1. Introduction
The service industry requires more human resources for various services. Although the service process could be standardized, the need for human resources cannot be reduced. In particular, frontline employees play the role of service delivery [
1] and maintain the customer relationship and image building for the organization [
2]. Frontline employees, therefore, are the key to establishing contact between businesses and customers, as well as the primary connection. An enterprise has to understand how to create a good organizational climate, assist supervisors in using leadership to affect employees, and encourage employees to set goals [
3,
4] in order to not result in a loss of organizational operation caused by employee turnover [
5]. What management model could enhance employees’ service quality? Previous research has pointed out supervisors’ leadership as the key factor in changing employees’ job performance and behavior in the service industry [
4,
6,
7,
8]. Such leadership could promote employees’ service quality, as well as enhance the overall service quality of the organization and strengthen team morale. As a result, it has been an important issue for leaders to develop the functioning of the organization so as to enhance employees’ job performance and reduce turnover intention. Along with the emergence of the economy in China, a large number of people in the world have become interested in the great Chinese market; therefore, Chinese management has recently been highlighted in management science [
9]. The Chinese society, with the effect of traditional culture, is evolving toward a unique appearance, unlike the management theory in the Western world. Under the effects of the traditional Confucianism and monarchy on Chinese culture, people have derived awe of “power” [
10,
11,
12]. In Chinese culture, a leader’s power cannot be challenged, and is impressive in that people have to obey their requirements. The idea of “uppers honorable and lowers humble” is therefore deeply implanted in Chinese peoples’ minds, who believe that subordinates should do their duty and make an effort to complete tasks assigned by their supervisors. Paternalistic leadership is the representation of leadership theory in Chinese management. On the basis of paternalistic leadership, the relationship between supervisors’ leadership and employees’ sustained work behavior in the service industry in Taiwan is discussed in this study.
Epitropaki, Kark, Mainemelis, and Lord [
13] discovered that employees were aware of the consistency between leaders’ behavior and organizational goals. In other words, whether the motivation behind leaders’ behavior was self-interested or focused on organizational goals, so then would there be an increase or reduction in their organizational commitment and an influence on their work behavior. Although organizational commitment would affect employees’ opinions about organizations, thus further influencing their attitudes and behavior, employees could hardly present an identity when the organizational value is not attractive or shows a low similarity to employees’ values. Previous research has indicated that employees with more positive attitudes towards the organization would present a higher job satisfaction [
14], as well as restrain individual negative attitudes [
15]. Previous research on the service industry has revealed that employees possess the idea of turnover when work focus on their involvement is reduced or they perform badly at their job [
5]. A key function of a leader is to effectively deliver organizational value to subordinates, and to further internalize it as a value. The motivation of this study is thus to discuss the relations between supervisors’ leadership and employees’ sustained work behavior in the service industry.
The organizational climate refers to the group climate in an organization. Such a climate consists of members’ mutual interaction, managers’ leadership, and organizational culture. With a harmonious and good climate, organizational members would be brought about by positive work motivation. Playfulness refers to the focus on an activity, feeling relaxed and no pressure in the process, enjoying the activity, and being satisfied so as to acquire a sense of achievement [
16,
17]. When a task could stimulate the fun of members to learn and recognize their value, playfulness can more easily occur [
18]. Furthermore, playfulness can lead an originally dominant person, in the working process, to integrate into the activity with other members [
19] by reducing the distance. Employees in the service industry experience longer working hours than those in other industries and have to communicate and interact with hundreds of people, in addition to their colleagues, every day. Employees can easily affect service quality and job performance as a result of a negative work environment climate [
3,
20]. Compared with other industries, in the service industry, employees’ showing a happy mood in that they are enjoying their work increases their willingness to provide better service quality to customers [
21]. Supervisors, therefore, should encourage employees to appropriately present themselves at work and maintain a pleasant work environment, as employees with positive feelings can provide better service for their customers [
19,
20]. Moreover, they can encourage employees to lead more creative service processes and integrate them into the organization. Accordingly, the playful organizational climate in the service industry plays a critical role in employees’ job performance. A supervisor who is able to create a pleasant and challenging work climate is an advantage for a company in the service industry. The effects of playfulness on the relationship between supervisors’ leadership and employees’ sustained work behavior in the service industry, therefore, became another research motivation behind this study.
On the basis of the above arguments, this study mainly combined the paternalistic leadership and affective events theory, and focused on the frontline employees of Taiwan’s service industry as the research object. Then, we tried to construct and show evidence for the influence of the different forms of paternalistic leadership, and how to affect employees’ work behavior. However, to our best knowledge, no prior studies have explored the relationships between perceived playfulness of the paternalistic leadership and employees’ work behaviors, the underlying motivational mechanisms, as well as how contextual factors influence such relationships. By identifying perceived playfulness and paternalistic leadership that may stimulate employees’ underlying motives for work behaviors, our work adds another theoretical route for inducing employee work behaviors, and also contributes to an improved understanding of paternalistic leadership in Chinese management.
4. Result
Table 1 shows the mean, standard deviation, and correlation coefficient of the variables, among which there are significant correlations.
In this study, M-plus 8 was utilized for the structural equation model analyses so as to test the direct and indirect effects of the paternalistic leadership and playfulness on employees’ turnover intention. The hypothesized model using confirmatory factor analysis exhibited a good fit to the data, as shown in
Table 2. The five-factor model (chi-square = 2499.57, df = 475; CFI = 0.92, NFI = 0.92, IFI = 0.91, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.05) significantly outperformed the single-factor and 12-factor models. The five-factor model includes authoritarian leadership, benevolent leadership, moral leadership, playfulness, and turnover intention.
Figure 1 shows the significant positive effects of authoritarian leadership on turnover intention (γ = 0.292,
p < 0.01); therefore, H1a was supported. Benevolent leadership presented significant negative effects on turnover intention (γ = −0.254,
p < 0.01); therefore, H1b was supported. Moral leadership revealed significant negative effects on turnover intention (γ = −0.271,
p < 0.01); therefore, H1c was supported. In the moderating effect analysis of playfulness, it was discovered that playfulness moderated the relations between authoritarian leadership (γ = 0.221,
p < 0.01), benevolent leadership (γ = −0.281,
p < 0.01), and moral leadership (γ = −0.305,
p < 0.001), and turnover intention.
The simple slope analysis of the moderating effects. When there was high playfulness, it was revealed that the positive effect of authoritarian leadership on turnover intention was significantly reduced (β = 0.21,
p < 0.05), the positive effect of benevolent leadership on turnover intention was significantly enhanced (β = 0.25,
p < 0.01), and the positive effect of moral leadership on turnover intention was significantly enhanced (β = 0.28,
p < 0.01) when playfulness was high. When playfulness was low, the positive effect of authoritarian leadership on turnover intention was significantly reduced (β = 0.18,
p < 0.05), the positive effect of benevolent leadership on turnover intention was significantly enhanced (β = 0.21,
p < 0.05), and the positive effect of moral leadership on turnover intention was significantly enhanced (β = 0.22,
p < 0.05). Accordingly, H2a, H2b, and H2c were supported. As shown as
Figure 2,
Figure 3 and
Figure 4, when employees were in situations of high playfulness, their turnover intentions were lower than low playfulness. As shown in
Figure 2, when the level of perceived playfulness was high, the positive relationship between authoritarian leadership and turnover intention was significant; when the level of perceived playfulness was low, the positive relationship between authoritarian leadership and turnover intention was also significant. This suggests that employees’ turnover intention had a stronger effect on their supervisor’s authoritarian leadership when they perceived a higher degree of playfulness; when the perceived level of playfulness was high, the effect of turnover intention on authoritarian leadership behaviors became weaker. Similarly, as
Figure 3 shows, when the level of perceived playfulness was high, the negative relationship between benevolent leadership and turnover intention was strengthened; when the level of perceived playfulness was low, the negative effect of turnover intention on benevolent leadership was lessened. As displayed in
Figure 4, when the level of perceived playfulness was high, the employees’ turnover intention had a strong negative effect on moral leadership; when the level of perceived playfulness was low, the negative relationship between moral leadership and turnover intention was also lessened.
5. Discussion
The research findings and conclusions are organized in this section according to the previous research results, expecting to offer managers a reference for future practice, with research limitations and future suggestions being further proposed.
In the results that we found, there was a positive relationship between authoritarian leadership and employees’ turnover intention. It was found that when a supervisor is autocratic, strictly controlling subordinates and depreciating subordinates’ abilities, one can end up with employees worrying about being blamed for making mistakes or not achieving the expected goals of their work content or performance, and they further develop evasive ideas [
6,
8,
29]. Such evasive ideas could easily lead to the development of negative emotions and could generate negative behaviors, such as laziness or turnover intention. Therefore, organizations should avoid excessive authoritarian leadership to reduce the negative behavior of employees who are not conducive to organizational development. We also found that it revealed negative relations between supervisors’ benevolent leadership and employees’ turnover intention. This is the same finding as in previous studies [
7,
28,
30]. When a supervisor in the service industry is concerned about subordinates’ lives and helps them to solve the difficulties in their lives, employees perceive the attentiveness to enhance the relationship. Moreover, a supervisor who is able to build a good work atmosphere can increase employees’ work efficiency and reduce their turnover intention. Finally, moral leadership and employees’ turnover intention presents a negative relationship [
27,
30]. When a supervisor is responsible and shows a high morality, employees will trust them to gradually form a new corporate culture in the organization, and this will benefit the retaining of excellent employees. In summary, managers play an important and relatively stable role in the organizational life of employees, and their influence on employees is sustainable and profound. This is because leadership style can predict the performance of the organization, and managerial beliefs and behaviors can significantly affect employees’ attitudes and behaviors [
37,
38]. Furthermore, the research results revealed the moderating effect of playfulness on the relationship between paternalistic leadership and turnover intention. It is an important finding that playfulness can reduce the positive relationship between authoritarian leadership and turnover intention. Those with authoritarian leadership present an autocratic style and harm communication, and this can also depreciate subordinates, causing unsatisfactory interactions and information asymmetry. All of these will deepen subordinates’ negative perception. However, when there is a higher playfulness perception in an organization, employees can work in harmony in the work atmosphere. Also, because the work is joyful, this will restrain employees’ negative behavior. Playfulness can strengthen negative relations between benevolent leadership, moral leadership, and employees’ turnover intention (shown in
Figure 3 and
Figure 4). Thus, with higher playfulness perception in an organization, and a good relationship between direct supervisors and subordinates, supervisors empathize with employees and respect and support employees’ decisions within their obligation and responsibility. In this case, employees will be willing to stay at the organization to reduce their turnover intention. With the content of “carrot and stick” in paternalistic leadership, a leader cannot regard authoritarian leadership as the measure of controlling subordinates, but presenting morality or benevolent leadership behavior can cause the subordinates to perceive the difference in the upper and lower relationship, as well as showing kindness and selfless integrity as they would with family. Benevolent leadership and moral leadership are important paradigms of Chinese management. According to the social learning theory, these two forms of leadership provide a good model for employees’ learning, and can motivate employees’ identification and gratefulness at the same time.
6. Conclusions
6.1. Practical Implications
In the face of the impacts of modernization and globalization, traditional Chinese authoritarian leadership should be changed. Subordinates are no longer affected by traditional legalism to present obedient behavior in response to supervisors’ authoritarian leadership. This study provides a reflection opportunity for management practice, showing that the traditional Chinese power structure is changing when facing diversified subordinates. The content of paternalistic leadership can be described as carrot and stick, showing that when an unchallengeable authority is presented, father-like instruction and care will also be displayed. It is therefore suggested in this study that, in addition to controlling subordinates with authoritarian leadership, a leader should apply benevolent leadership or moral leadership behavior to release subordinates’ violent emotional reactions caused by authoritarian leadership, as well as to reduce the emotional reaction time. Benevolence and morality are emphasized by Chinese people and are the methods used to protect people from being persecuted by the power abuse of hierarchy; earning people, by virtue, is an effective method to have subordinates agree with and imitate their leaders. Previous research has suggested that supervisors’ moral leadership behavior, such as justice and selflessness, integrity, probity, honesty, and being a model, could earn subordinates’ identity and imitation. Accordingly, it is suggested in this study that supervisors’ value should match the organizational value, and the organizational value should be actually delivered to subordinates when presenting the integrity and selflessness. Furthermore, assistance in solving difficulties, provision of growth and development opportunities, and timely encouragement enhance subordinates’ positive effects on their organization.
The work characteristics of the service industry are different from other industries (e.g., shift system for the arrangement of vacation, longer working hours, labor-intensive nature, and being irreplaceable by machine). In this case, employees in the service industry have to serve various customers, in addition to getting along with colleagues, during the long working periods in the organization. The entire organizational climate, therefore, is extremely important for employees in the service industry, and could easily affect their behavior. It is therefore suggested in this study that the service industry should create good organizational playfulness, assist the employees in the suitable development in the organization, encourage healthy competition among colleagues, and provide proper resources for employees’ learning. Appropriate humor, exchange of ideas, and no criticism in the interaction with colleagues can better ensure employees’ innovation for the service process. On the other hand, when the service industry does not offer favorable organizational playfulness for employees, supervisors with benevolence and moral leadership can facilitate employees to stay at the organization so as to decrease employee turnover and further reduce organizational costs.
6.2. Limitations and Suggestions
Supervisors’ leadership and organizational playfulness in the service industry were discussed in this study, but other factors, such as job satisfaction and working pressure, were not considered; therefore, their effects were ignored. Furthermore, a leader has to face the ups and downs in relationships (with supervisors and subordinates), as well as peer-pressure and expectation. In particular, Chinese people stress that a personal and private relationship, in addition to the relationship in the organization, is also expected [
11,
12]. Research also indicates that an individual with a higher perceived role of conflict shows a higher turnover intention, higher job burnout, and even reduced job satisfaction. This study discussed the correlations between leadership and organizational commitment from the perspective of subordinates, but not from leaders’ points of view. It is suggested that successive research should explore the relationship between leadership and employees’ sustained work behavior from the perspective of supervisors, by utilizing a paired questionnaire survey. Moreover, variables specific in Chinese society (e.g., guanxi culture, renqing, and mianzi) could be included to discuss Chinese people’s organizational behavior.