IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v20y2023i2p1322-d1031986.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Servant Leadership on Work Resilience: Evidence from the Hospitality Industry during the COVID-19 Period

Author

Listed:
  • Zhenyao Cai

    (SILC Business School, Shanghai University, 20 Chengzhong Road, Shanghai 201800, China)

  • Yimin Mao

    (SILC Business School, Shanghai University, 20 Chengzhong Road, Shanghai 201800, China)

  • Ting Gong

    (SILC Business School, Shanghai University, 20 Chengzhong Road, Shanghai 201800, China)

  • Ying Xin

    (SILC Business School, Shanghai University, 20 Chengzhong Road, Shanghai 201800, China)

  • Jiayun Lou

    (SILC Business School, Shanghai University, 20 Chengzhong Road, Shanghai 201800, China)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is a tremendous crisis for public health, which also has a profound impact on business and social activities because many countries restrict travel and social gatherings to avoid the spread of COVID-19. Workers suffer from mental health problems including depression and anxiety due to the uncertain work environment. Hence, psychological resilience, a positive psychological response to these challenges, is essential to the success of employees and companies. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory (COR), this paper investigates how the leadership style (i.e., servant leadership) enhances the work resilience of hospitality employees through two time-lagged empirical studies. Specifically, study 1 demonstrates a positive relationship between servant leadership and employees’ work resilience. Study 2 replicates study 1’s result and further demonstrates that emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship between servant leadership and employees’ work resilience. Furthermore, study 2 finds a significant moderating effect of job complexity. The findings of this paper provide empirical evidence for practitioners to manage employees’ resilience and psychological resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhenyao Cai & Yimin Mao & Ting Gong & Ying Xin & Jiayun Lou, 2023. "The Effect of Servant Leadership on Work Resilience: Evidence from the Hospitality Industry during the COVID-19 Period," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-14, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:2:p:1322-:d:1031986
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/2/1322/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/2/1322/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alyssa Schneider & Emily B. Kroska, 2021. "Face Covered and Six Feet Apart: Behavioral Awareness Predicts Greater Adherence to Public Health Guidelines during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-11, August.
    2. Sen Sendjaya, 2015. "Personal and Organizational Excellence through Servant Leadership," Management for Professionals, Springer, edition 127, number 978-3-319-16196-9, December.
    3. Olivia A. Wackowski & Jennah M. Sontag & David Hammond & Richard J. O’Connor & Pamela A. Ohman-Strickland & Andrew A. Strasser & Andrea C. Villanti & Cristine D. Delnevo, 2019. "The Impact of E-Cigarette Warnings, Warning Themes and Inclusion of Relative Harm Statements on Young Adults’ E-Cigarette Perceptions and Use Intentions," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-14, January.
    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. Ibrahim Yikilmaz & Lutfi Surucu & Ahmet Maslakci & Alper Bahadir Dalmis & Meric Ergun, 2024. "Workplace Buoyancy and Servant Leadership as Catalysts for Sustainable Disaster Management: Mitigating Emotional Exhaustion in Disaster Response Teams," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-18, March.
    2. Mohamed Nazhif bin Ramlan & Nursaadatun Nisak Ahmad & Murni Zarina Mohamed Razali & Azlina Hanif, 2024. "A Study of the Relationship Between Servant Leadership, Micro-Aggression and Intention to Leave in IT Sector: Employee Resilience as Mediating Variable," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 8(11), pages 984-994, 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. Hurriyet Bilge & Florina Oana Virlanuta & Deniz Zungun & Nicoleta Barbuta-Misu & Pinar Comuk & Emine Turkan Ayvaz Guven, 2021. "Generation Y’s Perception of Servant Leadership and Job Satisfaction," Economies, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-19, February.
    2. Luu Trong Tuan, 2021. "Effects of environmentally-specific servant leadership on green performance via green climate and green crafting," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 925-953, September.
    3. S. Elisha LePine & Elias M. Klemperer & Julia C. West & Catherine Peasley-Miklus & Caitlin McCluskey & Amanda Jones & Maria Roemhildt & Megan Trutor & Rhonda Williams & Andrea Villanti, 2022. "Exploring Definitions of “Addiction” in Adolescents and Young Adults and Correlation with Substance Use Behaviors," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-11, June.
    4. Michiel Frederick Coetzer & Mark Bussin & Madelyn Geldenhuys, 2017. "The Functions of a Servant Leader," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-32, February.
    5. Ibrahim A. Elshaer & Samar K. Saad, 2022. "Learning from Failure: Building Resilience in Small- and Medium-Sized Tourism Enterprises, the Role of Servant Leadership and Transparent Communication," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-20, November.
    6. Sen Sendjaya & Nathan Eva & Ivan Butar Butar & Mulyadi Robin & Samantha Castles, 2019. "SLBS-6: Validation of a Short Form of the Servant Leadership Behavior Scale," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 941-956, June.
    7. Aithal, Sreeramana, 2021. "Business Excellence through the Theory of Accountability," MPRA Paper 107894, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 May 2021.
    8. Junting Lu & Zhe Zhang & Ming Jia, 2019. "Does Servant Leadership Affect Employees’ Emotional Labor? A Social Information-Processing Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 507-518, October.
    9. Emily C. Tanner & John F. Tanner & Franklin Velasco Vizcaino & Zhiyong Yang, 2022. "Vaping and dynamic risk construction: Toward a model of adolescent risk‐related schema development," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), pages 1244-1259, September.
    10. Martin Lacroix & Armin Pircher Verdorfer, 2017. "Can Servant Leaders Fuel the Leadership Fire? The Relationship between Servant Leadership and Followers’ Leadership Avoidance," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-11, February.
    11. Galper, Emily F. & Gottfredson O'Shea, Nisha & Ritchie, Caroline & Kresovich, Alex & Ma, Haijing & Sutfin, Erin L. & Sheeran, Paschal & Noar, Seth M., 2024. "Identifying promising themes and messages for youth vaping prevention: A national study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 348(C).
    12. Shoukat Iqbal Khattak & Muhammad Anwar Khan & Muhammad Iftikhar Ali & Hafiz Ghufran Ali Khan & Imran Saeed, 2023. "Relationship Between Servant Leadership, Leader-Member-Exchange, Organization Learning and Innovative Work Behavior: Evidence From High-Tech Firms," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    13. Khawaja Fawad Latif & Marta Mas Machuca & Frederic Marimon & Umar Farooq Sahibzada, 2021. "Servant Leadership, Career, and Life Satisfaction in Higher Education: a Cross-Country Study of Spain, China, and Pakistan," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 16(3), pages 1221-1247, June.
    14. Eva, Nathan & Sendjaya, Sen & Prajogo, Daniel & Madison, Karryna, 2021. "Does organizational structure render leadership unnecessary? Configurations of formalization and centralization as a substitute and neutralizer of servant leadership," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 43-56.
    15. Wei Song & Taiyang Zhao & Ershuai Huang, 2022. "How Does the COVID-19 Pandemic Affect People’s Willingness to Pay for Health in the Short and Long Term? A Longitudinal Study during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-11, January.
    16. Majid Ghasemy & Leila Mohajer & Lena Frömbling & Mehrdad Karimi, 2021. "Faculty Members in Polytechnics to Serve the Community and Industry: Conceptual Skills and Creating Value for the Community—The Two Main Drivers," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, September.
    17. Ryan Kirkland, Julia C. & Edwards, Bryan D. & Flaherty, Karen E., 2021. "The effect of honest and humble leadership on salesperson customer orientation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 49-58.
    18. repec:ers:journl:v:xxiv:y:2021:i:special4:p:775-805 is not listed on IDEAS

    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:20:y:2023:i:2:p:1322-:d:1031986. 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.