Ethical work climate, employee commitment and proactive customer service performance: Test of the mediating effects of organizational politics

... Several studies have linked PSP to a variety of potential antecedents, including individual characteristics such as employee traits (e.g. employees commitment; Lau et al., 2017) and employee ability (e.g. work engagement; Jang et al., 2020;Mehmood et al., 2022a) and situational characteristics such as workplace context (e.g. ...

... workplace ostracism, supervision and leadership; Bashir and Nadeem, 2019;Lyu et al., 2016;Yang et al., 2020;Ye et al., 2019) and organizational climate (e.g. ethical work climate; Lau et al., 2017). However, studies on PSP in the healthcare field (Clark and Polesello, 2017) are rather limited. ...

... Therefore, many scholars have attempted to classify new behaviors beyond individual task performance that are relevant in today's economy, for instance, PSP (Varela-Neira et al., 2018). PSP is an act where employees take the initiative in enhancing processes, visualizing future problems and devising their solutions, and sustaining persistence at work (Lau et al., 2017). Tian et al. (2019) stated that when a service-related problem occurs, a frontline employee with a high level of PSP tends to address the root cause of the problem so that it does not recur. ...

... Previous studies identify dedication and genuine commitment to customer service (CCS)-an attitude that is based on strong emotional bonds to service-as a crucial variable in making customer orientation effective (Chenet et al., 2010;Bell et al., 2004). Moreover, research has shown that high CCS in a positive service climate correlates with high customer satisfaction, increased service performance, and, likewise reduced service sabotage (Conway and Briner, 2015;Garbarino and Johnson, 1999;He et al., 2011;Lau et al., 2017;Schwepker et al., 2019). ...

... Most recent work in the field of CCS research has mainly analyzed the effect of external stimuli (e.g., financial rewards), and personal features (e.g., listening skills) on employees' service orientation (e.g., Brown et al., 2002;Chenet et al., 2010;Hennig-Thurau, 2004;Karatepe and Karadas, 2012;Lau et al., 2017;Zablah et al., 2012). In addition, Yee et al. (2018) research the effect of management commitment and learning goal orientation when discharging challenging duties in environments such as dynamic frontline services (see also Cheung and To, 2010;Vandenberghe et al., 2007), Jauhari et al. (2017) study the effect of transformational leadership on service behavior of frontline employees, and Bell et al. (2004) discuss customer complaints and organizational/supervisor support on a salesperson CCS (see also Tao et al., 2016). ...

... In addition, Yee et al. (2018) research the effect of management commitment and learning goal orientation when discharging challenging duties in environments such as dynamic frontline services (see also Cheung and To, 2010;Vandenberghe et al., 2007), Jauhari et al. (2017) study the effect of transformational leadership on service behavior of frontline employees, and Bell et al. (2004) discuss customer complaints and organizational/supervisor support on a salesperson CCS (see also Tao et al., 2016). Finally, the literature also draws on research in the field of service climate as the precursor of high service quality, employee commitment, and customer satisfaction (He et al., 2011;Lau et al., 2017). ...

... Recently, the ethical value has been combined with that of employee wellbeing regard to the ethical strain, burnout, and work engagement (Huhtala et al. 2011;Huhtala et al. 2013). When there is good fit between ethical value and ethical climate in the organization, employees' work experiences is more positive and it is likely to enhance goal attainment and attachment to work (Lau et al. 2017;Sims and Keon 1997;Valentine and Barnett 2003). In the retail context, Lau et al. (2017) found the impact of employees perceived ethical work climate on their affective commitment and service performance. ...

... When there is good fit between ethical value and ethical climate in the organization, employees' work experiences is more positive and it is likely to enhance goal attainment and attachment to work (Lau et al. 2017;Sims and Keon 1997;Valentine and Barnett 2003). In the retail context, Lau et al. (2017) found the impact of employees perceived ethical work climate on their affective commitment and service performance. ...

... When there is a good fit between ethical values and ethical climate, employees' work experiences are more positive, and it is likely to enhance goal attainment and attachment to work (Lau et al. 2017;Sims and Keon 1997;Valentine and Barnett 2003). In the retailing context, Lau et al. (2017) found that employees' perceived ethical work climate influences their affective commitment and service performance. ...

... According to the existing researches, previous studies have examined its predictors from different levels. For example, individual elements such as emotional labor [10], proactive personality [11], self-efficacy [9], and external factors like work climate [12], HR practices [13], leadership styles [14] have been discussed before, all exerting an important impact on PSB. When it comes to the influence of leadership styles on PSB, concepts like transformational leadership [15], humorous leadership [16], authentic leadership [17], servant leadership [18] gradually seize the focus of the researchers. ...

... Since the concept of PSB was proposed, relevant researches mainly have focused on accommodation and food services, banking and other traditional service industries [9,87]. This study introduced the concept into public management and discussed the promotion strategy for PSB of junior civil servants, which not only confirmed the validity of this concept in Chinese public management context [16], but broadened the research field of individual PSB [11,15], successfully offering a new view for study of this field and further clarifying the understanding of influence mechanism of junior civil servants' PSB [12,16,88]. Secondly, this study reveals the positive effect of servant leadership on PSM and PSB of junior civil servants, which answers the call for strengthening the research on the effect of servant leadership from the academic circle [20,45,48,62] and enriches the relevant researches in China [25,47]. ...

... Some studies have shown that although the organisational political climate is not always negative to individuals and organisations, a scarcity of resources and vagueness in organisational rules may lead to negative competitive and egoistic behaviours among organisational members (Landells and Albrecht, 2013). Other studies have proven that the organisational political climate has a significantly negative effect on many of the organisational behaviours of employees (Abbas et al., 2012;De-Clercq and Belausteguigoitia, 2017;Kaya et al., 2016;Lau et al., 2017;Liang and Wang, 2016;Miller et al., 2008). The organisational political climate also has some impact on employees' innovation ability. ...

... To some extent, this may negatively impact the contractual relationships between employees and organisations (Aryee et al., 2004), reduce employees' organisational commitment (Lau et al., 2017) and increase their sense of job burnout and alienation (Kaya et al., 2016;Liang and Yi, 2018). This may even affect communication among members of the organisation and the establishment of common organisational values, thereby inhibiting employees' innovative behaviour and motivation to innovate (Chen and Wu, 2019). ...

... In earlier works, the exhibition of unethical behavior by employees of any organization has been shown to have the ability to influence individuals, workgroups, as well as an entire organization in terms of its overall performance (Beck and Andrews 1989). This subject area has become crucial to many businesses in recent times and several research works are focusing on understanding the relationships between ethical behavior and organizational performance (Pučėtaitė 2014, Lau, Tong et al. 2017, Naiyananont and Smuthranond 2017, Dimitriou and Ducette 2018, Kim, Kim et al. 2019. Based on the fact that individuals make up an organization and the fact that individual actions have multiplying effects, more and more organizations are depending on individual employees and expecting them to act according to set standards of behavior (Wagel 1987, Naiyananont and Smuthranond 2017, Kim, Kim et al. 2019. ...

... Amos (2012), said that "societal ethics provide the basis on which a civilized state exists", and that "without these ethics, civilization collapses". This same concept works for the link between business ethics and business organizations-in that, ethical behavior peculiar to a particular business influences the performance of that business (Lau, Tong et al. 2017). According to Amos (2012), ethics provide the basis for the development of organizational culture and structure. ...

... Today, companies need appropriate strategies to increase productivity for their survival and presence in the global market. Having creative ideas improves performance and increases the quality of the organization [1]. Creative ideas in various fields can cause the growth and prosperity of performance and business intelligence in the company, and this factor can be used as a tool to create competition for better performance [2]. ...

... The use of business intelligence systems and their link with company performance can effectively improve company information quality and their timely availability for companies [4]. The implementation of business intelligence programs increases the company's activities and improves the company's immediate performance [1]. Business intelligence is useful as an efficient tool in improving the decision-making process and performance of any company [5]. ...

... By doing so, both contextual and societal factors for entrepreneurship are blocked, and we can look at EA as depending mainly of individual attributes. Gathering data from a single country is a common procedure in the research related to the TPB (see, for instance, Clarysse et al., 2011;Goethner et al., 2012;Kautonen et al., 2013;Lau et al., 2017;Liñ an et al., 2011a, b;Pablo-Lerchundi et al., 2015), due both to convenience and linguistic reasons and the reliability of the results obtained. Results have been analyzed with the use of artificial neural networks (ANN) and, more precisely, multilayer perceptron (MLP). ...

... The TPB model is a dominant theory that provides valuable explanation of entrepreneurial intention (Wang et al., 2021). The model has been applied to entrepreneurial intentions (Gieure et al., 2020;Kolvereid, 2016;Krueger et al., 2000;Liñ an and Chen, 2009), consumer behavior (Lau et al., 2017;Panzone et al., 2016), health care (Corace et al., 2016;Rock and Joseph, 2017), voting decision (Rogers et al., 2016) or technology use (Maruping et al., 2017), to cite just a few examples. ...

... The state of the workplace significantly affects employees' PCSP. For instance, initiative-focused work climates (Raub and Liao, 2012), ethical work climates (Lau et al., 2017) and workplace ostracism (Zhu et al., 2017) affect employees' proactive performance, but the corresponding impact of organizational justice (OJ) has been overlooked, creating a significant research gap. ...

... Individuals who practice PCSP are better prepared to enhance organizational processes, anticipate future challenges and solutions and improve service outcomes (Lau et al., 2017). Such conduct differs from task or role performance in that it exceeds the limits of employees' job descriptions (Ye et al., 2019). ...

... According to Lau, Tong, Lien, Hsu & Chong (2017), organizational work climate can define in the organizational work climate dimensions. Several factors that can use as indicators are: ...

... If we examine Figure 1, we can examine the path coefficient, the influence of Work Attitude (X1), Work Climate (X2), and Work Motivation (X3), both partially and simultaneously on Performance (Y), as shown in Table 1 below. The results of the study are in line with previous research, which proves that there is an influence of work attitude (Tolga, 2020), work climate (Lau, Tong, Lien, Hsu & Chong, 2017;Syaifuddin & Sidharta, 2017), and work motivation (Kamphorst & Swank, 2018;Manik & Sidharta, 2017) on performance (Moon, Hur & Hyun, 2019). ...

... The above research motivation, objectives, and existing theoretical foundations and literature provide a justification to explore the influence of workforce diversity management on employee job performance (Cho et al., 2017;Shao et al., 2019;Zhuwao et al., 2019) by further considering factors such as the person-job match (Mor Barak, 2015;Byza et al., 2019;Li et al., 2020c), employee commitment (Lau et al., 2017;Ibidunni et al., 2018), and structural empowerment (Lee and Kim, 2020;Maan et al., 2020). The proposed theoretical model and hypotheses are investigated, and the research findings are illustrated as theoretical and managerial implications. ...

... Similarly, employee commitment is related to employee job performance or interest in the associations (Lau et al., 2017). Employee commitment is critical because it determines whether workers are likely to find employment elsewhere or improve their performance. ...

... A growing body of literature on how employees perceive political behaviour does indeed demonstrate a negative association with OCB (Lau et al., 2017). ...

... This increases the opportunities for them to engage in political behaviour (Elbana, 2016). This engagement in such behaviour will affects employees OCB (Lau et al., 2017). In the same way, Malik et al. (2019) proposed that individualistic organisations that support 'I' more than 'We' -in other words 'competition' -have employees who might act politically in order to achieve some personal goal. ...

... Despite the large number of studies addressing job satisfaction (Jawabreh, 2020;Tutuncu and Kucukusta, 2010;Eriksson et al., 2016;Lau et al., 2017;Trivellas et al., 2018), leadership and job satisfaction (Jacques et al., 2015;Pantouvakis and Patsiouras, 2016), service quality (Doeleman et al., 2014;Pereira-Moliner et al., 2016;Juga et al., 2018), and organizational excellence (Asif et al., 2011;Asif and Gouthier, 2014;Doeleman et al., 2014;Terouhid and Ries, 2016;Gómez et al., 2017;Jahmani et al., 2020), little studies that tackle the impact of service quality and organizational excellence on job satisfaction particularly the impact on Wadi Rum Protected Area employees. The apparent lack of studies in this area created the chance to understand more about the factors that affect the job satisfaction of those working in Wadi Rum Protected Areas. ...

... The efficiency of chain stores is a key factor in the competition in the retail industry because the overall profitability of any chain company depends on the profitability of its constituent parts, that is, its branches (Morimura and Sakagawa, 2018). In addition, the effort to increase the productivity of a branch increases the efficiency of the entire company, which in turn creates competition among retailers (Lau et al., 2017;Sinik, 2017). Thus, the importance of evaluating retail performance is increasingly highlighted and has become the main topic of modern organizational management (Yinghui and Wenlu, 2015). ...

... This finding supports the previous results that exhibit the positive relationship between organisational climate and employee performance (Jaramillo et al., 2005;Özer and Yilmaz, 2011;Schneider et al., 2013;Shanker et al., 2017;Ehrhart and Kuenzi, 2017). Fairness in practices is an overall justice needed to improve the workplace environment (McFarlin and Sweeney, 1992;Lambert et al., 2020;Dailey and Kirk, 1992;Glisson and James, 2002;Glisson, 2007;Hunter et al., 2007;Lau et al., 2017;Parker et al., 2014). Fairness is needed to attain the expected outcomes, and biased procedures only limit the potential achievements. ...

... The problem with employees is that they are never fully committed. They are always looking for the next best opportunity, meaning they do not feel a sense of loyalty to their current company or what their company stands for (Lau et al., 2017). One way companies can try and solve this problem is through high-commitment HR practices such as giving employees the feeling of being valued by providing feedback, recognizing efforts, showing appreciation, etcetera (Tamayo, 2021). ...

... Volume 10, Issue 1, 2023 good for fellow co-workers and consumers (de Magalhães, 2023). In addition, paying attention to ethics in business will also encourage moral awareness and provide certain boundaries related to societal norms for business actors in interacting with their consumers (Lau et al., 2017). Efforts to apply business ethics are reflected in the form of optimal service. ...

... Proactive customer service performance is characterized by spontaneous, continuous, and long-term-oriented action (Rank et al., 2007). Although several influencing factors of employees' proactive customer service performance have been recognized in previous studies, such as organizational justice (Abuelhassan and AlGassim, 2022), ethical work climate (Lau et al., 2017), we did not know whether employees' perceived CSR would drive employees' proactive customer service performance. Proactive customer service performance is worthy of examination because, in a service-oriented industry (i.e., in the hospitality industry), employees' ability and flexibility to meet customer needs are critical for improving the customer's perceived service quality and service quality is directly linked to customer satisfaction, which ultimately affects an organization's performance and market position. ...

... According to this hypothesis, people initially assess the quality and consequences of the outcomes before acting and then respond depending on the belief of the reasons that caused those outcomes. In other words, an individual's emotions are determined by the causal reasoning process about the reasons they attach to the outcomes at workplace Nishii et al., 2008, 31 Veetikazhi et al., 2022 32 . As an example, even if two workers have the same opinion that they are not treated fairly, each employee's reaction will depend on how they see the reasons of this unfair treatment. ...

... Job attitudes in PCSP studies have widely included constructs that represent employees' emotional states toward their work-oriented goals. Most studies concerning attitudes in work settings refer to work engagement, job involvement, psychological empowerment, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction (Chen et al., 2017;Jauhari et al., 2017;Lau et al., 2017). Prior research has identified these job attitudes as direct antecedents of PCSP and core mechanisms that link other distal impacts of individual or organizational determinants with PCSP. ...

... Terlepas dari perkembangan etika kerja islami, berbagai penelitian berkaitan dengan etika kerja yang merangkum hubungan nya dengan variabel individu dan organisasi masih fokus pada konteks barat. Dengan mengadopsi etika kerja Protestan sebagai titik tengah untuk mendukung pemahaman yang lebih komprehensif, secara empiris konsisten dan sangat berharga dalam memahami isu-isu tentang etika kerja islami Studi mengenai etika kerja Islami telah dilakukan oleh (Hayati & Caniago, 2012;Lau et al., 2017;Meriac, 2012) menunjukkan bahwa etika kerja berdampak pada kinerja. Namun demikian, mengacu pada konsepsi human capital, etika kerja islami adalah sebuah input bagi proses yang baik, sayang nya sejauh ini tidak jelas proses apa yang dilakukan untuk membuat input stratejik ini berdampak pada kinerja dosen. ...

... The four items of employee satisfaction were adjusted and slightly modified from Hatane (2015). The five items of employee commitment were adapted and altered from Lau et al. (2017), Gellatly et al. (2006) and Somers (2009). All the statements of constructs are measured using the Likert scale -'1' stands for strongly disagree and '5' stands for strongly agree. ...

... As extra-role behaviors are discretionary, it means such behaviors go above and beyond the formal role requirements and are not specified in job descriptions (Yap et al., 2009). Because PCSP is a Family incivility typical extra-role performance not included in FLEs' job requirements, those who fail to exhibit beneficial proactive behaviors will not be punished (Lau et al., 2017). If hotel FLEs cannot replenish their resources in time after suffering from FI, they must adopt some passive strategies to reserve their own resources such as decreasing engagement in PCSP (Cheng et al., 2020a(Cheng et al., , 2020b. ...

... In contrast, a performance orientation drives individuals to avoid complex and difficult tasks (Button et al., 1996). As such, the goal orientations of retail employees constitute a potential driver of creative efforts deployed by employees in serving customers (Yao and Chang, 2017;Volery and Tarabashkina, 2021;Lau et al., 2017). ...

... The four items of employee satisfaction were adjusted and slightly modified from Hatane (2015). The five items of employee commitment were adapted and altered from Lau et al. (2017), Gellatly et al. (2006) and Somers (2009). All the statements of constructs are measured using the Likert scale -'1' stands for strongly disagree and '5' stands for strongly agree. ...

... One of the most important and descriptive terms related to the behaviours of the employees that are used within organisations is politics (Ullah et al., 2019). Politics can be described as the interpersonal behaviour(s) enacted in order to increase one's interest at the expense of others' (Cheng et al., 2020;Yin et al., 2017).In simple terms, it is such behaviour within the organisation that is not required by job or organisation but rather exercised in an attempt to take advantage certain conditions (Ezeh et al., 2020). Moreover, this definition is broad enough to include varied political behaviours such as withholding key information from decisionmakers, joining a coalition, whistle-blowing, spreading rumours, leaking confidential information to the media, exchanging favours with others in the organisation for mutual benefits, and lobbying on behalf of or against a specific individual or decision alternative. ...

... Since frontline service employee PCSP is crucial in creating customer perceptions of service quality in the hospitality context, researchers have explored its antecedents, considering various factors, including individual (Chan et al., 2019;Huo et al., 2019), task (Rank et al., 2007), organizational Lau et al., 2017;Raub and Liao, 2012), leadership (Jauhari et al., 2017;Lyu et al., 2016;Wu et al., 2020;Ye et al., 2019), workplace (Jang et al., 2020;Li et al., 2016;Zhang et al., 2021;Zhu et al., 2017) and family event factors (Cheng et al., 2021;Ye et al., 2021). ...

... Second, managers establish a positive service environment through their exemplary attitudes and behaviors [95]. Managers with high service orientation are more likely to emphasize service quality and the fulfillment of the needs of customers, the recipients of service activities [96], as they believe in the importance of service quality and customer satisfaction [42]. ...

... Similarly, treating customers well is not just ethical, it is also good business. Research showing the positive impact of a good work environment on employee commitment is not rare (e.g., in Malaysian context, Lau et al. 2017). Western marketing managers might call the good customer treatment by small retailers in our interviews relationship marketing (Adjei et al. 2009). ...

... Next, the cultures of a particular country can have a great influence on the organization's work culture and practices. Malaysia, generally regarded as a collectivist community with collectivist minds (Lau et al., 2017), fosters strong relationships, where every member of a group takes responsibility for other group members and values highly cooperative or helping behavior and extra-role behavior (Hussain et al., 2017). In such a collectivist country, women managers in this study perceive organization support in terms of being appreciated for their contributions. ...

... Several factors have been identified to improve proactive customer service attitude: prosocial motivation (Jiang et al., 2020), work-related self-efficacy (Chen et al., 2016), perceived organizational support (Chen et al., 2016), harmonious passion for work (Chen et al., 2016), high-commitment HR practices (Chen et al., 2016), organizational identification (Lyu et al., 2016), customer orientation (Ye et al., 2019), affective commitment (Rank et al., 2007), task complexity (Rank et al., 2007), participative leadership (Rank et al., 2007), ethical work climate (Lau et al., 2017), and initiative climate (Raub and Liao, 2012). Additionally, abusive supervision has been found to reduce proactive customer service attitude (Lyu et al., 2016). ...

... The relational component of psychological contracts plays a significant role in developing strong employer-employee relationships and reducing employee intentions to leave the organization. The company may consider building an ethical work climate if they want to promote employees' affective commitment and proactive customer service performance and curtail reward system politics (Lau, Tong, Lien, Hsu, Chong, 2017). ...

... Authors Lau et al. (2017) allude to the fact that fairness and justice are unswervingly and firmly linked with the politics of perceptions, which have a more substantial impact (both positive and negative) on personnel job satisfaction but is different amongst individuals. Not surprisingly, Bodla, Afza and Danish (2015) and Chinomona and Mofokeng (2016) noted that, over the past few years, organisational politics has become a noteworthy area of study of the dominant factors and ways organisations are run. ...

... In addition, as a Muslim nation, we must be the role model for another nation and show them that our leadership and organisation would be effective, systematic, disciplined and profitable by implementing Islamic work ethics. Finally, this model could be expanded to include additional beliefs that could impact job performance such as Trust (Al-Weshah, Al-Manasrah, & Al-Qatawneh, 2018;Ogbonnaya & Valizade, 2018;Wunderlich & Beck, 2017), Work climate (Jabbar, 2015;Lau, Tong, Lien, Hsu, & Chong, 2017). ...

... In other words, it is worthwhile to investigate whether ethical awareness is strengthening or weakening the effect of political skill on career success. Although there are studies on the relationship between political skill, ethical awareness and career success in the literature (e.g., Harvey et al., 2013;Lau et al., 2017), there are no studies found on teachers. This study aims to create new theoretical discussion and research areas in educational sciences by revealing "the relationship between teachers' political skills and subjective career success and the moderating role of ethical awareness in this relationship". ...

... Therefore, awareness of the factors that cause political behavior plays an important role in preventing and limiting such behavior. The results showed that organizational policies (accompanying for promotion; payment and promotion policies; and general political behaviors) affect employee participation and performance (36). Another study has shown that political ethics and teaching political behaviors are effective in understanding employees' social responsibility and improve attitudes toward work (29). ...