Hitherto no very great effort has been made to prevent these foods being sold, beyond the general advice which is given to mothers and nurses by doctors and health visitors as to the harmfulness of them. Our contemporary points out that the County Council of Rutland have, however, succeeded in obtaining a conviction before the local justices against a druggist for selling an infants' food which was found by the Public Analyst for the County to contain upwards of 70 per cent. of practically unaltered starch, and which was therefore held to be not of the nature, substance, and quality demanded by the purchaser. It appears that the preparation was described as being suitable for an infant only a few days old. A dessertspoonful of the mixture was directed to be put into a basin to be mixed to the thickness of a smooth cream with cold milk or water; to this was to be added half a pint of milk and water in equal parts, and it was then to be brought to the boil. It was contended by the vendor that the boiling would convert the starch into sugar, and this view was supported by a member of the “Society of Public Analysts and other Analytical Chemists.” The British Medical Journal further observes that there are some artificially prepared infants' foods, not containing 70 per cent of starch, in which the conversion of the starch into saccharine bodies may become complete, but considers that it is not very satisfactory that the harmfulness or otherwise of such preparations should be left to the decision of a local bench of magistrates—a course which may well be compared to our disadvantage with that which it is now possible to adopt in Queensland under the provisions of the Health Act of 1911. Section 17 of the Act enables the Health Commissioner to cause to be examined any food which is advertised, for the purpose of ascertaining its composition, properties, or efficiency. He may then report the result of the examination to the Government and publish his report in any newspaper which circulates in the colony. Moreover, the Governor in Council may, on the recommendation of the Health Commissioner, prohibit the advertising or sale of any food which, in the opinion of the Commissioner, is injurious to life or health. Until such an enactment is in force in this country it must be left to other public authorities to follow the example of the Rutland County Council.,