Duygu Eren

Servant leadership and perceptions of service quality provided by front-line service workers in hotels in Turkey: Achieving competitive advantage

Purpose – The aim of this article is to examine the relationship of service employees perceptions of servant leadership provided by their supervisors/managers and employee’s reports of service quality provided to clients by their hotels. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 221 frontline employees, a 37 per cent response rate, working in four- and five-star hotels in Cappadocia, Turkey. Previously developed and validated measures of servant leadership (Liden et al., 2008) and service quality (Parasuraman et al., 1988) were used and both were found to be highly reliable in this study. Findings – Respondents were generally young, had relatively short organizational tenure and had high school educations. Respondents having longer organizational tenures and those working in five-star hotels reported lower levels of servant leadership. Longer tenured employees, and males, rated some dimensions of service quality lower as well. Service employees reporting higher levels of servant leadership fr...

Service rewards and prosocial service behaviours among employees in four and five star hotels in Cappadocia.

Considerable research evidence has emerged demonstrating a link between aspects of organizational culture and employee behaviour. The present investigation examined the association of levels of service rewards perceived by service employees working in four- and five-star Turkish hotels to be provided by their organizations, and employees engaging in prosocial service behaviours. Data were collected from 241 employees working in 16 different hotels in Cappadocia, Turkey, using anonymously completed questionnaires, with a 60% response rate. Respondents rated both levels of prosocial service behaviours and levels of service rewards provided to them by their hotels as relatively high. Personal demographic characteristics were weak and inconsistent predictors of both prosocial service behaviours and perceptions of service rewards. Service rewards, controlling for personal demographics, were strong and consistent predictors of the three prosocial service behaviours studied here.