The Mediation of employees’ positive extra-role behaviors in the relationship between supportive organizational climate and customer engagement behaviors

Document Type : Articles

Authors

• Sahar Siami
• Martin Grimmer

Professor, Faculty of Management and Economics, University of Tasmania, Australia

https://doi.org/10.22067/pmt.v12i1.83800

Abstract

1- INTRODUCTION
During recent decades, customers' extra-role behaviors such as citizenship and engagement have become the focus of management studies. these behaviors result in increasing resources and decreasing organizational costs such as the cost for advertisement and human resource recruitment. customer engagement behavior is considered as an extra-role voluntary behavior during and after purchasing a product or receiving a service. thus, identifying the affecting factors of customer engagement is useful for organizations. on the other hand, the performance of frontline employees in service organizations such as insurance companies is of crucial importance because of its direct impact on perceived service quality and consequently customer satisfaction. in other words, customers assess the quality of received services and organizational performance serving as a baseline of their behavioral intentions toward the organization. therefore, understanding the factors that encourage employees to be engaged in such behaviors is critical for managers. therefore, the present research aimed to investigate the relationship between supportive organizational climate and positive customer engagement behaviors considering the mediation of employee's positive extra-role (adaptive and proactive) behaviors as well as the moderation of positive psychological capital.
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In this study, social exchange theory has been employed to justify the relationships within the conceptual model. relying on this theory, when there is a lack of formal obligation to reciprocate; involved parties are more likely to repay the received benefits using norms of reciprocity and show citizenship behaviors. accordingly, when individuals perceive other parties' voluntary and extra-role help to satisfy their needs, they feel obligated to repay the perceived support to the person or the organization that they work for. therefore, it can be suggested that when employees perceive organizational procedures and policies as supportive, they feel obligated and committed to the organization which motivates them to reciprocate through engaging in task-related extra-role behaviors (i.e., adaptive and proactive behaviors). in the same vein, customers who perceive extra-role behaviors of employees toward themselves, try to reciprocate employees' behaviors by exerting positive engagement behaviors.
3- METHODOLOGY
A quantitative methodology was used in this study. the research objective was practical, and the study used a survey-descriptive method. the study population included employees and customers of 60 branches of 20 insurance companies located in tehran, mazandaran, and golestan provinces in iran. the study sample included 513 employees and 560 customers, which have been selected using convenience and stratified sampling techniques. to collect data, scales of positive psychological capital, supportive organizational climate, adaptive behavior, proactive behavior (rated by employees), and positive customer engagement behavior (rated by customers) were employed. structural equation modeling in amos 23 software and linear regression analysis using process macro in spss 24 were used to analyze data.


4- RESULTS & DISCUSSION
Results of hypothesis testing indicated that supportive organizational climate positively affects employees' adaptive and proactive behaviors. thus, a supportive organizational climate is an organizational resource that can improve employees' capability and motivation to engage in tasks requiring cognitive ability and job control. in addition to confirming the positive relationship between adaptive and proactive behaviors and customer engagement, the results confirmed the mediating effect of adaptive and proactive behaviors in the relationship between supportive organizational climate and customer engagement. it means that customers can be influenced by a supportive organizational climate based on employees' adaptive and proactive behaviors. finally, the findings confirmed the moderating effect of psychological capital on the relationship between supportive organizational climate and adaptive and proactive behaviors.
5- CONCLUSION & SUGGESTIONS
The results of the study contributed to research on supportive organizational climate and the understanding of the effect of employees' extra-role behaviors on customers' voluntary behaviors such as customer engagement. first, the findings provided new insight on the effect of supportive organizational climate on adaptive and proactive behaviors. although a few studies have considered the moderating effect of psychological capital, no study investigated the interaction between positive psychological capital and supportive organizational climate and its effect on adaptive and proactive behaviors separately and spontaneously. in line with the study findings, it is suggested to the managers of service organizations to formally or informally support employees' creative ideas and actions in delivering services to encourage them to be engaged in task-related extra-role behaviors. furthermore, managers can assure employees that there not only would not be any negative consequences for possible mistakes resulting from creative adaptive and proactive behaviors, but they would support such behaviors and, in this way, motivate employees to do so.
 

Keywords

• Supportive Organizational Climate
• Psychological Capital
• Customer Engagement Behavior
• Extra-role Behaviors

References

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