Service Role Performance as a Workgroup Phenomenon

In recognizing the importance of workgroup influences on individual attitudes and behaviors, this dissertation develops and tests a model of workgroup antecedents and outcomes of customer-contact employee role performance. Role performance refers to the performances of customer-contact employees that reflect non-role performance (e.g., shirking, social loafing, and job neglect), role-prescribed performance (e.g., expected employee performance in serving the firm's customers), and extra-role performance (e.g., the discretionary performances of contact employees in serving customers that extends beyond the formal role requirements of the position). Drawing upon social influence theory, social exchange theory, marketing control theory, and the group cohesion literature, this study examines the effects of workgroup inequity, social cohesion, workgroup customer orientation, and task-based cohesion on each of these role performances in turn. The results suggest that role-prescribed and extra-role performance are largely influenced by task-based cohesion and workgroup customer orientation, while non-role performance is a product of workgroup inequity, social cohesion, and task-based cohesion. Further, the model examines the impact that these three forms of role performance have on the qualitative (service effectiveness) and quantitative (service efficiency) dimensions of service productivity. The model suggests that service firms may maximize service productivity by encouraging customer-contact employee role-prescribed performance.