The positive influence of hospitality employees’ job-related social
experiences/social interactions has been further highlighted (at least for some
groups of workers) by Lee-Ross (1995, 1998a, 1998b). Lee-Ross’s study used
Hackman and Oldham’s Job Characteristics Model (JCM) and the related Job
Diagnostic Survey (JDS – the survey instrument used to measure the constructs
articulated in the Job Characteristics Model) to examine the relationships between
job characteristics and the attitudes and behaviours of seasonal hotel workers in
UK hotels.
Hackmand and Oldham’s JCM posits that a number of Core Job Dimensions (skill
variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback) influence three
Critical Psychology States (experienced meaningfulness, experienced
responsibility and knowledge of results) which in turn influence a range of
employee attitudes and behaviours (work motivation, job performance, job
satisfaction, absenteeism and turnover) (Hackman and Oldham 1975).
Blancero and Johnson (1997) introduced the Discretionary Service Behaviour
(DSB) concept and further developed it in Blancero and Johnson (2001). The
DSB construct (latent variable / factor) is intended to conceptualise customer-
directed behaviours of customer contact service employees, on particular with
respect to the extent to which employees satisfy, or go beyond, the minimum
standards of service quality (to satisfy customers) that are established by
organisations (Blancero and Johnson 1997: 3). The original concept was related
to organisational justice with employee perceptions of both organisational support
and fairness positively influencing DSB. A related concept is organisational
citizenship behaviour (OCB) which is described by Organ (1988: 4) as
“...individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by
the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective
functioning of the organization”. Blancero and Johnson (2001: 310, 312) note
that DSB has some similarities with OCB but can be differentiated based on DSB’s
external (customer) focus in contrast to OCB’s general intra-organisational focus.
Simons and Roberson (2003) went on to operationalise the DSB construct for
their study of employees’ justice perceptions and the influence of these on
organisational commitment, turnover intentions and discretionary service
behaviour. The original concept and Simons and Roberson’s empirical application
of the DSB construct are of particular relevance to this study for two reasons:
firstly, the construct has been specifically developed for application in service
settings (including hospitality) and, secondly, the DSB construct (as