Conclusion: Managers with certain personality traits were able to create a positive service climate through their service attitudes and behaviors.
Reference:Manager personality, manager service quality orientation, and service climate: Test of a model by Salvaggio, Schneider, Nishii, Mayer, Ramesh, and Lyon; Journal of Applied Psychology, November 2007.. For more information, contact Shrayashi Browne, M.B.A. at sales@batrushollweg.com for a copy.
Why This Article Is Important: Creating a service climate that values and supports the customer can be a clear competitive differentiator for any company in the service industry. One of the main ways to create that environment is through the manager's influence on his/her work group. The article revealed a test of an empirical model in which a manager's personality lead to service related attitudes and behaviors, which in turn led to a productive service climate. The model was supported with data from close to 300 departments from 173 stores of a supermarket chain. This evidence provides support for evaluating a manager's personality and promoting service behaviors to create a positive service climate.
Major Findings: Data were gathered on manager's personality, service quality orientation behaviors, and overall evaluations of the service climate from a supermarket chain. A manager's "core self-evaluations" represent a compound personality trait that is a fundamental appraisal of one's worthiness, effectiveness, and capability as a person. Service quality orientation represents behaviors related to service quality, and service climate is an overall evaluation of the department's effectiveness in reaching customer's needs. The following results were found:
Managers with positive core self-evaluations are more likely to exhibit service quality orientation
Managers with high service quality orientation create a positive service climate
A manager's personality is related to overall service climate through the manager's service behaviors and attitudes
What Does It Mean To You? a) Select and promote managers with appropriate personality traits that lead to service quality (such as core self evaluations); b) Actively encourage and entice managers to exhibit positive service quality behaviors and attitudes and c) Understand the linkage through which service climates are created (i.e., manager's personality ¨ service quality orientation ¨ service climate).
