Antecedents and effects of emotional satisfaction on employee‐perceived service quality

The aim of this paper has been to study the relationships among: four role stressors (“role ambiguity”, “role overload”, “role conflict”, and “work‐family conflict”); emotional satisfaction among employees; and employee‐perceived service quality.

A conceptual model of the aforementioned relationships has been presented. Hypotheses regarding these relationships were proposed, and data were then collected by a cross‐sectional field study of employees in six post offices in Norway. These data have been analysed to test the hypotheses.

The study has found that “emotional satisfaction” is positively related to “employee‐perceived service quality”. Three role stressors (“role overload”, “role conflict”, and “work‐family conflict”) were negatively related to emotional satisfaction.

The findings indicate that role stressors have a direct effect on the emotional satisfaction of employees and an indirect effect on employee‐perceived service quality.

The study has demonstrated the importance of role stressors in determining emotional satisfaction among employees, and thus indirectly influencing service quality. In particular, managers should be aware of the effect of work‐family conflict on the emotional satisfaction of employees (and hence on the service quality they provide to customers).

The paper has developed and tested an original conceptual model of a relatively unexplored area of services management.