The Role of Individual Differences in Promoting Front Liners to Become Customer-Oriented: A Case of the Hotel Industry in Malaysia

Abstract

As other service industry, hoteliers are highly relying on their contact employees known as front liners to deliver services to customers. Therefore, the behaviors of front liners can influence customers' perceptions of a hotel service. Customer-orientation behavior of employees has become a prime variable of interest for organizations wishing to successfully market their products. However, previous researches on this area have stressed the need for a better understanding of the process relating to customer orientation behavior and its influencing factors. This paper investigates the influence of organizational commitment, self-efficacy and intrinsic job motivation of front liners on customer-orientation behavior.

Abusive Supervision, Affective Commitment, Customer Orientation, and Proactive Customer Service Performance: Evidence From Hotel Employees in China

“…According to the Affective Events Theory, employees' affective commitment in service-oriented enterprises affects their customer orientation. Previous studies have found that an employee gains a positive sense of belonging and selfworth through affective commitment (He et al, 2011), thereby enhancing their sense of identity with organizational goals and values and their organizational loyalty (Joshi and Randall, 2001), which can effectively motivate employees to engage in behaviors that are beneficial to achieving organizational goals, such as customer-oriented behaviors in order to improve customer satisfaction (Noor et al, 2012;Lombardi et al, 2019). On the other hand, studies have found that the higher employees' affective commitment, the higher job satisfaction they have (Joshi and Randall, 2001;Ribeiro et al, 2020), and employees with higher levels of job satisfaction are more committed to customer service, more inclined to enjoy the process of serving customers and meet customer needs more fully (Donavan et al, 2004), and more likely to be customer-oriented (Ahmad and Lim, 2015).…”

Linking employees’ affective commitment and knowledge sharing for an increased customer orientation

“…The tourism sector increasingly relies on the performance of human resources for its sustainability (Chiang and Lin, 2016; Noor et al , 2012; Zopiatis et al , 2014). As a service industry operating in highly changing global environments, it needs to continuously monitor its human capital to ensure customer satisfaction.…”

“…Conversely, less is known regarding the individual-level antecedents of employees’ customer orientation. Recent research (Ahu et al , 2011; Noor et al , 2012) acknowledges the shortage of contributions on how employees, in the first place, can shape their own customer orientation. This is quite surprising, given the critical contribution that service workers and their interaction with customers can give to service organizations (Brown et al , 2002; Teng and Barrows, 2009).…”

“…This is quite surprising, given the critical contribution that service workers and their interaction with customers can give to service organizations (Brown et al , 2002; Teng and Barrows, 2009). Some exceptions can be found in Crawford (2013), whose study shows that employees can differ in their predisposition to deliver services; Noor et al (2012), who examined the impact of commitment, self-efficacy and motivation on employees’ customer orientation; Dabholkar et al (2000), who investigated workers’ comfort and personal attention as key components of service quality; and Brown et al (2002), whose research seeks to identify the personality traits that determine customer orientation.…”

“…To address this gap, this paper takes on an attitude–behavior relationship perspective (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1977), thus affirming the importance of individual differences for an increased customer orientation (Noor et al , 2012). More specifically, building on Stock and Hoyer’s (2005) model, this work tests the argument that service employees’ customer orientation results from the relationship between their attitudes and behaviors.…”