Transformational leadership, customer citizenship behavior, employee intrinsic motivation, and employee creativity

The business environment has become increasingly more uncertain, complex and turbulent (Tidd, 2001; Wiggins and Ruefli, 2005; Nilsson, 2006; Mason et al., 2007; Hormiga et al., 2013), causing organizations to seek innovation to improve their responsiveness to environmental changes. According to West and Farr (1990), creativity is best conceptualized as a first step necessary for subsequent innovation. Creative employees are considered a crucial element in the process of innovation (Amabile, 1988). Klijn and Tomic (2010) define creativity as the production of new and useful ideas or solutions by one or more individuals within a work environment. Employee creativity (EC) plays a critical role in organizations’ long-term survival by enabling them to achieve competitive advantage and growth (Amabile, 1988; Oldham and Cummings, 1996; Shalley et al., 2004).

The tourism industry has been determined to become the spearhead of Vietnam’s economic sector (Foreign Press Center, 2018). According to the 2018 World Travel and Tourism Council’s report, the total contribution of travel and tourism to the GDP in Vietnam was $20.61bn, which is 9.4 percent of the total GDP in 2017 (WTTC, 2018). The total contribution of travel and tourism to employment was 4.1m jobs (including jobs indirectly supported by the industry), which is 7.6 percent of Vietnam’s total employment (WTTC, 2018). Vietnam is considered one of the favorite and most attractive tourist destinations among many international travelers. In 2017, Vietnam registered more than 12.9m international visitors, an increase to 29.1 percent from 2016, and shares 4.0 percent of international tourism receipts (UNWTO, 2018). Vietnam recorded the fastest growth in arrivals in South East Asia in 2017 (UNWTO, 2018) and has been ranked fourth in tourism among 10 of the world’s countries, recording the largest increase in international tourist arrivals in 2017 compared with 2016.

To continue enhancing the sector’s competitiveness and reach long-term and sustainable development, Vietnam tourism firms not only should focus on environmental sustainability and tourist service infrastructure (WEF, 2017) but also promote tourism products and service innovation (Foreign Press Center, 2018). Several studies have examined growth promotion (Kumar, 2014; Hampton et al., 2018), poverty alleviation (Truong et al., 2014), environmental management (Le et al., 2006; Luu, 2017), sustainable development (Di Giovine, 2009; Long and Nguyen, 2018; Nguyen et al., 2019), education (Buzinde et al., 2018) and customer satisfaction and loyalty (Cong, 2016; Le and Dong, 2017; Truong et al., 2017) in Vietnam’s hospitality and tourism industry. While creativity is necessary to create a unique impression of emotion for visitors that grabs their attention and creates high added value (Foreign Press Center, 2018), little research has focused on the context of Vietnam’s hospitality and tourism industry. Therefore, the need for research in a Vietnam hospitality and tourism context is accentuated in this transition economy, which is different from the western market.

Although previous evidence consistently supports the view that intrinsic motivation (IM) among service employees leads to higher levels of EC (e.g. Amabile, 1997; Amabile et al., 1990; Tierney et al., 1999), some studies have found a non-significant relationship (e.g. Perry-Smith, 2006). Perry-Smith (2006) found that IM was not significantly associated with individual creativity of research scientist. Therefore, George (2007, p. 445) suggests that “rather than assume that IM underlies creativity, researchers need to tackle this theorized linkage more directly and in more depth.” In light of the aforementioned information, there is still a need to empirically investigate the relationship between IM and EC to generalize the results.

In the literature, many scholars have pointed to transformational leadership (TFL) as one a particular factor that influences follower creativity (Bass, 1985; Mayer et al., 1995). However, meta-analyses report mixed results regarding the relationship between the two constructs. Some scholars have found a typically positive relationship between TFL and EC (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009; Jaiswal and Dhar, 2015; Jyoti and Dev, 2015; Mittal and Dhar, 2015; Khalili, 2016), whereas other scholars report no positive effect (Kim and Lee, 2011). Jaiswal and Dhar (2015) find a positive relationship between TFL and individual creativity in tourist hotel customer-contact employees in India. Kim and Lee (2011) demonstrate that the relationship between leadership and employees’ creative behavior should not be seen as straightforwardly causal. They demonstrate that TFL indirectly affects employees’ creative behavior through individual- and work-related mediating variables, such as work motivation and job satisfaction, in the semiconductor industry in Korea. This research is continuing to investigate the effects of TFL on EC.

The literature reveals the positive effect of TFL on IM (e.g. Charbonneau et al., 2001; Kim and Lee, 2011) in the semiconductor industry and in the sports sector in developed countries. However, the effects of TFL on IM in the hospitality and tourism setting have not yet been investigated in Vietnam, where there still exists a need to study this relationship.

Anderson et al. (2014) comment that little attention has been paid to how actors outside of the organization as customers influence EC and innovation. Their review reveals a dearth of studies that have examined the causes, processes or effects of cross-boundary innovation from the outside in; hence, they propose that future studies could examine these outside-in influences regarding how and why employees engage in creativity and innovation while paying particular attention to the role of customers in this process. Grissemann and Stokburger-Sauer (2012) call for further research on customer co-creation in a service and tourism service context. In the service context, the effects of customer activities that support the social and psychological context as customer citizenship behavior (CCB) on psychological behavioral responses of the service employee remain largely unknown (Yi et al., 2011; Limpanitgul et al., 2013) and Balaji (2014) and Shannahan et al. (2017) suggest further examination of CCB. The relationship between CCB and EC remains largely unexplored. In this vein, this paper focuses on the role of CCB in the value co-creation influence on EC in the hospitality sector. The results of this investigation are expected to be new and valuable.

When customers perform citizenship behaviors, it has a positive effect on employee morale and job satisfaction (Garma and Bove, 2009, 2011). Supportive behaviors help employees feel interested and excited (Coelho et al., 2011). Job satisfaction is considered a pleasurable or positive emotional state (Locke, 1976; Limpanitgul et al., 2013). Positive mood is likely to give the person pleasure (Isen et al., 1976; Garma and Bove, 2011) and, thus, is likely to enhance employees’ IM. Research on the relationship between CCB and IM is of significant importance but has not been examined to date. Hence, this study tries to explore the influence of CCB on IM. It is hoped that this study addresses this important gap in the marketing literature.

Overall, very few studies have investigated the interactions among leadership, customers and employees to promote EC in Vietnam’s hospitality and tourism sector. This study attempts to fill this gap. Specifically, the purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of TFL and CCB on IM and EC in the hospitality and tourism sector in Vietnam. The results of this research may help service providers understand how leaders and customers can contribute to EC in the co-creation process and, thereby, create tools, programs, and policies to promote these important behaviors.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In the first section, based on previous research, the authors formulate the research hypotheses development. In the second section related to the methodology, the authors present, among others, the data collections methods and measures. The third section reports the data analysis and main research results. Finally, the authors discuss the theoretical and pragmatic implications of the study’s findings for management scholars as well as managers, highlight the limitations of the research and suggest avenues for future research.

Previous research indicates that TFL is related to employee IM. For instance, Avolio et al. (2004) and Joo and Lim (2013) find that TFL is significantly associated with psychological empowerment. Thomas and Velthouse (1990) define empowerment (sense of impact, competence, meaningfulness and choice) as increased intrinsic task motivation. Other studies, such as Hetland et al. (2011) and Kovjanic et al. (2012), show that TFL and followers’ fulfillment of the three basic psychological needs at work are positively related. Goldman et al. (2017) point out that fulfillment of students’ psychological needs (i.e. autonomy, competence and relatedness) has a positive relationship on IM to learn. Moreover, Schneider and Kwan (2013) reported that IM for exercise among adolescents may be enhanced when the environment supports perceived competence, relatedness and autonomy. Jõesaar et al. (2011) demonstrated that youth athletes’ perceived needs for satisfaction of autonomy, competence and relatedness are directly related to their IM. In addition, Nielsen et al. (2008) indicated that TFL improves employee well-being. Specifically, studies by Kim and Lee (2011) showed that TFL is positively related to employees’ IM in the semiconductor industry. In the sports context, TFL is particularly suited to predicting IM in task performance (Charbonneau et al., 2001). These arguments lead to the following hypothesis:

CCB can enhance customers’ benefits (Lengnick‐Hall et al., 2000) and is a determinant that has a significant relationship to customer satisfaction (Groth, 2005; Garma and Bove, 2011; Fatima and Razzaque, 2013; Limpanitgul et al., 2013; Vega-Vazquez et al., 2013). When customers are more satisfied, they experience an increased positive effect that is expressively communicated to employees through the process of emotional contagion in satisfactory encounters (Pugh, 2001; Homburg and Stock, 2004; Rego et al., 2014); thus, the employee experiences “positive affectivity” (Homburg et al., 2009; Barnes et al., 2015; Hur et al., 2015). Positive affectivity is the “extent to which a person feels enthusiastic, active, and alert” (Watson et al., 1988, p. 1063). Isen and Reeve (2005) demonstrated that positive affectivity fosters IM. Consequently, the following hypothesis attempts to synthesize the previous arguments:

The relationship between IM and EC has received much conceptual attention in the marketing literature (e.g. Amabile, 1988, 1997; Hennessey and Amabile, 2010; Shalley et al., 2004). IM has a corresponding effect on creativity, cognitive flexibility and conceptual learning (Deci and Ryan, 2000).

This conceptual evidence is also supported by empirical research. For example, Coelho et al. (2011) find that IM exerts a significant positive effect on creativity of FSEs and Kim and Lee (2011) also demonstrated that IM encourages employees’ creative behavior. Consistent with the literature, the following hypothesis is formulated:

There is evidence to support the relationship between TFL and EC. Conceptual evidence indicates that TFL promotes EC (Bass, 1985; Zhou and Shalley, 2003). Previous empirical studies have emphasized the relationship between TFL and creativity behaviors through such mediating mechanisms as follows: psychology empowerment (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009); psychological safety and reflexivity (Carmeli et al., 2014); employee creative self-efficacy (Mittal and Dhar, 2015); promotion focus (Henker et al., 2015); employees’ perceptions of a supportive climate for innovation (Khalili, 2016); innovation climate (Jaiswal and Dhar, 2015); and job satisfaction and employee intrinsic work motivation (Kim and Lee, 2011). Empirical evidence also reveals that TFL has a significant positive effect on the creativity of employees (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009; Jyoti and Dev, 2015; Mittal and Dhar, 2015; Khalili, 2016). Hence, the following hypothesis is proposed:

Contextual factors refer to work environment dimensions that potentially influence an employee’s creativity (Shalley et al., 2004; Coelho et al., 2011). Feedback has a direct relation with creativity (Anderson et al., 2014). Co-operation, helpfulness and kindliness behaviors promote a positive social environment (Yi and Gong, 2006). CCB enhances the roles and provides clarity and emotional support for employees. CCB also lower employees’ work stress. “A supportive work environment helps employees feel interested in and excited about the content of their work and this excitement translates into increased creativity” (Coelho et al., 2011, p. 32). The present study expects that CCB will have a positive effect on EC through a supportive work environment. Thus, the following hypothesis investigates the previous arguments:

Figure 1 summarizes the proposed model and hypotheses to be tested.

This study was conducted in companies (hotels and tour operators) from the hospitality sector in Vietnam. The study sample comprised FSEs from the front office, customer-contact employees (housekeeping, food and beverage, restaurant, gym, and sales) and tour guides.

The respondents were selected based on convenience sampling technique due to the busy schedules of FSEs as well as costs in time and money. A cross-sectional survey design and a questionnaire method were used for data collection. All measures used in the survey were initially prepared in English and afterwards carefully translated into Vietnamese. The measures were back translated and pretested to ensure lingual equivalence. From the 350 questionnaires that were distributed, 288 were returned (responses rate of 82 percent). Due to outliers and missing data, the total number of usable questionnaires was 279, resulting in a response rate of 80 percent.

Of the 279 respondents, 35 percent were male and 65 percent female. Nearly 80 percent were aged less than 30 years and more than 90 percent had been working with companies for less than 7 years. Finally, regarding education level, approximately 42 percent had bachelor degrees, about 36 percent had college-level degrees, 14 percent had vocational level training and 8 percent had high school diplomas.

All items were measured using five-point Likert scales.

TFL was assessed using nine items adopted from the measures of Carless et al. (2000). This scale has been used extensively in previous research to measure TFL (e.g. Overstreet et al., 2013). Respondents were asked to rate their opinion on several items of the TFL measurement scale (1=completely disagree and 5=fully agree).

CCB was measured using an existing scale developed by Yi and Gong (2013) according to four dimensions: feedback, helping, tolerance and advocacy (13 items) with two additional items based on Garma and Bove (2009) and one item based on Garma and Bove (2011). Items were modified to suit service employees’ views. Respondents were asked to indicate their agreement or disagreement with each item of the CCB measurement scale (1=completely disagree and 5=fully agree).

Regarding IM, this study used Guay et al. (2000) and added two items from Coelho et al. (2011) that were originally developed by Sujan (1986). Respondents were asked the following question: “Why are you currently engaged in this job?” The possible responses ranged from 1 (“completely disagree”) to 5 (“fully agree”).

EC was measured using the three items from Coelho et al. (2011) that were originally developed by Ganesan and Weitz (1996), with one additional item based on Ganesan and Weitz (1996) and one item based on Amabile (1997). The five items were measured on a scale ranging from 1 (“completely disagree”) to 5 (“fully agree”).

Cronbach’s α coefficients were employed as a preliminary reliability evaluation of the scales. The item-total correlation of all items of the scales was above 0.3. The coefficients of the three-unidimensional constructs, i.e., TFL, IM and EC, were 0.93, 0.89 and 0.85, respectively. The coefficients of the four dimensions of CCB were as follows: feedback α=0.83; advocacy α=0.86; helping α=0.79; and tolerance α=0.86. Accordingly, these scales satisfied the requirements for internal consistency and homogeneity.

Following preliminary reliability evaluation, the measures were subjected to exploratory factor analysis in SPSS 20. The sample size of this study reached the ratio of 7.75 cases for each of the items. The best fit of data was obtained with principal axis factoring analysis utilizing Promax rotation. The result showed that all measures loaded on the expected factors with loadings above 0.4 and with a total variance explained of 58.9 percent. Furthermore, the overall Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) value was 0.929 and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant at the 0.000 level. Consequently, the overall validity of the construct is supported.

The measurement model comprising all constructs was analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in AMOS 20 software to verify the convergent validity, reliability, unidimensionality and discriminant validity of the constructs in the psychometric structure.

The measurement model provides a reasonable fit to the data (χ² (df=584, N=279)=965.95, p=0.000, χ²/df ratio=1.65, GFI=0.85; CFI=0.93; TLI=0.93; RMSEA=0.049), with all fit indicators within the acceptable range (Hair et al., 2006).

The reliability of the scales was evaluated through two normal indicators: the Bagozzi and Yi (1988) composite reliability index and Fornell and Larcker (1981) AVE index. Composite reliability values of all constructs range from 0.83 to 0.93, above the minimum acceptable value 0.6 (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988). Meanwhile, all the AVE values from 0.54 to 0.59 are in excess of the 0.5 recommended threshold (Nunnally, 1978; Bagozzi and Yi, 1988; Hair et al., 1998). All these results imply that the conditions for reliability are fulfilled for the constructs.

All estimated loadings of the indicators are greater than 0.5 (ranging from 0.695 to 0.829) and significant (t >1.96; p<0.05), indicating an acceptable convergent validity for all measures (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988).

Table I presents the correlation factors and the square root of the AVE. All correlation coefficients between the variables in the model are below 0.9 and significant (p<0.01). Further, the square root of the AVE for each construct was greater than its correlation with other constructs, demonstrating the discriminant validity of the model (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).

AMOS 20.0 software was used to test the research hypotheses of the model through structural equation modeling. The hypothesized model provides an acceptable fit to the data (χ²=1,053.55, df=585, χ²/df ratio=1.80, p=0.000, GFI=0.84, CFI=0.92, TLI=0.91, RMSEA=0.054).

Figure 2 shows the standardized coefficients of the path model. H1 states that the relationship between TFL and IM. As expected, the effect of TFL on IM was positive and significant (β=0.60; p<0.001). Hence, H1 is supported. H2 expects that CCB will be positively related to IM. The results show that CCB has a direct, positive, and significant effect on IM (β=0.43; p<0.001); thus, H2 is supported. H3 predicts a positive relationship between IM and EC. The results show a positive and significant relationship between IM and EC (β=0.32; p<0.01), supporting H3. H4 asserts that TFL has a positive association with EC. Similarly, there is a significant and positive association between TFL and EC (β=0.34; p<0.001). Therefore, H4 is supported. H5 assumes that CCB has a direct positive relationship with EC. The results of the study indicate a highly significant relationship (β=0.29; p<0.001). Therefore, H5 is supported.

Furthermore, indirect impacts were examined. The mediation effects were also conducted based on the Sobel test (see Baron and Kenny (1986) and Bollen (1989) for calculation). The indirect impact of TFL on EC through IM was assessed. TFL predicted IM (β=0.60, SE=0.055, p<0.001) and IM predicted EC (β=0.32, SE=0.095, p<0.01). There was an indirect effect of TFL on EC through the mediation of IM (β=0.60×0.32=0.192, z=3.218, SE=0.059, p<0.01).

Finally, the indirect impact of CCB on EC through IM also was assessed. CCB predicted IM (β=0.43, SE=0.067, p<0.001) and IM predicted EC (β=0.32, SE=0.095, p<0.01). There was an indirect effect of CCB on EC through the mediation of IM (β=0.43×0.32=0.14, z=2.982, SE=0.046, p<0.01).

The creativity and innovation of FSEs are important for firms. Examples of these creative activities in the tourism sector include welcoming guests, applying new methods to room cleaning, creating new dishes to serve, finding new destinations and journeys, organizing new games, handling work in a more flexible way and applying modern digital technology. This creativity delivers an intriguing, joyful, exciting, attractive, hypnotizing and novel tourism experience for visitors. Thus, this study investigates the relationship between TFL and CCB on frontline employees’ IM and EC in the hospitality industry.

The findings of this study are useful additions to the existing knowledge base and hold interesting consequences for managerial implications.

Creativity has become a priority for companies and firms around the world are sharpening their focus on employees’ creative activities. However, previous empirical research examining the relationship between IM and EC has produced inconsistent evidence. This finding suggests that high levels of IM lead to an increase in the creativity of frontline hospitality employees. This is consistent with the findings of Tierney et al. (1999) and inconsistent with that of Perry-Smith (2006) and Dewett (2007), and may explain why FSEs, especially the hospitality and tourism industry, require more IM than other industries (e.g. engineering, research) that require high levels of job independence. FSEs in the hospitality and tourism sector experience elevated levels of psychological demands to promote creativity.

In addition, the results of the path analysis indicate that TFL has a significant positive effect on frontline employees’ IM. This is concordant with prior conceptual and empirical evidence (e.g. Charbonneau et al., 2001) and indicates the core role of TFL in the promotion of IM in FSEs.

As discussed earlier, empirical studies have produced mixed results regarding the relationship between TFL and EC (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009). The present analysis result reveals that TFL has a positive direct effect on EC and that TFL is among the significant determinants of EC. This is in line with the study of Jaiswal and Dhar (2015) in the hospitality and tourism sector but contradicts the study of Kim and Lee (2011) in the semiconductor industry. According to this study result, TFL is considered a key factor with regard to fostering the implementation of innovative ideas and behavior of FSEs in hospitality and tourism firms. Thus, the findings of this study also provide insights into understanding the effect of TFL on EC.

Especially, we also found that CCB leads to IM and EC. The importance of CCB has been emphasized in the literature but its specific role in IM and EC has not received enough attention. This result is a new and useful addition to the existing literature base. Various characteristics of CCB, namely, feedback, advocacy, helping, tolerance help increasing IM of employees and the promotion of employees’ creativity.

In addition, this paper has integrated and tested the conjoint impact of TFL, CCB, IM and EC, demonstrating the leading role of TFL and CCB in enhancing EC. The result showed that IM mediates the influence of TFL and CCB on EC. The result suggests that TFL and CCB are important resources (internal and external) that influence IM and enhance creativity among FSEs (boundary-spanning positions) in the hospitality and tourism sector. This is an interesting and new finding of the paper.

From a practical viewpoint, this study also has the following interesting implications for managers. First, the results suggest that TFL has a positive direct impact on IM and EC. TFL also has an indirect effect on EC through IM. Therefore, managers need to embody TFL qualities and styles. For example, a leader who engenders emotion and identification (Elkins and Keller, 2003), articulates a compelling vision for the future, encourages a two-way exchange in communication, builds a secure climate, provides coaching, support and development, and empowers followers and listens to their ideas is likely to enhance IM and contribute to improving EC.

Second, this research also demonstrates that CCB affects IM and EC positively. CCB plays a particularly important role in that it fosters EC. In apparent recognition of these findings, organizations need to take specific actions, such as creating a customer feedback mechanism through their website that allows customers to provide useful ideas about improving the service and about their desires. Service providers can create unique and unforgettable programs with high-quality services and individualized customer to create unique, authentic and memorable travel experiences for customers (Prebensen et al., 2013; Johnson and Neuhofer, 2017) such that they return and recommend the business to others. Organizations must provide customers with empowerment (Yi et al., 2011) in order to foster their helping behavior. Managers should provide a physically comfortable and emotionally engaging environment to arouse customer tolerance and promote overall CCB. Organizations must invest in interactive technology, such as tools that diffuse engagement behaviors, connective tools, feedback tools, creative tools (see Harmeling et al., 2017 for more detail), to identify, acquire and leverage customer-owned resources (e.g. customers’ knowledge, persuasion capital/skills, creativity and network-assets/connectedness) and customer motivation (trustworthiness, commitment, passion about the brand) in order to facilitate improvement for customers to contribute CCB to the firm (Harmeling et al., 2017; Merz et al., 2018). The organization also must use the internet and mobile social media to extend the connection between customer and employee and other customers to spread the CCB wider. The organization must establish and introduce reward and incentive programs for customers who are more involved in the CCB. The manager must develop friendly and resourceful work environments to foster creativity. Organizations need to learn about the wants and needs of CCB to uncover the value customers seek (Jaakkola and Alexander, 2014) and that promote creativity.

Third, organizations need also to take action on employee-related efforts to facilitate the opening of CCB from customers and must train staff to adapt to CCB. Managers should incentivize employees to display a cheerful, polite, friendly, empathetic, attentive and thoughtful demeanor with customers to drive customer involvement in CCB. Managers should encourage and acknowledge employees that spend time listening to customers and support employees to acquire, share and use knowledge effectively from their customers.

Fourth, the results of this study confirm that IM positively effects EC and demonstrates that employees’ IM is an important issue that managers must address (Bande et al., 2016). Thus, managers should provide employees autonomy, competence and relatedness to stimulate creativity (Grant and Berry, 2011). In addition, it should be noted that managers should provide symbolic public recognition, individual praise, appreciation, reward and incentives for employees’ creative efforts as well as IM to foster EC (Fischer et al., 2019).

Finally, managers should create high standards of excellence for organizational culture, build trust in FSEs, encourage CCB and emphasize TFL to promote improved IM and, thus, enhance EC.

There are several limitations that warrant further research. First, this research examines the relationships from the employees’ perspective. Service delivery is a process that involves multiple stakeholders in a service ecosystem. Thus, future research should apply a methodology to collect a matched triadic sample (from managers, employee and customer) to prevent the potential for common method bias. Second, the study collected cross-sectional data at a singular point in time, making it difficult to provide strong causal explanations regarding the relationships tested. Therefore, in the future, studies might use longitudinal studies in order to gain a deeper understanding of these relationships and explore how relationships evolve over time. Third, this study built on purely declarative answers. Future research may wish to use focus group discussions and in-depth interviews as a supplement approach in order to provide richer insights into EC that are associated with TFL and CCB. Fourth, the data were collected in the hospitality industry of an emerging economy. To increase the generalizability of the findings, future research could be conducted in restaurants, wedding party restaurants, airlines and retail service, and in the context of Western culture. Finally, this research focused on TFL and CCB as an antecedent of creativity. Future research might investigate other factors such as other leadership behaviors and co­creation behavior on social media networks.