Employee well-being profiles and service quality: a unit-level analysis using a multilevel latent profile approach

TY - JOUR

T1 - Employee well-being profiles and service quality

T2 - a unit-level analysis using a multilevel latent profile approach

AU - Benitez, Miriam

AU - Peccei, Riccardo

AU - Medina, Francisco J.

PY - 2019

Y1 - 2019

N2 - This study is designed to contribute to a better theoretical and empirical understanding of the unit-level relationship between employee well-being (job satisfaction and burnout, in the form of emotional exhaustion and cynicism) and service quality in two ways. First is by adopting a person-oriented approach to identify distinct well-being profiles as a way of capturing the conjoint effect of satisfaction and burnout on service quality. Second is by employing an adapted form of multilevel latent profile analysis (MLPA) to examine the extent to which the distribution of employee well-being profiles in a work group affects the level of service quality provided by the group. These issues were examined using combined employee-customer data based on a sample of 396 employees and 1233 customers from 91 restaurant and reception units in 42 hotels in Spain. In line with theoretical expectations and consistent with a win-win model of the unit level relationship between employee well-being and service quality, the results showed that work groups with a greater proportion of employees with high levels of job satisfaction combined with low levels of burnout (emotional exhaustion and cynicism), significantly outperformed work groups with a less favourable internal distribution of well-being profiles. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

AB - This study is designed to contribute to a better theoretical and empirical understanding of the unit-level relationship between employee well-being (job satisfaction and burnout, in the form of emotional exhaustion and cynicism) and service quality in two ways. First is by adopting a person-oriented approach to identify distinct well-being profiles as a way of capturing the conjoint effect of satisfaction and burnout on service quality. Second is by employing an adapted form of multilevel latent profile analysis (MLPA) to examine the extent to which the distribution of employee well-being profiles in a work group affects the level of service quality provided by the group. These issues were examined using combined employee-customer data based on a sample of 396 employees and 1233 customers from 91 restaurant and reception units in 42 hotels in Spain. In line with theoretical expectations and consistent with a win-win model of the unit level relationship between employee well-being and service quality, the results showed that work groups with a greater proportion of employees with high levels of job satisfaction combined with low levels of burnout (emotional exhaustion and cynicism), significantly outperformed work groups with a less favourable internal distribution of well-being profiles. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

KW - Well-being profiles

KW - multilevel

KW - service quality

U2 - 10.1080/1359432X.2019.1678587

DO - 10.1080/1359432X.2019.1678587

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85074435346

SN - 1359-432X

VL - 28

SP - 859

EP - 872

JO - EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

JF - EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

IS - 6

ER -