IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i15p8137-d606364.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Interpersonal Conflicts in the Unit Impact the Service Quality Rated by Customers: The Mediating Role of Work-Unit Well-Being

Author

Listed:
  • Miriam Benitez

    (Department of Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Seville, 41018 Seville, Spain)

  • Jose M. Leon-Perez

    (Department of Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Seville, 41018 Seville, Spain)

  • Alejandro Orgambídez

    (Social Psychology Department, Faculty of Psychology, University of Málaga, 29071 Málaga, Spain)

  • Francisco J. Medina

    (Department of Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Seville, 41018 Seville, Spain)

Abstract

Social dynamics at work are crucial for understanding how internal processes in an organization are related to their performance and productivity. Following the Service-Profit Chain (SPC) theory, this study analyses, at the work-unit level, how interpersonal conflicts are related to service quality in the hospitality and tourism industry through the shared experience of well-being in the work unit. In other words, we examine the mediating role of two main aspects of work-related well-being in the unit (job satisfaction and burnout) on the relationship between interpersonal conflicts in the unit and customers’ perceptions of service quality. To do so, we conducted a cross-sectional survey study that collected data from 398 service employees (91 work units) and 1233 customers from three and four-star hotels with restaurant in Spain. Using path analysis in Structural Equation Models, our results supported a full mediation model at the work-unit level: interpersonal conflicts in the work unit are related to customers’ service quality perceptions through the work-unit’s well-being (job satisfaction and burnout). Therefore, our findings extend the SPC theory by integrating group dynamics and employees’ experiences, which should be enhanced through occupational health-oriented policies and practices to increase service quality. In this sense, this study has implications for the development of intervention programs aiming at improving the occupational well-being and quality of service in hospitality and tourism settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Miriam Benitez & Jose M. Leon-Perez & Alejandro Orgambídez & Francisco J. Medina, 2021. "Interpersonal Conflicts in the Unit Impact the Service Quality Rated by Customers: The Mediating Role of Work-Unit Well-Being," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-13, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:15:p:8137-:d:606364
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/15/8137/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/15/8137/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Snipes, Robin L. & Oswald, Sharon L. & LaTour, Michael & Armenakis, Achilles A., 2005. "The effects of specific job satisfaction facets on customer perceptions of service quality: an employee-level analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(10), pages 1330-1339, October.
    2. Homburg, Christian & Stock, Ruth, 2004. "The Link Between Sales People’s Job Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction in a Business-to-Business Context: A Dyadic Analysis," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 35550, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    3. Daniel Eisenberg & Ezra Golberstein & Janis L. Whitlock & Marilyn F. Downs, 2013. "Social Contagion Of Mental Health: Evidence From College Roommates," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(8), pages 965-986, August.
    4. Homburg, Christian & Stock, Ruth, 2004. "The Link between Sales People’s Job Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction in a Business-to-Business Context: A Dyadic Analysis," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 60486, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    5. Stock, Ruth & Hoyer, Wayne, 2005. "An Attitude-Behavior Model of Salespeople’s Customer Orientation," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 60479, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    6. Wangenheim, Florian v. & Evanschitzky, Heiner & Wunderlich, Maren, 2007. "Does the employee-customer satisfaction link hold for all employee groups?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 60(7), pages 690-697, July.
    7. Brown, Steven P. & Lam, Son K., 2008. "A Meta-Analysis of Relationships Linking Employee Satisfaction to Customer Responses," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 243-255.
    8. Stock, Ruth & Hoyer, Wayne, 2005. "An Attitude-Behavior Model of Salespeople’s Customer Orientation," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 35542, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nafees, Sehar & _, Sujood & Hamid, Sheeba, 2024. "Unlocking Employee Well-being in Tourism and Hospitality: A Systematic Literature Review," Journal of Tourism, Sustainability and Well-being, Cinturs - Research Centre for Tourism, Sustainability and Well-being, University of Algarve, vol. 12(2), pages 111-128.
    2. Jose M. León-Pérez & Mindy K. Shoss & Aristides I. Ferreira & Gabriele Giorgi, 2021. "Emerging Issues in Occupational Health Psychology," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-4, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Evanschitzky, Heiner & Wangenheim, Florian v. & Wünderlich, Nancy V., 2012. "Perils of Managing the Service Profit Chain: The Role of Time Lags and Feedback Loops," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 356-366.
    2. Elizabeth Chinomona & Tebogo Mofokeng, 2015. "The Influence Of Workplace Condition And Employee Satisfaction On Employee Commitment In South African," Journal of Social Sciences (COES&RJ-JSS), , vol. 4(1), pages 649-663, January.
    3. Elizabeth Chinomona & Tebogo Mofokeng, 2015. "The influence of workplace condition and employee satisfaction on employee committee in South African Companies," Journal of Business & Management (COES&RJ-JBM), , vol. 3(2), pages 356-369, April.
    4. Barnes, Donald C. & Ponder, Nicole & Hopkins, Christopher D., 2015. "The impact of perceived customer delight on the frontline employee," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 433-441.
    5. Jeremy S. Wolter & Dora Bock & Jeremy Mackey & Pei Xu & Jeffery S. Smith, 2019. "Employee satisfaction trajectories and their effect on customer satisfaction and repatronage intentions," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 815-836, September.
    6. Dorothea Wahyu Ariani, 2015. "Employee Satisfaction and Service Quality: Is There Relations?," International Journal of Business Research and Management (IJBRM), Computer Science Journals (CSC Journals), vol. 6(3), pages 33-44, September.
    7. Stock-Homburg, Ruth & Özbek-Potthoff, Gülden & Wagner, Marina Melanie, 2012. "Soziale Medien im Personalmanagement," Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 66(1), pages 28-48.
    8. Stock, Ruth Maria, 2016. "Understanding the relationship between frontline employee boreout and customer orientation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 4259-4268.
    9. Fenwick Jing & Gayle Avery & Harald Bergsteiner, 2014. "Enhancing performance in small professional firms through vision communication and sharing," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 599-620, June.
    10. Alexander Haas, 2006. "Bestimmungsfaktoren des Beratungserfolges: Eine informationsökonomische Betrachtung und empirische Analyse im Handel," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 58(5), pages 638-664, August.
    11. Brown, Steven P. & Lam, Son K., 2008. "A Meta-Analysis of Relationships Linking Employee Satisfaction to Customer Responses," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 243-255.
    12. Kraus, Florian & Haumann, Till & Ahearne, Michael & Wieseke, Jan, 2015. "When Sales Managers and Salespeople Disagree in the Appreciation for Their Firm: The Phenomenon of Organizational Identification Tension," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 486-515.
    13. Johlke, Mark C. & Iyer, Rajesh, 2013. "A model of retail job characteristics, employee role ambiguity, external customer mind-set, and sales performance," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 58-67.
    14. Ans Kolk & Willemijn Dolen & Marlene Vock, 2010. "Trickle Effects of Cross-Sector Social Partnerships," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 94(1), pages 123-137, July.
    15. G. Tomas M. Hult & Jeannette A. Mena & O. C. Ferrell & Linda Ferrell, 2011. "Stakeholder marketing: a definition and conceptual framework," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 1(1), pages 44-65, March.
    16. Babakus, Emin & Yavas, Ugur & Ashill, Nicholas J., 2009. "The Role of Customer Orientation as a Moderator of the Job Demand–Burnout–Performance Relationship: A Surface-Level Trait Perspective," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 85(4), pages 480-492.
    17. Ralph Kober & Deryl Northcott, 2021. "Testing cause‐and‐effect relationships within a balanced scorecard," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(S1), pages 1815-1849, April.
    18. Harmancioglu, Nukhet & Grinstein, Amir & Goldman, Arieh, 2010. "Innovation and performance outcomes of market information collection efforts: The role of top management team involvement," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 33-43.
    19. Kashif Shafiq & Muhammad Waqas & Arslan Rafi, 2017. "Impact Of Salespersons’ Skill-Sets On Sales Performance: An Empirical Investigation Of A Telecommunication Company," IBT Journal of Business Studies (JBS), Ilma University, Faculty of Management Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-10.
    20. Sergio Román, 2014. "Salesperson's listening in buyer-seller service relationships," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(7), pages 630-644, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:15:p:8137-:d:606364. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.