The effects of empowering leadership on employee adaptiveness in luxury hotel services: Evidence from a mixed-methods research

• Published in: International journal of hospitality management 2022-02, Vol.101, p.103113, Article 103113
• Main Authors: Peng, Jiamin, Yang, Xiaoyun, Huan, Tzung-Cheng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Basic psychological needs; Employee creativity; Empowering leadership; Error strain; Service adaptive behavior
• ISSN: 0278-4319; 1873-4693
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2021.103113

Service adaptive behavior (SAB) is the key to creating a service experience that warrants telling others. This study conducted a survey of 401 luxury hotel personnel and used a qualitative and quantitative approach to explore how empowering leadership encourages boundary-spanning service employees to exhibit adaptive behaviors, and which configurations of organizational and individual factors increase the exhibition of adaptive behaviors. The results show that empowering leadership behaviors influence employees’ SAB through improved perceptions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness in relation to their job roles. Among these perceptions, role-identity autonomy and competence stimulate employee creativity and positively influence SAB, whereas error strain weakens the positive effects of employees’ basic psychological needs and creativity on SAB. The fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis shows four categories of antecedent configurations that contribute to high-exhibition of SAB. The results have implications in managing service contacts and employee empowerment and training. •Service adaptive behavior (SAB) is the key to creating a service experience.•Empowering leadership behaviors stimulate employees’ SAB.•Role-identity autonomy and competence stimulate SAB through employee creativity.•Error strain weakens the effect of basic psychological needs and creativity on SAB.•Four types of causal condition configurations increase the exhibition of SAB.