Internal service quality as a driver of employee satisfaction, commitment and performance: Exploring the focal role of employee well-being

The purpose of this paper is to use “positive organizational behavior” and “transformative service research” paradigms to introduce “employee well-being” as a focal construct in the process by which internal service quality (ISQ) drives employee satisfaction, commitment and performance.

A field-survey using a structured questionnaire is employed to test all the hypotheses with 250 employees and their 25 supervisors in a manufacturing unit in Guangdong province of the People’s Republic of China.

All the eight hypotheses are supported. ISQ has a positive effect on employee satisfaction, commitment and employee well-being, which in turn positively influence employee performance. Employee well-being also positively moderates (strengthens) the effects of employee satisfaction and commitment on employee performance.

This paper uses data from a single factory in China and focuses on a few key constructs, which may restrict the generalizability of its findings. Moreover, no significant differences were found among the supervisor-workers units.

Managers in non-service industries should focus on improving ISQ and employee well-being in their organizations because both these constructs have significant direct and indirect effects on employee performance.

This paper extends past research on ISQ by showing that it affects employee performance via satisfaction and commitment, and that employee well-being moderates the effects of employee satisfaction and commitment on performance.