Yung-Kuei Huang and Linchi Kwok
This study aims to assess a moderated-mediation model to account for the relationship between customer mistreatment and frontline hotel employees’ customer-focused voice, where…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to assess a moderated-mediation model to account for the relationship between customer mistreatment and frontline hotel employees’ customer-focused voice, where their organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) served as a mediator and their felt trust (reliance and disclosure) by supervisors served as a moderator.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected through paper-based questionnaires in a cross-sectional survey, consisting of 319 valid supervisor-employee-paired responses from 33 international tourist hotels in Taiwan. Regression analyses were used for hypothesis testing.
Findings
OBSE mediates the negative effect of customer mistreatment on customer-focused voice. Employee felt reliance intensifies the negative impact of customer mistreatment on OBSE, and this interaction effect, in turn, reduces customer-focused voice through OBSE. The employee felt disclosure marginally significantly buffers the effect of customer mistreatment on OBSE.
Practical implications
Given the adverse effect of customer mistreatment on customer-focused voice through OBSE, hotels should strengthen employees’ service mindset and value their suggestions. The double-edged effects of felt trust suggest that managers should form a trusting relationship with their subordinates and reassure them that isolated incidents of customer mistreatment will not jeopardize their reputation.
Originality/value
This study integrated sociometer and self-consistency theories to examine OBSE as a psychological mechanism to explain the mistreatment-voice process. Besides assessing felt trust’s two-dimensional effects, this research is possibly the first attempt to examine felt trust as an enabling force or a threat to OBSE in the context of customer mistreatment.
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Keywords
Yung-Kuei Huang, Ning-Kuang Chuang and Linchi Kwok
Guided by the social exchange theory, this study aims to examine the mediating relationship among trust in employee, felt trust, and trust in supervisor, and these trust-related…
Abstract
Purpose
Guided by the social exchange theory, this study aims to examine the mediating relationship among trust in employee, felt trust, and trust in supervisor, and these trust-related factors’ direct and indirect effects on frontline hotel employees’ customer-focused voice and silence.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey questionnaires were distributed to collect 307 valid paired supervisor–employee responses from 32 hotels in Taiwan. Structured equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
First, treating trust-related variables as two-dimensional constructs (reliance and disclosure), the results confirmed that reliance-based trust in employee increases trust in supervisor through felt trust. Second, supervisor trust in employee was generally stronger than employee felt trust. Third, while felt reliance and disclosure-based trust in supervisor were found to promote customer-focused voice and discourage silence, such opposite effects on voice and silence were not observed for reliance-based trust in employee, felt disclosure and reliance-based trust in supervisor. Fourth, indirect effects of trust in employee and felt trust on voice and silence through trust in supervisor received partial support.
Practical implications
This study provides business insights into managing frontline hotel employees’ voice/silence behaviors through trusting relationships.
Originality/value
This study verified employee felt trust as a mediating mechanism in their trusting relationships with supervisors as well as supervisors’ roles in initiating trust in vertical dyads. Using a two-dimensional trust measure, our analysis illustrated the differential effects of trust-related variables on customer-focused voice and silence, shedding light on the double-edged effects of felt trust and trust in supervisor as well as the conceptual distinction between voice and silence.
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Linchi Kwok (Lingzhi Guo), Feifei Zhang, Yung-Kuei Huang, Bei Yu, Prabhukrishna Maharabhushanam and Kasturi Rangan
The purpose of this study is to document how restaurant’s business-to-consumer communication strategies evolved on Facebook over time and how consumers’ reactions to a variety of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to document how restaurant’s business-to-consumer communication strategies evolved on Facebook over time and how consumers’ reactions to a variety of Facebook messages changed over time.
Design/methodology/approach
This study analyzed 2,463 Facebook messages posted by seven quick-service restaurant chains and three casual-dining restaurant chains in the fourth quarter of 2010, 2012 and 2014. ANOVA and post hoc t-test were used to compare the differences among four media types (photo, status update, video and hyperlink) in terms of their usage by companies and Facebook users’ reactions to these messages (measured by number of “Likes”, number of comments and number of shares).
Findings
Over the three periods of time under observation, there is a substantial decrease of status updates by restaurants and a dramatic increase of photo updates. Photo remained as the most “popular” media type, receiving most “Likes”, comments and shares from consumers. Video was not considered “popular” in 2010 but experienced a slight increase in usage and slowly emerged in 2012 and 2014 as another “popular” media, which no longer had statistical difference with photo in number of comments and shares.
Research limitations/implications
Some limitations include an under representable sample and its longitudinal design, but the findings provide additional insight to current literature in social media.
Practical implications
A series of suggestions were advanced from the findings to help hospitality managers better engage Facebook users.
Originality/value
This is probably the first time-series or longitudinal-like analysis in social media research and yields meaningful findings.