In pursuit of service excellence: Investigating the role of psychological contracts and organizational identification of frontline hotel employees

Research in tourism management is yet to examine the role of psychological contracts in shaping organizational identification and influencing service-oriented behaviors of frontline employees. Drawing upon psychological contract and social identity theories, we propose a theoretical model that links the two types of psychological contracts (relational vs. transactional psychological contracts) with organizational identification and service employees' in-role performance and organizational citizenship behaviors. Data collected from 199 matched frontline employee-coworker-supervisor triads in hotels show that while transactional psychological contracts were directly and negatively associated with supervisor-reported in-role performance and co-worker reported service-oriented citizenship behaviors, the relationship between relational psychological contracts and both types of service-oriented behaviors were positive and partially mediated by organizational identification. Our findings have important implications for tourism operators by highlighting the important role of different types of psychological contracts in the delivery of high quality service.