[TYPE THE COMPANY NAME] Frontline Service Employee Engagement, Creativity, and Job Performance Frontline Service Employee Engagement, Creativity, and Job Performance [Type the author name]
Abstract The purpose of this paper is to investigate how frontline service employee engagement is related to creativity and job performance. Extending to the literature that examines employee creativity, job performance, and engagement, this study assesses the simultaneous relationships between the constructs in the service context. The current investigation also examines how these associations are subject to the service levels (high- versus low-customer contacts). Key words: employee creativity, job performance, engagement, front line service employees. 1
Introduction Today’s marketplace is immensely competitive. Many companies provide products and services that offer solutions to customers’ specific problems (i.e., customer needs and wants) and create value for their customers (Lovelock, Patterson, and Wirtz 2011). Employee creativity significantly contributes to achieving organizational effectiveness, innovation, and performance (Amabile et al. 1996). This is particularly true for front line employees, who are required to demonstrate creativity to deliver excellent service and meet the expectations of customers with different needs and wants (Wilder, Collier, and Barnes 2014). Accordingly, service firms strive to enhance employee creativity to ensure sustainable growth in today’s volatile, complex, competitive, and dynamic marketplace (Oldham and Cummings 1996). Research has suggested that such growth is possible by fostering an environment where both employee creativity and job engagement are stimulated and supported (Stanley 2016). Thus, in addition to employee creativity, job engagement is considered an important element to drive firms’ long-term success (Lawler 1986; Lockwood 2007). Anecdotal evidence shows that 32% of creatively engaged employees are more likely to increase job performance through creative problem solving and high innovation (Taylore 2017). Although the constructs of employee creativity, job engagement, and performance have been extensively investigated in various disciplines, prior studies have examined how employee creativity and engagement impacts job performance in non-service study contexts (Amabile 1983, Stanley 2016; Shalley, Zhou, and Oldham 2004). Little is known about how these two constructs together affect employee performance in the context of services. In this sense, this investigation is timely and important for managers who strive to enhance frontline employees’ job performance. Therefore, this study illustrates how frontline service employees’ work engagement relates to their creativity and job performance. Specifically, the present research tests the 2
model highlighting the mediating role of employee creativity in the work engagement– performance relationship. This research further examines whether the relationships of these constructs are subject to job characteristics and nature (the levels of service encounter: high versus low customer contacts, autonomy/empowerment, and service climate). Previous researches have examined the simultaneous relationship between moderation and mediation and how it affects each other at the same (Fairchild and MacKinnon, 2010). The conceptual model in this paper is investigating the mediating and moderation effects together where the mediation effect is assumed to be moderated by some variables called moderated mediation effect (Edwards and Lambert, 2007). Likewise, this paper estimates the simultaneous relationship between creativity as a mediator between engagement and performance and the same time the effect of job characteristic and nature (service climate and empowerment) as moderators which effects creativity, engagement, and performance. Literature Review Conceptual framework Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual model of the current research. The model underscores that frontline employees’ engagement relates to their job performance through creativity. It also hypothesizes that job characteristics and nature (i.e., service levels, autonomy/empowerment, and service climate) influence the associations between the constructs of interest in this study. The conceptual model of this study is understood as the componential theory of creativity proposed by Amabile (1983). This theory is based on the premises that organizations are motivated to innovate and have both the resources and management practices to achieve such innovation. It underscores important social and psychological domains that are essential for employees to solve business problems by generating new ideas 3
that are feasible, correct, and valuable (Amabile 1988). According to Amabile (1988), the creative process is an important element for individuals in the organization to solve the problems, to deal more effectively and efficiently with work in order to avoid uncertainty, and achieve excellent outcomes. In this sense, the componential theory of creativity explains the hypothesized model that suggests the relationships of employee engagement, creativity, and performance in the workplace. This research posits that an engaged frontline employee is more likely to be creative in the service delivery process to meet organizational goals effectively and efficiently by delighting customers. The theory encompasses three domains: creativity-domain skills, social environments, and creativity-relevant skills. Creativity-domain skills are related to an individual employee’s knowledge and talent that enable him/her to perform the job. Surrounding social environments extrinsically motivate and challenge individuals to innovate. Negative external environmental factors include time pressure, political issues, and norms that criticize novel ideas. Such negative external motivators undermine individuals’ intrinsic creativity and affect the process of critical thinking (Amabile 2012). Individuals have different triggers to become motivated and use their creativity; those triggers can be due to extrinsic or intrinsic motivation. Thus, an individual’s degree of creativity is dependent on his/her motivations for the specific tasks (Amabile 1988). Creativity-relevant skills refer to proper cognitive styles and clear knowledge of the heuristic for breeding novel ideas (Amabile 1988). Keeping options open, breaking existing cognitive sets, exploring new cognitive pathways, suspending judgments, storing information, and remembering accurately are some examples of cognitive perceptual styles that allow individuals to challenge the status quo mentality set and understand the complexities inherent in solving problems (Amabile 1983). In other words, individuals with creativity-relevant skills are technically good, adequate, or acceptable, which enables them to 4
perform their work in a creative manner (Amabile 1988). The ability to be creative increases the chances of solving problems. Individuals who explore the possibilities of using these responses and information can solve the problem and carry out their jobs effectively (Amabile 1988). Various personality traits can influence creativity-relevant skills, such as risk orientation, varied experiences, social skills, team qualities, special cognitive abilities, and naiveté (Amabile, Hennessey, and Grossman 1986). This last domain is relevant to understanding the study’s model positing the moderating roles of job characteristics and nature. Researchers have suggested that the characteristics of a job (e.g., task complexity) affect the employee’s performance and creative relationship (Coelho and Augusto 2010). Some job characteristics, such as clarity, variety, autonomy, and significance, can encourage employees to become more creative and engaged with their jobs and achieve higher performance (Coelho and Augusto 2010; Mugo, Wario, and Odhiambo 2014; Shalley Zhou, and Oldham 2004). Moreover, service climate in the organization has been shown to influence employee creativity and performance. A work environment in which ideas can be exchanged, job engagement is encouraged, and organizational resources are available can enhance employees’ creativity (Hunter, Bedell, and Mumford 2007). Likewise, service climate―characterized by supporting each other, sharing information, accepting and respecting the shared values, norms, and beliefs, and empowering employees―facilitates individuals to become more engaged with their work, thereby boosting their creativity and performance (Stanley 2016). 5
The conceptual model below explains the direct effect explaining that the effect of engagement (x) is mediated by Creativity (m). This model explains the moderated mediation effect which is introduced by James and Brett (1984) “moderated mediation” for the condition where a moderator influences the mediational relationship. This study explains that job characteristic and nature of an independent variable role as the moderator affects the mediation relationship. 6
In the given moderate mediation model the employee creativity has been taken as the moderator which affects the employee engagement and overall relationship with other factors such as performance, job characteristics and nature (Albrech, 2011). Considering the following model, the job characteristics and the nature of the job such as autonomy, and accountability and empowerment I (Schaufeli, & Salanova, 2007). These job characteristics and nature such as work environment in terms of colleagues, work pressure, attitude of people, climate, all these things have an impact on the employee’s engagement in the company, for example, if an employee is not satisfied with the work culture, or if in case he is not content with the work pressure, the employee will experience his detachment from the company (Hui, et al. 2007). The employee will be less engaged in social gatherings pertaining to business as well as will not be able to engage himself within the work culture given his job characteristics. Similarly, the employee engagement, then affects the overall employee performance and employee creativity (Zhang, and Bartol, 2010). A less engaged employee will be less bothered with the company policies and work culture. He will fail to bring his creativity to surface which could help him come up with creative solutions and decision making capabilities. The lost creativity will also eventually impact the performance negatively. Therefore, with this model it can be understood that there is mediation effect of creativity and job characteristics on employee performance and employee engagement. 7
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