Our research seeks to theoretically and empirically advance the customer
service and voice literatures. In making these contributions, this
research has several strengths such as collecting data at three points in
time from four different sets of organizational members (i.e., employees,
managers, and CEOs/VPs of the hospitals) and testing the relationships
using multilevel modeling at the appropriate level of analysis to take into
account the nested nature of the data. These methodological strengths
help to improve the validity of our study and the conclusions that we draw
based on the results.
Given the turbulent and stumbling service-based global economy (particularly
in the United States), it is critical for organizations to improve
customer satisfaction. Our research suggests that it could be a strategic
advantage for organizations to encourage their employees to speak up
to management about issues that could help improve the customer experience.
The findings contribute to our understanding of the conditions
that encourage employees to engage in challenging forms of OCB, such as
voice, and howsuch challenging behaviors can enhance levels of customer
service quality.