Abstract
The marketing literature suggests that frontline employees are the central determinant of how customer-oriented a service organization is perceived to be by its customers. However, little is known about the contingencies of employees' customer orientation (CO) beyond personality traits and broadly construed work attitudes. Based on the social identity approach, the present article develops a multilevel model whereby CO is the result of identity-based management of frontline employees. Two empirical studies in the travel industry show that employees' CO depends on employees' organizational identification and their leaders' acting as role models of CO.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 265-278 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Marketing Letters |
Volume | 18 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2007 |
Keywords
- Customer orientation
- Multilevel
- Organizational identification