Determinants of Frontline Employee Engagement

The International Journal of Human Resource
Management
ISSN: 0958-5192 (Print) 1466-4399 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rijh20
Determinants of frontline employee engagement

and their influence on service performance
Shou-Wei Chen & Jui-Chen Peng
To cite this article: Shou-Wei Chen & Jui-Chen Peng (2019): Determinants of frontline employee
engagement and their influence on service performance, The International Journal of Human
Resource Management, DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2018.1505764
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2018.1505764
Published online: 10 Jan 2019.
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THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2018.1505764
Determinants of frontline employee engagement and

their influence on service performance
Shou-Wei Chena and Jui-Chen Pengb
a
Department of Information Management, Taipei City University of Science and Technology,
Beitou, Taipei, Taiwan; bZhaoqing University, Economics & Management College, Duanzhou
District, Zhaoqing City, Guangdong, China
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This quantitative study explores the antecedents of service Work engagement; servant
employees’ work engagement and the impacts of these leadership; psychological
antecedents, from the perspective of positive organizational capital; service performance;
frontline service employee
behavior and the job demands-resources model. Survey
data were collected from frontline service employees and
managers at selected branches of a chain restaurant in
Northern Taiwan. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that
frontline employees’ psychological capital mediated the
positive relationship between branch managers’ servant
leadership and employees’ work engagement. Moreover,
nonmanagerial employees’ work engagement mediated the
relationship between their psychological capital and their
service performance. The implications of this study for the-
ory and practice are discussed, along with possible direc-
tions for future research.
Introduction
Work engagement, which at its maximum implies that employees com-
pletely dedicate themselves to their work, has consistently been the focal
point of discussions about positive organizational behavior (Bakker &
Schaufeli, 2008). It is defined as a positive and proactive state of mind in
which individuals actively pursue and achieve their goals and aspirations
while demonstrating work-related vigor, dedication, and absorption
(Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma, & Bakker, 2002). The relevant
management literature suggests that more engaged employees will deliver
higher task- and contextual performance and superior customer service
(Christian, Garza, & Slaughter, 2011; Menguc, Auh, Fisher, & Haddad,
2013; Rich, Lepine, & Crawford, 2010). As the service sector continues to
grow, and increasingly to dominate economic activity in developed coun-
tries, frontline employees’ boundary-spanning roles mean that their
CONTACT Jui-Chen Peng 2954851504@qq.com Zhaoqing University, Economics & Management

College, Duanzhou District, Zhaoqing City, Guangdong 526061, China.
ß 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 S-W. CHEN AND J-C. PENG
service performance when interacting with customers will directly impact

the latter’s assessment of entire organizations’ service performance.
Moreover, recent studies have pointed out that more engaged frontline
service employees—that is, those who demonstrate absorption in and
perseverance toward their assigned tasks—will win customers’ accolades
for their service performance (Karatepe, 2013; Menguc, Auh, Yeniaras, &
Katsikeas, 2017). Hence, increasing the strength of frontline service
employees’ work engagement is a key factor affecting business profitabil-
ity, and in-depth investigation of the antecedents and outcomes of such
work engagement has become a critical issue in research on ser-
vice industries.
Positive psychology holds that positive leadership styles are antece-
dents of positive psychological states and positive behaviors (Searle &
Barbuto, 2011) and can improve followers’ work skills as well as win
their enduring trust and commitment (Turner, Barling, & Zacharatos,
2002). Recently, several empirical studies have indicated that For
example, transformational leadership can inspire and motivate employees
by raising their awareness of the importance of their tasks and their will-
ingness to prioritize the interests of the organization, department, or
team above their own. Hence, transformational leadership has been
viewed as a type of positive leadership that can improve employees’ work
engagement (Sweetman & Luthans, 2010; Vincent-Harper, Muser, &
Janneck, 2012). However, on the grounds that service is intangible and
indivisible, scholars including Chen, Zhu, and Zhou (2015) have sug-
gested that another type of positive leadership—servant leadership—may
have an even greater impact on the motivation demonstrated by frontline
service employees and on their service-performance outcomes.
The crux of servant leadership is the cultivation and development of
employees’ ‘task efficiency, community stewardship, self-motivation, and
future leadership capabilities’ (Liden, Wayne, Zhao, & Henderson, 2008,
p. 162). In other words, servant leaders use various means to understand
and empathize with their team members and recognize their unique tal-
ents (Liden et al., 2008). They also imbue employees with positive energy
and manage their teams’ affairs altruistically, enabling employees to
maintain positive emotional states when facing daily tasks (Page &
Wong 2000). Unsurprisingly, servant leadership has been explicitly linked
to the promotion of employees’ work engagement (De Clercq,
Bouckenooghe, Raja, & Matsyborska, 2014)—recently, through a multi-
level theoretical framework that distinguishes individual-level servant
leadership from group- or team-level leadership (Hsiao, Lee, & Chen,
2015; Liden, Wayne, Liao, & Meuser, 2014). However, while previous
empirical research has indicated that servant leadership is an important
THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 3
antecedent to sustaining employees’ individual-level work engagement

(De Clercq et al. 2014), its effects on work engagement at the group/store
level, as well as the related mediators, have yet to be clarified.
Previous studies have shown that job resources (e.g., perceived super-
visor support and supervisory coaching) and personal resources (e.g., self-
efficacy and optimism) are the central motivational processes that predict
work engagement, either independently or in combination (Bakker &
Demerouti 2007; Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2009).
Adopting conservation-of-resources theory and the job demands-resources
(JD-R) model as a theoretical base, Karatepe and Talebzadeh (2016)
studied an airline’s flight attendants and found that their individual-level
psychological capital (PsyCap) mediated the effect of servant leadership on
work engagement, while work engagement mediated the effect of PsyCap
on service-recovery performance. However, to the best of our knowledge,
key questions regarding how servant leadership at the store/branch level
fosters work engagement through psychological mechanisms, and in turn
affects service performance, remain unanswered. Accordingly, the present
study assesses whether and how one type of personal resource, PsyCap,
mediates the relation between branch-level servant leadership and
employee work engagement. PsyCap is a positive motivational state
(Sweetman & Luthans 2010) that comprises four psychological resources:
self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience. As previous studies have dem-
onstrated that servant leadership strengthens employees’ positive psych-
ology (Searle & Barbuto 2011), such leadership has been seen as important
to the development of employees’ PsyCap (Bouzari & Karatepe 2017;
Hsiao et al. 2015). However, evidence of whether employees’ PsyCap sig-
nificantly mediates the relation of branch-level servant leadership to
employees’ work engagement remains scarce. Hence, the current study
extends Karatepe and Talebzadeh’s (2016) study, which utilized only a
micro-level approach; and, from the perspectives of positive organizational
behavior (POB) and the JD-R model (Bakker & Demerouti 2007),
hypothesizes that individual PsyCap does serve as an important mediator
between branch-level servant leadership and employees’ work engagement.
In addition to bridging the research gap noted above, this study has
several theoretical aims. The first is to integrate two subfields of the
management literature—that is, the branch level of servant leadership,
and frontline employees’ service performance—and thus to clarify
whether the former, considered as a contextual variable, can enhance the
latter. Its findings should therefore yield a clearer understanding of the
impact of branch servant leaders’ positive leadership behavior on
employees’ service performance. Second, this study responds to Seligman
and Csikszentmihalyi’s (2000) call for scholars studying organizational
Store Level
Data
Servant Employees
Leadership
Managers
Employee Level
Psychological Employee Job Service

Capital Engagement Performance
Figure 1. Cross-level research model.
behavior to incorporate more in-depth discussion of positive psychology.

As such, it adopts positive psychology theory, and takes a comprehensive
view of the meso cross-level model (Figure 1) (Kozlowski & Klein 2000),
linking micro variables to explore how positive stimulation and encour-
agement of branch managers’ servant leadership sequentially reinforce
employees’ PsyCap and engagement, and thus affect employees’ service
performance. In other words, this cross-level perspective should allow us
to delineate how branch managers’ servant leadership influences
employee service performance, while avoiding the ecological or atomic
fallacies that are easily generated by single-level models (Snijders &
Bosker 1999). Third, the current work will test whether work engage-
ment at the individual level mediates the relationship between PsyCap
and service performance. Given that it is a persistent and positive affect-
ive motivational state of fulfillment in employees, work engagement may
provide a more comprehensive explanation of service performance than
other mechanisms that concern narrower aspects of the self, for example,
job involvement or job satisfaction (Rich et al. 2010). And finally, the
current study clarifies the relation between the positive psychological
constructs of PsyCap and work engagement, through their separate and
joint roles as mediators between branch-level servant leadership and
favorable service performance.
Literature review
Cross-level antecedents of frontline service employees’ work engagement
As noted above, work engagement—the degree to which members of an
organization harness themselves to their work-role performances—can be
subdivided into three attributes. Vigor, implies abundant vitality and
psychological resilience; willingness to work diligently and tirelessly;

and perseverance in the face of adversity. Dedication is marked by a
strong sense of purpose, pride, and enthusiasm for work, as well as an
unflinching embrace of its challenges; and absorption consists of
complete concentration on one’s work, joyfully and without shirking
(Rich et al. 2010). However, far from being a loose aggregation of
these attributes or fragments thereof, work engagement requires the
clear, complete and simultaneous operation of all three (Christian
et al. 2011).
Previous research has identified leadership as one of the key means of
cultivating engagement (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002). As noted
above, positive-leadership theory holds that a servant leader uses various
means to understand and empathize with team members, recognizes
their special talents (Liden et al. 2008), and helps them maintain positive
energy and emotional states (Page & Wong 2000), rendering its relation-
ship to work engagement a positive one (De Clercq et al. 2014).
However, such work has mainly relied on individual-level research para-
digms, rather than team-level research frameworks that would enable
exploration of work engagement’s cross-level antecedent variables
(Costal, Passos, & Bakker, 2014).
The concept of servant leadership also emphasizes the leader’s duty to
assume primary responsibility for an organization’s success, as well as
moral responsibility for his/her subordinates, customers, and stakehold-
ers (Greenleaf, 1991). In other words, servant leaders embrace the central
tenet of serving others first and prioritize the needs, aspirations, and
interests of others over their own, thus exhibiting the temperament and
psychological qualities of a servant who supports, motivates, and empow-
ers others without elevating himself above them or constantly demanding
service from them. In addition, Greenleaf (1991) argued that the key fac-
tor in leadership success is a deep understanding of followership: only
leaders who can ‘satisfy the needs of their followers’, even if this means
setting aside the relentless pursuit of their own interests, will be able to
lead their businesses to success.
As well as humility, sincerity, and tolerance, servant leaders embody
the spirit of service at the organizational level, by creating work environ-
ments that show employees they are protected, cared for and supported.
In previous research, employees exhibited stronger work engagement
when their needs and interests received more care and attention from
management (Harter et al. 2002). Management based on servant leader-
ship also encourages the formation of solid inter-employee relationships
and networks (Avery, McKay, & Wilson, 2007); and the resultant sense
of belonging to a community helps employees to more readily establish
trust and emotional security, which in turn helps increase their work
engagement (Kahn, 1990).
A sense of accomplishment does not come easily for frontline service
employees in the food-service industry, due to the many complexities
and trivial details inherent in their work and their frequent contact with
customers. Nevertheless, even in this sector, servant leaders can empower
employees by allowing them to make decisions autonomously through
information acquisition and self-reflection, thus allowing them to experi-
ence higher levels of accountability and feelings of accomplishment. In
other words, if employees are given opportunities to recognize their
work’s meaning and the value created by it, they will devote even more
energy, awareness, and commitment to it (Xanthopoulou et al. 2009).
Lastly, in workplace communities, servant leaders emphasize goals and
provide guidance and advice to employees in a variety of roles; this man-
agerial feedback represents a job resource for those team members who
receive it, which in turn helps them devote themselves more deeply to
their job responsibilities (Menguc et al. 2013). Accordingly, we propose
the following hypothesis:
H1: Branch-level servant leadership will be positively related to frontline
restaurant employees’ work engagement.
Cross-level mediating processes for employees’ positive psychological capital

Positive PsyCap is defined as a developmental state in which ‘one
assesses a situation positively regardless of what kind of changes or chal-
lenges one faces and then marches bravely toward success’ (Avey,
Luthans, & Jensen, 2009). This state, which can be realized through
development and adaptation, includes four sub-constructs: self-efficacy,
hope, optimism, and resilience. Self-efficacy refers to employees’ confi-
dence that they will successfully complete challenging tasks. Hope is their
perseverance in pursuing goals and their ability to choose new
approaches to attaining them, while optimism is their view of positive
occurrences as personal, sustainable, and prevalent, and of negative
events as external, surmountable, and rare. Lastly, resilience refers to
employees’ ability to maintain or restore their capabilities (or even sur-
pass their previous capabilities) to reach their goals, despite adversity
(Luthans, Youssef, & Avolio, 2007b). As distinct from both affective
states, which are transient and inconstant, and personality traits, which
are stable but less open to development, PsyCap is ‘state-like,’ stable, and
open to development—that is, it can be altered both by changes in the
external environment and by changes within the individual (Luthans,
Avolio, Avey & Norman, 2007a, p. 543). In the same study, Luthans
et al. (2007a) argued that the four sub-constructs of positive PsyCap can
trigger a synergistic agentic capacity through a process of mutual influ-
ence and stimulation. Hence, these sub-constructs should form a second-
order core construct whose antecedents and consequences are susceptible
to empirical examination. Accordingly, using the four sub-constructs of
positive PsyCap, we created a high-level core indicator that could be
used to examine the mediating role played by these constructs in the
relationship between branch-level servant leadership and employees’
work engagement.
In theory, branch-level servant leaders should provide internal train-
ing, based on company-level training plans, that will improve their front-
line employees’ work-related knowledge, skills, and capabilities, actuate
their potential, and help them realize their career goals; and as such, this
type of leadership will tend strengthen the employees’ PsyCap attributes
of hope and self-efficacy (Walumbwa, Peterson, Avolio, & Hartnell,
2010). Meanwhile, to strengthen employees’ optimism as well as hope,
servant leaders can create a work atmosphere marked by fairness and
ethical behavior at their branch locations; take account of employees’
feelings; and listen to and adopt their suggestions. This will also allow
frontline employees recognize their important role in realizing the organ-
ization’s goals. Furthermore, to strengthen employees’ confidence and
hope, a servant leader can set goals for their employees, engage in in-
depth discussions with them to finalize solutions, and provide profes-
sional guidance customized to their individual capabilities, to empower
them to overcome difficulties and reach their goals (van Dierendonck,
2011). And to increase frontline employees’ trust in the organization’s
leadership, servant leaders can provide useful resources by tailoring feed-
back to their employees’ individual qualities and needs; maximize face-
to-face communication; and building sound interpersonal leader-follower
relationships (Liden et al., 2008). Such servant-leader behaviors are likely
to motivate employees to create sound contingency plans in the expect-
ation that they will receive managerial support when facing adversity,
further increasing employees’ resilience.
Based on the above analysis, we expect that branch-level servant lead-
ership can increase employees’ overall PsyCap by boosting all four of
their positive psychological states. Accordingly:
H2: Servant leadership at the branch level will be positively related to frontline
restuarant employees’ PsyCap.
Based on the JD-R model, personal resources (i.e., PsyCap) may dir-
ectly or indirectly lead to work engagement, especially in service-sector
organizations. This is because frontline service personnel often need to
make psychological adjustments in response to environmental changes if

they are to maintain high levels of work engagement, and PsyCap plays
an important role in facilitating such adjustments (Sweetman & Luthans
2010). Avey, Reichard, Luthans, & Mhatre (2011) confirmed that
employees with high levels of positive PsyCap will not only expect posi-
tive occurrences to occur in the workplace, but also believe that they can
create success and remain unaffected by workplace frustrations. High
positive PsyCap also activates employees’ motivation and capability to
reach goals (Stajkovic, 2006), and leads to greater job satisfaction and
organizational commitment (Luthans et al., 2007a), in part because it
prompts employees to use resources provided by their organizations to
meet their own needs for achievement and efficiency (Avey et al., 2011).
In short, high positive PsyCap implies not only that an employee will
happily identify with and contribute to the organization, but also that
he/she will avoid attitudes or behaviors that are, from the organization’s
viewpoint, unhealthy.
The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions proposed by
Fredrickson (2001) can serve as another theoretical basis for the associ-
ation between positive PsyCap and work engagement. This theory holds
that positive emotions broaden individuals’ thoughts and behaviors, and
that this in turn enables them to create physical, psychological, and social
resources that help them solve work problems and stay highly motivated.
Hence, an individual with a higher level of positive PsyCap will devote
more effort to work, expect positive outcomes, feel more confident that
tasks will be completed, respond positively to obstacles and challenges,
remain motivated and dedicated, and employ numerous methods to
achieve his or her goals.
From the theoretical and empirical literature cited above, it can be
inferred that the branch-level servant leadership style will increase res-
taurant employees’ self-efficiency, by providing them with knowledge
and cultivating their skills; optimism, by leading them to recognize their
own value within the organization; and resilience and hope, by offering
them work-related and emotional resources and care, as well as support-
ing their positive attitudes and confidence.
The broaden-and-build theory also implies that employees with high
PsyCap levels can quickly recover from setbacks, are inclined to interpret
workplace events positively, and are more likely to experience positive
emotions; and that these qualities in turn enable them to recognize the
broader set of resources that are available to help them focus on their
work when facing challenges, and to integrate themselves even more
tightly with their work roles (Sweetman & Luthans, 2010). Therefore, we
will test the following hypothesis:
H3: Frontline restaurant employees’ PsyCap mediates the relationship between

their work engagement and servant leadership at the branch level.
The mediating role of employees’ work engagement at the individual level

Another aim of this study is to determine whether frontline employees’
work engagement serves as a mediator between their PsyCap and the
behaviors (collectively, service performance) that they exhibit while serv-
ing customers (Liao & Chuang 2004). As this definition implies, service
performance differs qualitatively from service effectiveness as recognized
by consumers—for example, in the form of customer satisfaction, cus-
tomer loyalty, and perceived service quality—which is the outcome of
service performance rather than a synonym or proxy for it (Cronin,
Brady, & Hult, 2000). Hence, we use only branch managers’ assessment
of frontline employees’ behaviors when rendering services in the branch
to measure their service performance (Salanova, Agut, & Peir o, 2005).
Gorgievski and Hobfoll (2008) have argued that work engagement is a
broad motivational process, and examined its link to performance from
the perspective of the JD-R model. More specifically, they suggested that
work engagement is a psychological state that allows employees to attain
or maintain superior work efficiency even when work resources exceed
work demands. Bakker, Demerouti, & Lieke (2012) argued that more
engaged employees deliver superior performance outcomes because they
often exhibit positive emotions, and they demonstrate better psycho-
logical and physical well-being. Positive emotions will expand employees’
thought-action repertoire, while good physical health allows them to
readily utilize their skills, capabilities, and knowledge (i.e., physical and
psychological resources). The easier it is for employees to be resourceful
on the job, the more easily they can meet job demands and reach their
job performance.
Some previous empirical studies have revealed a positive relationship
between employees’ PsyCap and their work performance (Bouzari &
Karatepe, 2017; Walumbwa et al. 2010), and Avey et al.’s (2011) meta-
analysis demonstrated a significant and positive relationship between
PsyCap and various performance indicators. However, most such work
has focused on employees in manufacturing rather than those in the ser-
vice sector, whose service performance relies far more heavily on the
support of their own emotional norms (Avey et al. 2011). As such, the
degree and scope of PsyCap’s impact on service performance is likely to
be more significant for service employees. According to the JD-R model,
employees with more PsyCap can devote more resources to their organ-
izations’ operations; and the theory of resource conservation holds that
individuals’ own internal resources can help them to acquire other types
of resources (Hobfoll, 1989). As noted above, due to their self-efficacy,
optimism, and hope, employees with ample PsyCap will be less affected
than others by setbacks, and indeed may respond positively to adversity.
This suggests that frontline service-industry employees with high levels
of PsyCap will believe that they already possess the professional skills
required to perform their tasks (self-efficacy), persevere in providing
quality service, and feel confident about completing their missions and
delivering excellent service performance (hope, optimism).
In theory (Luthans, Avolio, Walumbwa, & Li, 2005), an abundance of
PsyCap will help frontline employees at branch locations establish their
own psychological resources and respond to various service-related work
challenges. In turn, high levels of such psychological resources can
strengthen their positive emotional states and their motivation to serve
(i.e., improve their work engagement). Highly engaged frontline service
employees will possess firm and strong ambitions; devote their energy,
passion, and physical strength to work-related tasks; and deliver a high
level of service performance (Rich et al., 2010). Hence, we propose the
following hypothesis:
H4: Work engagement at the individual employee level mediates the relationship
between PsyCap and service performance.
Methodology
Sample and procedures
The participants in the current research were frontline service employees
and their direct supervisors at 89 branches of a chain restaurant in
Northern Taiwan. In this chain, the training and cultivation of frontline
service employees was scenario-based, and aimed at stimulating their
growth; and employees deemed to have high potential were given more
rigorous training to enhance their resilience. In all employees, the com-
pany strove to break through self-imposed frameworks by cultivating
employees’ positive attitudes, as a means of building service talent pools.
In addition, the company cultivated senior management through internal
entrepreneurship (e.g., the Lion King Project). Therefore, the frontline
service employees of this restaurant chain’s various branches were suit-
able as subjects for exploring the antecedents of service performance,
personal positive psychological characteristics, and servant leadership
style; and as such, this study meets the criteria of theoretical and prac-
tical significance proposed by Karatepe and Talebzadeh (2016).
Questionnaires were completed by manager/subordinate dyads to

reduce common-method variance (CMV) (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, &
Podsakoff, 2003). The branch managers completed a portion of the ques-
tionnaire that related to the frontline employees’ service performance,
while the frontline employees filled out a portion that related to their
branch managers’ servant-leadership behaviors and to their own PsyCap
and work engagement. The researcher visited each branch in person to
administer the survey, explaining the study’s purpose to all prospective
participants, along with their right to withdraw from the study at any
time, its data-confidentiality policy, and the scope of data use. Valid
questionnaires were collected from all 89 branches (including from all 89
branch managers and 536 employees, with no fewer than four or more
than eight employees from any one branch participating). Among the
frontline employees, the numbers of female and male participants were
almost exactly equal (50.2% male); 82.6% had some college education;
the average age was 24.6 years (SD ¼ 4.71) and the average tenure 2.39
years (SD ¼ 2.08). The ratio of full-time to part-time employees was 2:3.
The managers, 66.3% of whom were male, had an average age of 33.4
years (SD ¼ 4.18), and their average tenure in the industry was 7.65
years (SD ¼ 2.75).
Measures
All items in the survey were answered via a seven-point Likert scale with
values ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), with the
exception of the work-engagement and control variables.
Servant leadership
Servant leadership was measured using the 14-item scale developed by
Ehrhart (2004). Sample items include ‘My supervisor creates a sense of
community among employees’ and ‘My supervisor tries to find ways to
help subordinates reach their potential.’ Servant leadership at the branch
level was measured using a ‘direct consensus model’ (Chan, 1998) that
aggregated the data collected from frontline employees. Within-branch
average inter-rater agreement (rwg), intraclass correlation, and the stabil-
ity of branch-level means were .95, .41, and .81, respectively, confirming
the validity of this approach for deriving branch-level results (Bryk &
Raudenbush, 1992). The coefficient a for this scale is .96.
Psychological capital
Measurement of frontline employees’ PsyCap relied on the scale devel-
oped by Luthans et al. (2007b), which includes four sub-constructs—self-
efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience—each measured by six items. A
representative item for self-efficacy is, ‘I feel confident in representing
my work area in meetings with management’. The hope items include
the statement, ‘I can think of many ways to reach my current work
goals’. An optimism item is, ‘I always look at the bright side of things’;
and a resilience item is, ‘I usually take stressful things at work in stride.’
The current study also created a second-order core construct using these
four PsyCap sub-constructs, based on Luthans et al.’s (2007b) recom-
mendations. The coefficient a for this scale is .89.
Work engagement
Work engagement was assessed using the validated nine-item version of
the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova,
2006), which covers three sub-constructs, each measured by three items:
vigor (including the statement, ‘At my job I feel strong and vigorous’);
dedication (‘I am enthusiastic about my job’); and absorption (‘I am
immersed in my work’). All work-engagement items were scored on a
seven-point Likert scale, with values ranging from 1 (never) to 7
(always). The coefficient a for this scale is .94.
Service performance
Adopting Salanova et al.’s (2005) study design, the current research used
a six-item composite of two scales—one covering empathy and the other,
service-provider performance—to measure frontline employees’ service
performance. The three items measuring empathy include, ‘This
employee is able to “tune in” to each specific customer.’ The three items
for service-provider performance include, ‘This employee does more
than usual for customers.’ The coefficient a for the service performance
scale is .93.
Control variables
The variable store-level service climate was controlled, as previous studies
have demonstrated that service climate partially mediates the relationship
between transformational leadership at the work-unit level and employee
service performance (Liao & Chuang 2007). Service climate was meas-
ured using the four-item scale developed by Salanova et al. (2005), which
includes the statement, ‘Employees receive recognition and rewards for
the delivery of superior work and service.’ Cronbach’s alpha was a ¼ .86.
Individual-level variables, employee age, job tenure, and employment sta-

tus (full-time vs. part-time) were also controlled for in the analysis.
Analysis strategy
Given the multilevel theoretical framework and data structure employed
in this study, the hypotheses were tested using hierarchical linear model-
ing (HLM) and the multilevel mediation model developed by Zhang,
Zyphur, and Preacher (2009). The first step of this testing examined
whether the dependent variable (work engagement) could be explained
by the team-level independent variable (branch-level servant leadership).
The second step examined whether the mediator (PsyCap) could be
explained by the team-level independent variable; and the third step
examined whether the effects of the mediator (at the individual level)
and the team-level variable on the dependent variable were statistically
significant, when the team-level independent variable was controlled. The
steps recommended by Board and Kneey (1988) for testing the individ-
ual-level mediating variable were followed.
Results
Descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients for all study variables
are provided in Table 1.
Confirmatory factor analysis

To establish whether PsyCap was a second-order latent construct, con-
firmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to ascertain its factor
Table 1. Means, standard deviations (SD) and intercorrelations of study variables.

Level/variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Level 1 Employee Level
1. Age 24.64 4.71 na
2. Education 1.94 .42 .08 na
3. Tenure 2.39 2.08 .47 .02 na
4. Employment status 1.59 .49 .07 .03 .06 na
5. SC 4.89 .91 .07 .06 .02 .02 na
6. SL 4.88 .96 .13 .03 .09 .05 .58 .81
7. PsyCap 5.12 .60 .06 .04 .10 .04 .57 .51 .66
8. WE 4.70 .96 .08 .01 .00 .01 .51 .65 .54 .79
9. SP 4.55 1.03 .11 .05 .04 .05 .47 .55 .53 .56 .83
Level 2 Store Level
1. SL 4.89 .69
2. SC 4.90 .65 .69
Note: N ¼ 536 (for level 1); N ¼ 89 (for level 2). The diagonal elements are square roots of the average vari-
ance extracted.
SL ¼ servant leadership; SC ¼ service climate; PsyCap ¼ psychological capital; WE ¼ work engagement;
SP ¼ service performance. p < .05; p < .01 (two-tailed test).
Psychological
Capital
λ = .76 λ = .77
t = 9.40
λ = .84 λ = .34
t = 9.44 t = 5.51
Self- Hope Resilience Optimism

efficacy
.67 .69 .70 .69 .77 .73 .78 .80 .79 .73 .74 .58 .81 .91 .67 .61
E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 H1 H2 H3 H4 R1 R2 R3 O1 O2 O3
Work
Engagement
λ = .90
λ = .97 λ = .80 t = 17. 37
t = 14. 94
Vigor Dedication Absorption
.82 .88 .79 .92 .96 .76 .87 .92 .85

8
V1 V2 V3 D1 D2 D3 A1 A2 A3
Figure 2. Second-order confirmatory factor analyses. All loadings are statistically significant
at p < .01.
structure, using analysis of moment structures software (AMOS) with

maximum-likelihood estimation. This led to eight items, two from the
sub-factor of hope, and three each from resilience and optimism, being
eliminated due to poor factor loading and cross-loading. These CFA
results were similar to those reported by Chen and Lim (2012) and
Karatepe and Talebzadeh (2016). We then examined whether the various
subfacets of PsyCap loaded adequately onto it. Figure 2 shows that the
fit indices for four first-order factors (self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and
resilience) plus one second-order factor, PsyCap, fell within an acceptable
range (v2 (100) ¼ 486.63, Comparative Fit Index [CFI] ¼ .91, Tucker-
Lewis Index [TLI] ¼ .90, Parsimony Normed Fit Index [PNFI] ¼ .73, and
Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] ¼ .085) (Browne &
Cudeck, 1993). In the previous CFA, no items that measured the work-
engagement construct were eliminated. Vigor, dedication, and absorption
Table 2. Confirmatory factor analysis results

Measurement models v2 df Dv2 CFI TLI PNFI RMSEA
One-factor model 1408.17 65 1090.11 .72 .66 .59 .197
All items loaded on one construct
Two-factor model 1062.27 64 744.21 .79 .74 .64 .171
SL, PsyCap, and WE constrained as one construct
Three-factor model 565.18 62 247.12 .89 .86 .70 .123
PsyCap and WE constrained as one construct
Four-factor model 318.06 59 － .94 .93 .71 .084
SL, PsyCap, WE, and SP distinct
Note: The v2 difference was compared with the value of the four-factor model (our hypothesized model).
CFI: comparative fix index; PNFI: parsimony normed fit; PsyCap: psychological capital; RMSEA: root mean
square error of approximation; SL: servant leadership; SP: service performance; TLI: Tucker Lewis index; WE:
work engagement. N ¼ 536; p < .01.
Table 3. Hierarchical linear modeling results: Effects of servant leadership on service

performance.
Level / Variable PsyCap Model 1 WE Model 2 WE Model 3 SP Model 4 SP Model 5
Level 2 variables
SL c01 .13 (.06) .63 (.07) .63 (.06) .47 (.09) .47 (.09)
SC c02 .37 (.06) .10 (.07) .10 (.07) .46 (.08) .46 (.08)
Level 1 variables
Employment status c10 .06 (.04) .02 (.08) .07(.07) .10 (.06) .07 (.06)
Age c20 .01 (.00) .00 (.01) .01 (.01) .01 (.00) .01 (.00)
Tenure c30 .02 (.01) .01 (.02) .03 (.02) .02 (.01) .00 (.01)
Education c40 .02 (.05) .04 (.10) .02 (.08) .00 (.09) .00 (.08)
PsyCap c50 .83 (.07) .60 (.07) .31 (.07)
WE c60 .35 (.05)
Model Deviance 830.55 1350.90 1235.35 1266.69 1203.15
Note: N ¼ 536 (level 1); N ¼ 89 (level 2). PsyCap: psychological capital; SC: service climate; SL: servant leader-
ship; SP: service performance; WE: work engagement. Unstandardized estimates (based on grand-mean-cen-
tering) are reported, with robust standard errors in parentheses. p < .05; p < .01.
loaded appropriately onto the second-order construct work engagement

(v2 (24) ¼ 112.98, CFI ¼ .97, TLI ¼ .96, PNFI ¼ .65, RMSEA ¼ .083).
A measurement model analysis was then conducted via manipulation
of all four latent constructs in the hypothesized model as second-order
constructs. Three new test indicators were created through partial aggre-
gation of the 14 items that measured servant leadership, using an item-
parceling approach, which has been labeled the correlation algorithm by
Rogers and Schmitt (2004). Then, the sub-constructs of the three latent
constructs PsyCap, work engagement, and service performance were
used as test indicators for the parameter estimation, reliability, and good-
ness-of-fit of the model. Table 2 shows that, compared with other nested
model, the four-factor model provided an acceptable fit to the data
(v2 ¼ 318.06, df ¼ 59, CFI ¼ .94, TLI ¼ .93, PNFI ¼ .71, RMSEA ¼ .084).
The results of chi-square testing based on the parsimony principle were
also significant. Hence, the four latent constructs can be distinguished.
Moreover, using the method proposed by Fornell and Larcker (1981),
discriminant validity was assessed and found to be acceptable.
Specifically, as shown in Table 1, the diagonal elements representing the
square roots of the average variance extracted for each of the constructs
were greater than the off-diagonal elements, indicating that discriminant
validity was achieved.
Multilevel mediation analysis

Table 3 presents the results of the hierarchical linear modeling conducted
to test this study’s four hypotheses. It indicates a positive relation
between branch-level servant leadership and frontline employees’ PsyCap
(c ¼ .13, SE ¼ .06, t ¼ 2.26, p < .05) (Model 1), and a significant and posi-
tive relation between branch-level servant leadership and frontline
employees’ work engagement (c ¼ .63, SE ¼ .07, t ¼ 9.23, p < .01; see
Model 2). Thus, H1 and H2 are both supported. Moreover, when the
mediating variable (PsyCap) is added to the multilevel mediation model
(Model 3), in which work engagement is the dependent variable, the
relation between branch-level servant leadership and employee work
engagement is also statistically significant (c ¼ .63, SE ¼ .06, t ¼ 9.27,
p < .01). Bootstrapped confidence interval (CIs) (Preacher, Rucker, &
Hayes, 2007) further indicated a significant indirect effect of PsyCap on
the relationship between servant leadership and employee work engage-
ment (CIs between .10 and .19 at a 95% confidence level; Z ¼ 6.67,
p < .01). Thus, H3 was also supported.
A similar procedure was used to test H4. As shown in Table 3,
PsyCap was found to be significantly and positively related to service
performance (c ¼ .60, SE ¼ .07, t ¼ 7.86, p < .01; see Model 4), and
PsyCap to be significantly and positively related to work engagement
(c ¼ .83, SE ¼ .07, t ¼ 10.50, p < .01; see Model 3). After the effect of
work engagement on service performance was controlled, the magnitude
of the positive relationship between PsyCap and service performance
dropped from .60 to .31 (see Model 5), indicating that work engagement
had a partial mediating effect on that relationship. Finally, normal-distri-
bution testing and bootstrapping revealed that the indirect effect of
PsyCap on service performance via work engagement was .36, and that
the 95% bias-corrected CI for the bootstrapped indirect effect did not
contain 0 (bias-corrected CI ¼ [.27, .45]); while Sobel testing revealed
that the mediation effects were significant (Z ¼ 8.14, p < .01). These
results indicate that employees with higher levels of PsyCap tended to be
more engaged in their service work and to deliver better service perform-
ance. Therefore, the data fully supported our hypotheses about
employee-level mediation.
Discussion and conclusion

Although there is ample literature on positive leadership, hardly any
research integrates this construct with positive organizational behavior or
examines the related multilevel mediating mechanisms (Yammarino,
Dionne, Schriesheim, & Dansereau, 2008). The present study used a
multilevel mediation model to examine a restaurant chain’s branch-level
servant leadership as an important contextual factor that could influence
its frontline service employees’ PsyCap and work engagement, and thus
be leveraged to boost such employees’ service performance. The results
confirmed that PsyCap did mediate the positive relationship between
branch-level servant leadership and work engagement and, at the
employee level, that work engagement mediated the positive relationship
between PsyCap and service performance.
The key theoretical and empirical implications of these results are
threefold. First, past research has seldom focused on the multilevel medi-
ating process between branch-level servant leadership and the service
performance of frontline employees. By combining the perspective of
positive organizational scholarship with the JD-R model of work engage-
ment and applying them to multilevel analysis, the current study has
yielded new understandings of how branch-level servant leadership can
impact frontline service employees’ work engagement. Moreover, its
multilevel analytical framework is suitable for highlighting the impact of
an organization’s subunit or group-level factors on individuals’ cognition,
attitude, and behavior (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). As such, this study
helps fill a gap in the existing literature, which has focused almost exclu-
sively on individual-level factors when exploring the relationship between
leadership style and work engagement. Specifically, the present study’s
novel approach was able to confirm that contextual factors in a service
organization can increase its employees’ work engagement by affecting
their PsyCap.
Second, at the employee level, the current study revealed that work
engagement served as a mediator between PsyCap and service perform-
ance: corroborating Luthans and Youssef’s (2007) finding that employees
with positive psychological traits can help their organization weather
hardships and increase its effectiveness while contributing positively to
their own work performance. Crucially, by exploring the mediating effect
of work engagement, the current study broadened the literature’s prevail-
ing narrow focus on the direct link between PsyCap and work perform-
ance (Luthans and Youssef 2007); and its specific findings in this area
confirmed Bakker and Demerouti’s (2007) view that work engagement
serves as a mediator between employees’ PsyCap and their performance
outcomes. They are also consistent with Karatepe and Talebzadeh’s
(2016) finding that flight attendants’ work engagement mediated the

effect of PsyCap on service-recovery performance; and resonate with
Luthans and Youssef’s (2007) argument that employees’ positive personal
characteristics combined with positive organizational characteristics will
result in positive organizational behaviors, leading ultimately to organiza-
tional prosperity.
Third, while conceding their separate importance, the existing litera-
ture has seldom addressed the relation between employee PsyCap and
work engagement, and more empirical research on this relation is needed
(Sweetman & Luthans 2010). The current study, one of just a handful to
examine both of these positive organizational behaviors, has demon-
strated that high levels of PsyCap could help increase frontline service
employees’ work engagement. Moreover, its proposed multilevel medi-
ation model for holistically exploring the interrelationships between
PsyCap, work engagement, and their antecedents and consequent con-
structs represents a potentially important new departure in the fields of
organizational psychology and organizational behavior.
Practical implications
The results of the current study indicate that branch-level servant leader-
ship can strengthen frontline service employees’ work engagement and
positive PsyCap, and in turn, their service performance. Hence, they
imply that branch-level leaders should conduct timely examinations of
whether their leadership style truly reflects the central notions of servant
leadership: caring for employees, providing them with support and guid-
ance, and encouraging their individual growth, with sincerity and dedica-
tion. If inspired by their leaders’ service spirit and the example set by
their service behaviors and attitudes, frontline service employees will be
able to devote their full attention to providing excellent customer service
and delivering the best service performance that they can. Thus, service
organizations and their management should (1) incorporate servant lead-
ership into training plans for branch-level managers and (2) establish
assessment methods aimed at identifying promising servant-leaders (e.g.,
using situational interviews). When coupled with individual personality
traits such as honesty, integrity, and trust, a servant-leadership orienta-
tion will enable a manager to empower his or her team, not merely
through vision or pioneering spirit, but via the ability to appreciate
others, and to take moral responsibility toward the business, its team
members, and its shareholders. Acting as role models for the staff in
their branches, servant leaders create a work atmosphere in which the
needs of the staff are met and cared for, and their development is
supported, thereby boosting their work engagement and service

performance.
As well as identifying and developing branch managers with servant-
leadership qualities or potential, service-sector organizations can motivate
their frontline service employees to go the extra mile and exhibit super-
ior service behaviors by elevating such employees’ work engagement.
Here, three specific recommendations can be made based on this study’s
findings. First, with regard to employees’ work content and developmen-
tal direction, service organizations should increase the autonomy of
employees delivering services and handling complaints; boost the chal-
lenge level of employees’ work through job design; and instruct branch
managers to encourage frontline employees to participate in service-
offering decision-making, and to value employees’ growth opportunities.
Second, servant leaders at the branch level should treat their team mem-
bers fairly, communicate openly, show that they genuinely care about
and support them, and give due attention to their work-life balance. And
third, service organizations should strive to create an atmosphere marked
by trust, respect, and service orientation at all branches.
Since frontline service employees deal directly with highly challenging
service encounters, effective selection and retention of such employees
are critical to service-industry enterprises’ distinctiveness and competitive
advantage. Hence, these organizations’ management teams should strive
to hire individuals with high self-efficacy, hope, toughness, optimism,
and work engagement. As the results of the current study suggest, such
organizations can use PsyCap and WE questionnaires to help ensure that
the right employees are hired for and assigned to service units (Karatepe
& Talebzadeh 2016).
As noted earlier, an individual employee’s PsyCap is an intangible
asset not only for that person but for his/her organization (Avey et al.,
2011); and special training and development programs can enhance
PsyCap’s value as organizational capital. For instance, the management
of a service-industry organization can reinforce frontline service employ-
ees’ PsyCap via careful investment in service-oriented human-resource
practices such as selection and training for service competence; using
performance appraisals and incentives to motivate high-quality service
delivery; basing evaluations and rewards on excellent service perform-
ance; and empowering and involving employees in decision-making
(Chuang & Liao 2010).
The current study’s results imply that branch leaders’ servant leader-
ship can strengthen employees’ PsyCap, notably via education and train-
ing programs. By sharing their own success stories, or encouraging other
employees to share theirs recognition stories, managers can increase
employees’ self-efficacy. Similarly, by helping employees set clear and

challenging goals, managers will reduce uncertainties surrounding the
latter’s work, and boost their hopefulness, positivity, and optimism.
When frontline employees encounter obstacles, branch leaders can pro-
vide them with personalized care as well as suitable support, so they can
more quickly make adjustments, regroup, and build more resilience.
Employees with ample PsyCap will become more engaged in their work
and in turn deliver superior service performance.
Limitations and direction for future research

Because the current study was cross-sectional—that is, its servant-leader-
ship and mediating variables were measured at the same time point—it
is difficult to infer or verify causation among the variables. Future studies
on this topic should collect time-series data, not only to address the
causality issue, but also to reduce potential CMV-related overestimation
of correlation coefficients. Additionally, analysis of the final complete
model indicated significant random effects (s00), suggesting that it would
be useful to factor other team-level independent variables into the model
to examine their relationships with the outcome variable (i.e., service
performance). For instance, future research could examine the relation-
ships between frontline employees’ service performance and the patri-
archal and authoritarian leadership styles that are common in Asian
collectivist cultures. Finally, recent empirical studies have confirmed that
individual-level PsyCap and work engagement can be aggregated to form
team-level constructs (Costa, Passos, & Bakker, 2014; Heled, Somech, &
Waters, 2016); and the current study joins several others in demonstrat-
ing that individual PsyCap positively relates to individual work engage-
ment (Chen et al., 2015; Paek, Schuckert, Kim, & Lee, 2015). We
recommend that future studies further pursue this strand of research by
expanding our study’s model to the team-level and examining the media-
ting mechanism at that level. More specifically, such research could
examine various styles of team leadership simultaneously, and whether
or not such styles impact team-level service performance through
PsyCap and work engagement.
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Determinants of Frontline Employee Engagement

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The International Journal of Human Resource

ISSN: 0958-5192 (Print) 1466-4399 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rijh20

Determinants of frontline employee engagement

Shou-Wei Chen & Jui-Chen Peng

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2018.1505764

Published online: 10 Jan 2019.

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Determinants of frontline employee engagement and

CONTACT Jui-Chen Peng 2954851504@qq.com Zhaoqing University, Economics & Management

service performance when interacting with customers will directly impact

antecedent to sustaining employees’ individual-level work engagement

Psychological Employee Job Service

Figure 1. Cross-level research model.

behavior to incorporate more in-depth discussion of positive psychology.

psychological resilience; willingness to work diligently and tirelessly;

Cross-level mediating processes for employees’ positive psychological capital

make psychological adjustments in response to environmental changes if

H3: Frontline restaurant employees’ PsyCap mediates the relationship between

The mediating role of employees’ work engagement at the individual level

Questionnaires were completed by manager/subordinate dyads to

Individual-level variables, employee age, job tenure, and employment sta-

Confirmatory factor analysis

Table 1. Means, standard deviations (SD) and intercorrelations of study variables.

Self- Hope Resilience Optimism

Vigor Dedication Absorption

.82 .88 .79 .92 .96 .76 .87 .92 .85

structure, using analysis of moment structures software (AMOS) with

Table 2. Confirmatory factor analysis results

Table 3. Hierarchical linear modeling results: Effects of servant leadership on service

loaded appropriately onto the second-order construct work engagement

Multilevel mediation analysis

Discussion and conclusion

(2016) finding that flight attendants’ work engagement mediated the

supported, thereby boosting their work engagement and service

employees’ self-efficacy. Similarly, by helping employees set clear and

Limitations and direction for future research

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