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Transformational leadership, proactive personality and service performance:

The mediating role of organizational embeddedness

Article  in  International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management · November 2019

DOI: 10.1108/IJCHM-03-2019-0244

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Mediating role
Transformational leadership, of
proactive personality and service organizational
embeddedness
performance
The mediating role of organizational
embeddedness Received 20 March 2019
Revised 25 July 2019
Chunjiang Yang 13 October 2019
Accepted 19 October 2019
School of Economics and Management, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
Yashuo Chen
Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
Xinyuan (Roy) Zhao
Business School, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, China, and
Nan Hua
Department of Hospitality Services, University of Central Florida, Orlando,
Florida, USA

Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to examine the impacts of transformational leadership and employee proactive
personality on service performance, the mediation role of organizational embeddedness and the synergies of
transformational leadership and proactive personality within the proposed framework.
Design/methodology/approach – Data was collected following a time-lagged research approach. The
study sample included 218 frontline employees and their supervisors from ten carefully selected five-star
hotels in China. Structural equation modeling was employed for the data analysis.
Findings – Transformational leadership and proactive personality had positive effects on task performance and
contextual performance via organizational embeddedness. The interactive influences of transformational leadership
and proactive personality on task performance and contextual performance were found significant and negative.
Originality/value – Transformational leaders and proactive employees have been shown to exert a strong
influence on excellent service performance, with organizational embeddedness playing a critical role.
Keywords Transformational leadership, Proactive personality, Contextual performance,
Task performance, Organizational embeddedness
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
The hospitality industry is a unique sector of frequent interactions between customers and
employees, particularly with frontline employees playing a key role in service delivery and
performance. How to predict and explain service performance has been widely discussed in
International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 71572170, Management
71872191), Chinese Ministry of Education (Grant No. 18YJA630151), and the Natural Science © Emerald Publishing Limited
0959-6119
Foundation of Guangdong (Grant No. 2018A030313502). DOI 10.1108/IJCHM-03-2019-0244
IJCHM different domains (Qian et al., 2016). On the one hand, leadership researchers have been
searching for leader styles that can effectively improve followers’ performance (Terglav
et al., 2016). Particularly, transformational leadership refers to a style of leadership that stir
their employees to look beyond their own self-interest for the good of the group by
transforming their morale, ideals, interests, and values (Luo et al., 2019). Given the volatile
and intangible characteristics of the hospitality industry, transformational leaders may have
a strong influence on frontline employees’ performance. On the other hand, personality
researchers have been looking for employee personality traits that would predict hihis/her
performance (Wang et al., 2017). Proactive personality, as a stable personality to take
personal initiative in various actions and situations (Chen and Kao, 2014) could meet high
diversity and rapidly changing customer needs and deliver quality service.
On the surface, it appears that the two groups of researchers (leadership and personality)
belong to two different camps and conduct different performance research (Frieder et al.,
2018). Leadership scholars have often left followers out of the leadership research equation,
while personality researchers have rarely considered leader factors (Frieder et al., 2018).
However, researchers have recently started to recognize that “followers” and “leaders” are
always indivisible because there can be no leaders without followers (Bastardoz and Van
Vugt, 2018). Consequently, personality researchers began to explore followers (or
employees) as the causal agents who monitor and improve their performance by taking into
consideration the effects of leadership (Uhlbien et al., 2014; Frieder et al., 2018), while
leadership researchers started to explore the influence of leadership on performance with
consideration of the moderating roles of employees’ personalities (Buil et al., 2019).
Unfortunately, researchers have failed to consider leaders and employees as double drivers
that together induce performance outcomes (Howell and Shamir, 2005). This study will
bridge such a research gap and integrate personality and leadership research streams to
shed new lights on performance. In particular, we examine how transformational leadership
and proactive personality as two antecedents jointly determine frontline employees’ service
performance, including task performance and customer-focused contextual performance, in
the hospitality industry. In addition, we also investigated the synergies of transformational
leadership and proactive personality on frontline employees’ service performance.
Additionally, although most empirical findings support the positive link between
transformational leadership and performance (Gong et al., 2009), some research has revealed
inconsistent effects of transformational leadership on performance (Jaussi and Dionne, 2003).
To gain a more precise understanding of transformational leadership’s effectiveness, many
scholars have called for future research that focuses on specific performance, the social and
cultural setting, and industry background (Elenkov and Manev, 2005). Furthermore, although
several studies have investigated the pathways by which transformational leadership affects
the follower’s performance, most of the studies about “transformational leadership-
performance” rest on the logic of social exchange, especially the leader-member exchange, with
employees reciprocating based on what their organizations or specific leaders did for them (Ng,
2017). This social exchange mechanism, however, acts like a black box and is in need of further
demystification (Hom et al., 2009). Given that transformational leadership has been
characterized as long-term-goal oriented, which transcends the reciprocity norm and focuses on
higher order intrinsic needs (Podsakoff et al., 1990), organizational embeddedness is likely to
play a critical role in understanding the mechanisms through which transformational
leadership induces performance (Lee et al., 2004). Organizational embeddedness reflects the
totality of forces that constrain one from leaving their present employment (Mitchell et al.,
2001). Furthermore, relatively little research has examined employees’ proactive personality in
the field of customer services (Chen and Kao, 2014). Specifically, previous studies rarely provide
explanations for the mechanisms between proactive personality and performance (Bergeron Mediating role
et al., 2014). A critical gap remains in order to have a better understanding of the process by of
which a proactive personality translates into meaningful action (Thompson, 2005). Therefore,
to bridge this gap, we explored how organizational embeddedness links proactive personality
organizational
to service performance. Lastly, exploring organizational embeddedness in the hospitality embeddedness
industry of China also adds to the nascent knowledge of its applicability and universality in
Chinese hotels.
Overall, this study aims to examine the impacts of transformation leadership and
employee proactive personality on service performance and test the mediation role of
organizational embeddedness within the proposed framework. Moreover, the synergies of
transformational leadership and proactive personality on the organizational embeddedness,
task performance, and contextual performance be further investigated.

2. Theoretical framework and hypothesis development

2.1 Job embeddedness
Mitchell et al. (2001) pointed out that individuals attached to their current jobs by diverse
types of links, benefits, and cognitive evaluations that generate a web of restraining forces.
These forces not only cause employees to stay in the current organization, but also
constitute a comprehensive framework to understand their actions (Sekiguchi et al., 2008).
Job embeddedness has three underlying dimensions: link (formal or informal relations with
people, institutions, and locations), fit (compatibility or comfort with work or community
environment), and sacrifice (perceived cost of material or psychological benefits forfeited by
quitting) (Hom et al., 2009; Crossley et al., 2007). As Mitchell et al. (2001) postulate, the more
embedded an employee is, the less likely he or she is to quit. Subsequent empirical findings
have supported that job embeddedness predicted employee attitudes and work behaviors
including voluntary turnover, turnover intention, job satisfaction, organizational
commitment, performance, and so on (Lee et al., 2004).

2.2 Transformational leadership and service performance (task performance and contextual
performance)
Li et al. (2017) suggested that leadership is an important factor that influences employees’
performance in the service environment. Specifically, transformational leadership typically
displays four primary behaviors: idealized influence (being a charismatic role model for
followers, positively affecting their cognitions and behaviors), inspirational motivation
(fostering employees’ desire to achieve groups’ goals), intellectual stimulation (inspiring
employees’ questioning of assumptions, reframing problems, and stimulating novel
approaches), and individualized consideration (caring for the development and needs of
different employees) in order to motivate subordinates and inspire their high-level needs for
completing the long-term mission (Sosik et al., 1997). Transformational leadership can
theoretically and empirically, be associated with task performance and contextual
performance.
Task performance defines as work actions that fulfill prescribed job duties and formal
job descriptions, and that also contribute to the provision of products or services to
customers (Rotundo and Sackett, 2002). Transformational leaders capacitate and motivate
their followers to accomplish their assigned job duties in several ways:

Transformational leaders can integrate frontline employees’ job responsibilities
with a compelling vision of the hotel to make them feel their work more meaningful,
therefore improving their task performance.
IJCHM
Transformational leaders’ demonstration effects, encouragement, and trust can
infuse the followers with a belief that they can fulfill the duties well (Bass, 1985).

A transformational leader provides followers with knowledge, skills, tools and
support that are needed to accomplish their jobs (Bass, 1985).

Accordingly, previous research has found that transformational leadership positively

influenced on task performance (Buil et al., 2019; Lorinkova and Perry, 2019).
Contextual performance refers to self-motivated work behaviors that go beyond job
descriptions and support the broader, organizational, social and psychological environment
of the job (Jawahar and Carr, 2007). Since the field of hospitality is service- and people-
oriented, it is necessary to have more voluntary and proactive behaviors to deliver superior
services. As Bass (1985) stated, transformational leadership motives employees to work for
the benefits of the organization by growing group identification and, as a result, prompts
them more voluntary behaviors such as helping others, working extra hours, providing
services beyond the customer’s imagination, and generating customer-focused citizenship
behaviors and customer-oriented prosocial behaviors in serving. Transformational
leadership helps frontline workers to engage in contextual performance, a result of the effect
of serving as role models since role models tend to exhibit willingness to sacrifice their
interests for the hotel’s benefit. Besides, transformational leadership can encourage
effectively and stimulate intellectually frontline workers to challenge the current status quo,
to think creatively, and to identify and adopt innovative ways of working, leading to high-
quality services and novel solutions. Overall, transformational leadership promotes task
performance, and enables employees to display more innovative and prosocial service
behaviors to better cater to the unique needs of the customer. Therefore, we posit:

H1a. Transformational leadership is positively related to task performance.

H1b. Transformational leadership is positively related to contextual performance.

2.3 The mediating role of organizational embeddedness in the relationship between

transformational leadership and service performance
Transformational leadership improves employees’ link, fit, and sacrifice, and ultimately
leads to service performance. According to the job embeddedness theory, leaders play an
important “embedding” role for their employees. For example, Mitchell et al. (2001, p. 1116)
stated “having a great boss may be hard to give up.” Further, William Lee et al. (2014, p. 213)
added “having a leader you like and trust is very embedding.” Transformational leaders
may holistically improve follower’s organizational embeddedness in their current job.
Specifically, a transformational leader can foster employees’ formal or informal connections
in the workplace. Specifically, a transformational leader can foster employees’ formal or
informal connections in the workplace to improve the link. Leaders who show individualized
consideration behaviors tend to induce more mutual communications between themselves
and their followers. In addition, when followers are inspired by transformational leadership
to examine their problems from a different perspective and to question the status quo, they
tend to engage in greater networking behaviors with colleagues (Anderson and Sun, 2015),
improve network density in teams (Zhen and Peterson, 2011) and develop a better employee
network of relationships in organizations (Bono and Anderson, 2005).
Moreover, transformational leaders link their employees’ values with their organizations’
goals to improve the fit. Hannah et al. (2016) suggested that transformational leadership
encouraged employees to adapt their values to improve consistency with those of the
organizations. Transformational leaders’ self-sacrificing and ethical behaviors are identified Mediating role
as key to motivating their followers to promote fit within organizations. Transformation of
leadership was further shown to help the employee learn requisite skills and abilities to
better accomplish organizational tasks (Scandura and Williams, 2004).
organizational
Furthermore, transformational leadership is an important resource that is typically embeddedness
difficult for employees to abandon; their collectivist-oriented vision often motivates
employees’ sense of belonging. By offering the necessary support to develop employees’
knowledge, skills, abilities and creativity, transformational leadership tends to increase their
intrinsic motivation of work (Ng and Feldman, 2007) and is viewed as a desirable benefit
that does not easily transfer to other organizations (Ng, 2017). Therefore, transformational
leaders have positive influences on organizational embeddedness.
Organizational embeddedness not only describes a web of forces that keep employees in
a particular job, but also represents a critical resource from the current organization,
facilitating employees to fulfill their assigned job duties. Higher link density within an
organization tends to result in more support to complete tasks. A better fit between personal
values, career goals and corporate culture, and job specifications generally leads to better
accomplishment of service tasks. Further, tangible and intangible benefits from
organizations typically drive a frontline employee to accomplish his/her assigned job duties.
Therefore, organizational embeddedness has a positive effect on task performance of
employees (Lee et al., 2004).
Frontline employees are linked to each other, leading to their feeling of comfort and
helpful behaviors. The better a frontline employee feels the fit with his/her current job,
coworkers, and hotel, the stronger his/her sense of belonging to the hotel is, and in turn, the
more likely the frontline employee is to exhibit customer-oriented prosocial behaviors for
collective benefits. As noted by Sekiguchi et al. (2010), employees with high organizational
embeddedness are more likely to perform better. Lee et al. (2004) also demonstrated that
employees with more organizational embeddedness tend to go beyond normal job
requirements by taking initiative and being more spontaneous in serving customers.
Besides, organizational embeddedness is widely recognized to be associated with task
performance and contextual performance (Sekiguchi et al., 2008; Lee et al., 2004). In short,
transformational leadership is crucial to create organizational embeddedness, which, in turn,
leads to service performance. Therefore, we posit:

H2a. Organizational embeddedness mediates the relationship between transformational

leadership and task performance.
H2b. Organizational embeddedness mediates the relationship between transformational
leadership and contextual performance.

2.4 Proactive personality and service performance (task performance and contextual
performance)
An employee’s personality is a critical factor in his/her performance in the workplace,
especially in service settings (Choi and Hwang, 2019). Frequent interactions not only
increase the uncertainty that service employees must face but also make it difficult for
leaders to effectively monitor and control each step of the service process (Van Dyne et al.,
2000). Consequently, service performance must rely heavily on frontline employees’
spontaneity and initiative. Proactive personality describes a stable behavioral tendency to
look for opportunities and act on them, take initiative, and follow through until the intended
significant change occurs (Seibert et al., 2001). That is, a proactive personality is
IJCHM goal-oriented and unconstrained by environmental influences, persistent in reaching closure
on an objective and searching for new experiences and activities.
Employees with a proactive personality actively initiate changes to achieve their work
goals. Proactive individuals with high creativity are especially effective in looking for better
ways to solve work issues (Bateman and Crant, 1993; Han et al., 2019). They work actively to
seek out new information and practices to improve their performance (Bateman and Crant,
1993). They are motivated to update their knowledge and skills, identify new work
processes and create a more hospitable and productive work environment to accomplish
tasks (Kim et al., 2009). These behaviors are essential to the efficiency of accomplishing
prescribed job duties which then go beyond normal job expectations (Seibert et al., 2001).
Previous studies have shown that a proactive personality is significantly associated with
excellent job performance (Thompson, 2005).
A proactive personality and voluntary service behaviors both emphasize going beyond
direct role requirements. A proactive personality is also associated with felt responsibility
for constructive change, or the extent to which one feels personally responsible for
redefining performance (McCormick et al., 2019). Therefore, proactive employees tend to
actively help their organizations and engage in actions that extend beyond their prescribed
duties. Employees with a proactive personality are more motivated to contribute, which is
likely to enhance their willingness to make discretionary contributions in the form of
contextual performance (Crant, 2000). Proactive employees invest more in their jobs to turn
individual and organization goals into reality by exhibiting more frequently organizational
citizenship behaviors (Campbell, 2000). For example, proactive personality was shown to
have a positive impact on an individual’s participation in organizational improvement
initiatives and could effectively improve additional employee work behaviors (Liguori et al.,
2013). Therefore, we pose:

H3a. Proactive personality will be positively related to task performance.

H3b. Proactive personality will be positively related to contextual performance.

2.5 The mediating role of organizational embeddedness in the relationship between

proactive personality and service performance
We propose that organizational embeddedness mediates the relationship between proactive
personality and task performance and contextual performance. Individuals with high
proactive personalities tend to influence their environment (Grant and Ashford, 2008; Simon
et al., 2019). Thus, we argue that the proactive frontline employees are actively embedded in
their organizations because they interact frequently with members of their organizations
and continuously improve their adaptability at the workplace. As Ashford and Black (1996)
have shown, proactive behaviors include searching for information and feedback to be
adaptive to various situations and establishing social networks at the workplace. Moreover,
employees with high proactive personality may be predisposed to search for jobs and firms
that fit with their visions (Lee et al., 2014). Furthermore, an employee with a highly proactive
personality tends to actively protect vested and expected benefits and engage in fulfilling
goals within the current organization (Bakker et al., 2012). Consistent with the above ideas,
Lee et al. (2014) found that proactive individuals positively engage in network participation
and develop more ties with others. Major et al. (2006) demonstrated that a person with a
proactive personality tends to participate in a series of development activities for a better fit
within organizations. Seibert et al. (2001) found that proactive personality is positive related
to career initiative, salary growth, promotions, and career satisfaction. To sum up, an
employee with a highly proactive personality is disposed to engage in complex and diverse Mediating role
interactions with his/her organization, obtain better compatibility with his/her of
organizations, and protect existing resources and benefits, all of which leads him/her to
becoming a superior performer. Therefore, we formulate:
organizational
embeddedness
H4a. Organizational embeddedness mediates the relationship between proactive
personality and task performance.
H4b. Organizational embeddedness mediates the relationship between proactive
personality and contextual performance.

2.6 The synergies of transformational leadership and proactive personality

The core tenet of dominance complementarity theory is that people seek balance in
interpersonal interactions (Kiesler, 1983). High-quality interactions are facilitated when
dominant and assertive behaviors from one party are matched by submissive and passive
behaviors from the other. This match, therefore, allows both parties to coordinate their
actions and interactions effectively. Transformational leaders typically engage in dominant,
assertive behaviors and proactive followers also seek a sense of control (Crant and Bateman,
2000). As a result, transformational leaders may perceive employee proactivity as a threat.
In contrast, leaders who have a low level of transformational leadership may be more
receptive to employee proactivity and consider it as a valuable source of input. Employees
with proactive personalities may challenge the authority of high transformational leaders
but compensate for the disadvantages of leaders with a low level of transformational
leadership. Consistent with our assumptions, Kark et al. (2003) pointed out that
transformational leadership could promote greater employee innovation with a lower level
of proactivity. Grant et al. (2011) supposed that extraverted leadership enhances group
performance when employees are passive; this effect reverses when employees are
proactive. Thus, we propose H5a, H5b and H5c. Our theoretical model is also depicted in
Figure 1.

H5a. The synergies of transformational leadership and proactive personality are

negative related to organizational embeddedness.
H5b. The synergies of transformational leadership and proactive personality are
negative related to task performance.
H5c. The synergies of transformational leadership and proactive personality are
negative related to contextual performance.

3. Method
3.1 Participants and procedures
The full-time front-line employees came from ten five-star hotels in China. We chose to focus
on the Chinese hospitality industry because the subject of leadership and personality in the
hotel industry, although understudied, is a critical area of research in China. According to
the China Tourism Academy, China received more than 5 billion visitors (1.39 billion
international), generating 2,084 billion Yuan in income through the hospitality industry in
2017. In addition, hotel organizations have become more dynamic, uncertain, competitive,
and unpredictable more than ever before. The importance of frontline employees to superior
IJCHM
TFL*PP

H5a H5b,H5c
Transformational
H1a, H1b Task
leadership
H2a , H2b
Organizational
Service performance
embeddedness

H4a,H4b
Proactive personality H3a,H3b Contextual

Direct effects
Mediation effects
Moderation effects

Hypotheses
H1a: TFL-TP H1b: TFL-CP H2a: TFL-OE-TP H2b: TFL-OE-CP
H3a: PP-TP H3b: PP-CP H4a: PP-OE-TP H4b: PP-OE-CP
H5a: TFL*PP-OE H5b: TFL*PP-TP H5c: TFL*PP-CP
Figure 1.
Proposed theoretical Notes: PP = proactive personality; TFL = transformational leadership; OE = organizational
model
embeddedness; TP = task performance; CP = contextual performance

hotel service cannot be overstated. In particular, transformational leadership and proactive

personality are crucial in upscale hotels, which aim to provide high quality and upscale
hospitality services. Therefore, it is critical to investigate the effects of transformational
leadership and proactive personality on service performance by recruiting the frontline
employees and their supervisors of five-star hotels in the Chinese hotel industry context as
survey participants.
We recruited survey participants by getting in touch with HR supervisors of ten Five-
star hotels in China. Specifically, HR supervisors helped us to ask whether their frontline
employees (e.g. food and beverage servers, security employees, bellboys, front desk agents,
concierges, guest relations representatives and PA attendants) were willing to participate in
the study and identified potential participants. We explained to all survey participants in
detail the objectives, procedures, and rules of this study; in particular, we guaranteed them
complete confidentiality for their voluntary participation by ensuring never to reveal any
personal information. We coded each questionnaire with a researcher-assigned
identification number to match an employee’s responses with his/her immediate leader’s
evaluations. A questionnaire was translated from English to Chinese using back-translation
techniques (Brislin, 1980). Participants were given questionnaires in three waves, with two-
month interval. At Time-1, 359 questionnaires were distributed. Subordinates completed the
measures of demographic information, transformational leadership and proactive
personality. In all 322 valid questionnaires were collected (response rate 89.6 per cent). At
Time-2, we collected the measurement of organizational embeddedness answered by the
same subordinates who participated in the first wave. 274 were valid, with an effective
return rate of 85.09 per cent. At Time-3, the measure of subordinates’ service performance
was evaluated by their immediate leaders. 218 matched supervisor-subordinate surveys
were returned (response rate of 79.56 per cent). The average age of front-line hotel employees Mediating role
was 28.59 years ranging from 22 to 50, with 65 per cent female. The mean organization of
tenure was 55.58 months, and 58.3 per cent of the employees had no more than three years of
organizational tenure. As for the education level, 64.68 per cent of the respondents had a
organizational
bachelor degree or above, 6.4 per cent had vocational school diplomas, 22.5 per cent had embeddedness
junior college experience, 4.1 per cent had a high school education, and 2.3 per cent had
completed junior high school. The demographic profile of the survey participants is
presented in Table I.

3.2 Measure
3.2.1 Transformational leadership. A 14-item scale developed and validated by Podsakoff
et al. (1990) was used to measure transformational leadership. A sample item is “provides a
good model for me to follow”. Participants responded to the item using a seven-point Likert
scale (1 = “Strongly disagree,” 7 = “Strongly agree”).
3.2.2 Proactive personality. A six-item scale by Bateman was used to measure proactive
personality (Bateman and Crant, 1993). Participants responded to the item using a five-point
Likert scale (1 = “disagree,” 5 = “agree”). A sample item is “If I see something I don’t like, I
fix it”.
3.2.3 Organizational embeddedness. The seven-item scale by Crossley was used to
measure organizational embeddedness (Crossley et al., 2007). Response options ranged from
1 (disagree) to 5 (agree). A sample item is “I feel attached to this organization”.
3.2.4 Task performance and contextual performance. Task performance and contextual
performance were each measured with 5 items from Bettencourt and Brown (Bettencourt

Demographic profile No. (%)

Gender
Male 76 34.86
Female 142 65.14
Age
Less than 25 47 21.56
25-30 105 48.17
30-35 33 15.14
35-40 15 6.88
40-45 14 6.42
More than 45 4 1.83
Years of hotel working experience
Less than 1 39 17.89
1-3 81 37.16
3-5 34 15.60
5-10 36 16.51
10 and above 28 12.84
Education
junior high school and below 5 2.29
technical secondary school 14 6.42
senior high school 9 4.13 Table I.
junior college degree 49 22.48 Demographic profile
university degree 128 58.72 of survey
Graduate degree and above 13 5.96 participants
IJCHM and Brown, 1997). Participants responded to all items on a seven-point Likert scale (1 =
strongly disagree to 7= strongly agree). A sample item of task performance reads “Meets
formal performance requirements when serving customers”. A sample item of contextual
performance is “Helps customers with problems beyond what is expected or required”.
3.2.5 Controls. Employees’ age, sex, education and seniority were included as control
variables, given these variables may influence service performance (Lyu et al., 2016).

4. Results
4.1 Confirmatory factor analyses
We conducted a series of confirmatory factor analyses to test whether the constructs had
good convergent validity and discriminate validity. Results in Table II show that the five-
factor model fits the data well, with x 2 = 562.603, df = 314 (p < 0.01), x 2/df = 1.792,
RMSEA = 0.060, SRMR = 0.055, CFI = 0.936, and TLI = 0.929. Additionally, the square root
of the average variance extracted (AVE) for each construct was larger than all the bivariate
correlation coefficients among the components (Table IV), indicating that the discriminate
validity of constructs in this study was adequate. Results in Table III also show that
the AVE values of constructs were greater than 0.50, indicating sufficient construct
convergent validity. Further, the standard factor loadings of indicators on their respective
latent variables were all significant, and the values of Construct Reliability (CR) are all
adequate at 0.87 or above.

4.2 Common method variance

Because we collected employee reports of transformational leadership, proactive
personality, and organizational embeddedness in the study, common method variance
(CMV) may present as a problem. Therefore, we measured different constructs at different
time points to decrease common method variance as much as possible (Podsakoff et al.,
2012) and showed high respect for the security, anonymity, and privacy of research objects
and informants. Empirically, we performed Harman’s single-factor test to explore the
potential influence of common method variance. The result indicated that no single factor

Model description x2 df x 2/df Dx 2 CFI TLI RMSEA SRMR

Model 1 TFL, PP, OE, TP, CP 562.603** 314 1.792 0.936 0.929 0.060 0.055
Model 2 Four factors: TFL, PP, OE, 917.380** 318 2.885 354.777** 0.846 0.830 0.093 0.079
TPþCP
Model3 Four factors: TFLþPP, OE, 1146.553** 318 3.606 583.95** 0.787 0.765 0.109 0.102
TP, CP
Model 4 Three factors: PP, TPþCP, 1307.251** 321 4.072 744.648** 0.746 0.723 0.119 0.091
TFLþOE
Model 5 Three factors: OE, TFL, PPþ 1425.994** 321 4.442 863.391** 0.716 0.689 0.126 0.103
TPþCP
Model 6 Two factors: OEþTFL, PPþ 1815.579** 323 5.621 1252.976** 0.616 0.583 0.146 0.112
TPþCP
Model 7 One factor: OEþTFLþPPþ 2187.308** 324 6.751 1624.705** 0.521 0.481 0.162 0.122
TPþCP

Notes: PP = proactive personality; TFL = transformational leadership; OE = organizational embeddedness;

Table II. TP = task performance; CP = contextual performance; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation;
Comparison of SRMR = standardized residual mean root; CFI = comparative fit index; TLI = non-normed fit index. **p < 0.01,
measurement models two-tailed
Construct Indicators Factor Loadings a AVE CR
Mediating role
of
Transformational leadership Idealized influence 0.913** 0.916 0.736 0.918 organizational
Inspirational motivation 0.821**
Individual consideration 0.872** embeddedness
Intellectual stimulation 0.822**
Proactive personality PP1 0.842** 0.890 0.583 0.892
PP2 0.746**
PP3 0.809**
PP4 0.877**
PP5 0.696**
PP6 0.573**
Organizational embeddedness OE1 0.798** 0.918 0.565 0.900
OE2 0.788**
OE3 0.697**
OE4 0.755**
OE5 0.735**
OE6 0.805**
OE7 0.671**
Task performance TP1 0.755** 0.950 0.669 0.91
TP2 0.869**
TP3 0.837**
TP4 0.826**
TP5 0.800**
Contextual performance CP1 0.729** 0.876 0.590 0.877 Table III.
CP2 0.734** Factor loadings of
CP3 0.862** indicators, reliability,
CP4 0.780**
average variance
CP5 0.725**
extracted (AVE) and
Notes: PP = proactive personality; OE=organizational embeddedness; TP = task performance; CP = composite reliability
contextual performance. Four indicators of transformational leadership are second-order factors. **p < 0.01 (CR)

accounted for more than 50 per cent of the variance of all the relevant items. We further
compared the measurement model with the addition of an unmeasured latent CMV factor
( x 2 = 572.218, df = 320 (p < 0.01), RMSEM = 0.060, CFI = 0.935, TLI = 0.929, SRMR = 0.064)
and the same measurement model without the CMV factor ( x 2 = 562.603, df = 314 (p < 0.01),
CFI = 0.936, TLI = 0.929, RMSEM = 0.060, SRMR = 0.055). The fit indices did not improve
significantly (DCFI = 0.001, DCFI = 0.000, DRMSEM = 0.000 DSRMR = 0.009, respectively).
Therefore, common method bias was not a major issue.

4.3 Descriptive statistics

Reported in Table IV are the means, standard deviations and bivariate correlations of
variables. Transformational leadership, proactive personality, task performance, and
contextual performance were all positively correlated with organizational embeddedness
(r = 0.542, p < 0.01; r = 0.435, p < 0.01; r = 0.496, p < 0.01; r = 0.420, p < 0.01, respectively);
transformational leadership and proactive personality were positively correlated with task
performance (r = 0.420, p < 0.01; r = 0.390, p < 0.01, respectively). Meanwhile,
transformational leadership and proactive personality were also positively correlated with
contextual performance (r = 0.415, p < 0.01; r = 0.332, p < 0.01, respectively). It appears that
these findings preliminarily provided support for our hypotheses.
IJCHM 4.4 Hypothesis testing
We performed structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the proposed hypotheses and
summarized the standardized values of the path coefficients and their significance levels in
Figure 2. The overall model fit is adequate, with x 2 = 749.091; df = 414 (p < 0.01);
x 2/df =1.809; CFI = 0.916; TLI = 0.907; RMSEA = 0.061; SRMR = 0.065, which demonstrate
good fits to the data. The results showed significant positive path coefficients from
transformational leadership to task performance ( b = 0.204, p < 0.05) and contextual
performance ( b = 0.260, p < 0.05), providing empirical evidence in support of H1a and H1b.
Furthermore, proactive personality is shown to have positive effects on task performance
( b = 0.217, p <0.05) and contextual performance ( b = 0.178, p < 0.05), providing empirical
support for H3a and H3b. We also demonstrated that transformational leadership has a
positive association with organizational embeddedness ( b = 0.490, p < 0.01); organizational
embeddedness is positively associated with task performance ( b = 0.310, p < 0.01) and
contextual performance ( b = 0.218, p < 0.05). Moreover, our results show that proactive
personality is significantly related to organizational embeddedness ( b = 0.293, p <0.01).
We further examined the mediating role of organizational embeddedness with
nonparametric bootstrapping procedures. As shown in Table V, the influence of
transformational leadership on service performance variables was mediated by
organizational embeddedness because the indirect influence of transformational leadership
on task performance registered the value of b at 0.152, with the 95 per cent CI [0.084, 0.242],
and on contextual performance registered the value of b at 0.107, with the 95 per cent CI

Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1. Sex 0.65 0.478

2. Age 28.59 5.827 0.137*
3. Seniority 55.58 68.516 0.048 0.885**
4 .Education 4.47 1.057 0.068 0.070 0.088
5. TFL 4.469 1.126 0.027 0.048 0.069 0.155* 0.858
Table IV. 6. PP 3.756 0.755 0.087 0.140* 0.151* 0.041 0.350** 0.764
Means, standard 7. OE 3.45 0.757 0.107 0.202** 0.158* 0.078 0.542** 0.435** 0.752
8. TP 4.897 1.129 0.007 0.061 0.109 0.046 0.420** 0.390** 0.496** 0.818
deviations and
9. CP 4.213 0.985 0.006 0.032 0.020 0.088 0.415** 0.332** 0.420** 0.465** 0.768
bivariate correlations
among studied Notes: N = 218, Square roots of AVE for each construct are reported on the diagonal. Sex: 0 = female, 1 =
variables male; * P< 0.05; ** p < 0.01(two tailed tests)

0.260*

Transformational
Transfo
f rmational 0.204* Task
Task performance
perfo
f rmance
leadership
leadership
0.490** 0.310**
Organizational
Organizational
embeddedness
embeddedness
0.293** 0.218*
Contextual
Contextu
t al
Figure 2. Proactive
Proactive personality
personality 0.178*
performance
perfo
f rmance
Hypothesized model
0.217*
test results using
SEM
Notes: All direct and indirect effects are significant. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01
[0.033, 0.189]. Therefore, H2a and H2 b were supported. Similarly, organizational Mediating role
embeddedness also mediated the relationships between proactive personality and service of
performance, with the indirect influence of proactive personality on task performance
registering at a b value of 0.091 with a 95 per cent CI [0.041, 0.157], and on contextual
organizational
performance registering at a b value of 0.064 with a 95 per cent CI [0.017, 0.122]. Therefore, embeddedness
H4a and H4 b were supported.
Finally, we tested the synergies of transformational leadership and proactive personality
on organizational embeddedness, task performance and contextual performance. However,
the results indicated that the joint effect of transformational leadership and proactive
personality did not affect organizational embeddedness ( b = 0.020, ns). Thus, H5a was
not supported. The joint effect of transformational leadership and proactive personality was
negatively significant for task performance ( b = 0.123, p < 0.05) and contextual
performance ( b = 0.189, P < 0.01). Thus, H5b and H5c were supported. Table VI shows
the analysis results of the joint effects of transformational leadership and proactive
personality on organizational embeddedness, task performance, and contextual
performance, respectively. To examine the form of this interaction, we treated
transformational leadership as the independent variable and proactive personality as the
moderator variable. Then, we plotted the simple slopes using the Johnson–Neyman
technique. Figures 3 illustrates the effects of transformational leadership on organizational
embeddedness at low (simple slope = 0.351, p < 0.01) and high proactive personality (simple
slope = 0.321, p < 0.01). The results show that there is no significant difference between

Path Indirect effect LL95%CI UL95%CI

TFL-OE-TP 0.152 0.084 0.242 Table V.

PP-OE-TP 0.091 0.041 0.157
TFL-OE-CP 0.107 0.033 0.189
Bootstrapping
PP-OE-CP 0.064 0.017 0.122 results for mediating
role of organizational
Notes: LL95%CI = lower 95% level confidence interval; UL95%CI = upper 95% level confidence interval embeddedness

Moderator Effect LL95%CI UL95%CI

The effect of transformational leadership on organizational embeddedness

High proactive personality (þ1SD) 0.301* 0.226 0.379
High proactive personality (1SD) 0.317* 0.233 0.399
Difference 0.016 0.107 0.068
The effect of transformational leadership on task performance
High proactive personality (þ1SD) 0.084 0.051 0.212
High proactive personality (1SD) 0.220* 0.098 0.345
Difference 0.136* 0.241 0.025
The effect of transformational leadership on contextual performance Table VI.
High proactive personality (þ1SD) 0.059 0.048 0.157
High proactive personality (1SD) 0.208* 0.108 0.325
The interactive effect
Difference 0.149* 0.236 0.055 of transformational
leadership and
Note: *The 95% bias corrected bootstrapped confidence interval does not include zero proactive personality
IJCHM
5

4.5

Organizational embeddedness
4

Figure 3. 3.5
The interactive effect
of transformational High proactive personality
3
leadership and Low proactive personality
proactive personality
on organizational 2.5
embeddedness Low transformational leadership High transformational leadership

high proactive personality and low proactive personality in the direct influence of
transformational leadership on organizational embeddedness. Figure 4 presents the effects
of transformational leadership on task performance at low (simple slope = 0.403, p < 0.01)
and high proactive personality (simple slope = 0.277, p < 0.01). Figure 5 shows the effects of
transformational leadership on contextual performance at low (the simple slope = 0.366, p <
0.01) and high proactive personality (simple slope = 0.264, p < 0.01). Figures 4 and 5 show
that the positive effects of transformational leadership on task performance and contextual
performance are larger when proactive personality is low than when it is high. That is, when
employees are not proactive, transformational leadership contributes to higher task
performance and contextual performance, but when employees are proactive, these
relationships reverse.

5. Discussion and conclusion

5.1 Conclusions
Based on the job embeddedness theory, we argue that transformational leaders and
proactive employees act together to exert influences on service performance (including task

6.5
Task performance

5.5
Figure 4.
The interactive effect High proactive personality
5
of transformational Low proactive personality
leadership and
proactive personality 4.5
on task performance Low transformational leadership High transformational leadership
 Mediating role
6 of
organizational
5.5 embeddedness
Contextual performance

4.5

4 Figure 5.
The interactive effect
of transformational
3.5 High proactive personality
leadership and
Low proactive personality
proactive personality
3 on contextual
Low transformational leadership High transformational leadership performance

performance and contextual performance) via organizational embeddedness. Our findings

show that transformational leadership positively predicts service performance, and
organizational embeddedness mediates the relationship between transformational
leadership and service performance. In addition, we find that proactive personality
positively predicts service performance, with organizational embeddedness mediating the
positive effects of proactive personality on service performance. Besides, we find that the
interactive effects of transformational leadership and proactive personality are detrimental
to task performance and contextual performance.

5.2 Theoretical implications

The findings of this study have several important theoretical implications. First, to cross-
fertilize personality and leadership research streams, Frieder et al. (2018) suggest that
researchers should conduct more studies that integrate leadership and personality in
multiple ways. Therefore, this study takes the initiative to consider both leaders and
followers as double causal agents of follower’s performance beyond the current single
leader- or follower-centric perspectives. Specifically, we show that transformational
leadership and frontline employees’ proactive personality co-drive task and contextual
performance in the field of hospitality. Our study also responds to the calls for leadership
and personality scholars to “integrate the lens” (Buil et al., 2019) by taking both leaders’ and
followers’ dominant roles into account to predict performance outcomes. Furthermore, our
study reveals the value of taking a balanced view by treating transformational leadership
and proactive personalities of employees as antecedents of performance. If leadership
involves actively influencing others, then followership should involve deciding themselves
(Uhlbien et al., 2014).
Second, our study offers a more comprehensive perspective that recognizes both the
strengths and weaknesses of transformational leadership and proactive personality. We
find that transformational leadership and proactive personality have clear advantages for
employees’ service performance through organizational embeddedness. However, our study
also documents that transformational leadership can be either an asset or a liability for
employee performance, depending on employees’ proactive personality. Similarly, proactive
personality has both bright side and dark side. Transformational leaders sometimes view
IJCHM proactive followers as distracting, threatening, and deviant. That is, interactions between
transformational leaders and proactive followers may undermine the strength of
transformational leadership and proactive personality to improve service performance.
Although our findings reveal that combining transformational leadership and employee
proactive personality may not achieve optimal performance, transformational leadership
and proactive personality are still necessary requirements for organizational effectiveness.
Because the advantages brought about by the interaction between transformational leaders
and proactive followers overpower the disadvantages (Grant et al., 2011). In short, this study
is a step toward synthesizing the literature on leadership and proactivity, and presents a
balanced perspective on transformational leadership and employee proactivity as they relate
to performance.
Third, this study helps in the understanding as to why transformational leaders improve
the service performance of hotel frontline employees and also why and how it does so. The
leader-member exchange based on the social exchange mechanism appears more extensive
to explain the relationship between transformational leadership and performance (Ng, 2017).
It could be governed by new theories that go beyond the logic of traditional reciprocity
norms, given that transformational leadership’s long-term oriented influences transcend the
reciprocity norm (Podsakoff et al., 1990) and Mitchell’s job embeddedness theory, which
offers a more comprehensive frame to explain important outcomes (William Lee et al., 2014).
Thus, we introduce organizational embeddedness as a novel mediator for the effects of
transformational leadership on followers’ service performance. The transformational leader
facilitates the followers to establish multiple relationships (fit, link, and sacrifice) at the
workplace, and then organizational embeddedness assists the followers in fulfilling
the duties within or beyond the description. Since new explanations are encouraged and “the
mediators studied are rather diverse” (van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013, p. 16) in
transformational leadership research, we designed this study to examine the mediating role
of organizational embeddedness, which complements conventional “social exchange
models” (Ng, 2017) in understanding the effects of the transformational leader.
Fourth, this study takes the initiative to offer evidence in support of the positive
relationship between proactive personality and service performance (including task
performance and contextual performance) within the hospitality literature. Our results
highlight the proximal influence proactive personality exerts on service performance,
implying that new connections between proactive personality and beneficial outcomes can
be identified in the tourism and hospitality research. Moreover, we further examined the
underlying mechanism of organizational embeddedness that affects the impact of proactive
personality on service performance. It appears that proactive people identify opportunities
and take action to establish multiple person-organization attachment relationships; in
particular, frontline employees who are highly embedded in their jobs are likely to perform
well. This study extends prior research by investigating the role frontline employees’
organizational embeddedness plays in hospitality companies. In addition, we add additional
evidence on the applicability and universality of organizational embeddedness in Chinese
hotel settings.

5.3 Practical implications

This study also provides several important managerial implications. First, our findings
show that transformational leadership exerts a positive impact on service performance (task
performance and contextual performance). Transformational leadership development can
effectively take place through training programs in organizations. Specifically,
organizations should develop managers’ core leadership competencies such as the
communication skill to convey a vision, how to use exemplary behaviors, how and when to Mediating role
empower followers, and the competencies of broad interpersonal skills. A diagnosis in of
leaders’ behaviors is typically needed to improve the success and effectiveness of their
leadership. A computerized MLQ profile could provide leaders with a comprehensive
organizational
description of their performance according to themselves, their superiors, their subordinates, embeddedness
or coworkers. Organizations could also provide executive/leadership coaches and counselors
who frequently provide feedback and guidance to promote a leader’s self-understanding and
awareness of transformational leadership. Additionally, the practicing leader can profit
from setting specific development goals of transformational leadership and accepting
counseling and feedback during the implementation of the development plan.
Second, employees’ proactive personality is likely a driver for their service quality. On
the one hand, hotel managers should select proactive frontline employees and assess their
initiatives during promotion processes. A proactive personality scale such as the Bateman
and Crant’s (1993) scale is a potentially useful tool for selecting employees with proactive
personalities in hotel organizations. Since answers to these tests are self-reported, people
may fudge their answers to appear as a more desirable candidate. By performing due
diligence and calling past employers of a candidate, HR can ask the relevant questions to
double-check the self-reported answers. Besides, employees’ subordinates and coworkers
could evaluate their proactive personality through the Proactive Personality Scale at the
workplace. Although their ratings are potentially less reliable than self-ratings, they can
provide additional evidence of a person’s level of proactivity. A resume could present clues
that help organizations find people with proactive personalities as well. In addition,
although a proactive personality is considered as a personality trait, we could pay attention
to proactive behaviors (Parker and Collins, 2010). Behavioral acts are the building blocks of
traits. The stronger an individual’s propensity toward a trait, the more frequently and
intensely the individual enacts a corresponding set of behaviors. Behavioral characteristics
of proactive persons (acts, speech, achievements, etc.) can be assessed objectively through
observation and the frequency of occurrence. Hotel organizations could also actively develop
an organizational atmosphere for taking the initiative, which would send signals to service
employees that their organization would expect and reward them for taking the lead,
seeking out opportunities, and stimulating meaningful change in a self-directed way (Raub
and Liao, 2012). Scenario simulation training could also be formulated to improve
employees’ proactive behaviors.
Third, by showing how organizational embeddedness mediates and enhances
employees’ service quality, managers should consider to increase employees’ attachment to
organizations from three perspectives: link, fit and sacrifice. Specifically, links can be
improved through team cooperation or complex tasks, more communication with customers
to achieve work value, and the regular organization of reunions and holiday events. Fit can
be improved by cultivating employees’ knowledge, skills and abilities to overcome obstacles
at work, selecting employees whose values fit with the organizational values, and paying
attention to the cultivation of culture atmosphere. Sacrifice can be improved by increasing
job or organizational rewards, offering paid leaves and flexible work arrangements, and
meeting employees’ spiritual needs.

5.4 Limitations and future directions

There exist several limitations in this study. First, our samples are collected from China.
Therefore, cultural differences may be an issue in our research. Future research is needed to
test the model in other countries to improve the credibility and universality of the study
conclusions. Perhaps it is still an intriguing direction to explore possible cultural
IJCHM contingencies of the effects of transformational leadership (Buil et al., 2019). Second,
although this study provides a more in-depth understanding of the antecedents, mechanism,
and boundary conditions of employees’ service performance, there are several other
boundary conditions that can be explored further within the same context. For example,
various contextual factors (e.g. the rules and regulations of the organization, HRM policies,
and organizational climate) could be considered as potential moderators in the relationship
between transformational leadership and service performance. Similarly, the strength of
proactive personality’s effects was also bound by individual factors and contextual factors.
Finally, future research could find other underlying mechanisms that can reveal the
influence process of transformational leadership and proactive personality on task
performance and contextual performance based on other explanatory theories.

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Corresponding author
Xinyuan (Roy) Zhao can be contacted at: [email protected]

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