ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B
主办:中国心理学会
   中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

心理学报 ›› 2021, Vol. 53 ›› Issue (2): 215-228.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2021.00215

• 研究报告 • 上一篇    

顾客授权行为对员工职业成长的影响:自我决定理论视角

郭功星1, 程豹2()   

  1. 1汕头大学商学院, 广东 汕头 515063
    2西南财经大学工商管理学院, 成都 611130
  • 收稿日期:2020-03-02 发布日期:2020-12-29 出版日期:2021-02-25
  • 通讯作者: 程豹 E-mail:chengbao@swufe.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:
    广东省基础与应用基础研究基金(2019A1515011464);广东省科技专项资金(大专项+任务清单)项目(2019ST002)

Effects of customer empowering behaviors on employees’ career growth: Perspective of self-determination theory

GUO Gongxing1, CHENG Bao2()   

  1. 1School of Business, Shantou University, Shantou 515063, China
    2School of Business Administration, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 611130, China
  • Received:2020-03-02 Online:2020-12-29 Published:2021-02-25
  • Contact: CHENG Bao E-mail:chengbao@swufe.edu.cn

摘要:

聚焦于顾客授权行为这一概念, 以自我决定理论为基础, 分别引入基于组织的自尊作为中介变量和职业中心性作为调节变量, 探讨了顾客授权行为对一线服务员工职业成长的影响机制和作用边界。通过一项三阶段的时间滞后研究设计, 获取了245份有效样本, 结果显示: (1)顾客授权行为对员工职业成长具有显著的正向影响; (2)基于组织的自尊在顾客授权行为与员工职业成长之间起着部分中介作用; (3)职业中心性对顾客授权行为与基于组织的自尊的作用关系具有正向调节作用: 当员工职业中心性水平较高时, 顾客授权行为对基于组织的自尊的正向影响更强; (4)职业中心性进一步调节顾客授权行为通过基于组织的自尊对职业成长的间接影响: 当员工职业中心性水平较高时, 顾客授权行为通过基于组织的自尊对职业成长的正向效应会增强。

关键词: 顾客授权行为, 基于组织的自尊, 职业中心性, 职业成长

Abstract:

Customer empowering behaviors, an emerging research topic in the fields of service management and organizational behavior, refer to employees’ perceptions of certain behaviors of customers or certain conditions created by customers in the service encounter contexts that make them feel motivated and competent to make independent decisions for achieving the desired service objects in the process of providing services. Although this concept originally comes from empowerment, prior research on empowerment mainly focused on organizations (or leaders) empowering employees (e.g., empowering supervision, leadership empowerment behavior, employee empowerment, or employee psychological empowerment) and organizations empowering customers (e.g., customer empowerment or customer psychological empowerment), customers empowerment of employees (i.e., customer empowering behaviors) was given little attention.

Therefore, this study focuses on the relatively new concept of customer empowering behaviors and aims to investigate their effects on the career growth of frontline service employees. To unravel the linking mechanisms and boundary conditions of the relationship between customer empowering behaviors and employees’ career growth, we introduce organization-based self-esteem as a mediator and career centrality as a moderator, respectively, from the perspective of self-determination theory. We conducted a three-wave research design and achieved 245 valid samples from the frontline service employees of six garment sales enterprises in Guangzhou and Shantou cities of Guangdong Province.

Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to examine the discriminant validity of key variables (i.e., customer empowering behaviors, organization-based self-esteem, career centrality, and career growth); the results yielded good distinctiveness. Then, we employed hierarchical multiple regression analyses and bootstrapping analyses to test the hypotheses. The results indicated the following: (1) customer empowering behaviors have a significant positive impact on employees’ career growth; (2) organization-based self-esteem plays a mediating role in the relationship between customer empowering behaviors and employees’ career growth; (3) career centrality plays a moderating role in the relationship between customer empowering behaviors and organization-based self-esteem; (4) career centrality further moderates the indirect effect of customer empowering behaviors on employees’ career growth via organization-based self-esteem.

This study offers several theoretical and practical implications. First, it explores the impact of customer empowering behaviors on employees’ career outcomes (i.e., career growth) of frontline service employees. This is conducive to a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the consequences of customer empowering behaviors and provides new empirical evidence for expanding and enriching the research on customer empowering behaviors. Second, from the perspective of self-determination theory, this study confirms the mediating role of organization-based self-esteem and the moderating role of career centrality on the “customer empowering behaviors-career growth” connection, which reveals the “black box” and the boundary condition of the effects of customer empowering behaviors on employees. In practice, this study can help service enterprises and their managers understand the connotation and the effects of customer empowering behaviors more accurately, to improve their insight into the possible positive effects of these actions, and to strengthen their positive effects, such as promoting organization-based self-esteem and the career growth of their employees.

Key words: customer empowering behaviors, organization-based self-esteem, career centrality, career growth

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