PurposeCustomers often experience negative emotions during service experiences. The ways that employees manage customers’ emotions and impressions about whether the service provider is concerned for them in such emotionally charged service encounters (ECSEs) is crucial, considering the criticality of the encounter. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, this study proposes that two key competencies – employee emotional competence (EEC) and employee technical competence (ETC) – affect negative customer emotions and customer satisfaction with employee response in ECSEs.Design/methodology/approachThis study relies on a video-based experiment that depicts a customer involved in an ECSE as a service provider delivers bad news to him. The hypothesis tests use a two-way independent analysis of covariance.FindingsBoth emotional and technical competencies must be displayed to improve the customer experience in an ECSE. When EEC is low, ETC does not decrease negative customer emotions or increase customer satisfaction with employee response. When EEC is high, ETC instead has a significant impact on both customer outcomes.Practical implicationsManagers must train employees to develop both technical and emotional competencies. Employees who demonstrate only one type cannot temper customers’ emotions or enhance their perceptions of the employees’ response as well as can those strong in both competencies.Originality/valueUsing a video-based experiment, this study examines the moderating role of EEC in the relationship between ETC and two key aspects of the customers’ experience in an ECSE (negative customer emotions and customer satisfaction with employee responses) following the delivery of bad news.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine why and when followers of transformational leaders exhibit increased affective organizational commitment. Particularly, the authors examined the role played by perceived organizational support (POS) and supervisor’s organizational embodiment (SOE), i.e. a perception concerning the extent to which employees identify their supervisor with the organization, in this relationship.Design/methodology/approach– In total, 287 employees of a water producer organization responded to a questionnaire.Findings– The results show that, when employees strongly identify their supervisor with the organization, transformational leadership is positively related to POS, with positive consequences in terms of emotional attachment to this organization. In contrast, when the supervisor is not identified to the organization, his/her transformational leadership does not extend to POS and, finally, to affective organizational commitment.Practical implications– The findings suggest that a high transformational leadership and a high SOE together engender the highest POS and affective commitment. Organizations should thus provide their managers with training programs and feedbacks over their performance as leaders to promote transformational leadership. Furthermore, to foster perceptions of SOE, organizations might implement socialization tactics aiming to strengthen managers’ organizational identification or person-organization fit, and give managers more power and influence in their day-to-day work to increase employees’ attributions of informal organizational status to managers.Originality/value– By showing that POS and SOE are important mechanisms in the transformational leadership-affective commitment relationship, this research explains why and when transformational leadership of supervisors has spillover effect on organization-directed attitudes.

Alors que l’intrapreneuriat est reconnu etre un puissant vecteur d’innovation strategique pour les entreprises capables de s’en saisir, les facteurs susceptibles de stimuler des comportements intrapreneuriaux de la part des membres du personnel restent encore relativement meconnus a l’heure actuelle, a fortiori en petites et moyennes entreprises. C’est dans cette perspective que s’inscrit notre reflexion [1] . S’appuyant sur les resultats d’une etude empirique menee au sein de 12 PME, notre contribution questionne l’influence de trois facteurs a priori fondamentaux dans le developpement de l’intrapreneuriat : les choix organisationnels poses par la direction de l’entreprise, le role joue par l’encadrement hierarchique et les pratiques de gestion des ressources humaines mises en place.

Our research examined the mediating role of organizational identification in the relationship between perceived organizational support and commitment. We also investigated the role of organizational prestige in the relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational identification and the mediating role of commitment in the relationship between organizational identification and performance.

This study primarily aimed to examine the moderating role of supervisor’s organizational embodiment on the relationship between transformational leadership and affective organizational commitment. We also investigated the mediating role of perceived organizational support in this relationship. Finally, we identified potential determinants of supervisor’s organizational embodiment and tested their predictive power.

Les entreprises attendent de plus en plus de leurs employés qu’ils soient proactifs et prennent des initiatives. Or, un employé qui est proactif prend un risque, car son initiative peut être perçue négativement par la hiérarchie. Detert et Burris (2007) postulent ainsi que la décision d’être proactif résulte d’un calcul coûts-bénéfices. Par ailleurs, un employé est d’autant plus enclin à prendre des risques qu’il fait confiance à son supérieur hiérarchique (Mayer, Davis, &Schoorman, 1995). En conséquence, la confiance des employés envers leur supérieur hiérarchique est certainement un facteur clé dans l’adoption par les employés de comportements proactifs. Néanmoins, il reste encore à comprendre le mécanisme à travers lequel la confiance envers le supérieur hiérarchique influence la proactivité des employés. L’objectif de cet article est de montrer comment la confiance des employés envers le supérieur hiérarchique influence - via le sentiment de responsabilité des employés - l’adoption de deux comportements proactifs, à savoir la créativité, c’est-à-dire le fait de proposer des idées innovantes et utiles, et le voice, c’est-à-dire le fait de faire remonter des informations potentiellement critiques à propos du fonctionnement de l’organisation. Les analyses réalisées sur 111 paires employés-supérieurs montrent que la confiance envers le supérieur hiérarchique agit sur le niveau créativité et de voice des employés et que cette influence est médiée par le fait que ces derniers se sentent davantage responsables d’apporter des changements constructifs dans leur travail.