How autonomy-supportive leaders influence employee service performance: a multilevel study

Although self-determination theory has important implications for service management literature and implies that leader autonomy support is critical to facilitating successful service delivery, surprisingly, little is known about how leader autonomy support influences employees to enhance service performance. By adopting the perspective that leaders act as key agents of organization, we argue that psychological contract fulfillment plays a pivotal role in transmitting the cross-level effect of leader autonomy support to work engagement, which in turn leads to enhanced service performance. Hierarchical linear regression analysis of time-lagged data collected at two points in time from 600 service employees of 39 gas stations in Taiwan support our predictions. The findings suggest that a leader’s autonomy support is an effective way to foster employees’ experience of psychological contract fulfillment to increase their involvement at work and customer service performance. This study stresses the importance of autonomy leadership development programs in organizations in service industries, where a mixed labor composition of full-time and part-time workers is prevalent.