Dr Yuanyuan Huo

The purpose of this study is to examine the mediating role of collective self-esteem in the relationship between employees’ perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) and their work engagement. We also explore the moderating role of employees’ concern for face in the linkage between their perceived CSR and collective self-esteem. A two-wave panel data from a final sample of 217 employees in six companies in Wuhan, China, completed the questionnaire survey. Employees’ perceived CSR has a direct and positive effect on their work engagement, which is partially mediated by their collective self-esteem. Furthermore, employees’ concern for face moderates the relationship between their perceived CSR and collective self-esteem. CSR has a stronger effect on collective self-esteem for employees who concern more for face than for those who concern less for face. Understanding the outcomes, the mediating mechanisms, as well as the boundary conditions of perceived CSR on work engagement, help firms to better formulate their CSR strategy. First, we introduce collective self-esteem as an important mediating mechanism in the relationship between CSR and employees’ work engagement. Second, we identify concern for face as an important limiting condition in the linkage between CSR and employees’ collective self-esteem. Finally, previous research investigating employees’ reactions to CSR has predominantly been conducted in the West. We conduct our study in the Chinese or Confucian context to provide some new and complementary insights.

This study draws on trait activation theory to examine the effects of frontline hospitality employees’ prosocial motivation on their taking charge and job performance and how job autonomy moderates these effects. We collected data in two stages from 185 pairs of front-line hospitality employees and their direct supervisors, and we found a positive relationship between employees’ prosocial motivation and their taking charge. In addition, job autonomy strengthened this positive relationship, and taking charge mediated the interactive effect of prosocial motivation and job autonomy on job performance. These results suggest that when front-line hospitality employees perceive their level of job autonomy to be high enough to activate their expression of prosocial motivation, they will be more likely to engage in taking charge, which should lead to a higher evaluation of their job performance. Theoretical and practical implications for hospitality industry were discussed at the end of the paper.

This study investigates person–job (P–J) fit and person–organization (P–O) fit perceptions and relates these perceptions to employees’ emotional labor and customer service performance. Data from a two-point, time-lagged study of 263 employees and 690 customers reveal that both P–J and P–O fit relate positively to deep acting and negatively to surface acting, in accordance with an emotional labor perspective. In addition, P–J and P–O fit are jointly associated with emotional labor, such that the positive link between P–J fit and deep acting is stronger and the negative link between P–J fit and surface acting is weaker when P–O fit is high. Emotional labor partially mediates the interactive effects of P–J and P–O fit on service interaction quality and customer satisfaction; service interaction quality relates positively to customer satisfaction. These findings have multiple theoretical and practical implications.

Purpose Drawing on the person–supervisor fit theory, this study aims to adopts a dyadic and relational approach to investigate the congruence between the leader’s and the follower’s learning goal orientation (LGO) on their leader–member exchange (LMX) quality and the follower’s innovation. Design/methodology/approach The participants were 213 frontline employees and their 69 immediate supervisors from a large five-star hotel in China. The authors analyze the multiple-wave data using the cross-level polynomial regression approach. Findings The results show that when the levels of LGO between the leader and the follower are congruent, follower innovation and LMX are higher; when the levels of LGO between the leader and the follower are incongruent, it hinders LMX but benefits follower’s innovation. Research limitations/implications This study implies that personality congruence and incongruence can be equally important in creating positive work outcomes, enriching the theoretical understanding and practical implications for promoting LMX and follower innovation in hospitality industry. Originality/value Prior research has identified the importance of employees’ LGO in promoting innovation. However, the fit between employees’ and their leaders’ LGO has not been investigated.

Abstract Purpose – Proactive personality is believed to relate to greater interpersonal helping and lower turnover intentions. Accrued social capital should play a mediating role in this relationship. This paper seeks to address these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The authors used structural equation modeling to analyze the longitudinal data collected from 174 individuals at three points in time. Two dimensions of social capital, i.e. the resource dimension as indicated by information exchange and the relational dimension as indicated by trust relationships were specified. Findings – After controlling for the Big Five personality dispositions, information exchange and then trust relationships sequentially mediated the relationship of proactive personality with helping and turnover intentions. Research limitations/implications – The research highlights the importance of understanding proactive personality through the social capital perspective. Multiple source data collection method is recommended for further validation of the results. Practical implications – The research highlights the importance of recruiting individuals high on proactivity, and the importance of further developing and motivating these individuals by cultivating meaningful interactions and nurturing trustful relationships at work. Then, proactive employees would be more likely to engage in helping behavior and to stay with the company. Originality/value – The paper takes the social capital approach in examining the outcomes of proactive personality. It reveals that resource- and relation-related social capital constructs mediate, in sequence, the relationships of proactive personality with outcomes.

Different from the typical research about procedural fairness that focuses on lower level leaders and its influence on non-managerial teams, we pay particular attention to founder-CEOs' procedural fairness. To investigate whether and how founder-CEOs' procedural fairness could help to promote new ventures' competitiveness, we first link this leadership quality to new ventures' ambidexterity and propose new venture team members' advice-seeking behavior as a mediator. We next predict that this indirect benefit is moderated by environmental dynamism, since the association between founder-CEOs' procedural fairness and new venture teams' advice-seeking behavior can be lessened when environmental dynamism is not high. Results based on a multi-sourced and time-lagged survey of founder-CEOs and all new venture team members in 92 Chinese new ventures support our predictions. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications.

This paper meta-analytically investigates a theoretical framework of emotional labour and its antecedents and outcomes in the hospitality and tourism literature with 57 correlation matrices from published journal papers. Adopting the psychometric meta-analytical methods and meta-structural equation modelling (meta-SEM) methods, the study finds that emotional labour is related to antecedents including personality, emotional intelligence, customer orientation, social support and display rules, as well as related to attitudinal, behavioural, and customer-related outcomes. In addition, strain mediates the relations between emotional labour and its outcomes. This paper is the first meta-analysis on the relations between emotional labour and the antecedents and outcomes in hospitality and tourism management.

Using survey data obtained from 206 frontline hotel employees (Study 1) and 111 employee–supervisor dyads (Study 2), we examined how the emotional labor of hotel employees was associated with affective and behavioral outcomes. We found that surface acting was negatively related to job satisfaction but positively related to burnout. Meanwhile, deep acting was positively related to job satisfaction but negatively related to burnout. Additionally, job satisfaction and burnout were found to mediate the relationship between emotional labor and work performance. We further found that supervisory support moderated the relationships between emotional labor and job satisfaction and burnout.

Prior literature on humor primarily documents its positive effects on employees’ attitudes and behaviors, though increasing research on aggressive humor suggests some conflicting viewpoints. This article proposes a model based on social comparison and attribution theories to examine the influence of supervisors’ aggressive humor on employees’ strain and addictive behaviors. The tests　of the research model entailed a two-wave study with 243 frontline employees from four manufacturing companies of a group corporation in China. The results showed that supervisors’ aggressive humor with employees related positively to employees’ strain. This positive association became stronger when the supervisors did not use aggressive humor with the peers of the focal employees. Employees’ strain mediated the interactive effects of supervisors’ aggressive humor with the focal employees and those with their peers on employees’ addictive behaviors (e.g., problematic use of Internet, alcohol, and tobacco). As well as having practical implications, this study offers theoretical insights for research into humor, leadership, and addictive behaviors.

From the perspective of the integrative model of organizational trust, this study proposes a multi-level model for whether, how, and when differentiated empowering leadership influences followers’ trust in leaders and their work outcomes. Drawing on a sample of 372 followers from 97 teams in China, it was found that the negative effect of differentiated empowering leadership on followers’ trust in leaders became salient when followers’ Chinese traditionality was low. Moreover, followers’ trust in leaders mediated the effect of differentiated empowering leadership and Chinese traditionality on followers’ in-role performance, extra-role performance, and counterproductive work behaviors toward the organization. These findings have implications for managerial theory and practice in the domains of trust and differentiated empowering leadership.

Although a great deal of knowledge has accumulated about dyadic relationships (i.e., leader-member exchange (LMX) or team-member exchange (TMX)) within a team, employee behaviors that involve triadic relationships among focal employees, leaders, and teammates have seldom been investigated. Using Balance Theory, which describes triadic relationships from a power-dependence perspective, in the current study, we explore how the interplay of LMX, TMX, and peers’ LMX jointly impact employees’ feedback-seeking behavior (FSB) and subsequent job performance. By conducting a multilevel moderated polynomial regression on three-wave, multi-source data from 147 team members and their leaders (from 45 work teams), we found that the incongruence between LMX and TMX facilitates FSB when peers’ LMX or task interdependence is high. We also found an asymmetrical incongruence effect concerning the way in which individuals are more likely to seek feedback when LMX is worse than TMX, compared with when LMX is better than TMX. This differential effect is stronger when peers’ LMX or task interdependence is high. The interplay of LMX, TMX, peers’ LMX, and task interdependence eventually has an indirect effect on job performance through FSB. The results from a follow-up study of 270 employees from 77 teams further confirm our predictions about the mechanism of Balance Theory. Specifically, the results indicate that when peers’ LMX is high, the incongruence between LMX and TMX decreases employees’ psychological safety.

We develop a theoretical framework that delineates the process by which customer-oriented perspective taking contributes to employees’ proactive service performance. Drawing from motivated information processing and proactivity perspectives, the model hypothesizes that employees’ customer-oriented perspective taking enhances their role breadth self-efficacy (RBSE), which in turn enhances proactive customer service performance and proactive complaint-handling performance. A three-wave, time-lagged study, involving 145 frontline employees and their immediate supervisors in the Chinese hospitality industry, tests the research model. The results of structural equation modelling show taking customers’ perspectives results in a high level of RBSE. This relationship grows stronger if employees exhibit a strongly proactive personality. A high level of RBSE also mediates the interactive effects of customer-oriented perspective taking and proactive personality on proactive customer service performance and proactive complaint-handling performance. These findings provide insights for research on perspective taking, RBSE, and proactive service performance.

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is heavily reliant on migrant labour to deliver essential services. While evidence indicates that overseas doctors have less positive career outcomes that may result in pay gaps in comparison to UK-trained counterparts, extant theoretical explanations have been slow to consider the crucial role of workplace practices, and the degree to which pay gaps differ between multiple identity sub-groups. Adopting an intercategorical approach to analyse statistical survey data from 5,753 NHS doctors, we examine how pay gaps stem from career barriers and management support in male and female International Medical Graduate, European Economic Area and UK doctors. Our findings provide insights into intersectional variations in career barriers and pay gaps for skilled medical migrants which point to penalties for migrants, especially migrant ethnicized women. Based on our findings we extend the literature in two ways. First, we extend theoretical explanations of pay gaps by conceptualizing pay differences as a complex multi-layered concept that embrace workplace practices as well as intersecting demographic identities. Second, we contribute to theory on skilled migration by highlighting the counter-intuitive shape of management support on migrants’ careers and diversifying extant understandings of constraint and enablement in migrant careers.