Text / Professor Gong Yaping
"Service climate" and "safety climate" are hot topics of discussion in management science in recent years. For example, in the healthcare industry, when the medical team highly emphasizes the provision of high-quality services for patients and at the same time emphasizes the importance of medical safety, medical staff will face the gap between "service atmosphere" and "safety atmosphere". competing demands.
A patient may request to take a special drug that is used abroad but has not been approved by the local government. Medical staff may need to abide by the current medical safety rules and refuse the patient's request, ensuring service safety but compromising service quality; or meeting the patient's request , which improves the attractiveness of the service, but brings potential security risks.
The so-called "service climate", scholar Benjamin Schneider refers to employees' common views on "practices, procedures and behaviors that are rewarded, supported and expected in terms of customer service and customer service quality", in short, employees will reward the organization A shared view of behavior and management practices that support and expect service-related behaviors; and a “safety climate” refers to a shared view among employees of following procedures and practices related to workplace safety.
For the two, scholars conduct individual research and analysis separately, but little is known about their interdisciplinary roles. The author conducted a study that analyzed the main cross-cutting effects of "service climate" (on safety performance), "safety climate" (on service performance), and the joint effects of predicting service and safety performance.
In other words, do “service climate” and “safety climate” have unexpected cross-cutting results—that is, service climate affects safety performance, safety climate affects service performance, and if so, how? Second, do the various atmospheres promote each other or inhibit each other in terms of service and safety performance?
To find out, we employ a team exploration/exploitation framework and examine our research setting by mediated by "team exploration" and "team exploitation" as cross-domain relationships. "Team exploration" refers to the activities of teams in developing new services, experimenting with different practices, finding improved ways of delivering services, and implementing new ideas in day-to-day operations; "team development" refers to the activities of teams in implementing existing services and practices, activities to improve reliability and efficiency.
Service and safety atmosphere can not be balanced
After careful analysis, under the emphasis on "service atmosphere", team members believe that high-quality services are recognized, supported and rewarded, so they strive to explore new services, or improve existing services, and even provide customized services to meet the needs of individual customers. An atmosphere of warm service will motivate employees to act cautiously in providing high-quality service, thereby improving service performance.
However, a 'service climate' may hamper safety performance, e.g. team members may look for new ways of working and reorienting professional practices to improve service quality, exploring new and engaging activities to gain client support and appreciation , but this may lead to mistakes or even accidents, so we make the following assumptions:
Hypothesis 1: "Service climate" is positively related to team service performance, but negatively related to team safety performance.
On the other hand, when it is emphasized that safety is the top priority, the work team tends to maintain consistent work behavior, follow the rules, and avoid deviations that may lead to errors and adverse events, so that accidental injuries can be avoided to a large extent . Some studies have demonstrated that "safety climate" can promote safety performance, but may have a negative impact on service performance, so we make the following assumptions:
Hypothesis 2: "Safety climate" is positively related to team safety performance, but negatively related to team service performance.
We conducted two field studies that tested domain-specific and cross-domain main relationships (“Study 1”) and attempted to replicate the main relationship (according to Hypotheses 1 and 2), drawing on The "exploration-exploitation" framework further introduces team exploration and team development as explanatory mechanisms for cross-domain relationships ("Study 2"). Relevant details are not intended to be detailed in this article (interested readers can refer to the author's paper "Crossing the Domain: Unintended Consequences of Safety and Service Climates"), but focus on the results of the entire study and its organizational significance.
The results of "Study 1" showed that "service climate" was positively correlated with service performance, but not significantly related with safety performance, while "safety climate" was positively correlated with safety performance, but negatively correlated with service performance; "Study 2 ' found support for all major relationships and also revealed that 'service climate', through 'team development', has an impact on safety and service performance. In addition, "service climate" has an indirect impact on service and safety performance through "team exploration".
Guarantee basic safety and try our best to meet customer needs
The findings have several practical implications. First, in industries such as healthcare, health service professionals are encouraged to provide advanced, patient-centered care but are constrained by strict safety procedures, leading to a dilemma. The "service climate" should provide the right environment for service improvements to meet customer needs without compromising essential safety features. To create a good "service climate", managers can lean towards training and socialization systems to communicate the importance of good customer service to employees and provide them with the tools necessary, for example in the context of the healthcare industry, organizations should provide careful A training system designed to increase awareness of the various needs of patients with different health conditions.
▲In industries such as health care, medical staff are encouraged to provide advanced, patient-centered care, but are restricted by strict safety procedures, leading to a dilemma. (profile picture)
Second, although an emphasis on "safety climate" can have the benefit of high safety performance, managers should be aware that this may adversely affect team service performance. Service desirability is often important in real-time service delivery, and when absent, employees may opt for routine practices that may not always be effective in meeting customers' unique, unexpected, or changing needs; even when highly valued Safety, employees also need to provide new and advanced services - especially in the service industry, customers have various unexpected or special situations, which must be handled in an unconventional way and should not be rigid.
Inclusive of multiple atmospheres to strengthen service diversity
Third, while our research reveals a competing logic between "service climate" and "safety climate," the best strategy for cultivating and managing organizational climate is one that is subtly inclusive rather than arbitrary. The "either-or" approach. The ambidexterity view shows that a variety of atmospheres are important to the efficiency of enterprises. In order to strengthen the response to the diverse needs of services, organizations should integrate and coordinate different atmospheres. Managers should promote service quality and safety at the same time, rather than overemphasizing one atmosphere so as to adversely affect another atmosphere and its intended outcome.
Overall, managers must proceed carefully, balancing quality of service and safety in light of the organization's strategic goals and competitive strategy, in order to realize the potential of both atmospheres. Companies that run activities such as skiing and scuba diving, for example, should maintain basic safety in their operations and products, but must also look to advanced products to attract customers. If service quality is a company's competitive strategy, in addition to fostering employees' collective perception of providing quality service, managers should emphasize to employees the importance of maintaining basic safety requirements. A typical example is the healthcare industry, where maintaining basic Safety is paramount, but at the same time, healthcare managers should keep in mind that a hospital is a service-oriented organization, and it is important to strive for quality and personalized service to meet patient needs.
In fact, "service atmosphere" and "safety atmosphere" are ubiquitous in the service environment, and service and safety performance are getting more and more attention. By showing the cross-domain relationship between "service climate" and "safety climate", the author's research can improve the understanding of these climates, so as to formulate an optimal combination of service and safety.
*Reprinted from the official account of "Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Business School HKUST"
Profile of Professor Gong Yaping
Professor Gong Yaping , chair professor and head of the Department of Management, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, has served as senior associate editor of "Asia Pacific Management Journal" and "Organization and Management Review", associate editor of "Management Perspective" in the United States, and editorial board member of "Journal of Applied Psychology". Professor Gong is currently on the editorial boards of Academy of Management Journal, International Business Journal and Management Journal. Member of American Academy of Management, Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Academy of International Business, American Psychological Association, and International Society for Chinese Management Research.
Professor Gong's research areas include employee creativity and innovation, team management, strategic human resource management, and international human resource management. And taught undergraduates, MBA, senior management, and doctoral courses, and won the "Dean's Outstanding Teaching Award". Published more than 100 papers in internationally renowned academic journals and conferences, won the Emerald Citation of Excellence Award, was shortlisted for the "Academic Impact Award" of the American "Management Journal", and won the "Excellence in International Human Resource Management" Papers" title, the papers included in the "Best Papers Collection" of the American Management Association annual meeting. According to the number of paper citations from 2009 to 2014, Professor Gong was listed in Wiley's "Top 100 Management Scholars in the World". In addition, he has also participated in several consulting projects, including for Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Labor Bureau, etc.
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