Article Preview
TopIntroduction
The topic of service climate (SC) is currently interesting both academics and managers across business sectors (Almeida, 2024; Bowen & Schneider, 2014; Elche et al., 2020; Kia et al., 2019; Van Riel et al., 2024; Varela-Neira et al., 2023). This is due to SC’s effective influence on employee and customer satisfaction, and other related aspects (Davidson et al., 2002; Mokhtaran et al., 2015; Qi et al., 2023). According to Schneider et al. (1998), cited in Bowen and Schneider (2014), SC is “employees’ shared sense of the service quality—focused policies, practices and procedures they experience and the service quality emphasis they observe in behaviors that are rewarded, supported, and expected” (p. 5). Employees are one of the key elements in the operation of a successful business and are the main propellers of competitive advantages of the firm (Gautam & Gautam, 2024; Jibril & Yesiltas, 2022; Karatepe et al., 2009; Untachai, 2019; Van Riel et al., 2024). Firms have to create and maintain a climate for encouraging employees to effectively deliver excellent service.
To fill the research gap from previous studies, this study intends to study the relationships between SC and its dimensions of management support (MS), work environment support (WF), and customer orientation (CO). The relationship has also been examined between SC and employee commitment (EC) based on data from service businesses in the context of Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). Our contribution emphasizes the following aspects. Firstly, the study has revealed the extent of relationships between SC and its dimensions; this may enable us to understand the differing levels of relevance of each variable to SC. Secondly, the research is one of the first empirical attempts to compare the effect of SC on EC between employees in Thailand and Vietnam. This is a thoroughgoing response to previous studies’ calls to focus on cultural variables when studying the effects of SC (Bani-Melhem et al., 2022; Bowen & Schneider, 2014). These two countries are among the prominent countries in GMS, one of the important global regions, in boosting international trade and international business, world economy, and natural resource consumption and preservation (Asian Development Bank, 2008, 2022, 2024). Thirdly, structural equation modeling is used to discover the recursive relationships among CO, MS, WF, and EC. A number of researchers (Acampora et al., 2022; Del Carmen Gallego Sánchez et al., 2021; He et al., 2011) argued that this method lowers the limitations of regression and correlational analysis.
The paper is organized as follows: The following section is a review of the pertinent literature, with a focus on the relevance of SC in its three dimensions of CO, MS, and WF, as well as EC, for developing a series of research hypotheses. After outlining the research methodology in detail, the presentation of the study discusses the research implications of the findings, before outlining how firms may use the findings of this study to successfully manage the SC throughout their companies.