The influence of service climate and job involvement on customer‐oriented organizational citizenship behavior in Greek service organizations: a survey

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the usefulness and to highlight the nature of inter‐relationship(s) between service climate and job involvement in impacting customer‐focused organizational citizenship behaviors of frontline employees in a diverse cultural context, at the crossroads of East and West. Design/methodology/approach Building on organizational citizenship behavior literature, the present study in the paper involved customer‐contact personnel employed in five service industries in a Greek mid‐sized town. Questionnaires were administered in person by the researcher during regularly scheduled meetings on company premises. A total of 269 individuals were invited to participate in the study. Participation was voluntary. The response rate was 74 percent. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), reliability‐, correlation‐ path‐ and hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to test research hypotheses. Findings The findings in this paper indicate that the concept of customer‐oriented organizational citizenship behavior (CO‐OCB) is a useful construct in the Greek context. Both direct and indirect influences and interactive effects were identified. Indeed, results indicate that the relationship between job involvement and service climate in impacting CO‐OCBs is complex (moderated mediation or mediated moderation?), warranting further investigation. Research limitations/implications The findings in the paper are limited by the sampling method and the specificity of the geographic context. It would be of interest to enhance the theoretical model by incorporating more individual, task, organizational and contextual variables. Practical implications The study in this paper demonstrates the important effects of service climate and job involvement on frontline employees' customer‐oriented organizational citizenship behaviors in Greek service organizations. Service managers should benefit from noting the links and the likely favorable outcomes for customers, employees and their organizations. Originality/value The paper provides empirical evidence of the applicability of the CO‐OCB construct in Greek service contexts and illuminates the complex nature of inter‐relationships between organizational climate for service and job involvement in predicting customer‐oriented organizational citizenship behaviors, expanding the OCB literature.