The Influence of Social Perceptions on Restaurant Employee Work Engagement and Extra-Role Customer Service Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model

Keywords

Competence; coworkers; extra-role customer service; morality; restaurants; social perceptions; supervisors; warmth; work engagement

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of restaurant employees' social perceptions of their supervisors on employees' work engagement and extra-role customer service behavior. We also assessed restaurant employees' social perceptions of their coworkers as a moderator. Utilizing an online survey design, data were collected from frontline restaurant employees via an online commercial subject pool (N = 477). Results showed that the more employees perceive their supervisors as warm, competent, and moral, the more employees were willing to engage in extra-role customer service behavior via the indirect effect of increased work engagement. The effect of work engagement on extra-role customer service was also found to be more pronounced when employees developed positive social perceptions of their coworkers. These results offer implications for work engagement, as they suggest a new antecedent in the form of social perceptions, as well as a boundary condition to the positive outcomes of engagement through the interactive effect of social perceptions of coworkers and extra-role customer service behavior. In doing so, these results also shed light on the relevance of social perceptions in hospitality operations.

Publication Date

5-1-2021

Original Citation

Orlowski, M., Bufquin, D., & Nalley, M. E. (2021). The Influence of Social Perceptions on Restaurant Employee Work Engagement and Extra-Role Customer Service Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 67(2), 261–275. https://doi.org/10.1177/1938965520910119

Document Type

Paper

Language

English

Source Title

Cornell Hospitality Quarterly

Volume

67

Issue

2

College

Rosen College of Hospitality Management

Location

Rosen College of Hospitality Management

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