Curr Psychol (2019) 38:517–532
DOI 10.1007/s12144-017-9630-8
How Service Employees’ Work Motivations Lead to Job
Performance: the Role of Service Employees’ Job Creativity
and Customer Orientation
Tae Won Moon 1 & Won-Moo Hur 2 & Sunghyup Sean Hyun 3
Published online: 24 June 2017
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017
Abstract This study examines how work motivation, specif-
ically intrinsic motivation, identified motivation, introjected
motivation, and external motivation, influences service em-
ployees’ job performance. The explicit purpose of this study
was to reveal the mechanism through which work motivation
affects the job performance of service employees. Working
with a sample of 281 hotel employees in South Korea, struc-
tural equation modeling was employed to test research hypoth-
eses that the four types of work motivation influence service
employees’ job performance by incorporating the mediating
variables of service employees’ job creativity and customer
orientation. The results of this research suggest that intrinsic
motivation and identified motivation are positively related to
service employees’ job creativity, while external motivation is
negatively related to service employees’ job creativity; service
employees’ job creativity is positively related to customer ori-
entation; customer orientation is positively related to job per-
formance. Furthermore, the relationship between intrinsic
motivation/identified motivation and job performance are se-
quentially and fully mediated by service employees’ job
* Won-Moo Hur
wmhur@pknu.ac.kr
Tae Won Moon
twmoon@hongik.ac.kr
Sunghyup Sean Hyun
doctor1977@gmail.com
1
Hongik University, 72-1 Sangsu-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
2
School of Business Administration, Pukyong National University,
599-1 Daeyon3-dong, Nam-gu, Busan, South Korea
3
School of Tourism, Hanyang University, 17 Haengdang-dong,
Seongdonggu, Seoul 133-791, Republic of Korea
creativity and customer orientation. This study attempts to de-
velop an understanding of the underlying mechanism through
which work motivation affects service employees’ job perfor-
mance through job creativity and customer orientation.
Keywords Work motivation . Job creativity .
Customer orientation . Job performance
Introduction
Under what conditions are employees likely to be motivated to
perform their work more effectively and productively? In re-
sponse to this question, scholars of organizational behavior
have emphasized the importance of work motivation, defined
as, Ba set of energetic forces that originate both within as well
as beyond an individual’s being, to initiate work-related behav-
ior, and to determine its form, direction, intensity, and
duration^ (Pinder 1998, p. 11). A number of studies dealing
with the processes of work motivation (Bargh et al. 2010; Shah
and Gardner 2008) have placed Self-Determination Theory
(SDT) (Deci and Ryan 1985, 2000, 2008) at the center of their
motivational research. SDT focuses on the extent to which a
person’s behavior is self-motivated and self-determined (Deci
and Ryan 1985). It suggests that an individual’s motivation
may vary between ‘autonomous’ and ‘controlled’, and that
the type of motivational process involved is a key determinant
of his or her behavioral outcomes. Autonomous motivation is
defined as engaging in an activity for reasons of personal in-
terest and pleasure (intrinsic motivation) or a person’s deeper
beliefs and values (identified motivation), while controlled mo-
tivation refers to engaging in an activity due to external pres-
sure, such as monetary incentives, rewards, and payoffs (exter-
nal motivation) or internal pressure, such as a sense of self-
worth and resistance due to feelings of anxiety and guilt
518
(introjected motivation). SDT posits that employee behavioral
outcomes can vary according to the degree of autonomous
regulation experienced; the desire to work harder can be au-
tonomously supported by feelings of enjoyment and value
congruence or can be reinforced by feelings of pressure and
obligation (Gagné and Deci 2005). Accordingly, much re-
search has stressed the important role of work motivation on
employee outcomes by examining the relationship between
work motivation and various employee outcomes, including
job satisfaction, enjoyment, persistence, emotional exhaustion,
and organizational commitment (Gillet et al. 2013; Karatepe
and Uludag 2007).
Work motivation in the service industry, in particular, has
been in the spotlight for many years, since it promotes the
enhancement of service employees’ job satisfaction and job
performance (Nicholson 2003; Sledge et al. 2008) by shaping
the attitudes and behaviors they display during customer en-
counters (Björklund 2001). Correspondingly, many research
studies have examined the relationship between work motiva-
tion and job performance by using samples of service em-
ployees with various combinations of mediators and modera-
tors (e.g. Grant et al. 2011; Fernet et al. 2015). The majority of
the previous studies in this area have used a dichotomous con-
ceptualization of motivation, such as autonomous and con-
trolled motivation in relation to job performance, with findings
suggesting that autonomous motivation has a number of posi-
tive consequences while controlled motivation has negative
outcomes on job performance (Deci and Ryan 2000;
Vallerand 1997, 2007). Yet few studies (e.g., Moran et al.
2012) have examined the effects of intrinsic, identified,
introjected, and external motivation on the job performance of
service employees without collapsing them into autonomous
and controlled motivation. Accordingly, our research aims to
see how each of the four work motivations in a service organi-
zation affect the job performance of its service employees.
Another important question for our study concerns the
mechanism by which work motivation may enhance service
employees’ job performance. Beyond examining the direct
effect between work motivation and employee job perfor-
mance, the primary objective of our study is to develop an
understanding of the underlying mechanism through which
work motivation influences employees’ job performance. Of
the various employee outcomes affected by work motivation,
creativity, defined as the generation of novel and useful ideas
about products, services, and processes (Amabile 1988), has
recently gained a great deal of attention from scholars and
practitioners as work becomes increasingly protean, unpre-
dictable, and knowledge-based (Grant and Berry 2011).
Creativity research has argued that the process of developing
creativity at work (or job creativity) can be explained primar-
ily by autonomous motivation (Amabile 1996). Since new
idea generation requires large amounts of time and effort,
employees must possess relatively consistent levels of deep
Curr Psychol (2019) 38:517–532
interest (Amabile 1996). Creativity research has also posited
that new and valuable ideas are created under conditions in
which employees can tap into their autonomous motivation,
including their intuitions, and unconscious thoughts free from
external constraints that inhibit their freedom (Amabile 1996),
such as the evaluations made by others, rewards, and punish-
ments. We postulate that intrinsic motivation and identified
motivation driven by personal interest and values are more
likely to foster service employees’ job creativity, while exter-
nal motivation and introjected motivation stimulated by inter-
nal or external pressures tend to restrict their job creativity.
Despite the voluminous extant literature on customer orien-
tation, significant gaps remain in our understanding of the an-
tecedents that motivate service employees’ customer-oriented
behavior (or customer orientation) (Thakor and Joshi 2005).
Unlike a sales orientation that satisfies articulated customer
preferences and encourages opportunistic means, a customer
orientation truly seeks to uncover and satisfy customers’ long-
term and latent needs. To develop a customer-oriented mindset,
service employees should be motivated to expend more effort
in customer relationship development activities and pay more
attention to customers’ needs than is commonly expected with
a sales orientation (Saxe and Weitz 1982). Since effort is driven
by motivation (Deci and Ryan 1985), we need to establish
when service employees are motivated to expend greater effort
to adopt a customer orientation. Thakor and Joshi (2005) ar-
gued that service employees make a greater effort to promote a
customer-oriented mindset when they experience meaningful-
ness in their work. Since one of the factors that evoke this sense
of meaningfulness among service employees may be engaging
in creative activities at work, job creativity may be assumed to
influence their customer orientation, namely those behaviors
aimed at encouraging customer satisfaction (Zablah et al.
2012). Thus we argue that service employees who experience
job creativity are more likely to be customer oriented. In addi-
tion, customer orientation research has supported the claim that
customer orientation is positively associated with job perfor-
mance among frontline employees (Brown et al. 2002;
Donovan et al. 2004).
In sum, the main contribution of our study is to provide an
empirical framework of how intrinsic, identified, introjected,
and external motivation influence service employees’ job per-
formance by incorporating the mediating variables of service
employees’ job creativity and customer orientation. Figure 1
shows the research framework.
Literature Review and Hypotheses Development
Effects of Work Motivation
Gagné and Deci (2005) posited that SDT represents a motiva-
tional framework which can be relevant to the work context.
Curr Psychol (2019) 38:517–532
Fig. 1 Research model
SDT is Ban empirically derived theory of human motivation
and personality in social contexts that differentiates motiva-
tion in terms of being autonomous and controlled^ (Deci and
Ryan 2011, p. 416). SDT postulates that autonomous and
controlled motivations vary with respect to both their funda-
mental regulatory processes and their concomitant experi-
ences, and it also proposes that behaviors can be characterized
by the extent to which they are autonomous or controlled
(Gagné and Deci 2005). Autonomous motivation is defined
as Bmotivation that reflect[s] personal interests and values^
(Koestner et al. 2008, p. 1202). Autonomous motivation
means that employees endorse the significance or value of
their work, and thus conduct their duty with intrinsic pleasure,
satisfaction, and volition (Fernet et al. 2012). Scholars have
postulated that autonomous motivation consists of two psy-
chological sub-motivations: (1) intrinsic motivation and (2)
identified motivation (Sheldon and Elliot 1998). Intrinsic mo-
tivation is created by a person’s own interests (Deci and Ryan
1985), while identified motivation is created by a person’s
deeper beliefs and superordinate values (Sheldon and Elliot
1998). More specifically, intrinsic motivation refers to moti-
vation that comes from the individual’s intrinsic interest rather
than from any external rewards, such as money (Ryan and
Deci 2000). Thus an intrinsically motivated individual is mo-
tivated by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself, and is free
from pressure and tension when engaging in a particular be-
havior (Deci and Ryan 1985). Identified motivation refers to
an autonomous motivation that comes from the individual’s
value and belief (Deci and Ryan 1985). If individuals identify
with the importance of a behavior, and believe that it benefits
them in terms of achieving a goal, they are motivated.
On the other hand, controlled motivation is defined as the
motivation one feels compelled to do by external or internal
pressures (Koestner et al. 2008, p. 1202). Scholars have
519
suggested that controlled motivation consists of two sub-mo-
tivations: (1) external motivation and (2) introjected motiva-
tion (Sheldon and Elliot 1998). While external motivation is
created by environmental contingencies, such as monetary
incentives, rewards, and payoffs, introjected motivation is cre-
ated by internal pressure, such as the promotion of self-worth
and resistance to feelings of anxiety and guilt (Deci and Ryan
1985). External motivation refers to motivation that comes
from the individual’s engagement in an activity either to gain
a positive outcome, often external rewards such as money and
praise, or to avoid a negative one, such as a punishment (Deci
and Ryan 1985). Thus, an externally motivated individual is
instrumentally motivated to obtain separate outcomes rather
than it being something inherent in the behavior itself.
Introjected motivation refers to a kind of controlled motiva-
tion that comes from the avoidance of negative feelings and
the promotion of self-esteem (Deci and Ryan 1985). Higgins
(1997) noted that introjected motivation works according to
the Bought self-regulation^ of regulatory focus theory, sug-
gesting that those who are driven by introjected motivation
do not behave in accordance with the external rewards and
punishments of others, but rather in response to how they
believe others wish them to behave (Deci and Ryan 1985).
Existing studies have used SDT as a tool for understanding
the work motivation associated with employee outcomes at
work. These studies have found that managers’ autonomous
support for their employees results in greater satisfaction of
employee needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy,
which leads to greater job satisfaction, higher performance
evaluations, and better psychological adjustment (Baard
et al. 2004; Deci et al. 2001; Gagné et al. 2000). For instance,
Deci et al. (1989) found that managers’ understanding of their
subordinates’ interests and perspectives, providing empower-
ment and managerial support, and delivering relevant
520
informational feedback in a non-controlling way, were posi-
tively related to employees’ job satisfaction, trust for their
organization, and other positive work-related attitudes.
Elsewhere, a 13-month longitudinal study found that autono-
mous motivation gave rise to substantial organizational com-
mitment (Gagné and Koestner 2002). Bono and Judge (2003)
demonstrated that followers of transformational leaders are
more likely to feel higher levels of job satisfaction and orga-
nizational commitment since those leaders generally encour-
age their followers to select autonomous rather than controlled
goals in order to satisfy their basic psychological needs. In
short, autonomous motivation, namely intrinsic and identified
motivation, may induce optimal performance since it accu-
rately reflects the values and interests of employees’ true
selves, which enables them to fully concentrate on the work
activity (Roelofs 2010).
A recent study conducted by Gagné and Deci (2005) indi-
cated that controlled motivation using extrinsic reward as a
tool can be detrimental to intrinsic motivation, leading to neg-
ative impacts on psychological adjustment, performance, and
citizenship behavior. Deckop and Cirka (2000) found that re-
wards programs with predetermined incentives undermine in-
trinsic motivation in work settings. Controlled motivation re-
sults in negative employee outcomes since such a motivation-
al state does not meet individuals’ values and interests, which
prevents them from fully partaking in the tasks at hand (Gillet
et al. 2013). Since controlled motivation, that being external
and introjected motivation, forces employees to pursue exter-
nal factors such as others’ approval and rewards, and to prior-
itize internal factors such as a sense of self-worth, it leads to
activity engagement of a lower quality (e.g., Mouratidis and
Michou 2011).
Effects of Work Motivation on Job Creativity
One of the important streams in the employee job creativity
research is examining the antecedents of employees’ job
creativity. According to this line of research, the individual
causes, specifically value and work motivation, and related
causes, namely occupational characteristics and relation-
ships within the organization, are significantly associated
with the job creativity of service employees (Coelho and
Augusto 2010; Coelho et al. 2011; Van Dyne et al. 2002).
Of the many antecedents of job creativity, Amabile’s
(1988) componential model of creativity suggests that
work motivation has the most important role in developing
creativity in the work context since it encourages em-
ployees to challenge the status quo, fully focus on innova-
tive goals, and develop new and useful ideas.
The current body of research strongly supports the notion
that intrinsic motivation is a key pre-requisite of employees’
job creativity (Amabile 1996; Oldham and Cummings 1996;
Wong and Ladkin 2008; Wong and Pang 2003). When
Curr Psychol (2019) 38:517–532
employees are intrinsically motivated, they tend to be more
determined, curious, learning-oriented, and cognitively flexi-
ble (Oldham and Cummings 1996). Curiosity, learning-
seeking behavior, cognitively flexible thinking, and positive
affection are key determinants of employee job creativity in
the workplace (Shalley et al. 2004). Intrinsically motivated
employees often take a proactive approach in work activities
to secure their personal growth (Deci and Ryan 2000). Many
studies have demonstrated the positive effect of intrinsic mo-
tivation on highly valued behavioral outcomes, such as crea-
tivity (Amabile 1993), quality (Kruglanski et al. 1971), and
learning (Vansteenkiste et al. 2004). Employees with identi-
fied motivation are more likely to behave in a relatively au-
tonomous and self-determined way (Gagné and Deci 2005)
which encourages the search for new ideas that challenge the
status-quo and stimulates risk-taking behaviors, since they are
motivated by an appreciation of the valued outcomes of par-
ticipation. According to Sheldon and Elliot’s (1998) self-
concordance theory that reflects the degree to which individ-
uals’ goals are consistent with their developing values, inter-
nally motivated people tend to pursue self-concordant goals,
leading to the maximization of their job creativity.
In contrast, SDT theory suggests that controlled motiva-
tion, namely external motivation and introjected motiva-
tion, is negatively related to the effective performance of
complex, cognitively flexible, and conceptual tasks such as
creativity (Gagné and Deci 2005). For example, many
scholars (i.e., Vansteenkiste et al. 2005) have found that
controlled motivation negatively impacts creative thinking,
learning attitude, concentration, time management, and
other work-related behaviors. In particular, Hon (2011)
found that employees’ job creativity tends to be lower
when they are externally motivated by the pursuit of mon-
etary incentives, rewards, and payoffs, or the avoidance of
punishment. Since external motivation focuses on external
elements such as the approval of others and rewards that
are not aligned with individuals’ values and interests, and
which often actually inhibit their freedom, it often results
in low performance and activity engagement of a lower
quality (Mouratidis and Michou 2011; Pelletier et al.
2001). When employees are motivated to work by
introjected regulation, such as coercive internal pressures,
such as the achievement of a sense of self-worth or social
obligation, or resistance to feelings of anxiety and guilt, it
can undermine the process of job creativity (Amabile
1996). Rather than associating creative and innovative
ways of working with freedom, introjected motivation is
strongly related to the negative consequences of coercive
and obligatory work, such as workaholism (Van den
Broeck et al. 2011), burnout (Fernet et al. 2008), and turn-
over intention (Richer et al. 2002) due to its characteristics
of avoiding internal pressures. Based on the preceding dis-
cussion, we advance the following hypotheses:
Curr Psychol (2019) 38:517–532
H1–1: Intrinsic motivation is positively related to service
employees’ job creativity;
H1–2: Identified regulation is positively related to service
employees’ job creativity;
H1–3: Introjected motivation is negatively related to ser-
vice employees’ job creativity;
H1–4: External regulation is negatively related to service
employees’ job creativity.
Effects of Service Employees’ Job Creativity on Customer
Orientation
Employees in frontline sales and service positions often deal
with unscripted and unpredictable interactions with customers
which call upon them to use creative and judicious ideas and
behaviors for the proper treatment of those customers (Singh
2000). Thus, service employees’ job creativity plays a critical
role in service organizations. Frontline employees whose
function it is to serve as a bridge between the internal organi-
zation and its external customers are required to engage in
spontaneous and creative work activities since they are re-
quired to handle the various needs of customers. That is, ser-
vice employees must appropriately respond to the widely dif-
fering needs of the customers they serve, including often cre-
ative responses to any number of requests those customers
might make. Employees in labor intensive and interactive ser-
vice industries, therefore, not only offer the proper level of
service expected of them in dealing with their customers
face-to-face, but are also called upon to produce creative ideas
(Berry et al. 2006). In a similar vein, Hochschild (1983) pos-
tulated that employees encountering customers in the service
industry must be creative in their service in order to enhance
customer satisfaction and minimize customer complaints.
Since service employees regularly participate in impromptu
and unstructured interactions with customers, they should be
flexible and innovative in fulfilling their duties (Dollinger
et al. 2007).
The highly non-routine and indefinite nature of service
employees’ jobs, due to the intangibility, heterogeneity, insep-
arability, and perishability of the services they offer, require
them to be creative and innovative in dealing with customers
(Dubinsky et al. 1986). Moreover, customer-oriented em-
ployees are generally required to look for more creative solu-
tions in response to dynamic customer needs than those in
sales-oriented positions (Thakor and Joshi 2005). Customer
orientation is defined as Bthe degree to which salespeople
practice the marketing concept by trying to help their cus-
tomers make purchase decisions that will satisfy customer
needs^ (Saxe and Weitz 1982, p.344). An employee with high
customer orientation (1) pays attention to customers’ long-
term and latent needs, (2) seeks to discover customers’ prob-
lems, and (3) develops solutions to those problems (Kohli and
521
Jaworski 1990). Indeed, Saxe and Weitz (1982) suggested that
employees with high customer-orientation actually tend to
avoid behaviors that sacrifice customer interests and needs
in order to secure an immediate sale or service.
On the other hand, sales orientation aims to satisfy articulat-
ed customer needs. While customer orientation emphasizes lis-
tening to customers (e.g., BI thrive on giving individual atten-
tion to each customer.^), sales orientation stresses opportunistic
means for maximizing sales profits regardless of satisfying cus-
tomers’ long-term needs (e.g., BI exaggerate my products or
services to make them sound as good as possible.^) (John
1984). A sales-oriented employee focuses on customers’ imme-
diate and short-term preferences (or needs) that are easily han-
dled and clearly understood, which demands less effort to
achieve customer satisfaction (Thakor and Joshi 2005).
Therefore, service employees should make more effort to dis-
cover and satisfy customers’ latent needs in order to be custom-
er oriented in comparison with the sales orientation in customer-
related interactions (Saxe and Weitz 1982).
Drawing on the Job Characteristics Model (JCM)
(Hackman and Oldham 1980), one of the motivators to spare
greater effort is developed by employees’ experienced mean-
ingfulness on the job. Prior studies have empirically examined
how experienced meaningfulness can be a key driver of work
motivation (Johns et al. 1992). Creative activities within or
beyond service employees’ job boundaries (i.e., job crafting)
may develop their sense of meaningfulness, leading them to
expend greater effort to be customer oriented (Thakor and
Joshi 2005). The process of employees redefining and
reimagining their job in creative and novel ways can influence
the meaningfulness of their work (Wrzesniewski and Dutton
2001). Cohen-Meitar et al. (2009) also found a high correla-
tion between job creativity and experienced meaningfulness.
Experiencing meaningfulness in terms of creative job activi-
ties allows service employees to develop the perception of
activity importance and experience a sense of accomplish-
ment, which results in sparing more effort for customer orien-
tation rather than sales orientation. Thus, service employees’
job creativity may be a critical determinant of customer orien-
tation. Based on the above theoretical background, the follow-
ing hypothesis can be formulated:
H2: Service employees’ job creativity is positively related
to customer orientation.
Effects of Customer Orientation on Job Performance
Prior research has suggested that customer orientation in-
volves a set of employee behaviors that have a strong impact
on employee job performance (Plouffe et al. 2009). Service
employees with high customer orientation are likely to pay
more attention to consumers’ needs and sincerely wish to
522
solve consumers’ problems, and are thus also more likely to
develop long-term relationships with their customers (Franke
and Park 2006). More importantly, customer-oriented em-
ployees are more willing to spend extra time and effort on
caring for their customers. Such enthusiasm is a critical deter-
minant of employee performance (Saxe and Weitz 1982;
Susskind et al. 2003). This contention that customer orienta-
tion is a key predictor of job performance is strongly support-
ed by empirical research (e.g. Liaw et al. 2010; Zablah et al.
2012). For instance, Zablah et al. (2012) examined the rela-
tionship between customer orientation and employee job per-
formance using data collected from 99,641 frontline workers.
Their results revealed that customer orientation influences two
different types of job performance: (1) manager-rated perfor-
mance and (2) self-rated performance. Similarly, Liaw et al.
(2010) used data from 212 front-line service employees across
55 service organizations to show that customer orientation
positively impacts employee job performance. Noting the the-
oretical and empirical support provided by these studies, the
following hypothesis is arrived at:
H3: Customer orientation is positively related to job
performance.
Methods
Data Collection and Participant Characteristics
Frontline hotel employees from full-service luxury hotels
in South Korea were surveyed using a self-administered
instrument for data collection. To ensure confidentially,
the respondents were instructed to seal the completed ques-
tionnaires in pre-addressed envelopes and return them di-
rectly to the researchers by mail. A total of 321 question-
naires were returned, from which 281 usable question-
naires were obtained for a 62.4% response rate. Based on
these 281 individuals, a preliminary analysis revealed that
56.9% of the subjects were female, with an average age of
29.31 (SD = 5.58) years, and an age range from 21 to 47. A
majority of the participants (nearly 47.3%) had at least a
college education, just over 45.6% had a university educa-
tion, 6.0% had graduated school, and only 1.1% had a high
school education. The respondents, on average, had almost
5.61 (SD = 4.36) years of work experience.
Measurement Scales
Existing scales were used in the questionnaire. A complete list
of scale items with standardized loading can be seen in
Table 1. The translation and back-translation method (Brislin
1970) was used for those items which were originally in
Curr Psychol (2019) 38:517–532
English to ensure that the statements could be well understood
by Korean employees. This involved four bilingual manage-
ment scholars translating the items independently, upon com-
pletion of which a further three bilingual, native Korean man-
agement scholars resolved any discrepancies in the transla-
tions and then back-translated the material into English. By
way of a final check, the authors then compared the back-
translated version with the original. No significant differences
were identified.
Motivation at Work The motivation at work scale includes
12 items that reflect the four types of motivation identified by
Deci and Ryan (1985), Gagné et al. (2010), Gillet et al. (2013).
Ranging from most to least autonomous, these constructs are:
intrinsic motivation, identified motivation, introjected motiva-
tion, and external motivation. For each statement, the subjects
were asked to indicate the degree of correspondence on a 5-
point scale ranging from 1 (does not correspond at all) to 5
(corresponds very strongly) regarding the reasons for doing
their job. Cronbach’s alpha was .85, .81, .75 and .70.
Employee Job Creativity Employee job creativity was mea-
sured using four items adapted from Coelho and Augusto
(2010). This scale evaluates the amount and frequency with
which frontline employees provide creative solutions and en-
gage in imaginative behaviors. We measured frontline em-
ployees’ perception of their own creativity, which aligns with
previous research (e.g., Ganesan and Weitz 1996) including
studies of frontline employee creativity (e.g., Coelho et al.
2011). Respondents rated their creativity at service work using
a 5-point scale: 1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree.
Cronbach’s alpha was .87.
Customer Orientation Customer orientation was evaluated
using six items adapted from Donovan et al. (2004).
Respondents rated their customer orientation while engaged
in service work using a 5-point scale: 1 = strongly disagree,
5 = strongly agree. Cronbach’s alpha was .88.
Job Performance To measure job performance, four items
were adapted from Liao and Chuang (2004). Respondents
rated their job performance using a 5-point scale: 1 = strongly
disagree, 5 = strongly agree. These constructs showed an ex-
cellent internal consistency (.89) for job performance.
Control Variables In testing the hypotheses, we controlled
for age (in years), gender, and job tenure (in years). We con-
trolled for these variables not only because they were found to
affect the level of employee creativity in previous research
regarding creativity (e.g., Amabile 1988; Scott and Bruce
1994; Tierney and Farmer 2002) but also because they have
been shown to affect customer orientation (Babakus et al.
2009; Wieseke et al. 2007). In addition, we used these
Curr Psychol (2019) 38:517–532 523

Table 1 Scale items and

construct evaluation Constructs Items λ

Intrinsic motivation Because I enjoy this work very much. .82

Because I have fun doing my job. .84
For the moments of pleasure that this job brings me. .88
Identified motivation I chose this job because it allows me to reach my life goals. .74
Because this job fulfills my career plans. .81
Because this job fits my personal values .76
Introjected motivation Because I have to be the best in my job; I have to be a ‘winner’. .74
Because my work is my life and I don’t want to fail. .63
Because my reputation depends on it .74
External motivation Because this job affords me a certain standard of living. .91
Because it allows me to make a lot of money. .52
Employee job creativity I try to be as creative as I can in my job. .72
I experiment with new approaches in performing my job. .81
My boss feels that I am creative in performing my job. .63
On the job, I am inventive in overcoming barriers. .70
Customer orientation Every customer’s problem is important to me. .74
I thrive on giving individual attention to each customer. .82
I naturally read the customer to identify his/her needs. .81
I generally know what service customers want before they ask. .69
I enjoy delivering the intended services on time. .75
I find a great deal of satisfaction in completing tasks precisely for customers. .70
Job performance I am friendly and helpful to customers. .81
I approach customers quickly. .88
I ask good questions and listen to find out what a customer wants. .85
I am able to help customers when needed. .76
χ 2(254) = 478.70; p < .05, CFI = .94 TLI = .93 RMSEA = .06, SRMR = .05

All standardized loadings (λ) are significant at p < .01

variables as control variables because they influence job per- AVE were larger than the squared correlation between the
formance (e.g., Bowen et al. 2000; Sturman 2003). construct and any others (see Table 1). Overall, our constructs
therefore exhibit sound measurement properties.

Results Table 2 Construct means, standard deviations, and correlations

Reliability, Validity, and Common Method Bias 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. Intrinsic Motivation .72

Table 2 shows the mean values, standard deviations and cor- 2. Identified Motivation .49 .59
relations of the variables included in the current study.
3. Introjected Motivation .49 .56 .50
Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to verify the
4. External Motivation .59 .43 .47 .55
convergent and discriminant validity of the measures using
5. Employee Job Creativity .43 .29 .25 .23 .52
M-plus 7.3. The measurement model fit well with the data
6. Customer Orientation .40 .30 .43 .38 .37 .57
as seen in the fit statistics (χ 2(254) = 478.70; p < .05,
7. Job Performance .27 .21 .31 .27 .29 .55 .68
CFI = .94, TLI = .93, RMSEA = .06, SRMR = .05). All item
Mean 3.49 3.45 3.62 3.59 3.30 3.73 3.84
loadings exceeded .52, with all t-values greater than 2.58
SD .75 .74 .67 .71 .68 .59 .63
(p < .01), providing evidence of convergent validity among
Cronbach’s α .88 .81 .75 .70 .87 .88 .89
our measures. All measures exhibit strong reliability with
CR .88 .81 .75 .70 .81 .89 .90
composite reliabilities ranging from .70 to .90 (see Table 2).
We checked the condition for discriminant validity among SD standard deviation, CR Composite Reliability; Numbers along the
constructs as suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981). All diagonal are AVEs
524 Curr Psychol (2019) 38:517–532

Since these measures are self-reported, we also evaluated Hypothesis Testing

the impact of common method variance, which is highly prob-
lematic if a single latent variable accounts for the majority of
the manifest variables’ variance (Podsakoff et al. 2012).
According to Podsakoff et al. (2012), method bias can be
controlled through both procedural and statistics remedies.
Accordingly, we addressed procedural remedies by protecting
respondent anonymity, improving item wording, and separat-
ing the measurement of the predictor and outcome variables.
Furthermore, with a view to reducing evaluation apprehen-
sion, participants were instructed that there were no right or
wrong answers, and we asked that they rate the items as hon-
estly as possible when the survey instruments were distributed
(Chang et al. 2010). In addition to these procedural efforts, we
employed the ex post procedure recommended by Podsakoff
et al. (2012) in which an additional common method factor is
introduced to the measurement model. As the common meth-
od factor did account for substantial variance in the indicator
variables (5.6%), it should be controlled in the research model.
All of the standardized factor loadings were above .50 for the
common methods factor.
We used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test our hypoth-
eses. The results are shown in Table 3. Recalling that our data
were from a single source (i.e., employee perceptions) and cross-
sectional in nature, and noting that part of our model relied on
survey-based perceptual data, the constructs used for this portion
of the model were viewed as being potentially susceptible to
common method variance (CMV), an issue we encountered
while conducting our confirmatory factor analysis. Therefore,
in order to control for the possibility of CMV, we followed the
procedure suggested by Podsakoff et al. (2012) whereby a com-
mon method factor (i.e., unmeasured latent method) is included
in the research model. We report the findings of two models in
Table 3: Model 1, without the common method factor, and
Model 2, with the common method factor. Model 1 provides
good fit to the data, χ 2(329) = 627.43; p < .05, CFI = .92,
TLI = .91, RMSEA = .06, SRMR = .08, as does Model 2, χ
2
(305) = 554.61; p < .05, CFI = .93, TLI = .92, RMSEA = .05,
SRMR = .08. The χ 2 difference between Models 1 and 2 was
significant, △χ 2(24) = 72.82 (critical value of χ 2(24) = 36.42),

Table 3 Model comparison

From → To (b) Without CMV model With CMV model

Intrinsic Motivation → Employee Job Creativity .55 .11 5.05 ** .52 .11 4.95 **
Identified Motivation → Employee Job Creativity .22 .10 2.00 * .25 .10 2.62 **
Introjected Motivation → Employee Job Creativity −.16 .13 1.21 −.20 .13 1.61
External Motivation → Employee Job Creativity −.20 .09 2.22 * −.18 .09 1.98 *
Employee Job Creativity → Customer Orientation .40 .12 3.39 ** .45 .12 3.75 **
Customer Orientation → Job Performance .47 .11 4.35 ** .47 .10 4.60 **
Controls
Gender → Employee Job Creativity .09 .07 1.17 .08 .07 1.11
Age → Employee Job Creativity .00 .01 .72 .01 .01 .52
Work Experience → Employee Job Creativity .03 .02 1.67 † .02 .01 1.54
Gender → Customer Orientation −.14 .08 1.83 † −.16 .08 1.97 *
Age → Customer Orientation −.02 .01 1.79 † .02 .01 1.71 †
Work Experience → Customer Orientation .03 .02 1.65 † .03 .02 1.83 †
Gender → Job Performance .05 .07 .75 .04 .07 .54
Age → Job Performance −.00 .01 .05 −.00 .01 .13
Work Experience → Job Performance .01 .02 .63 .01 .02 .78
R2
Employee Job Creativity 44.7% 44.1%
Customer Orientation 28.2% 21.4%
Job Performance 38.1% 24.2%
Model Fit Index
χ 2/df 627.43/329 554.61/305
CFI .92 .93
TLI .91 .92
RMSEA .06 .05
SRMR .08 .08

Tests of path coefficients are one-tailed tests; † p < .10, * p < .05, ** p < .01, b: unstandardized coefficient
Curr Psychol (2019) 38:517–532 525

p < .05. Therefore, we report our hypotheses testing based on
Model 2, which includes the common method factor.
Overall, the hypothesized structural model does a very good
job of explaining variance (R2(service employee creativity) = 44.1%,
R2(customer orientation) = 21.4%, and R2(job performance) = 24.2%).
All parameter estimates are shown in Table 3. First, intrinsic
motivation (b = .52, p < .01) and indentified motivation
(b = .25, p < .01) were significant predictors of employee job
creativity, supporting Hypothesis 1–1 and 1–2. Second,
introjected motivation was non-significantly related to employ-
ee job creativity, allowing us to reject Hypothesis 1–3
(b = −.20, p > .05). However, external motivation was found
to be negatively related to employee job creativity (b = −.18,
p < .05), which supports Hypothesis 1–4. Third, Hypothesis 2,
which stated employee job creativity was positively related to
customer orientation, was supported (b = .45, p < .01). Finally,
customer orientation was revealed to be positively related to
job performance, supporting Hypothesis 3 (b = .47, p < .01).
Post Hoc Analysis of Mediators
Since our study predicted that intrinsic motivation, identified
motivation, and external motivation were sequentially associat-
ed with service employees’ job performance through employee
job creativity and customer orientation, we tested the signifi-
cance of a sequential indirect effect using a three-path mediator
model (Lau and Cheung 2012; Macho and Ledermann 2011;
Taylor et al. 2008). The advantage of this approach is that we
were able to isolate the indirect effect of both mediators: em-
ployee job creativity and customer orientation. This approach
also allowed us to investigate the indirect effect passing through
both of these mediators in a series (Lau and Cheung 2012;
Macho and Ledermann 2011; Taylor et al. 2008). In Table 4,
we provide estimates of the indirect effects, along with the
symmetric and 95% bias corrected bootstrapped confidence
intervals for our path estimates (N = 5000; Shrout and Bolger
2002; Hayes 2013). When controlling for the sequential medi-
ators, intrinsic motivation was no longer a statistically signifi-
cant predictor of job performance (b = −.08, 95% CI [−.66,
.23]), providing support for a fully mediated model (b = .11,
95% CI [.03, .40]). In addition, since the relationship between
identified regulation and job performance was sequentially me-
diated by employee job creativity and customer orientation
(b = .05, 95% CI [.01, .52]), identified motivation was no longer
a statistically significant predictor of job performance (b = −.04,
95% CI [−.54, −.63]). In sum, the relationship between identi-
fied motivation and job performance was fully mediated by
employee job creativity and customer orientation. However,
the serial multiple mediation relationship between external mo-
tivation and job performance via employee job creativity and
customer orientation was not significant (b = −.03, 95% CI
[−.76, .01]).
Alternative Model
Given that previous research has addressed the effect of cus-
tomer orientation on creativity (e.g., Sousa and Coelho 2011;
Wang and Miao 2015) and also creativity related to job perfor-
mance (e.g., Gilson et al. 2005; Gong et al. 2009; Hur et al.
2016), we considered it worthwhile to test an alternative model
of serial multiple mediations (four types of work motivation →
customer orientation → employee job creativity → job

Table 4 Path coefficients and indirect effects for mediation models

Effect Path b CIlow CIhigh

TE Intrinsic Motivation → Job Performance .08 −.32 .45

DE Intrinsic Motivation → Job Performance −.08 −.66 .23
IE Intrinsic Motivation → Employee Job Creativity → Job Performance .09 −.04 .49
IE Intrinsic Motivation → Customer Orientation → Job Performance −.04 −.33 .10
SIE Intrinsic Motivation → Employee Job Creativity → Customer Orientation → Job Performance .11 .03 .40
TE Identified Regulation → Job Performance −.02 −.37 .76
DE Identified Regulation → Job Performance −.04 −.54 .63
IE Identified Regulation → Employee Job Creativity → Job Performance .04 −.01 .65
IE Identified Regulation → Customer Orientation → Job Performance −.08 −.48 .06
SIE Identified Regulation → Employee Job Creativity → Customer Orientation → Job Performance .05 .01 .52
TE External Regulation → Job Performance .08 −.28 .63
DE External Regulation → Job Performance .06 −.30 .67
IE External Regulation → Employee Job Creativity → Job Performance −.03 −.76 .01
IE External Regulation → Customer Orientation → Job Performance .09 −.01 .77
SIE External Regulation → Employee Job Creativity → Customer Orientation → Job Performance −.04 −.33 .01

CI 95% confidence level, TE Total effect, IE Indirect effect, DE Direct effect, SIE Serial indirect effect
526
performance) to compare with our original model (four types
of work motivation → employee job creativity → customer
orientation → job performance). Therefore, an alternative
model was proposed to test the possible sequential mediation
effects of the four types work motivation and job performance
via customer orientation and employee job creativity. The re-
sults showed that none of the four serial multiple mediations
was statistically significant (see Table 5). Hence, we concluded
that the alternative model was not superior to our research
model.
Discussion
The major purpose of the present study was to explore how
service employees’ motivation at work, namely intrinsic mo-
tivation, identified motivation, introjected motivation, and ex-
ternal motivation, affects service employees’ job performance,
specifically the mechanism by which work motivation influ-
ences employees’ job performance through the mediating var-
iables of job creativity and customer orientation. Rather than a
direct relationship between work motivation and job perfor-
mance, our study showed that work motivation is indirectly
related to job performance in a mediated way through service
employees’ job creativity and customer orientation.
This study first identified how four different types of work
motivation variously affect the level of service employees’ job
creativity. We found that both intrinsic motivation and identi-
fied motivation are positively associated with service em-
ployees’ job creativity. In other words, service employees with
autonomous motivation are more likely to have higher levels
of job creativity, which is consistent with previous studies
(Amabile 1993; Deci and Ryan 2008; Vansteenkiste et al.
2004). A positive association between autonomous motiva-
tion and job creativity is due to the fact that employees with
autonomous motivation are more likely to possess an in-
creased sense of volition and choice (Deci and Ryan 2008),
which enables employees to make deeper processing of infor-
mation and engenders an increased readiness to transmit in-
formation across domains (Ryan 1993).
On the other hand, external motivation is negatively related
to job creativity, and introjected motivation is not significantly
associated with job creativity, which indicates that controlled
Table 5 Path coefficients and indirect effects for alternative models
Serial multiple mediation effect
Intrinsic Motivation → Customer Orientation → Employee Job Creativity → Job Performance
Identified Motivation → Customer Orientation → Employee Job Creativity → Job Performance
Introjected Motivation → Customer Orientation → Employee Job Creativity → Job Performance
External Motivation → Customer Orientation → Employee Job Creativity → Job Performance
CI 95% confidence level
Curr Psychol (2019) 38:517–532
motivation can either undermine or has no impact on service
employees’ job creativity. A possible reason for there being no
significant relationship between introjected motivation and
job creativity may lie with a crucial characteristic of
introjected motivation which promotes feelings of worth
(Ryan et al. 1991): employees with introjected motivation tend
to sustain and enhance feelings of worth in their social groups
(Ryan and Deci 2000). However, while this tendency to en-
hance feelings of worth may facilitate job creativity, a further
characteristic of introjected motivation - the avoidance of feel-
ings of anxiety and guilt - may actually interfere with job
creativity, and since these two effectively offset each other,
overall there is no impact on job creativity. Our study provides
a more concrete and consolidated framework of work motiva-
tion by adopting a differentiated view of motivation according
to SDT rather than a dichotomous conceptualization, which
has proved to be more discriminating when examining the
impact of motivational orientations on employee outcomes
(Shahar et al. 2003). Finally, our study also showed that ser-
vice employees’ job creativity was positively related to cus-
tomer orientation and in turn positively related to job perfor-
mance, which is in line with previous studies (i.e., Chebat and
Kollias 2000; Zablah et al. 2012).
Theoretical Implications
A major purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of
service employee motivation at work on job performance in a
mediated way that included job creativity and customer orien-
tation. Previous studies have focused on explaining the rela-
tionship between work motivation and employee outcomes
such as job creativity exclusively through the dichotomous
conceptualization of work motivation, namely autonomous
and controlled motivation. Our study offers a more compre-
hensive yet discerning framework that explores the role of
motivational orientations on employee outcomes by using
four different types of motivation: intrinsic motivation, iden-
tified motivation, introjected motivation, and external motiva-
tion. In short, our study can provide a more nuanced under-
standing of work motivations associated with employee out-
comes, such as service employees’ job creativity, customer
orientation, and job performance.
b CIlow CIhigh
.01 −.00 .18
−.00 −.13 .01
.02 −.01 .27
.01 −.00 .35
Curr Psychol (2019) 38:517–532
First, this study found that service employees’ autonomous
intrinsic and identified motivation at work had a significant
positive effect on their job creativity, which supported the
findings of previous studies that employees with autonomous
motivations at work are more likely to behave with an in-
creased sense of volition and freedom (Deci and Ryan
2008), encouraging free flows of information sharing, an in-
creased readiness to move across domains (Ryan 1993), and
effective performance on complex or heuristic tasks (Deci and
Ryan 2008). On the other hand, the results of our study found
that introjected motivation at work was insignificantly related
to service employees’ job creativity and that external motiva-
tion is negatively associated with service employees’ job cre-
ativity, which is also in the line with prior studies that found
that the effects of controlled motivation on employee out-
comes are mixed (Cameron et al. 2005; Konheim-Kalkstein
and van den Broek 2008; Liu et al. 2013). Some studies, for
example, have found that controlled motivation had a negative
effect on creativity and performance (Amabile 1982;
Joussemet and Koestner 1999), while other studies have not
found such negative effects (Cameron et al. 2005; Konheim-
Kalkstein and van den Broek 2008). By dividing controlled
motivation into introjected and external varieties, the current
study helps to shed light on why the findings for controlled
motivation have been less than clear in the literature to date. In
sum, our study provides support for the argument of SDT that
self-determination is fundamental for optimal functioning
(Deci and Ryan 2000; Fernet et al. 2012). That is, our research
contributes to the literature by suggesting that SDT offers a
potentially useful framework for analyzing the relationship
between work motivation and job performance, which aligns
with several theoretical models of work motivation
(Nicholson 2003; Sledge et al. 2008).
Second, our study contributes to the customer orientation
literature by revealing job creativity as an antecedent variable
of customer orientation unlike prior studies that conceptualize
customer orientation as an antecedent to job creativity (e.g.,
Sousa and Coelho 2011; Wang and Miao 2015). The results
of our study showed that the more employees strive for creative
ideas and activities in their jobs, the more they try to identify
unmet customer needs, improve customer satisfaction, and
solve customer problems. Unlike sales orientation, customer
orientation requires greater effort in customer interaction activ-
ities (Saxe and Weitz 1982). Service employees are more likely
to make more effort when they experience meaningfulness
from their job. Service employees’ sense of meaningfulness
in terms of job creativity may promote their customer orienta-
tion. Thus, the findings of this study highlight the significant
role of job creativity on service employees’ customer orienta-
tion. In the context of modern working arrangements which
recognize the necessity of job creativity, our study provides
significant support for the suggestion that creativity underpins
employees’ customer-oriented behaviors and job performance.
527
Indeed, given that employee performance converges into orga-
nizational effectiveness, our findings imply that job creativity
can be valuable to not only the focal worker but also the
service-oriented organizations to which he or she belongs.
Finally, another significant contribution of our study is to
provide a profound understanding of how service employees’
motivation at work influences job performance through the
double mediating effects of creativity and customer orienta-
tion. The results of our post hoc analysis provide a theoretical
explanation of how the autonomous motivation of service
employees, namely their intrinsic and identified motivation,
stimulates job creativity, which sequentially results in higher
levels of customer orientation and job performance (Deci and
Ryan 2000; Gagné and Deci 2005). In other words, this study
indicates that the more autonomous motivation in the work-
place service employees have, the more likely it is that they
will be creative in solving customer requests and be customer-
oriented, ultimately leading to improvements in job
performance.
Practical Implications
On a practical level, this study provides new insights for prac-
titioners. First, our study encourages practitioners to pay more
attention to service employees’ work motivation as a means of
improving employee outcomes. Although other studies stress
a variety of options for enhancing employee outcomes, such
as job specific knowledge and skills, appropriate cognitive
style, and capacity for solving problems and generating novel
ideas (Agnihotri et al. 2013), the present study highlights the
importance of service managers understanding the potential of
service employees’ autonomous motivation in modifying
these outcomes. This demands that service managers should
consider how to provide work contexts which stimulate ser-
vice employees’ autonomous motivation. For example, they
might provide more empowerment to encourage autonomous
motivation among service employees, while at the same time
discouraging certain circumstances at work which prevent
them from developing autonomous motivation. The latter
may include compensation or incentives which tend to devel-
op controlled motivation rather than autonomous motivation,
and so actually lead to deteriorations in job performance
(Gagné and Deci 2005). Our study provides a lesson that the
secret to high performance is not accomplished by controlled
motivation generated from rewards and punishments, but in-
stead by an unseen intrinsic drive to do things for their own
sake. Thus, in order to enhance employee outcomes, service
managers must ensure that their employees are engaged in
jobs that they find inherently interesting and enjoyable.
Second, our study confirms that developing service em-
ployees’ job creativity should be accompanied by autonomous
motivation, that is, intrinsic and identified motivation. Thus, if
service organizations want service employees to be creative,
528
they need to understand contextual factors that promote their
employees’ autonomous motivation (Sousa and Coelho 2011;
Coelho et al. 2011). Our study indicates that employees with a
full sense of volition and choice (i.e., autonomous motivation)
rather than being subject to internal or external pressure (i.e.,
controlled motivation) demonstrate higher job creativity in the
workplace. Therefore, the HR managers of service organiza-
tions should pay more attention to the motivational processes
and orientations of their service employees. For example, HR
managers might consider the usage of selection criteria in the
recruitment process that favor applicants who seem to have a
tendency of easily and frequently developing autonomous
motivation. Evaluating the work motivation of current em-
ployees is also relevant since it allows service organizations
to consciously factor in whether individuals who consider
certain work motivations fit well with a job and the level of
job creativity that it may require (Sousa and Coelho 2011).
Finally, the data from high-contact service employees such
as the hotel frontline employees in our study indicates that
service employee creativity influences job performance
through customer orientation (b = .203, 95% CI [.053,
.682]). Service employees with higher levels of customer ori-
entation can be expected to perform more favorably on the job
than service employees with lower levels of customer orien-
tation (Brown et al. 2002; Donovan et al. 2004). Since cus-
tomer orientation leads to improvements in job performance,
service managers must accordingly put more effort into the
training and development of their service employees by ac-
knowledging that service creativity and service orientation do
not easily develop over time (Donovan et al. 2004). Service
managers should therefore provide enough time for their ser-
vice employees to develop creative and customer-oriented be-
haviors. Although hotel frontline employees have limited
scope to customize the hotel services, their personal interac-
tions with customers require a significant degree of creativity.
For example, hotel frontline employees might accrue benefits
through the creativity exercised in finding ways to fulfill cus-
tomers’ needs, in strengthening relationships with customers,
in building a service mix that meets customers’ requirements,
and in handling customer complaints and problems (Sousa
and Coelho 2011). Therefore, service managers should recog-
nize that customer orientation must be cultivated through
customer-oriented creativity such as creative solutions to cus-
tomer requests or problems, perhaps by getting senior man-
agers to reinforce the importance of creative and innovative
approaches to dealing with customers, and by creating pro-
grams with incentives linked to market metrics (Sousa and
Coelho 2011).
Limitations and Future Studies
In spite of the several contributions of the present study, it has
some limitations that might usefully be considered in future
Curr Psychol (2019) 38:517–532
research. First, the sample of hotel service employees was
drawn from a specific line of work in one country, South
Korea. The model of this study should therefore be tested
and generalized in a variety of occupations, industries, and
countries. This is an area in which further research is required.
Second, research such as ours is focused on personal work
motivations but the present study contains a distinct demo-
graphic imbalance, namely gender. Future research could
pay further attention to demographic variables and how indi-
vidual variables such as gender, age, work experience, and job
tenure interact with other variables to affect job creativity. In
addition, attention should also be given to the interplay of
organizational level characteristics, for instance service cli-
mate and organizational support, in predicting the effects of
motivation at work on service employees’ job creativity, cus-
tomer orientation, and job performance.
Third, the nature of the cross-sectional data we used in the
analysis means that caution is required in concluding that
there is a definite causal relationship between the variables.
Since the employees in this study were surveyed at a single
time point, we did not capture longitudinal variation, with the
result that a definite cause-and-effect relationship could not be
determined. A study employing a longitudinal design would
overcome this limitation in future research. To overcome the
limitation of cross-sectional research design, future research
might also consider an experimental design. Our research used
a surveyed-based research design which does not provide the
same degree of control that is available in experimental de-
signs. As is common with such studies, it is possible that the
associations we found were biased by the non-random assign-
ment of participants and the omission of relevant variables.
Future research would do well to use experimental studies
with random assignments to obtain valid causal conclusions.
Fourth, the measurement items of self-reported job perfor-
mance are vulnerable to participants’ social desirability.
According to Podsakoff and Organ (1986), social desirability
is a primary cause of shared method variance. Thus, future
research should attempt to control the effect of social desir-
ability by directly measuring it. More specifically, social de-
sirability can be used as a marker variable for partial correla-
tion analysis to decide the seriousness of common method
variance (Williams et al. 2010).
Fifth, when the original measurement scale was translated
into the Korean version, a translation and back-translation
method was utilized which required that four bilingual
scholars carefully review all of the measurement items.
These scholars had lived in the United States and Korea for
more than seven years, and accordingly possessed a good
understanding of both Western and Eastern cultures. During
the translation and back-translation process, the four scholars
re-conceptualized the Western concepts so that Eastern indi-
viduals might properly understand the intent. It was shown
that the scale achieved criterion validity, convergent validity,
Curr Psychol (2019) 38:517–532
discriminate validity, and internal consistency. However, the
scale still requires further validation and refinement in Eastern
contexts. As Hinkin et al. (1997) postulated, replication is
needed to further validate a measurement scale. Therefore, it
is suggested that future research should be conducted to re-test
and further validate the measurement scale using different
Eastern study populations.
Finally, caution should be exercised with respect to the
interpretation of the findings due to the common method
variance in the self-reported variables. Even though com-
mon method factor tests were employed, common method
bias remains a concern due to the fact that both predictor
and dependent variables came from the same source in this
study. Self-reported data from the same source has the po-
tential to distort results by overstating the causality between
independent and dependent variables. This may result in a
situation where an independent variable appears to indicate
a greater variance in the dependent variable than would be
the case if the two variables had been drawn from different
sources (Podsakoff et al. 2012). This might be avoided in
future research by perhaps utilizing supervisor ratings of
job performance.
Acknowledgements This work was supported by the National
Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean
Government (NRF- 2015S1A5A2A01012303)
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
Ethical Approval All procedures performed in studies involving hu-
man participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the
institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964
Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical
standards.
Informed Consent Informed consent was obtained from all individual
participants included in the study.
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