Research On The Impact Mechanism Of Front-line Employees’ Performance Stress On Service Performance

Service industry has become the largest industry in our country and plays an increasingly important role in economic growth.The market vitality of service industry as the major impetus of supply-side reform is being released and the competition among service enterprises is becoming more intense.Enterprises have been putting forward higher job requirements on employees with the competition for customers and quality improvement have become the key to the success of competition,which could increase their work stress.Work stress is a very important driving power in the field of work,but it always performs as a "double-edged sword".Work stress can make employees work harder within its normal threshold,while too much or too little work stress can either make employees less stressed and have less fighting spirit,or makes employees too nervous to achieve the expected performance.Therefore,correctly grasping the regularity of work stress is an important proposition of management.This thesis focused on performance stress,the most typical and common type of work stress.The research on performance stress was insufficient and required further study,especially on its specific connotation and dimension on the basis of Chinese organizational context.Firstly,the dimension and scale of performance stress was exploited and divided into two sub-dimensions: challenge performance stress and hinderance performance stress.There are two key words often mentioned in the academic researches on service industry and service enterprises,one is emotional labor,including surface acting and deep acting,and the other is service performance,including in-role service performance and extra-role service performance.Previous research results showed that different front-line employees adopted different emotional labor strategies,and then produced different service performance.Therefore,performance stress had a great influence on emotional labor and service performance,which provided the main line in this thesis.The relationship between performance stress and service performance may not be a linear relationship,which was revealed in related research and management practices.Performance stress may have a positive or negative impact on service performance.The relationship between performance stress and service performance may also be linear or curved relationship,such as inverted U-shaped.These issues need to be further explored.Similar problems may exist between performance stress and emotional labor.In addition,the characterized of front-line employees in service industry is repetition,monotony,triviality and complexity,which is easy to lead to job burnout.How to keep the front-line employees’ vigorous fighting spirit and improve their performance level has always been an important proposition of management.This thesis chooses calling to guide individuals to pursue satisfaction and happiness as a moderating variable between emotional labor and service performance.On the basis of summarizing resource preservation theory,job requirementcontrol theory and social exchange theory,this thesis followed the logical framework of "stress-behavior-result" to carry out the research,a Dual-Pathway dynamic portfolio interaction Model was proposed and explored the impact mechanism of performance stress on service performance from three aspects: main effect,mediating effect and moderating effect.To be more specific,the direct impact mechanism of challenge performance stress and hinderance performance stress on in-role service performance and extra-role service performance was explored.Two stresses and their dynamic interaction have different effects on service performance was tested,the mediating role of emotional labor between performance stress and service performance was analyzed.In addition,we introduced calling as a moderating variable to explore the boundary conditions of emotional labor,and its cross-layer regulatory role between emotional labor and service performance was tested.Based on the theoretical model above,this thesis took front-line employees of banks as the research object and collected relevant data to verify hypotheses.(1)Conducting research on the exploitation and validation of performance stress scale,including 603 questionnaires(2)Testing the variable relevance and research hypotheses based on static perspective,including 1663 questionnaires.(3)Retesting the research hypotheses based on dynamic perspective,including 178 between-person data and 2946 within-person data.The theoretical model and research hypotheses have been basically verified by static and dynamic research.The main innovations of this thesis are as follows:(1)On the basis of literature analysis,qualitative interviews and questionnaire data analysis,the performance stress scale has exploited and tested.With the extension of the research of work stress,performance stress has begun to attract the attention from academic and practice field.However,the research on performance stress was not enough,and there was still much potential to explore its connotation,structure and dimension.A performance stress scale in Chinese context was exploited,performance stress has the characteristics of first-order four-factor and second-order two-factor.The validity and reliability of the scale have tested through exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis,which provided a new measurement tool for future performance stress research.(2)A Dual-Pathway dynamic portfolio interaction Model was constructed and validated and the theoretical relationship between performance stress and service performance was extended.Previous literatures showed that there were few studies took emotional labor and calling as the entry point,and then systematically and dynamically studied performance stress and service performance.In the view of the inconsistent conclusions of research at home and abroad on stress.Performance stress was divided into challenge performance stress and hinderance performance stress in this thesis,exploring the impact mechanism of these two kinds of stress and their dynamic interaction on surface acting,deep acting,in-role service performance and extra-role service performance.The dynamic study of performance stress was enriched,it provided a new explanation for resolving the differences and disputes in the study of stress as well.Besides,this thesis explored the dynamic characteristics of emotional labor and the boundary conditions between surface acting and deep acting,expanded the research field of calling as well as provided theoretical guidance for improving employees’ service performance at the same time.(3)This thesis introduced diary and experience sampling methodology in performance stress and service performance research to improve the accuracy and explanatory power of the research results.Although diary and experience sampling methodology is treated as a more realistic research method and has been paid more and more attention,few studies had applied this methodology to performance stress and service performance.In order to get more stable and consistent conclusions,the differences with-in person and between person into the theoretical model was brought at the same time,and carried out questionnaires three times a day for many consecutive days to capture the instantaneous state,variation law and dynamic influence process of performance stress,emotional labor and service performance variables.The cross-layer regulation and impact mechanism of the differences between person on fluctuations with-in person were also further explored.The practical contributions of this thesis are as follows:(1)This thesis provides a working idea for the scientific management of performance stress.Performance stress has the characteristics of "double-edged sword",which enlightens managers to grasp the differentiated management methods of "combining leniency with strictness",and provides a theoretical basis for how to play a positive role of challenge performance stress and to reduce the negative impact of hindrance performance stress in management.At the same time,the interaction of different combinations of challenge performance stress and hindrance performance stress will lead to different results,which provides reference resources of scientific management for employees.(2)This thesis provides a criterion for evaluating the value of emotional labor.Challenge performance stress has a positive effect on both surface and deep acting,while hinderance performance stress has different effects on surface and deep acting,which provides inspiration for boundary management of emotional labor.Managers should pay attention to the performance stress of employees and the emotional changes as well as emotional reactions resulting therefrom,providing support to employees from rules and regulations level to ensure that employees maintain positive emotions in service,reduce negative impacts,and thus improve service quality.(3)This thesis provides a new solution for improving service performance effectively.The best effect of service performance improvement is positive pressure.To establish a more reasonable performance appraisal system,enterprises can not only objectively measure with-in role service performance of employees,but also effectively measure extra role service performance,and establish clear performance expectations for the hard work of employees.At the same time,adhering to the concept of "more work,more gain" and "income depends on contribution",employees are encouraged to work hard,while actively creating more service performance,and get equal pay returns.(4)This thesis provides new reference suggestions for the practice of calling.The level of calling determines the impact of emotional labor on service performance.In order to achieve personal growth and long-term development,employees should not only take calling as a means of livelihood,but also establish positive life values and goals.For enterprises,it is necessary to stimulate the internal driving force of employees’ self-realization or social contribution as far as possible,guide front-line employees to actively remodel the meaning of work,and let work be the way of creating personal and social values,and ultimately realize win-win between employees and enterprises.Finally,the limitations and some research aspects in the future were pointed out.