Authors: Eirini Peitzika, Sofia Chatzi, Dimitris Manolopoulos

Title: Facilitating frontline hotel employee’s extra-role service behaviors: the impact of employees’ perceptions towards employer promises fulfilment and the moderating role of the frequency of interaction with customers

Abstract

Promoting extra-role behaviors of customer-contact employees is fundamental for influencing customers’ experience, satisfaction and evaluations of service quality, and consequently for leveraging organization’s operational performance in service contexts. This study investigates the engagement of frontline employees in service-oriented organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) from the perspective of psychological contract, especially in the context of hotel industry. It also examines the moderating effect of the frequency of frontline employees’ service interaction with customers on the linkage between psychological contract fulfilment (PCF), as perceived by hotel front-line employees, and service-oriented OCBs. The sample consists of 594 hotel employees who regularly interact with customers at full-service, 4- and 5- star hotels in Greece. The results indicate that there is a positive significant indirect effect of PCF on the level of employees’ service-oriented OCBs, through commitment and satisfaction. The results lend support for the interactive effect of frequency of frontline employees’ customer interaction with PCF in predicting employee service-oriented OCBs. The findings provide useful insights and guidelines for managers in the hotel industry to trigger extra-role service behaviors to customers of their frontline employees, especially to those who have more frequent interactions with customers. Lastly, limitations and directions for future research are also addressed.