Author
- Gordhan K. Saini
- S. K. Pandey
- Archana Singh
- Gurumurthy Kalyanaram
Role of Empathy and Customer Orientation in Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment
Researchers have paid considerable attention to the concept of customer orientation, particularly in the services sector. It is shown that customer-oriented organizations are more likely to contribute to customer satisfaction and organizational goals as against organizations with no customer orientation (Brown, Mowen, Donavan, & Licata, 2002; Donavan, Brown, & Mowen, 2004; Kotler, 1998). Service employees’ direct interaction with the customer is often considered as a main determinant of the customer’s overall satisfaction (Rust, Zahorik, & Keiningham, 1995; Dobni, 2002; Donavan et al., 2004). Therefore, the study of antecedents of service employees’ attitude and behavior in service encounters are extremely important. Service employees’ empathy (i.e., caring and individualized attention) is one such antecedent which is considered a major requirement for winning service encounters (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1988; Zeithaml, Berry, & Parasuraman, 1996; Wieseke, Geigenmuller, & Kraus, 2012) and success of service interactions is based on the intensity of empathy visible in employee customer interactions (Gabbott & Hogg, 2000). In this study, we examine the role of empathy in influencing customer orientation and their impact on job satisfaction and employees’ organizational commitment.
