Role of personality traits on employees' service recovery performance

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the moderating role of personality traits (extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional stability, openness to experience) on the relationships between internal service quality (i.e. HR practices and perceived supervisory support) and employees’ service recovery performance. The proposed model of employees’ service recovery performance is developed from the widely recognized theoretical basis, which is the service profit chain. Service profit chain (SPC) proposed that internal service quality, which is measured by the feelings that employees have toward their job, supervisors, and working environment would ignite a chain effect leading to the enhancement of employee service performance, customer satisfaction, organization’s growth and profitability (Heskett, Sasser, & Schlesinger, 1997). Moreover, the study applied social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) to explain the exchange relationship between the support made by the organization as well as supervisors and the call center agents’ response in returning the favor to the organization by providing service recovery performance. Survey questionnaires enclosed in envelopes were sent to the call center agents in service organizations located in Bangkok, Thailand. Moderated regression analysis was employed to test the hypotheses. The follow-up analyses include graphing the interaction effect and simple slopes testing were implemented. The findings reveal that only emotional stability appears to moderate the relationships between internal service quality (HR practices and perceived supervisory support) and service recovery performance. Employees who have high emotional stability reported greater dedication in performing service recovery when they perceived support from the organization and supervisors. In doing so, the study contributed to the service profit chain theory by incorporating personality traits in to the model as a moderating mechanism that strengthen the relationship between internal service quality and employee’s service behaviors. Therefore, the results clearly suggest that emotional stability is an important influencing factor for employees’ service recovery performance. Employers should then be aware that aside from the support provided by HR offices and supervisors, they should also take into consideration the employees’ personality factor when it comes to service performance.