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Supervisory support climate and Positive group

affective tone
service-oriented organizational
citizenship behavior
in hospitality 2331

The role of positive group affective tone Received 5 September 2014

Revised 26 January 2015
17 April 2015
Ya-Yun Tang 12 October 2015
Department of Recreation Management, Shih Chien University, Accepted 11 November 2015
Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, and
Sheng-Hshiung Tsaur
Department of Marketing and Tourism Management,
National Chiayi University, Chiayi City, Taiwan

Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to examine the effect of a supervisory support climate on frontline
employees’ service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) using a multilevel conceptual
model. A positive group affective tone – a meaningful construct – is introduced to investigate the
mediating and moderating roles in this relationship in the context of hospitality.
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 41 international tourist hotels in
Taiwan. A total of 476 valid questionnaires from frontline employees were received for data analysis.
The results were analyzed by using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM).
Findings – These results not only indicate that a supervisory support climate has a positive effect on
service-oriented OCB but also reveal that a positive group affective tone partially mediates and notably
interacts with the relationship between the supervisory support climate and service-oriented OCB.
Practical implications – Based on the results, this study recommends that hotels train their
managers to build a supervisory support climate, because this is the key source of service-oriented OCB
in frontline employees. In addition, hotel managers need to exert a positive group affective tone to
reinforce the effect of a supervisory support climate on service-oriented OCB.
Originality/value – This study contributes to the current hospitality literature by verifying the effect
of a supervisory support climate on service-oriented OCB from a multilevel perspective. It also extends
the understanding of the mechanism and interaction effect of the positive group affective tone in this
multilevel relationship.
Keywords Positive group affective tone, Service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior,
Supervisory support climate
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction International Journal of

Contemporary Hospitality
The hospitality industry is one of the major service industries around the world (Ma and Management
Qu, 2011). Hospitality service relies heavily on frontline employees’ face-to-face Vol. 28 No. 10, 2016
pp. 2331-2349
interaction with hotel customers. Further, the heterogeneity of hotel customers and their © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0959-6119
awareness of service quality makes satisfying them challenging if the frontline service DOI 10.1108/IJCHM-09-2014-0432
IJCHM employees only follow the routines established in their job description (Ma and Qu,
28,10 2011). In addition to providing excellent customer-oriented services, hotels rely on their
frontline employees to engage in service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior
(OCB). These acts by frontline employees, which may be over and above their job
description, focus on customer service (Ma et al., 2013; Tang and Tang, 2012) and are
recognized as necessary to improve service delivery quality, competitive advantages
2332 and the financial performance of the hotels (Fu et al., 2014; Hartline and Ferrell, 1996;
Karatepe et al., 2006; Liang, 2012; Walz and Niehoff, 2000).
Previous hospitality research has mainly demonstrated two distinct theoretical
rationales to explain how frontline employees exhibit service-oriented OCB. The first
rationale is in regard to the individual employee’s perceived organizational support
(POS), which is recognized as one of the most important antecedents of OCB (Chiang and
Hsieh, 2012). The second rationale is based on organizational climate, which plays a
crucial role in triggering employees service-oriented OCB (Tang and Tang, 2012).
Although these studies have provided promising results, they have neglected the
work-unit perspective. In a work-unit as a whole, when employees are free to interact
with the supervisors in the group and supervisors display support behavior to the entire
group within the organization, a type of “ambient stimulus” exists (Hackman, 1992),
which captures the concept of a supervisory support climate (Menges et al., 2011).
Bacharach and Bamberger (2007) suggest that a supervisory support climate emerges
when supervisors offer employees key objects, energy and social resources essential to
perform their tasks. Research on this type of climate suggests, to some extent, this
encourages frontline employees to exhibit OCB (Menges et al., 2011). However, the
mechanisms that may link a supervisory support climate to such benefits and the boundary
conditions on service-oriented OCB have not been examined to date, especially from a
cross-level perspective. Thus, it is necessary to provide a theoretical explanation for the
causal linkages, the mechanism and the moderation effects between a supervisory support
climate and service-oriented OCB (George and Zhou, 2007; Menges et al., 2011).
The present study addresses the aforementioned research gaps by developing and
empirically testing a model using a multilevel analysis by incorporating the affective
events theory (AET) (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996) and affect infusion model (AIM)
(Bower, 1991). The AET (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996) describes how situational events
shape employees’ work behaviors through their affective actions, where the AIM – as
affect influences interpretation of the information (Bower, 1991). Based on these two
theories, the present study helps to bridge the research gaps in the following two ways:
First, as mentioned, the rising of a group-based work environment encourages
individuals to share affective reactions while working together (George, 1990). This
illustrates the crucial role of a group affective tone and refers to consistent or
homogenous affective reactions within a group (George, 1990, p. 108) at the work-unit
level. Based on AET, this study theorizes and examines whether a supervisory support
climate (i.e. situational events) leads to an individual employee’s service-oriented OCB
through the positive group affective tone at the work-unit level. This approach extends
recent works by focusing exclusively on the mediating role of mood at the individual
level (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013). Kammeyer-Mueller et al. (2013) suggest that a
hedonic tone (i.e. positive mood) is an important element in processing the relationship
between supervisor support and employee behavior. However, Menges et al. (2011) have
a different perspective and indicate that positive moods in all employees within an
organization mediate the linkage between the transformational leadership climate and Positive group
employee performance at the organization level. This study investigates the mediating affective tone
effect of positive group affective tone and echoes Madjar et al. (2002) and Oldham’s
(2003) call for more research to clarify how mood mediates the influence of context on
employees’ behavior and is not limited to an individual level.
Second, George and Zhou (2007) noted that the effectiveness of a supportive work context
may depend on employees’ positive moods. To further clarify the boundary conditions of a 2333
supervisory support climate, this study is in line with Chi et al. (2013), who studied and
treated positive group affective tone as a situational moderator in the research model.
Specifically, this study integrates the AIM (Bower, 1991) to explore positive group affective
tone as a boundary condition under which the potential relationships between supervisory
support climate and frontline employees’ service-oriented OCB unfold.
It is important to emphasize that this study proposes a model that, when a
supervisory support climate is present, a positive group affective tone is formed and will
result in service-oriented OCB. The positive group affective tone will also have a
strengthening effect on the relationship between the supervisory support climate and
service-oriented OCB. The conceptual model is shown in Figure 1.

2. Theoretical background
2.1 Service-oriented OCB
Service-oriented OCB is defined as the citizenship behavior (i.e. extra-role behavior) of
service employees toward customers (Bettencourt et al., 2001). Bowen et al. (1999)
argued that service-oriented OCB is “critical in service encounters because no one can
specify in advance the full range of things that a service employee might have to do in
response to unpredictable customer requests” (p. 19). Service-oriented OCB includes
three types of behavior: loyalty, participation and service delivery (Bettencourt et al.,
2001). Loyalty involves employees’ promoting the organization’s image toward
outsiders; participation refers to employees’ voluntary communication with coworkers

Work-Unit Level Individual Level

Positive Group
Affective Tone

Supervisory
Service-Oriented
Support
OCB
Climate

Figure 1.
Note: Service-oriented OCB = service-oriented organizational citizenship A multilevel model of
behavior service-oriented OCB
IJCHM to improve service delivery quality; and service delivery refers to employees behaving in
28,10 a conscientious manner during the service delivery process (Bettencourt et al., 2001).

2.2 Supervisory support climate and service-oriented OCB

A supervisory support climate implies that supervisors are concerned about the
employees’ needs (Eisenberger et al., 2002) and is considered as a key social contextual
2334 resource for employees at work (Bacharach and Bamberger, 2007; Bacharach et al.,
2008).
According to the social information process theory, supervisory support climate, like
other organizational climates, conveys a signal as to how individuals behave
appropriately (Salancik and Pfeffer, 1978). This is especially crucial for the hospitality
industry, because delivering excellent service is the foremost job for the frontline
employees. Once hotel frontline employees perceive they are working in a supervisory
support climate, they realize that their supervisors are encouraging them to dedicate
themselves to satisfying customers’ needs (Bell et al., 2004; He et al., 2011; Karatepe et al.,
2007). For instance, hotel managers offer their employees support and constructive
suggestions to overcome service delivery failures, and gradually, frontline employees
develop confidence to address problems themselves in a positive and proactive manner,
without worrying about punishment if mistakes are made (Luthans et al., 2008).
Moreover, the awareness of support from the supervisor also increases frontline
employees’ obligations to repay supervisors’ favorable treatment by helping them reach
stated goals (Eisenberger et al., 2002). As meeting the customers’ needs is the first
priority in a hotel, frontline employees reciprocate via exerting additional effort to
achieve this goal (Subramony et al., 2004).
While research concerning the supervisory support climate on service-oriented OCB
is very limited, parallels can be drawn from related research. In prior hospitality
research, service climate is found to enhance frontline employees’ service-oriented OCB
(Tang and Tang, 2012). According to these arguments and findings, this study
hypothesizes the following:
H1. A supervisory support climate positively affects the service-oriented OCB of
frontline employees.

2.3 Supervisory support climate and positive group affective tone

The positive group affective tone is defined as “the homogeneous positive affective
states within the group” (George, 1995, p. 781) with regard to the mood states, such as
interest, excitement, pride, energy and determination (Sy et al., 2005), of group members
while working (George and King, 2007). George and Brief (1992) argued that the
members’ mood states are deeply influenced by environmental conditions such as
organizational climate. Prior research also noted that service employees who perceive
that their supervisors value their contributions and care about their well-being (similar
to a supervisory support climate) might exert a positive group affect in the workplace
(Ashkanasy and Daus, 2002; Kottke and Sharafinski, 1988).
Hotel frontline employees perceive the atmosphere in which their supervisors offer
resources or support and recognition of their service to customers. Gradually, a friendly,
high-quality supervisor– employee relationship is built and positive feelings among
employees develop (Cole et al., 2006; Sluss and Thompson, 2012). Findings in
Ashkanasy (2003) and Kelly and Barsade (2001) support that organizational climate
facilitate the forms of group affective tone. Accordingly, the following hypothesis is Positive group
proposed: affective tone
H2. A supervisory support climate positively affects a positive group affective tone.

2.4 Positive group affective tone and service-oriented OCB

A group with a positive affective tone may influence employees’ behaviors
unconsciously, enabling employees to gain self-confidence, become optimistic and 2335
believe that they can conduct their work competently (George and Brief, 1996). This
positive group affective tone also encourages employees to demonstrate uniform
attention, effort, dedication and, more specifically, inspires positive affective delivery by
group members (Hackman, 1992) and their service behaviors toward customers (George,
1990, 1995; Totterdell et al., 1998).
Hotel frontline employees often work under great pressure. A positive and pleasant
group atmosphere alleviates pressure and negative feelings that are associated with
service failures. In addition, employees can tactfully handle customer problems and
satisfy the customers. Moreover, this pleasant atmosphere also motivates employees’
behaviors (George and Brief, 1996); therefore, employees are more likely to provide
courteous, enthusiastic and kind services, thus demonstrating a high level of
service-oriented OCB. Based on these arguments, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H3. A positive group affective tone positively affects the service-oriented OCB of
frontline employees.

2.5 The mediating effect of a positive group affective tone

AET (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996) addresses how certain types of events influence
individuals’ affect, eliciting changes in their attitudes and behaviors, implying that
emotion is an important intervening mechanism (Chi et al., 2013; Pirola-Merlo et al., 2002;
Sy et al., 2005). According to Schneider (1973), climate is a reflection of an event;
therefore, supervisory support climate in this study can also be recognized as a kind of
event. This study applies this logic by conceptualizing the positive group affective tone
as a mediating mechanism linking supervisory support climate to service-oriented OCB.
While research recognizes emotion as a mediating mechanism for the effect of
supportive supervisory actions on performance, job attitudes and behavior of
employees (i.e. helping behavior) (Dalal et al., 2009; Schoefer and Diamantopoulos, 2008;
Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996), group affective tone, a collective emotion, is likely to play
the same role. Based on these arguments, this study proposes the following hypothesis:
H4. A positive group affective tone has a mediating effect on the relationship
between a supervisory support climate and the service-oriented OCB of
frontline employees.

2.6 The moderating effect of a positive group affective tone

In general, according to the AIM, affect influences interpretation of the information
(Bower, 1991). Service employees who are part of a group with a positive affective tone
acquire additional resources, such as emotional and social resources, to deal with
difficult customers, and, therefore, interpret the situation in a more positive way (Fox
and Spector, 2006). Service employees in a friendly work context with a positive group
affective tone are able to easily seek support, particularly psychological resources, to
IJCHM serve customers, thus heightening the perceived level of supervisory support climate in
28,10 the workplace. Rhee (2007) mentioned that positive group affective tone collectively
expands the scope of group members’ attentions, perceptions and behaviors. Therefore,
group members with a positive group affective tone think that supervisors treat them
positively, and thereby have positive feelings toward their supervisors and the
perceived support and assistance provided by their supervisors.
2336 Chi et al. (2013) indicated that positive group affective tone moderates negative
events, such as a customer’s disrespectful interpersonal treatment, and, in turn, predicts
customer service behavior. In addition, Yang and Diefendorff (2009) also reported the
moderating role of employees’ affectivity. Therefore, a positive group affective tone may
play a moderating role, enabling members within a group with positive affective tone to
positively perceive how their supervisor treats them, thus strengthening the
relationship between a supervisory support climate and the service-oriented OCB.
Based on these arguments, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H5. The positive group affective tone moderates the effect of a supervisory support
climate on the service-oriented OCB of frontline employees, and the more the
positive group affective tone, the stronger the effect.

2.7 Control variables

In this study, age, education and unit size are chosen as control variables. This study
followed previous OCB literature that Bettencourt et al. (2001), Chen and Francesco (2003)
and Organ and Ryan (1995) argued individual differences, such as age and education, may
influence individuals rendering OCB to some extent. In addition, unit size, which may
influence the creation of a group affective tone (George and Brief, 1992), is also considered as
a control variable in this study. From a theoretical perspective, the influence of control
variables are not the main focus in this study; therefore, there is no need to provide a
hypothesis in this regard but control for these three variables in the proposed model.

3. Method
3.1 Sample and procedure
International tourist hotels place special emphasis on service quality, requiring frontline
employees to demonstrate extra-role behaviors, such as service-oriented OCB, to satisfy
various customer needs. In this study, data were collected through a self-administered
survey from frontline employees working at Taiwan’s international tourist hotels. The
sample hotels in this study were selected from a list of 70 international tourist hotels
published by the Taiwan Tourism Bureau. All of these hotels were contacted to
determine if they were willing to participate in this survey.
A pilot test was conducted prior to formal data collection. Thirty employees from five
departments of two hotels were randomly chosen from the above list. Their feedback
and suggestions resulted in several modifications to improve the questionnaire’s clarity
and ensure effective communication with survey respondents. The data collection
process began after obtaining the permission and support of the human resources (HR)
department manager of each hotel. A total of 700 printed questionnaires, stamps and
self-addressed envelopes containing the request letter were sent to the HR department
managers, who worked in these 70 international tourist hotels located in northern,
central, southern and eastern Taiwan. The request letter asked the HR managers to
distribute the questionnaires to guest services, food service and the housekeeping
department and randomly choose the volunteer respondents who knew nothing about Positive group
the incentives provided by the researchers. In this study, the respondents in each group affective tone
worked under the same supervisor at the same office, thus satisfying the condition that
the group members in a group should interact with each other closely at work (Klein and
Kozlowski, 2000).
The participants were assured of their anonymity and confidentiality in the
questionnaire cover letter. To maintain anonymity, all respondents complied with the 2337
request that they not write their names on the questionnaire. To ensure confidentiality,
the respondents were instructed to seal completed questionnaires in self-addressed
envelopes and send them directly to the researchers. Each questionnaire was coded with
a researcher-assigned identification number to match the employees’ responses with
their work units. After collecting the completed data, researchers used these
identification numbers to identify 106 work units from 41 international tourist hotels
and then sent vouchers worth NT$300 (around US$10) to these 106 work units (one
voucher for each unit) who had been contacted by the researchers in appreciation of their
participation.
In addition, the respondents were required to match the following two criteria to
ensure their qualifications for this study. First, the respondents were required to be
full-time employees with more than one year of work experience in international tourist
hotels. Second, this study excluded all non-service employees; only those who were
frontline employees and worked in the housekeeping department, food service
department or guest services department of international tourist hotels were chosen.
Questionnaires from 41 international tourist hotels were received. The participating
unit size ranged from three to ten members, with 4.5 members on average.
Questionnaires with an excessive amount of missing data or incomplete information
were discarded. After discarding invalid responses, 476 valid questionnaires remained
for data analysis, yielding a response rate of 68 per cent. Among these respondents, 77.9
per cent of the frontline employees were female. More than half of the respondents (56.3
per cent) were between the ages of 20 and 29. The majority of the respondents had
earned a bachelor’s degree (56.5 per cent) and had at least one to three years of work
experience (38.6 per cent). The frontline service employees included those who worked
in guest services (42.4 per cent), food service (36.6 per cent) and housekeeping (21 per
cent). Details related to the demographics of the respondents are presented in Table I.

3.2 Measurement
Following Brislin’s (1986) recommendation to ensure accuracy and conceptual
equivalence of both Chinese and English versions, all questionnaires in this study were
translated and back-translated by bilingual speakers of both languages:
• Supervisory support climate: A four-item scale developed by Caplan et al. (1975)
was adopted to assess the supervisory support climate concept. One of the
measured items is, “We can rely on our supervisor when things get tough at
work”. A high score indicated that the participant perceived a high degree of
supervisory support in the work setting. The items in the measure were rated
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
• Positive group affective tone: To assess the positive group affective tone, we
first measured the positive mood of each group member in the work setting,
and then tested the within-group agreement to confirm the appropriateness for
IJCHM Categories Frequency Valid (%)
28,10
Gender
Male 105 22.1
Female 371 77.9
Total 476 100
2338 Age, years
20-29 268 56.3
30-39 113 23.7
40-49 63 13.2
50-59 31 6.6
60 or above 1 0.2
Total 476 100
Education
Less education than high school 15 3.2
High school 91 19.1
Two-year college 88 18.5
Four-year college/university 269 56.5
Graduate school 13 2.7
Total 476 100
Department
Guest services 202 42.4
Food service 174 36.6
Housekeeping 100 21
Total 476 100
Tenure, years
1-3 184 38.6
4-6 179 37.6
Table I. 7-9 74 15.6
Demographics of 10 or above 39 8.2
respondents Total 476 100

aggregating the individual positive mood to work-unit level. A ten-item

positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS) scale developed by Watson
et al. (1988) was adopted to assess the concept of positive mood. Group
members were asked to answer ten positive mood items regarding their work
setting in the past two weeks. The items were rated from 1 (very slightly or not
at all) to 5 (extremely).
• Service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior: A 16-item service-oriented OCB
scale developed by Bettencourt et al. (2001) was adopted to assess the concept
of service-oriented OCB. The scale covers three dimensions: loyalty, participation and
service delivery. One of the measurement items is, “Follows up in a timely manner to
customer requests and problems”. A high score indicated that the participant was
engaged in a high degree of service-oriented OCB. Items in the measure were rated
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
Other researchers indicated social desirability bias problems with self-report measures Positive group
of OCB (O’Reilly and Chatman, 1986; Podsakoff et al., 2003). Turnipseed (2002) stated affective tone
that the evaluation of organizational citizenship behavior may be affected by the span of
control, type of work and individual leader–member relations. Consequently,
supervisors cannot evaluate employees’ extra-role behaviors, such as citizenship
behaviors, in an objective manner. In addition, because frontline employees interact
face-to-face with customers, supervisors experience difficulty in attempting to monitor 2339
extra-role behaviors constantly. Therefore, supervisors are not appropriate subjects to
evaluate the service-oriented OCB of frontline employees.
In addition, colleague evaluations may be biased by employees who believe that their
colleagues’ behaviors may affect them (MacKenzie et al., 1991). To avoid prejudice in either
the supervisor’s or colleague’s evaluations, Turnipseed (2002) argued that an individual
employee possesses more comprehensive knowledge than anyone else regarding the extent
to which he or she is engaged in extra-role behavior (i.e. service-oriented OCB). The findings
of previous studies argued that there are no differences between self-rating, manager-rating
and peer-rating (Vandenberg and Taylor, 1997). Therefore, in this study, self-reporting by
employees was used to evaluate their service-oriented OCB.

3.3 Reliability and validity

Prior to testing the hypothesized model, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was
performed with the approach used by Anderson and Gerbing (1988). AMOS 17.0 was
used in the CFA. The initial measurement model had 17 items (including three items
for three second-order dimensions of service-oriented OCB) that produced an
unacceptable model fit: ␹2 (116) ⫽ 757, comparative fit index (CFI) ⫽ 0.86,
goodness-of-fit index (GFI) ⫽ 0.81 and root mean square error of approximation
(RMSEA) ⫽ 0.11. Based on the modification indices, three items were deleted
because of a cross-loading problem, which left 14 measurement items for the three
constructs. The final measurement model demonstrated that the following model fit
indices: ␹2 (74) ⫽ 326.74, CFI ⫽ 0.92, GFI ⫽ 0.91 and RMSEA ⫽ 0.09. The RMSEA
is above the conventional threshold 0.08, matching the model with only a mediocre
fit (MacCallum et al., 1996). Accordingly, although the RMSEA value is not as good
as expected, the overall model fit is still acceptable. Additionally, the reliability of
the scale items was calculated by computing Cronbach’s alpha. All the constructs
revealed an acceptable level of reliability (␣ ⱖ 0.70).
Convergent validity was then assessed and the convergent validity of the measured items
for the research constructs satisfied. All the individual factor-loading coefficients of the
research constructs are statistically significant and higher than 0.6. The composite reliability
(CR) and average variance extracted (AVE) values are 0.83 and 0.61 for the supervisory
support climate; 0.89 and 0.51 for the positive group affective tone; and 0.79 and 0.55 for
service-oriented OCB. The CR and AVE values for all variables exceed 0.6 and 0.5,
respectively. In addition, as suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981), the lowest AVE value
should be larger than the highest square of correlation value between constructs. For
example, the highest correlation between constructs is 0.6 (see Table II); its square value is
0.36, which is less than the lowest AVE value 0.51 (positive group affective tone).
Accordingly, all measurements of this study have discriminant validity.
IJCHM 3.4 Data aggregation
28,10 Both within-group agreement and between-groups variances are required to verify the
viability of aggregating individual-level data for supervisory support climate and
positive mood to the work-unit level (Hofmann, 1997). The rwg was computed to assess
the within-group agreement, and the results confirmed that the members of the group
tended to agree in their assessments of the supervisory support climate and positive
2340 group affective tone, with the mean values being 0.94 and 0.97, respectively. These
values revealed high levels of within-group agreement for these variables. In addition,
the intraclass coefficient (ICC[1]) values were also calculated to examine the
between-groups variances for supervisory support climate (ICC[1] ⫽ 0.33) and positive
group affective tone (ICC[1] ⫽ 0.35). Therefore, the empirical evidence of this study
suggested that the data aggregation was appropriate. The means, standard deviations
and correlations for all variables are presented in Table II. For two control variables (age
and education), a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was used to determine
whether there were any significant differences on supervisory support climate, positive
group affective tone or service-oriented OCB. The findings with regard to age and
education on supervisory support climate (F ⫽ 1.02, ns; F ⫽ 1.27, ns), positive group
affective tone (F ⫽ 2.26, ns; F ⫽ 1.27, ns) and service-oriented OCB (F ⫽ 1.90, ns; F ⫽
1.34, ns) show that there are no significant differences.

4. Results
4.1 Test of the hypotheses
This study used a multilevel mediating and moderating model to explore how work-unit
factors (e.g. supervisory support climate and positive group affective tone) influence the
service-oriented OCB of frontline employees. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was
adopted to test the hypotheses because of its appropriateness to examine the effect of
predictors at different levels on the individual-level outcome (Hofmann, 1997).
This study found a significant between-groups variance regarding service-oriented
OCB (␶00 ⫽ 0.10, p ⬍ 0.001) in the null model (see Model 1 in Table III), and the computed
intraclass correlation coefficient indicated that 42.9 per cent of the variance in
service-oriented OCB resided between groups, thus further justifying multilevel
analysis. In this study, the method of grand-mean centering was used to avoid the
problem of multicollinearity and provide better estimates and interpretations toward
the research model (Hofmann and Gavin, 1998).
With regard to the first hypothesis, that the supervisory support climate positively
affects frontline employees’ service-oriented OCB, the findings based on the

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4

Unit size 14.01 8.02 0.05 0.11 ⫺0.05

Supervisory support climate 4.08 0.60 0.06 0.65*** 0.66***
Positive group affective tone 3.59 0.58 0.08 0.47*** 0.74***
Table II. Service-oriented OCB 3.94 0.48 ⫺0.06 0.52*** 0.60***
Means, standard
deviations and Notes: Individual-level means, standard deviations and correlation (n ⫽ 476) are below the diagonal;
intercorrelations of work-unit level correlations (n ⫽ 106) are above the diagonal. Service-oriented OCB ⫽ service-oriented
variables organizational citizenship behavior; *** p ⬍ 0.001
intercepts-as-outcomes model revealed a significant coefficient (r ⫽ 0.33, p ⬍ 0.001), Positive group
which supports H1. With regard to the second hypothesis – that the supervisory support affective tone
climate positively affects a positive group affective tone – findings based on ordinary
least squares (OLS) provided a significant coefficient (r ⫽ 0.65, p ⬍ 0.001), which
supports H2. For the third hypothesis, which proposes that positive group affective tone
affects frontline employees’ service-oriented OCB positively, findings based on the
intercepts-as-outcomes model provided a significant coefficient (r ⫽ 0.40, p ⬍ 0.001), 2341
which supports H3.
With regard to the fourth hypothesis, the researchers tested the mediating role of
positive group affective tone by following Baron and Kenny’s (1986) procedure. The
researchers used the random-intercepts hierarchical model and found that the effects of
the supervisory support climate on the service-oriented OCB of frontline employees
were reduced when the positive group affective tone was added to the model (see
Model 5 in Table III). In other words, the multilevel mediation model demonstrated that
the positive group affective tone partially mediated the effects of a supervisory support
climate on the service-oriented OCB of frontline employees, which supports H4.
Finally, to test the moderating role of positive group affective tone, the fifth
hypothesis, the researchers based on the intercepts-as-outcomes model, which revealed
that the interaction between the supervisory support climate and positive group
affective tone significantly and positively affected the service-oriented OCB of
employees (r ⫽ 0.07, p ⬍ 0.05). Moreover, to investigate the nature of the interaction
between the supervisory support climate and positive group affective tone, this study
adopted the suggestion of Cohen and Cohen (1983) and plotted the values of one
standard deviation on either side of the mean values. Figure 2 shows that in a high-level
supervisory support climate, group members with a high level of positive group
affective tone demonstrated high levels of service-oriented OCB. On the other hand, in a
low-level supervisory support climate, service employees with a low level of positive
group affective tone demonstrated low levels of service-oriented OCB. Specifically, the
higher the level of positive group affective tone was, the more positive was the

Service-oriented OCB
Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6

Level 1
Intercept 3.94*** 3.94*** 3.93*** 3.94*** 3.94*** 3.93***
Age 0.06** 0.07** 0.06* 0.06** 0.07**
Education 0.05* 0.05 0.06** 0.06* 0.06*
Level 2
Unit size 0.004** 0.001 ⫺0.001 ⫺0.001
Supervisory support climate 0.33*** 0.15** 0.16** Table III.
Positive group affective tone 0.40*** 0.30*** 0.29*** Hierarchical linear
Positive group affective tone ⫻ modeling results for
Supervisory support climate 0.07* service-oriented
R2between-groups 0.06 0.54 0.72 0.76 0.78 organizational
citizenship behavior
Notes: R2between-groups is the proportion of between-groups variance explained by level 2 (For level 1, n ⫽ 476;
predictors; * p ⬍ 0.05; ** p ⬍ 0.01; *** p ⬍ 0.001 for level 2, n ⫽ 106)
IJCHM relationship that existed between the supervisory support climate and service-oriented
28,10 OCB, which supports H5. In this study, the proportion of variance in service-oriented
OCB was also calculated and explained by work-unit level factors (R2between-groups). The
R2between-groups values and all the coefficients derived from the hypotheses are presented
in Table III.
2342
5. Discussion and conclusion
5.1 Conclusions
This study hypothesizes and examines the premise that a supervisory support climate
relates encourages a positive group affective tone, which in turn fosters frontline
employees’ service-oriented OCB. In addition, this study also examines the role of a
positive group affective tone in mediating and moderating this relationship. This study
found that a supervisory support climate had a significant, positive effect on the
service-oriented OCB of hotel frontline employees. This finding supported the earlier
argument that the support and resources provided by supervisors foster the willingness
of service employees to help and assist customers (Vandenberghe et al., 2007). In more
detail, the positive relationship between a supervisory support climate and positive
group affective tone is confirmed, which is similar to Cole et al.’s (2006) finding, where
the positive group affective tone positively and notably affects the service-oriented OCB
of frontline employees. In addition, the results regarding the partially mediating role of
positive group affective tone is in line with Madjar et al. (2002), who proved that a
positive mood mediates the relationship between supervisory support and employee
behaviors. Regarding the moderating role of positive group affective tone, it moderates
the relationship between the supervisory support climate and service-oriented OCB.
This finding supports earlier work (George and Brief, 1992), that a positive mood
facilitates social interactions among group members and enourages additional
extra-role behaviors. As expected, the results of this study confirmed that all proposed
hypotheses are supported, and all of these findings have important implications for
theory and practice, which are discussed next.

Figure 2.
Interaction between
supervisory support
climate and positive
group affective tone
on service-oriented
OCB
5.2 Theoretical implications Positive group
Overall, the findings in this study contribute to the current research in several ways. As affective tone
the initial research considering whether work-unit factors have a significant multilevel
relationship influence on hotel employees’ service-oriented OCB, this study will make a
significant contribution to the hospitality literature. According to the results, a
supervisory support climate (as a work-unit factor) is significant and positively links to
employees’ service-oriented OCB. This finding extends two research streams that 2343
examined how employees’ service-oriented OCB exists at single level, either at the
individual level (Chiang and Hsieh, 2012) or the organizational level (Tang and Tang,
2012). In particular, from the multilevel perspective, this study finds that a supervisory
support climate may provide a more comprehensive depiction of the exhibition of
frontline employees’ service-oriented OCB in the hotel industry.
By integrating the affective events theory (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996), this study
conceptualized and examined a framework for the mediating effect of positive group
affective tone that partially explains the supervisory support climate – frontline employees’
service-oriented OCB relationship. The result of this study also lends empirical support to
the calls of such researchers as Madjar et al. (2002) and Oldham (2003) to pay greater
attention to the mediating role of mood from a multilevel perspective. Although mood is
framed as an individual-level mediator (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013), this study examines
the positive group affective tone in terms of cross-level perspective and highlights the role of
mood across work unit-level and individual-level, and thus, offers additional insights into the
existing hospitality literature.
Drawing from the AIM (Bower, 1991), this study proposes moderation effects and
examines just how the boundary condition of positive group affective tone strengthens
the notion that a supervisory support climate leads to frontline employees’
service-oriented OCB. This not only acknowledges positive group affective tone as a
situational moderator (Chi et al., 2013) but also responds to Tsai et al.’s (2012) call for
more research on the interaction between group affective tone and the work
environment toward employees’ behavior. Previous OCB studies have demonstrated the
moderating role of situational variables between employees’ perception and OCB
(Walumbwa et al., 2010). As a pioneer study in hospitality literature, this study goes one
step further to shed light on the role of the work-unit level of positive group affective
tone in explaining a supervisory support climate-frontline employees’ service-oriented
OCB relationship. Based on the aforementioned contributions, several suggestions for
hotel managers are made in the following section.

5.3 Practical implications

A practical implication of the present study may offer some suggestions for hotel
management to foster service-oriented OCB of frontline service employees. This study’s
findings reveal that hotel frontline employees, who experience a support climate in the
work-unit in the hotel, are likely to reciprocate to their supervisors by devoting effort to
meeting customers’ needs and to treating customers well during service encounters.
Therefore, hotels should deploy a supervisory support climate that increases employees’
perceptions of the work-unit. Hotels could implement strategies such as encouraging
supervisors to participate in training and development programs regarding
consideration, support and empathy. By doing so, supervisors become more capable to
provide appropriate support toward their subordinates. In addition, providing a
IJCHM bidirectional communication channel between supervisors and employees may help the
28,10 hotel supervisors who attend to satisfy the physical and mental needs of their frontline
employees. Moreover, recognizing frontline employees’ contributions by offering prizes
or rewards as an incentive is also a way for frontline employees to realize their
supervisor supports them. All these strategies can work to create a supervisory support
climate within a work-unit at the hotel.
2344 With the booming of today’s group-based work environment in the hotel industry,
this study considered the role of a positive group affective tone. The results clearly show
that a positive group affective tone not only bridges the relationship of supervisory
support climate to service-oriented OCB but also interacts between the supervisory
support climate and service-oriented OCB in the hotel. Based on these findings, hotel
managers could recruit group members who possess positive affectivity, extraversion
and agreeableness. These optimal personality traits are conducive to creating a positive
affective tone in a group. Other possible approaches to be considered could be to create
a comfortable and joyful work unit, design jobs that match frontline employees’
knowledge or arrange training on emotional intelligence. Developing a work unit with a
positive group affective tone can strengthen employees’ perception regarding the
supervisor’s support, which, in turn, may help them to exhibit service-oriented OCB
behavior toward the hotel customers they serve. From the supervisor’s perspective,
demonstrating charismatic or transformational leadership behaviors may also facilitate
the process of emotional contagion between supervisors and employees, which will
assist in creating a positive group affective tone as well.

5.4 Limitations and future research

Some limitations of this study should also be taken into account. First, the use of a
self-report questionnaire may have resulted in an occurrence of common method
variance because of a potential self-enhancement bias of respondents. However, this
study, following the suggestion of Woszczynski and Whitman (2004), distributed an
anonymous questionnaire to all the respondents, which may eliminate some of the social
desirability bias inherent in surveys. In addition, Harman’s one-factor method
(Podsakoff et al., 2003) was used to measure common method variance. Principal
component factor analysis was conducted on items for all variables. Among the six
factors extracted, factor 1 accounted for only 16.13 per cent of the variance, thus
indicating that the common method variance was not a problem in this study. Second,
the causality of these relationships requires further verification due to constraints of the
cross-sectional design in this study. A longitudinal research design may be useful for
future researchers to verify the causal relationships among variables in this study.
To further advance the literature regarding service-oriented OCB, future studies
could examine other organizational-level variables that enhance service-oriented OCB of
employees. For example, it is plausible that the behavior of the leader (Tsai et al., 2009)
strengthens the positive group affective tone of service employees, which, in turn,
enhances their willingness to reciprocate by demonstrating helping behaviors toward
customers. In addition, because different departments form dissimilar group affective
tones, future research could explore department differences as a moderator in
influencing the relationship between group affective tone and frontline employees’
service-oriented OCB in the hospitality industry.
 Although this study was conducted in Taiwan, a collectivist cultural context, this study Positive group
does not consider the cultural influence. According to Hofstede and Bond (1984), two of the affective tone
four types of cultural dimensions – individualism/collectivism and power distance – were
found to affect the expressions of OCB. In Farh et al.’s (2007) study, the relationship between
perceived organizational support and employee outcomes, including job performance and
OCB, varies within different cultural contexts. Future researchers are encouraged to
re-examine this study’s model in different cultural contexts (e.g. in an individualistic culture) 2345
to advance our understanding of the role of cultural context in the relationship between
supervisory support climate and service-oriented OCB.

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Corresponding author
Sheng-Hshiung Tsaur can be contacted at: shenght@mail.ncyu.edu.tw

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