Abstract

     This study tests the positive effects of empowering leadership (ELSH) under boundary conditions in the hospitality industry. We propose the existence of an interactive process through which ELSH behaviors interact with employees’ personality type to condition their engagement, which in turn influences their extra-role service behavior. We use data from 294 employees and structural equation modeling. The results show that the interaction of ELSH with employees’ independent and interdependent personality is negatively related to their engagement. This decrease in engagement is then reflected in decreased extra-role service behaviors due to the positive relationship between engagement and extra-role service. These findings suggest that self-construal is a significant boundary condition capable of changing the positive relationship between ELSH and engagement to a negative one. Not considering this relationship when establishing a leadership strategy such as ELSH in the hospitality context could render efforts to achieve the goal of high-quality service ineffective.

Introduction

     The battle for customers in the hospitality sector has been intensifying in recent years. The proliferation of digital lodging platforms, such as Airbnb, requires hotels to focus on what makes them unique relative to alternatives: professional service available to guests 24/7 that can adapt to their needs (Huertas-Valdivia et al., 2021). This effort to customize service focuses the industry’s interest on frontline employees’ capability to solve problems with autonomy and adapt their roles to provide personalized service (Jha and Nair, 2008, Zhu et al., 2019). Extra-role service includes a set of proactive employee behaviors, beyond the obligations of employees’ roles, that enable hotels to deliver guests service that aligns with their expectations (Garg and Dhar, 2016, Karatepe, 2015, Karatepe et al., 2013, Kim et al., 2009). Extra-role service is by definition a discretionary employee behavior (Bettencourt and Brown, 1997); that is, it is not specified as an in-role task or linked to formal compensation systems (Garg and Dhar, 2016). This combination (which is essential to being competitive but merely discretionary) justifies the industry’s interest in determining what underlies employees’ intention whether or not to engage in extra-role service (Huertas-Valdivia et al., 2018). Some authors have indicated that employee engagement sets in motion a process of internal motivation that makes employees willing to become involved in extra-role service (e.g., Karatepe, 2013a; Kim and Koo, 2017; Zhu et al., 2019). Achieving more engaged employees has thus been presented as a way to attain extra-role service (Orlowski et al., 2021).

Conclusions

     Research is currently identifying ELSH as a style that can solve some problems in the hospitality work environment. Our study tests the relationships among ELSH, engagement, and extra-role service under boundary conditions present in the work environment (the employee’s type of self-construal). Our analysis provides evidence of an interactive process in which leadership style and the employee’s personality shapes hotel service. Drawing on SCT, we find that the employee’s personality type acts as a boundary condition that determines the results of the process by which ELSH influences hotel employees’ engagement. We thus confirm that the interaction of ELSH with independent and interdependent employees’ self-construal becomes an obstacle to achieving engaged employees and, by extension, to reaping the benefits of ELSH’s positive influence on extra-role service. Our study ultimately warns of the need to consider employees’ personality profile before establishing ELSH as the means to promote increased engagement and extra-role service behaviors in hotels.