A Multi-Level Approach of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors in the Hotel Industry

Purpose – The primary purpose of this study is to attempt to advance knowledge of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) by integrating the macro and micro perspectives by proposing a multi-level framework in the hospitality industry. Research design, data, and methodology - We recommend the future researchers to adopt a multi-level approach. That is, this study is a cross-level design with a sample of hotel employees as well as hotel customers. As the data collected will be multi-level nature, we will use hierarchical liner modeling (HLM) to examine the relationships between individual- and firm-level variables. Results - Although the topic of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) has been popular in management literature, OCB in the hospitality industry is yet to be fully examined. Understanding OCB in the hospitality is important due to the boundary-spanning role. In the service literature, customer satisfaction is largely influenced by the attitudes and behaviors of service employees (Delcourt, Gremler, van Riel, & van Birgelen, 2013; Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1988). According to a meta-analysis by conducted by Podsakoff, Whiting, and Blume (2009) show the positive effect of OCB on employee performance. That is, employees who are willing to engage in the additional discretionary behavior beyond role-specified behaviors are more likely to show a high level of job performance which may ultimately lead to positive customer satisfaction. Conclusion - While previous studies have shown the impact of OCB on job performance (e.g., Podsakoff, Whiting, & Blume, 2009), research examining the relationship between OCB and service quality in the hospitality industry has been rather limited. Thus, first contribution of our study is to examine the impact of OCB on customer perceived service quality. Second, prior studies have yet to consider the dynamic interplay between the individual-level and contextual factors at the same time in the hospitality management literature. Our study contributes to hospitality management literature by developing an effective conceptual model examining the impact of individual and context difference simultaneously on OCB using a multi-level approach. Finally, our study contributes to hospitality management literature and OCB literature by focusing on the interaction across the levels to see whether the effect of customer orientation and perceived organizational support on OCB may vary across the different organizational cultures.