PSBs
Bettencourt and Brown (1997) posit PSB as a three dimensional construct comprising: role-prescribed customer service, extra-role customer service and helping behaviours. Role- prescribed customer service is defined as the performance of expected service behaviours by employees in serving customers (Bettencourt & Brown, 1997). Role-prescribed behaviours consist of regular duties and responsibilities that are required and tend to be outlined in job descriptions (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Bommer, 1996). In contrast, extra-role customer service refers to the discretionary service behaviours that employees perform (Bettencourt & Brown, 1997). Discretionary behaviours go beyond formal role requirements and are valued by firms as these have been found to be positively associated with organizational effectiveness and performance (Netemeyer, Boles, McKee, & McMurrian, 1997; Organ, 1988, 1997; Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1997).
The helping behaviour dimension consists of co-operative and helping behaviours directed at colleagues. Although these helping behaviours are directed towards the organization, they have a strong flavour of service orientation (Bowen & Waldman, 1999) as they involve assisting co-workers to avoid or solve work-based problems (MacKenzie, Podsakoff, & Ahearne, 1998). PSBs are important to study because of their potential to influence organizational performance (Babacus, Yavas, & Ashill, 2009). Moreover, in view of the capacity of PSBs to enhance service employee delivery outcome, it makes sense to understand more fully the factors that encourage or precipitate PSBs. A review of the literature suggests a number of antecedents of PSBs. The next section reviews some of the literature on employee job attitudes, which are linked to employee behaviours at the individual level.