The effects of service climate on frontline employees' work engagement processes

• Main Author: Wongworawit, Rangsiparn
• Published: University of Reading 2011
• Subjects: 658.314
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.553012

This study investigates the effects of service climate on (1) psychological antecedents of frontline employees' (FLEs) work engagement-i.e., psychological meaningfulness and psychological safety, (2) work engagement itself, (3) a performance outcome of work engagement-i.e., FLEs' service performance quality, and (4) the relationships between FLEs' psychological meaningfulness, psychological safety, work engagement, and service performance quality. It also examines the mediating roles of work engagement in the relationships between its psychological antecedents and its performance outcome. An emphasis is placed on respecting the levels of analysis of the constructs. Service climate represents a group's work environment. It is, therefore, a collective-level variable. Psychological meaningfulness, psychological safety, work engagement and FLEs' service performance quality are mental and behavioural phenomena. They are individual-level variables. In this study, service climate is operationalised as a configuration or combination of a work unit's service-related policies, practices, and procedures. Questionnaires were distributed in three call centres of a major telecommunications services provider in the UK. Analyses were conducted on responses from 193 customer service representative-supervisor dyads. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) aids in multi-group comparisons. Partial Least Squares (PLS) latent variable modelling aids in establishing the relationships among the individual-level constructs. The findings suggest that FLEs' work engagement processes are independent of service climate and that work engagement, together with its psychological antecedents, and service climate are two independent determinants of FLEs' service performance quality. This study does not find support for the effects of service climate on FLEs' psychological meaningfulness, psychological safety, and work engagement. The empirical evidence also gives no indication that service climate moderates the relationships among the individual-level constructs. However, the results reveal that a more favourable service climate engenders higher levels of FLEs' service performance quality. Work engagement is negatively related to and suppresses the positive effects of psychological meaningfulness and safety on FLEs' service performance quality.