Can strategic HRM bundles decrease emotional exhaustion and increase service recovery performance?

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-10-2021-0576
• Published date: 04 October 2022
• Date: 04 October 2022
• Pages: 503-523
• Subject Matter: Economics,Labour economics
• Author: Sari Mansour

Can strategic HRM bundles

decrease emotional exhaustion

and increase service

recovery performance?

Sari Mansour

School of Business Administration, T

ELUQ University, Montreal, Canada

Abstract

Purpose –Through the lens of conservation of resource theory and the model of ability, motivation

and opportunity (AMO), this study tests the relationship between high performance work practices

(HPWP), emotional exhaustion and service recovery performance (SRP). It examines the direct effect of

AMO bundles on emotional exhaustion and the indirect effect of these bundles on SRP via emotional

exhaustion.

Design/methodology/approach–In a sample of 1,664 flight attendants from Canada, Germany and France,

this study uses a quantitative method. Using AMOS V.24, CFA was used to test quality of scales, model fit as

well as the direct effects. The method of Monte Carlo (parametric bootstrap) and more precisely bias corrected

percentile method were used to test the mediation mechanism, based on 5,000 bootstrapping and 95%

confidence intervals.

Findings –Results show that all AMO bundles can be considered as a resource caravan passageway

protecting employees against resources loss and allowing them to perform well and to recover service after a

failure. They reveal that each bundle has a direct, negative link with emotional exhaustion, a health-related

well-being and an indirect effect on SRP via emotional exhaustion.

Research limitations/implications –The finding further highlights the need to distinguish between

AMO dimensions in strategic HRM research and practice. The cross-sectional nature of this study

limits the establishment of causal links between variables. The author encourages future researchers to

adopt a research design enabling to collect data at two or three-time periods and involving multi-

source data.

Practical implications –Companies should be aware of the mechanisms through which HPWP

influence the occupational health and performance of flight attendants and consider that “different

bundlescan have different effects”as important when they would redesign their HRM practices. In turn, it

is rather opportunity enhancing HPWP (e.g. empowerment, work teams) that will be the most efficient in

improving SRP. In a customer service context, and for flight attendants who work for prolonged hours

with sometimes demanding passengers, it seems very important that airlines empower their flight

attendants to use their skills and abilities to respond to problems arising onboard, either from service

failures or any complaint a passenger may have. Employers should aim to create pools of practices

designed to enrich and protect the resources of their employees allowing them to reduce emotional

exhaustion.

Originality/value –This research study contributes therefore to the HRM-well-being-individual

and/or organizational performance debate in a very particular context, by using the AMO framework to

test the proposed relationship. In doing so, this study advances the theoretical and empirical evidence on

how HR systems and AMO framework can be applied in this setting. The findings allow distinguishing

which bundle of HRM is the most influential on emotionalexhaustion, which can advance the literature in

strategic human resource management. The paper adds to the literature by addressing the role of

emotional exhaustion rather than happiness-related measures of well-being. Thus, our results stress the

importance of health-related well-being, and emotional exhaustion, as an important pathway through

which AMO-bundles influence performance outcomes and confirm that there are different well-being

pathways to consider in the HRM-performance relationship. By using differentbundles of AMO, the study

advances the literature by showingthat each bundle could have a different effect as the findings show that

only opportunity enhancing HPWPs still directly impacted SRP after introducing the mediator (emotional

exhaustion).

Keywords High-performance work practices, Ability, Motivation, Opportunity, Burnout, Emotional

exhaustion, Well-being, Service recovery performance, Aviation, Flight attendant

Paper type Research paper

HRM bundles

and service

recovery

performance

503

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/0143-7720.htm

Received 6 October 2021

Revised 13 July 2022

Accepted 14 September 2022

International Journal of Manpower

Vol. 44 No. 3, 2023

pp. 503-523

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0143-7720

DOI 10.1108/IJM-10-2021-0576

Introduction

The competitive air transport market environment translated by an increased price

pressures from low-cost carriers as well as constantly changing passenger expectations,

push companies to invest in service quality and in service recovery as well as in

passengers’satisfaction to survive (Karatepe and Vatankhah, 2014;Van Vaerenbergh and

Orsingher, 2016). Given the importance of customer–employee interaction within the

industry of service in general, and particularly in airline sector (e.g. Costers et al.,2019),

frontline employees have a key role to play in ensuring good service quality and customer

satisfaction (Mansour and Mohanna, 2018). Indeed, they contribute to service recovery

performance (SRP) by effectively resolving customers’complaint in the best time (Haz

ee

et al., 2017). SRP is an important performance indicator for frontline employees involved in

customer service (Ashill et al., 2008). It consists in a range of “actions designed to resolve

problems, alter negative attitudes of dissatisfied customers and to ultimately retain this

customer”(Miller et al., 2000, p. 38) or frontline employees’behaviors such as apologizing,

showing courtesy, delivering more explanation and dealing with the complaint adequately

(Liao, 2007). Frontline employees must engage in service recovery to avoid service failures

and customer dissatisfaction (Costers et al., 2019). Service failures, which happen in any

service context, may be very expensive for airline companies as it may lead to losing

customers and disruptive behaviors in the cabin. However, many organizations do not

adequately support their employees to deal with customer complaints (Michel et al., 2009).

Flight attendants, as a frontline employee, can thus be the key to success in service

organizations. They are however often working in a stressful and demanding work

environment characterized by long night shifts, role overload, emotional dissonance,

aggressive passengers and air pressure. For instance, flight attendants must always

maintain safety onboard while ensuring the company’s commercial standards and dealing

with passenger requests and complaints. Indeed, they experience emotional strains as they

work in an emotional labor (Hochschild, 1983). Maslach and Jackson (1986) attested that

employee who had to interact frequently with customers as well as to express emotionally

for long periods of time were most likely experienced emotional exhaustion. Emotional

exhaustion refers to a weakening of physical, psychological and emotional resources of

individuals in dealing with work demands that exceed their adaptive capacity to work

(Halbesleben and Bowler, 2007). As flight attendants must manage excessive emotional

interaction with customers to face the organization’s expectations for emotional control,

they can face frequent emotional exhaustion (Rafaeli and Sutton, 1989).

It is therefore important for airlines to ensure that flight attendants maintain an optimal

level of safety and service performance by offering a good working condition through

high-performance work practices (HPWPs) (Karatepe and Vatankhah, 2015). Very little

research in service industry indicated however that stress and burnout may affect the

quality of service and employee performance (Mansour and Mohanna, 2018). Moreover,

research on service recovery predominantly focused on customer perspective, to

understand customers reaction to the organizational answers to their complaints

(Costers et al., 2019) ignoring employees’perception. We thus need more research to

better understand the practices and strategies adopted by organizations to manage

frontline employees’SRP (Costers et al., 2019). Van Vaerenbergh and Orsingher (2016)

summarized the antecedents of SRP into two categories: job demands (e.g. role ambiguity,

role conflict or role overload) and job resources (e.g. empowerment, training, rewards).

Studying only some human resource management (HRM) practices seems insufficient to

better understand SRP as other variables could play an important role. In addition, the

relationship between these practices and organizational outcomes seems to be complex

and often indirect (Boxall et al., 2016). Wright and McMahan defined strategic HRM

(SHRM) as “the pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to

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