Determinants of frontline employee engagement and their influence on service performance

Abstract

This quantitative study explores the antecedents of service employees’ work engagement and the impacts of these antecedents, from the perspective of positive organizational behavior and the job demands-resources model. Survey data were collected from frontline service employees and managers at selected branches of a chain restaurant in Northern Taiwan. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that frontline employees’ psychological capital mediated the positive relationship between branch managers’ servant leadership and employees’ work engagement. Moreover, nonmanagerial employees’ work engagement mediated the relationship between their psychological capital and their service performance. The implications of this study for theory and practice are discussed, along with possible directions for future research.

Keywords:

• Work engagement
• servant leadership
• psychological capital
• service performance
• frontline service employee