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Article

Airline Cabin Crew Members’ Ambidexterity as the Sustainable Attitude for Prosocial Passenger Service

by
Hyung-Min Choi
1 and
Daniel Kessler
2,*
1
Department of Foodservice Management, College of Hotel and Tourism, Youngsan University Haeundae Campus, Busan 48015, Republic of Korea
2
International College, Dongseo University, Busan 47011, Republic of Korea
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(1), 242; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15010242
Submission received: 14 November 2022 / Revised: 7 December 2022 / Accepted: 20 December 2022 / Published: 23 December 2022
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) in Hospitality and Tourism Sector)
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Abstract

:
The current study aims to explore the intrinsic and extrinsic motivators for cabin crew members’ ambidexterity and to investigate the influence of ambidexterity on prosocial service behavior. The authors employed PLS-SEM to examine the model, using 428 valid samples from cabin crew members, their pursers, and managers working for airlines in South Korea. The study found that challenge, empowerment, and learning goal orientation, among the four dimensions of the intrinsic motivators, have positive and significant influences on cabin crew members’ ambidexterity. The findings also demonstrate that only service climate, among the three extrinsic motivators studied, is associated with ambidexterity. Moreover, the findings reveal a strong relationship between cabin crew members’ ambidexterity and prosocial service behaviors. Based on the findings, the authors addressed theoretical and practical implications related to sustainability literature and the industry.

1. Introduction

The airline business has faced challenges in improving profitability and passenger service due to fluctuating oil costs and unexpected external environments, such as global epidemics. In order to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage, many airlines provide differentiated in-flight services to their passengers [1,2,3]. Although airlines publish their service manuals after a long period of research and efforts, they need to continuously improve and update their manuals due to the dynamic environment of the aviation industry [4,5]. The voices of crew members and their feedback based on their field experiences of passenger encounters play a critical role in improving in-flight service manuals [6,7].
While it would be ideal for every situation during a flight to occur as stated in a manual, a cabin crew member, unfortunately, encounters a variety of incidents that cannot be handled as stated in a manual. Whenever these situations occur, cabin crew members experience a tense tug-of-war between corporate policy and a passenger’s comfort [8]. The issue of using restrooms during turbulence is a good example of a dilemma that flight attendants experience. Many passengers line up in front of the bathroom after in-flight meals and beverages are served. Whenever the jolting airplane passes through a turbulent area longer than expected, the uncomfortable passengers who returned from the restroom line to their seats often fasten their gazes on the crew members’ faces. Even though the policy is in place to ensure the passengers’ safety, a restroom may be the most urgent problem for someone at this moment. If a young child is about to burst into tears due to the urgent need to use the bathroom, a flight attendant might accompany him/her to use it quickly when the turbulence is a little calmer while the seat belt sign is still on. Such considerations and services depend on the individual flexibility of a crew member.
Successful in-flight services are provided when a cabin crew member not only follows the manual but also acts with wisdom and flexibility. One lens for explaining this kind of behavior is called the “ambidexterity concept”. Ambidexterity was initially conceptualized to explain the ability to simultaneously prioritize activities of both exploration and exploitation at the organizational level [9,10]. However, some scholars have recently argued the need for research on ambidexterity at the individual level, beyond the organizational and team level [11,12,13]. Individual ambidexterity refers to an individual’s ability to simultaneously perform work-related activities of both exploration and exploitation [14,15]. Exploration is about innovation/taking the initiative, which captures the activities related to discovery, adaptability, variability, and innovation, while exploitation is about servicing customers in organizationally consistent ways, highlighting activities related to efficiency, alignment, selection, and reliability [9]. Therefore, individual ambidexterity can be explained as a multilevel phenomenon driven by individuals as they deal with dynamic environments due to the variations in explorative or exploitative behaviors over time [11,13]. Seen in this way, individual ambidexterity encompasses divergent thinking (exploration), focused attention (exploitation), and cognitive flexibility (alternating exploration and exploitation) [11].
Despite increasing interest in ambidexterity, there is a paucity in exploring ambidexterity at the individual level. Moreover, limited studies on ambidexterity have been conducted in the hospitality literature regarding ESG management. However, individual ambidexterity can enhance prosocial service behavior, which contributes to sustainability in an organization from the social and economic perspectives because the concept of ambidexterity involves the two aspects capable of facilitating innovation and engagement in business, similar to the sustainability concept [16]. In previous studies, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations contributed to individual ambidexterity [15,17]. However, the studies did not include a comprehensive list of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators as antecedents of ambidexterity. Kao and Chen examined the relationships between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators and flight attendants’ ambidexterity [15]. They measured intrinsic motivator as a sense of challenge but failed to include other important motivators: enjoyment of work, learning goal orientation, and empowerment. Furthermore, previous studies have operationalized extrinsic motivators with limited factors such as monetary rewards even though an individual can be extrinsically motivated in various situations [15,17]. That is, other extrinsic motivators such as job security and service climate have not been deeply explored for service employees’ ambidexterity. Thus, to address this issue, the purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to examine the positive influences of enjoyment, challenge, empowerment, and learning goal orientation as the intrinsic motivators and compensation, job security, and service climate as the extrinsic motivators on ambidexterity; and (2) to investigate whether cabin crew members’ ambidexterity leads to enhanced prosocial service behaviors.

2. Literature Review and Hypothesis Development

2.1. Individual Ambidexterity

Duncan first introduced the term “ambidexterity” in organizational studies to describe a companies’ ability to simultaneously pursue the contradictory activities of both exploitation and exploration [18]. Since early studies on ambidexterity considered exploitation and exploration mutually exclusive, they argued that balancing the two activities by allocating proper time and resources for each activity was crucial for the viability of an organization due to the trade-off relationship [9,19]. However, subsequent studies viewed the simultaneous activities of both exploitation and exploration as essential features of ambidexterity that lead to organizational success in the competitive market place [20,21,22].
Based on the premise that organizational members are the main subjects of organizational ambidextrous activities, research on ambidexterity at the organizational level began to expand to the individual level [23,24]. Mom et al. fueled the need for studies on individual ambidexterity by exploring the predictors of managerial ambidexterity [23,25]. Their studies have also contributed to the expansion of literature on individual ambidexterity into the context of service personnel. Jasmand et al. coined the construct “ambidexterity” and first attested to the importance of the link between ambidexterity and performance at the employee level in a service organization [14]. From the perspective of service organizations, some scholars have highlighted the fact that individual ambidexterity plays a critical role in accomplishing the multiple and sometimes conflicting goals of a service organization [14,15,26,27]. Moreover, previous studies have demonstrated that motivation also serves as an important predictor of individual ambidexterity [28,29]. Thus, the authors propose some possible intrinsic and extrinsic motivators as antecedents and prosocial service behavior as the outcome of cabin crew members’ ambidexterity throughout the subsequent three sections.

2.2. Intrinsic Motivators and Ambidexterity

Doing something driven by internal rewards, such as feeling enjoyment, interest, curiosity, or a sense of challenge toward one’s work, is called “intrinsic motivation” [30]. Activities play a rewarding role in intrinsically motivated individuals. Thus, they are likely to undertake their activities enthusiastically when the activities provide them internal rewards, such as competence, autonomy, challenge, and enjoyment [31,32]. Intrinsic motivation is also a well-known trigger for individual ambidexterity. For example, Kao and Chen confirmed that intrinsic motivation is positively related to individual ambidexterity, but their study failed to show which factors among various intrinsic motivators are the critical drivers of ambidexterity [15]. To extend their study and explore various intrinsic motivators for cabin crew members’ ambidexterity, the authors specified intrinsic motivators as those which are comprised of four major components: enjoyment, challenge, empowerment, and learning goal orientation.
First, individuals commonly feel a sense of challenge around their work when they face a somewhat complex problem that needs to be solved or tasks that require their creativity [31]. Individuals with a high perception of challenge toward their tasks are strongly motivated to look for various ways to solve their problem, which is directly related to their ambidexterity, which in turn has a direct impact on improved service performance [15,33,34]. Second, enjoyment manifests itself in interesting activities at work, which accentuates self-expression and self-entertainment [33]. A deep level of enjoyment of work drives some individuals to do their job better [31]. In line with this explanation, Sok et al. [34] argued that enjoyable work could lead employees to behave with ambidexterity in their workplaces. Third, learning goal orientation, which refers to the “desire to develop the self by acquiring new skills, mastering new situations and improving one’s competence” [35] p. 1000, is also an essential motivator for individual ambidexterity. Individuals who are equipped with learning goal orientation tend to be profoundly absorbed in the acquisition of knowledge and skill improvement and less concerned about making mistakes [36,37]. Therefore, they could be more intensively engaged in their tasks by adopting their ambidextrous strategy [27,38]. Lastly, empowerment refers to “employees’ belief in the extent to which they affect their work environment, their competence, the meaningfulness of their job, and their perceived autonomy in their work” [39] p. 79. Empowered individuals are likely to feel the meaningfulness and importance of their roles and to have high autonomy in decision making. Accordingly, they can be easily motivated to display their full competence not only to resolve conflicting problems but also to undertake their in- and extra-roles, while providing customer services [40,41]. It also confirmed that empowered employees are more likely to engage in ambidextrous activities to accomplish their goals [42]. Hence, the authors postulate the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1. 
A flight attendant who is more motivated by the challenge of his/her work is likely to be more ambidextrous in providing in-flight service.
Hypothesis 2. 
A flight attendant who is more motivated by the enjoyment of his/her work is likely to be more ambidextrous in providing in-flight service.
Hypothesis 3. 
A flight attendant who is more motivated by the learning goal orientation of his/her work is likely to be more ambidextrous in providing in-flight service.
Hypothesis 4. 
A flight attendant who is more motivated by the empowerment of his/her work is likely to be more ambidextrous in providing in-flight service.

2.3. Extrinsic Motivators and Ambidexterity

Extrinsic motivation helps alleviate an individual from job dissatisfaction when activities are not beneficial for achieving his/her goals [43,44]. This study concentrates on three crucial elements of extrinsic motivation: compensation, job security, and service climate.
First, compensation, including incentives, is an effective way to motivate individuals to mitigate their job dissatisfaction at work [43]. Several previous studies showed that extrinsic rewards such as compensations and incentives effectively stimulate employees to perform service activities with individual ambidexterity [15,17]. Second, a job with highly-perceived security motivates individuals to efficiently and effectively perform their tasks [45,46]. Previous studies have argued that job security provides employees long-lasting career expectations with an organization, and reciprocally, they are more likely to engage in their activities [47,48]. Furthermore, individuals with highly perceived job security often actively explore alternative ways of solving tasks and demonstrate positive work-related behaviors [49,50]. Therefore, job security can encourage employees to display their ambidexterity. Third, service climate also triggers an individual’s positive attitudes and behaviors [51,52,53]. Service climate refers to employee perceptions of how supportive a service organization is to employees in improving the quality of customer service, which involves the practice, policies, and procedures of an organization and interpersonal relationships among organizational members [54]. In prior studies, the authors found that a constructive service climate motivates individuals to undertake their service activities successfully and leads to excellent service performance [55,56,57]. Caniëls et al. highlighted the finding that employees’ ambidexterity is strongly related to a supportive organizational culture [42]. Consequently, service climate is also a plausible extrinsic motivator for cabin crew members’ ambidexterity. Based on this literature, the authors posit the hypotheses as follows:
Hypothesis 5. 
A flight attendant who is more motivated by the compensation from his/her organization is likely to be more ambidextrous in providing in-flight service.
Hypothesis 6. 
A flight attendant who is more motivated by the job security of his/her work is likely to be more ambidextrous in providing in-flight service.
Hypothesis 7. 
A flight attendant who is more motivated by the service climate of his/her organization is likely to be more ambidextrous in providing in-flight service.

2.4. Ambidexterity and Prosocial Service Behavior

Prosocial behavior was coined as “voluntary actions that are intended to help or benefit another individual or group of individuals” [58] p. 3. Scholars in service management expanded the term to prosocial service behavior with specific reference to the role of service employees [59,60]. Although the term of prosocial service behavior is interchangeably used with organizational citizenship behavior, they differ in scope. The prosocial service behavior construct encompasses both role-prescribed and extra-role behavior, whereas the OCB construct consists only of extra-role helping behaviors [41,61,62,63].
In regard to the operationalization of prosocial service behavior, two or three dimensions have been used to define the prosocial service behavior construct. Specifically, Bettencourt and Brown operationalize prosocial service behavior with the three factors of role-prescribed customer service, extra-role customer service, and cooperation [61]. Role-prescribed service behavior means providing routine services to customers in organizationally consistent ways, while extra-role service behaviors refer to the discretionary actions of service employees who go above and beyond to provide exceptional customer service [59,61]. In addition, cooperation is defined as the service employees’ helpful behaviors toward their colleagues [61]. Meanwhile, from the perspectives of hospitality and tourism, Tsaur et al. operationalize prosocial service behavior in two dimensions: role-prescribed and extra-role service behaviors [59].
Ambidextrous individuals are highly likely to sacrifice some of their own interests for the good of the organization by donating time, energy, and other personal resources. Among the behaviors that go beyond the stated requirements of the role are cooperating with co-workers and taking action to protect the organization from unexpected hazards, in addition to suggesting ways to improve the organization. For instance, an organizational member may suggest changes to job design, production procedures, administrative procedures, management practices, organizational structure, or organizational strategy [64]. Even though these acts may appear inconsistent with compliance, they demonstrate individual ambidextrous behaviors and lead to prosocial service behaviors since they help the organization when faced with uncertain or unpredictable situations. The concept of contextual performance is described by Borman and Motowidlo as activities that employees perform to contribute to the psychological and social core of an organization [62]. As part of this behavior, employees volunteer to perform tasks that are not part of their jobs and help and cooperate with others in the organization to accomplish those tasks. Some literature on ambidexterity strongly supports the relationship between individual ambidexterity and prosocial service behavior. For example, several studies on individual ambidexterity in the service sector emphasize that service employees’ strong ambidexterity contributes to their high service performance [15,26]. Moreover, Bouzari and Karatepe investigated employees in the hotel sales sectors and revealed that service-sales ambidexterity is highly related to service-oriented OCB [65]. In addition, Testa et al.’s study examined the relationship between individual ambidexterity and prosocial values, as assessed by the OCB measure, and found that more frequent prosocial behaviors can result from an employees’ stronger ambidexterity [66]. Thus, the authors expect that individual ambidexterity can lead to more frequent prosocial service behaviors, so they propose the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 8. 
A more ambidextrous flight attendant is likely to provide more prosocial in-flight service.
Based on the hypotheses discussed above, the authors present a research framework as displayed in Figure 1.

3. Methods

3.1. Sample and Data Collection

The authors defined the population of this study as the cabin crew and obtained data from two different groups of informants (cabin crew members and their pursers) who had in-flight service experiences for one or more years in two primary airlines based out of South Korea. These two full-service carriers occupy the majority of the aviation market focusing on passenger travels in South Korea [67]. After receiving permission from the management of the airlines, the authors delivered two separate paper-based questionnaires (a ratee’s form to assess the independent variables and mediator; a rater’s form to evaluate the outcome) to the human resources department. HR personnel then distributed them to the pursers in charge of each flight. Next, informing their crew about the survey, the pursers distributed the ratee’s forms to their crew during pre-flight briefings, and the crew returned them before their return to home base. The pursers informed the participants that this survey is only for academic research; their responses will be confidential; that there is no right answer; that their responses will not place them at a disadvantage; and that they may choose not to respond to the questionnaire if they do not want to. The pursers also evaluated their team members’ prosocial service behavior by using the separate rater’s forms, and the authors advised them that they must complete the form only when no other crew members were present. The pursers returned the completed questionnaire packets in sealed envelopes to the HR departments after their return flight to South Korea, and the HR departments then delivered them to the authors. The survey was conducted from May 5th to July 22nd, 2022. Lastly, the authors used respondents’ names and corporate ID numbers to perform and code rater-ratee dyads into the dataset.
The number of flight attendants for each international flight varies, but ranges from approximately 5 to 18. To cover the maximum number of flight attendants for each flight, each survey packet contained 20 copies. Thus, a total of 2700 questionnaires were delivered to 135 cabin crew teams, and each returned envelope included significant number of unused questionnaires. Out of 863 completed responses returned, 294 were denials, 83 were disqualifications due to not meeting the minimum one-year of flight experience, and 58 were invalid cases containing missing values, insincere responses, or non-dyadic records. These were discarded. The researchers retained 428 valid subjects for further statistical procedures. Among the 428 valid participants, 68.2 percent of the cabin crew were female, the great majority of them were from Asia (95.3%), and most of them had bachelor’s degrees (82.9%). Moreover, their average age was approximately 32 years old (SD = 6.42). Concerning their work, general cabin crew positions (90.7%) accounted for much of the sample, while the rest worked in senior crew positions (9.3%). Their average tenure at their airline was 7.29 years (SD = 6.47).

3.2. Questionnaire and Measures

The authors initially developed the questionnaire in English and then translated it into Korean. Moreover, they used the back-translation approach to ameliorate any discrepancies between the Korean and English versions. All the measures for the constructs were assessed with Likert scale anchored to a five-point, ranging from “1” to “5” which represented intervals from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” in response to each statement. Each set of the paper-based questionnaire packets consisted of two parts—the rater’s and ratee’s forms.
The ratee’s form distributed to the cabin crew members consisted of three sections. The first section was designed for the cover letter to announce the purpose of the survey, the procedures, the confidentiality and anonymity, the potential risks, the researchers’ contact information, and an informed consent form. The second section contained demographic and work-related questions, including name, employee ID number, gender, age, nationality, education level, job position, and tenure at the current airline. The third section required the respondents to rate the scale items related intrinsic and extrinsic motivators and ambidexterity. All the measures for each construct were separately provided with the different cover stories.
The rater’s form for the pursers was designed to allow them to evaluate the crew members’ prosocial service behavior, and it consisted of three sections. The first section of the rater’s form was the introduction information, similar to the ratee’s form, of which the only difference was the answering procedures, because it was designed to evaluate a maximum of twenty crew members’ prosocial service behaviors. The second section collected the rater’s demographic and work-related information. The third section allocated twenty distinct sets to appraise the prosocial service behavior of up to twenty individual crew members, including the ratee’s name for each set.
To assess the cabin crew members’ challenge and enjoyment of their work, the researchers respectively adopted three and two items from the shortened version of the Work Preference Inventory (WPI-10), which includes items such as “I enjoy tackling problems that are completely new to me” for challenge and “What matters most to me is enjoying what I do” for enjoyment [68].
The researchers derived five items from Vandewalle’s study to measure learning goal orientation [35]. Example items include, “I often look for opportunities to develop new skills and knowledge” and “For me, development of my work-ability is important enough to take risks”.
For empowerment, the researchers adopted a 12-item scale of psychological empowerment from Spreitzer’s study [69] and utilized four dimensions (meaningfulness, competence, self-determination, and impact) as the indicators of empowerment and aggregated three items of each dimension into a parceled indicator (see [41] for more details). Examples are, “The work I do is meaningful to me” for meaningfulness; “I am confident about my ability to do my job” for competence; “I have significant autonomy in determining how to do my job” for self-determination; and “My impact on what happens while in flight is large” for impact.
Four, five, and seven items, respectively, which were derived from Kuvaas et al.’s, Kraimer et al.’s, and Schneider et al.’s studies, measured compensation, job security, and service climate [54,70,71]. Examples of items include “If I had been offered better pay, I would have done a better job” for compensation, “I am secure in my job” for job security, and “Our airline makes efforts to improve the quality of service” for service climate.
For the cabin crew members’ ambidexterity, the researchers adapted 14 items from Mom et al.’s study [25]. The scale consists of the exploration measure with seven items and the exploitation with another seven. Moreover, the researchers amended the item descriptions of ambidexterity to improve applicability to the cabin crew setting, because the scale has been developed to measure ambidexterity in the management setting. For example, one of the original items for exploration “searching for new possibilities with respect to products/services, processes, or markets” was altered to “I search for new possibilities with respect to services or processes while providing service in flight,” as well as one of the original items for exploitation “activities which serve existing (internal) customers with existing services/products” was reformed to “I provide passenger services, conforming to the existing rules and manuals”.
Lastly, in order to allow the raters to evaluate prosocial service behavior, the researchers adapted six items from Tsaur et al.’s and Tsaur and Lin’s studies [59,60], with several words altered to make these more applicable to rating the cabin crew members’ behaviors in the airline service context. For example, the original description “I perform all those tasks for customers that are required by him/her” was altered to “(S) he performs all those tasks for passengers that are required by them,” and “I voluntarily assist customers even if it means going beyond job requirements” was modified to “(S) he voluntarily assists passengers even if it means going beyond job requirements”.

4. Results

4.1. Common Method Variance

In order to mitigate the possible common method variance (CMV), the authors used several procedural techniques suggested by a previous study [72]. First, the authors collected information from various sources about the independent and dependent variables. More specifically, the cabin crew members assessed the constructs: enjoyment, challenge, empowerment, compensation, learning goal orientation, job security, service climate, and ambidexterity for themselves, and their pursers evaluated their prosocial service behavior. Second, there were different instructions for each scale, which separated participants’ psychological connections for the different scale. Lastly, the authors assured that the respondents’ confidentiality would be kept.
Nonetheless, the potential method variance can be contaminated into the true variance because the exogenous variables and the mediator were assessed by a self-rating technique. Thus, the authors confirmed the method variance by a full collinearity test suggested by Kock [73]. The results demonstrated that the variance inflation factors (VIF) ranged from 1.194 to 2.956, which indicates the CMB of this study is not a serious concern because the maximum VIF is less than the threshold of 3.3. As the results, the authors conclude that the research variance between the constructs were not severely contaminated by the common method.

4.2. Evaluations of Measurement Model

To evaluate the convergent validity of the measurement model, the authors confirmed the indicators’ outer loadings and the constructs’ average variance extracted (AVE). In addition, the authors also identified the reliability of the measures employing the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, the composite reliability (CR), and the Rho-A coefficients. Excluding five indicators (two for learning goal orientation; two for exploration; one for exploitation) due to their low loadings, the remaining measures (Table 1) were significantly loaded to the corresponding constructs (0.731 ≤ λ ≤ 0.960; 12.874 ≤ t ≤ 42.624). Moreover, the AVEs of the measures, ranging from 0.585 to 0.777, meet the Fornell–Larcker’s threshold of 0.5 (Table 2). Consequently, the measures’ convergent validity is not a concern in this study. Regarding the reliability of the measures, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (0.823 ≤ α ≤ 0.932), the composite reliability (0.823 ≤ CR ≤ 0.933), and the Rho-A coefficients (0.823 ≤ ρA ≤ 0.935) satisfy the rules of thumb (α > 0.7; ρA > 0.7; CR > 0.7). These results clearly indicate that there is no issue in the reliability of the measures.
The authors employed both the Fornell–Larcker and Heterotriat–Monotriat ratios of correlations (HTMT) to identify the measures’ discriminant validity. As displayed in Table 3, the maximum correlation coefficient (0.629) is not greater than the minimum square root of AVE (0.765), and all the values of HTMTs (0.115 ≤ HTMT ≤ 0.631) are less than the cut-off value of 0.85 [74]. Accordingly, the results clearly indicate that the measures of this study have been well established from the perspective of the discriminant validity.

4.3. Hypothesis Test

To test the research hypotheses, the authors created the structural model specified with 9 latent variables and 34 reflective indicators. Furthermore, based on Mom et al.’s study, the authors adopted the single indicator produced by the multiplication of exploration and exploitation ambidexterity [25]. Employing a consistent PLS algorithm, the authors conducted the bootstrapping technique which generated five thousand resamples, and a 95 percent confidence level was applied to the bias correction. In regard to the model fit evaluation, the standardized root mean residual (SRMR) is 0.054, while the normed fit index (NFI) is 0.892. The results denotes that the structural model fits the covariance data well [75]. In addition, the variance inflation factors (VIF) of the inner variables (1.211 ≤ VIF ≤ 1.737) are less than the criterion value of 5.0. Thus, the current study does not have a serious multicollinearity issue. From the perspective of quality criteria, the authors employed both the R2-values and Stone–Geisser’s Q2-values. The results demonstrated that seven independent variables of this study have enough predictive power (R2 = 0.705) and relevance (Q2 = 0.658) to ambidexterity, while ambidexterity has the adequate level of predictive power (R2 = 0.295) and relevance (Q2 = 0.178) in predicting prosocial service behavior.
Table 4 and Figure 2 display the results of hypothesis testing. Out of the four intrinsic motivators, challenge (β = 0.277; t = 5.858; p < 0.001), learning goal orientation (β = 0.323; t = 7.664; p < 0.001), and empowerment (β = 0.184; t = 3.380; p < 0.01) positively and significantly influence ambidexterity, while enjoyment (β = 0.060; t = 1.402; p > 0.05) has a positive sign but insignificant effect on ambidexterity. Thus, Hypotheses 1, 3, and 4 are supported, but Hypothesis 2 is not. Out of three extrinsic motivators on ambidexterity, only service climate (β = 0.237; t = 4.881; p < 0.001) has a positive and significant effect on ambidexterity. However, compensation (β = 0.046; t = 1.075; p > 0.05) and job security (β = 0.066; t = 1.872; p > 0.05) are not significant antecedents of ambidexterity. Accordingly, Hypothesis 7 is supported, but Hypotheses 5 and 6 are not. As for the relationship between ambidexterity and prosocial service behavior, the impact of ambidexterity on prosocial service behavior is positive and significant (β = 0.545; t = 9.693; p < 0.001). Therefore, Hypothesis 8 is also supported.

5. Conclusions

5.1. Findings and Discussion

This study examined the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators on cabin crew members’ ambidexterity in the context of passenger services that in turn leads to prosocial service behavior. The authors derived the results by analyzing data obtained from different informants. The findings indicate that the cabin crew members’ prosocial service behavior significantly demonstrates when it not only provides passengers services by following the service and safety standards but also when it exhibits flexibility in exceptional circumstances and actively responds to better service provision.
Among elements of intrinsic motivators for the cabin crew members’ ambidexterity in providing in-flight services, this study demonstrated the importance of challenge, learning goal orientation, and empowerment, which are inherent in the cabin crew members’ work itself. However, interestingly, the enjoyment of the work itself does not have a significant influence on the cabin crew members’ ambidexterity, which is consistent with Leung et al.’s finding [33]. They argued that the enjoyment of work may not be the essential motivation factor for cabin crew members’ ambidexterity because enjoyment of work focuses on self-expression and self-entertainment rather than on the process of tackling challenges and problems encountered. However, enjoyment may positively affect the cabin crew members’ job satisfaction or career satisfaction because the opportunities to travel overseas during layovers in a destination are a critical factor of employee attrition [76]. It is also plausible that a cabin crew member’ passenger service is not, in itself, very enjoyable work, but rather a task which necessarily prioritizes passengers’ safety. Hence, the authors conclude that enjoyment of work is not a good motivator for cabin crew members’ ambidexterity.
Another interesting finding of the current study is that only service climate out of three factors of extrinsic motivation can promote ambidexterity, which implies that the cabin crew members’ ambidexterity can be facilitated by organizational support, such as providing training resources and demonstrating willingness to invest in new technology for the delivery of excellent customer service. In contrast to the previous study [15], the findings of this study demonstrate that compensation is not an effective extrinsic motivator to encourage cabin crew members’ ambidexterity. This null effect of compensation on ambidexterity can be supported by self-determination theory [44]. Not only Deci and his colleagues’ studies [32,44] but also his earlier research have consistently argued that providing employees monetary rewards as extrinsic motivation tends to weaken their intrinsic motivation and distorts the nature of the state in which they were internally motivated to accomplish tasks autonomously [30]. In the same vein, the two-factor theory also addressed that a lack of extrinsic motivators, so called hygiene factors, such as salary and job security, may cause employees to be dissatisfied with their jobs, but that strong extrinsic motivators do not necessarily make them strongly motivated [43]. Unlike the other two extrinsic motivators, service climate serves as an effective extrinsic motivator for employees’ positive organizational behavior because service climate is directly related to essential organizational supports, including resources, training, and managerial practices for employees to accomplish their duties effectively [54,77]. This study found that building a positive service climate motivates cabin crew members’ ambidexterity, which is in line with the arguments of prior hospitality studies that service climate has a positive and significant influence on employees’ work engagement and service behavior [77,78]. Viewed in this light, it is noteworthy that a supportive service climate can inspire cabin crew members’ ambidexterity.

5.2. Theoretical Contributions

The current study contributes to sustainability literature by expanding the vital concept of ambidexterity into the cabin crew members’ in-flight service activities. The concept of ambidexterity has been flourishingly discussed at the levels of organization, team, and supervisor [24,28,79,80], while the studies on this concept at the level of the individual are still relatively lacking. Furthermore, very limited studies on this concept have been conducted in hospitality settings, including airline services, even though cabin crew members’ ambidexterity is an easily observed phenomenon in the context of providing excellent passenger services. Like the airline setting, the frontline personnel who work in the dynamic environment of hotels and restaurants also handle various customer needs and complaints on a regular basis [81,82,83]. In such environments, both the provision of services based on service standards and the flexibility to act in each situation are simultaneously required to provide more creative services that in turn help achieve higher customer satisfaction [84,85]. Thus, future studies should further explore whether the same findings will hold when similar studies are replicated in other hospitality industry settings, such as hotels, restaurants, and theme parks.
The current study serves as a catalyst for hospitality literature to more widely explore the antecedents and consequences of hospitality employees’ ambidexterity. This research also contributes to the literature on individual ambidexterity by broadening its antecedents to not only four components of intrinsic motivators—challenge, enjoyment, learning goal orientation, and empowerment—but also to three types of extrinsic motivators—compensation, job security, and service climate. This study extends the body of knowledge about frontline employees’ ambidexterity by adding two new intrinsic motivators, learning goal orientation and empowerment, as well as the extrinsic motivator, service climate, and confirming that they are all significant predictors of ambidexterity. Furthermore, such findings expand the application of theories of self-determination and motivation-hygiene to ambidexterity and deliver empirical evidence to support both theories [43,44].

5.3. Practical Implications

Based on the findings, the present study sheds light on how intrinsic and extrinsic motivators can enhance cabin crew members’ ambidexterity and prosocial service behavior. The authors suggest several human resources strategies to airline organizations and cabin managers, as follows:
A department of cabin safety and service quality needs to solicit the opinions and suggestions of cabin crew who provide services through direct contact with passengers in flight. Although cabin manuals are designed to find a balance between passengers’ safety and services, they need to be continually improved and updated due to the dynamic environments of airline service and evolving passenger needs. The voices of the cabin crew who care about the convenience and safety of passengers are at the center of such amendments, and cabin managers should listen to the opinions and suggestions of cabin crew members when the service procedures are updated. Additionally, the authors recommend that human resources revise the manual so that the cabin crew can be more flexible in providing in-flight services to the appropriate level unless it has a significant impact on passenger safety. If a senior citizen grins and says, “Please give me one too, I want to take it to my grandchild” while a flight attendant is handing out freebies for children, the response “No, it’s not possible because this is only for children” may not be an ideal answer.
In general, a cabin purser or manager assigns a duty on board to each flight attendant during the pre-flight briefing session. Cabin pursers or managers need to understand the importance of intrinsic motivation for successful passenger services through the cabin crew members’ ambidexterity and to consider allocating duties to each crew member by using the following motivational approach. First, assigning each crew member a challenging duty based on their skills and abilities can make them more active in providing passenger services more balanced between exploitation and exploration. For this purpose, human resources should make duty assignments so that individuals can perform creative roles on board rather than simply repetitive duties. Second, a duty assignment should present the cabin crew with the goals it should achieve through its duties, goals explicitly set within the scope of what the members can accomplish. Flight attendants will strive to achieve the goals if they feel the goals are clear and feasible and would not hesitate to implement both activities of exploration and exploitation for their goal achievements. Lastly, the cabin crew should have autonomy over the duties assigned to them within a specified scope. The empowered cabin crew would act responsibly for the passengers’ safety and comfort by finding the appropriate intersection between the activities of exploitation and exploration to successfully perform the passenger services assigned to them.
From the organizational aspect, the authors advise the top management of airline companies to pay attention to evolving their current service climate into a more constructive and supportive one to encourage the cabin crew members’ active ambidexterity behavior, leading to a higher quality of customer service. If the cabin crew recognizes the fact that its organization is concerned with providing passengers with excellent service quality, they will be more likely to provide better passenger services to meet the expectations of the organization. Since such ambidexterity depends on the extrinsic motivator (i.e., service climate) resting on the foundation of the reciprocal relationship between an organization and its members, it is also necessary to actively support the cabin crew members’ activities in various ways. For example, the authors recommend the human resources staff perform supportive functions, such as designing a training program to develop the cabin crew members’ knowledge and skills, which can cover their enriched duties and create a climate of open communication. In this supportive service climate, the cabin crew would more possibly be motivated to provide better passenger services by utilizing their ambidexterity.

5.4. Limitations and Future Research

The current study on ambidexterity presents a new perspective on the practical motivation of employees in hospitality industries that face fierce competition. Nevertheless, this study has several limitations, and the authors, therefore, expect follow-up studies that supplement the limitations of this study, as well as an influx of research activities on ambidexterity in hospitality academia.
The first limitation of this study lies in the issue of the generalization of the findings. Since the authors obtained the data for this study from the cabin crew working for airlines with home bases located in one specific country in Asia, the findings of this study may not apply to the crew members working for some of the airlines with home bases in other countries with different business cultures. Therefore, future studies should expand this research to airlines from various countries.
Second, the model of individual ambidexterity presented in this study includes intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Notwithstanding, this model is not comprehensive and some other relevant motivators may have been omitted from the model. Thus, if follow-up studies find any other motivators that may be applied to hospitality frontline employees’ ambidexterity, it will be necessary to compare the effects of the newly developed motivators with those of the current motivators presented in this study.
Lastly, the model of the current study includes no moderator between intrinsic/extrinsic motivators and ambidexterity. However, it is understood that ambidexterity may be inspired by different motivating factors, depending on individual characteristics. For example, the influences of motivators on ambidexterity may result from the big-five factors of individual characteristics and individual emotional intelligence. Accordingly, if future scholars explore the variables related to individual characteristics, it may contribute greatly to the development and expansion of hospitality literature on employees’ ambidexterity.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, H.-M.C. and D.K.; Methodology, H.-M.C. and D.K.; Investigation, D.K.; Data curation, H.-M.C.; Writing—original draft, H.-M.C. and D.K.; Writing—review & editing, D.K. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by Youngsan University Research Fund of 2022.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Ethical review and approval were waived for this study due to using pre-surveyed data before funded.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Figure 1. Research model.
Figure 1. Research model.
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Figure 2. Results of PLS-SEM.
Figure 2. Results of PLS-SEM.
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Table
Table 1. Outer loadings of final measurement model.
Table 1. Outer loadings of final measurement model.
ConstructsItem descriptionsLoadingsT Statistics
Challenge
CH01I enjoy tackling problems that are completely new to me.0.86128.804
CH02I enjoy trying to solve complex problems.0.92241.282
CH03The more difficult the problem, the more I enjoy trying to solve it.0.80324.429
Enjoyment
EN01What matters most to me is enjoying what I do.0.83518.098
EN02It is important for me to be able to do what I most enjoy.0.83817.613
Learning goal
LG02I often look for opportunities to develop new skills and knowledge.0.84829.298
LG04For me, development of my work ability is important enough to take risks.0.88134.406
LG05I prefer to work in situations that require a high level of ability and talent.0.89538.451
Empowerment (parceled)
MEAThe work I do is meaningful to me.0.82820.860
COMI am confident about my ability to do my job.0.88524.842
SEDI have significant autonomy in determining how to do my job.0.86528.302
IMPMy impact on what happens while in flight is large.0.94442.624
Compensation
CO01If I am supposed to put in extra effort in my job, I need to get extra pay.0.79120.550
CO02It is important for me to have an external incentive to strive for and do a good job.0.80822.058
CO03External incentives such as bonuses and provisions are essential for how well I perform my job.0.76117.732
CO04If I had been offered better pay, I would have done a better job.0.76717.007
Job security
SE01My job will be there if I want it.0.85414.267
SE02I am confident that I will be able to work for my company if I wish.0.96018.342
SE03I am secure in my job.0.82813.964
SE04I will be able to keep present job if I wish.0.80414.795
Service climate
CL01The cabin crew in our airline has knowledge of their duties and skills to deliver superior service quality.0.74012.874
CL02Our airline makes efforts to improve the quality of service.0.74917.166
CL03Cabin crew receives recognition and rewards for the delivery of superior service.0.79318.596
CL04The overall quality of service provided by our airline to passengers is excellent.0.78117.700
CL05The leadership shown by our airline management is supporting the service quality.0.74016.360
CL06Our airline appears to effectively communicate with both employees and passengers.0.77418.275
CL07Cabin crew is provided with tools, technology, and other resources to support the delivery of superior service.0.77517.505
Exploration
ER01I search for new possibilities with respect to services or processes while providing service in flight.0.80428.586
ER02I evaluate diverse option with respect to services or processes while providing service in flight.0.85138.103
ER03I focus on strong renewal of services or processes while providing service in flight.0.80631.599
ER04I use my creativity while providing service in flight.0.76323.378
ER05I make an effort to learn new skills and knowledge for better services.0.83928.726
Exploitation
ET01I provide passenger services, conforming to the existing rules and manuals.0.76719.036
ET02The passenger services that I routinely provide fit into the existing company procedure.0.79824.051
ET03I clearly know how I can conduct my duties in flight.0.75219.913
ET05I provide passenger services by using my existing knowledge.0.77620.803
ET06I carry out my duties in flight as if it were routine.0.80623.403
ET07I primarily focus on achieving safe and comfortable to a destination in the short run while working in flight.0.73418.303
Prosocial service behavior
PB01(S)he performs all those tasks for passengers that are required by them.0.76015.451
PB02(S)he helps passengers with those things which are required by them.0.79918.211
PB03(S)he fulfills responsibilities to passengers as specified in the job descriptions.0.82420.246
PB04(S)he voluntarily assists passengers even if it means going beyond job requirements.0.84323.682
PB05(S)he often goes above and beyond the call of duty when serving passengers.0.73114.883
PB06(S)he willingly goes out of their ways to make a passenger satisfied.0.79718.925
Notes. Empowerment was measured by four indicators parceled with each three items, and the example items are shown. Its full item descriptions can be found in Spreitzer’s publication [69].
Table
Table 2. Convergent validity and reliability.
Table 2. Convergent validity and reliability.
ConstructsAlphaRho-ACRAVE
Challenge0.8960.9010.8980.746
Enjoyment0.8230.8230.8230.700
Learning goal orientation0.9070.9080.9070.766
Empowerment0.9320.9350.9330.777
Compensation0.8630.8640.8630.612
Job security0.9210.9260.9210.746
Service climate0.9080.9080.9080.585
Exploration0.9070.9080.9070.662
Exploitation0.8990.8990.8990.597
Prosocial service behavior0.9110.9120.9100.629
Notes. Alpha indicates Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, CR indicates composite reliability, and AVE indicates average variance extracted.
Table
Table 3. Discriminant validity.
Table 3. Discriminant validity.
CHAENJLGOEMPCOMJSESCLEXREXTSPF
CHA0.8630.1470.5180.5020.3560.1280.3680.6310.5730.470
ENJ0.1490.8370.1150.2730.2830.3240.1240.2120.2830.384
LGO0.5170.1150.8750.4710.3670.1850.4050.6210.6020.357
EMP0.5020.2720.4710.8810.4010.1190.4200.6230.5400.472
COM0.3560.2830.3680.4000.7820.4060.5080.5120.4080.413
JSE0.1290.3240.1850.1200.4070.8640.1330.2470.2240.146
SCL0.3680.1240.4050.4190.5070.1330.7650.5720.5120.428
EXR0.6290.2110.6210.6230.5130.2470.5720.8130.5750.527
EXT0.5740.2830.6020.5400.4080.2250.5120.5750.7730.553
PSB0.4710.3840.3590.4730.4140.1470.4280.5280.5540.793
Notes. CHA refers to challenge, ENJ to enjoyment, LGO to learning goal orientation, EMP to empowerment, COM to compensation, JSE to job security, SCL to service climate, EXR to exploration, EXT to exploitation, PSB to prosocial service behavior. Figures in the lower triangular of the matrix represent correlation coefficients, those in the diagonal represent square root of AVE, and those in the upper triangular of the matrix represent the Heterotrait–Monotrait ratio of correlations.
Table
Table 4. Results of hypothesis test and path coefficients.
Table 4. Results of hypothesis test and path coefficients.
PathsBetasT-values
Challenge → Ambidextrous behavior0.2775.858 ***Supported
Enjoyment → Ambidexterity0.0601.402Not supported
Leaning goal orientation → Ambidexterity0.3237.664 ***Supported
Empowerment → Ambidexterity0.1843.380 **Supported
Compensation → Ambidexterity0.0461.075Not supported
Job security → Ambidexterity0.0661.872Not supported
Service climate → Ambidexterity0.2374.881 ***Supported
Ambidexterity → Prosocial service behavior0.5459.693 ***Supported
** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.
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Choi, H.-M.; Kessler, D. Airline Cabin Crew Members’ Ambidexterity as the Sustainable Attitude for Prosocial Passenger Service. Sustainability 2023, 15, 242. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15010242

AMA Style

Choi H-M, Kessler D. Airline Cabin Crew Members’ Ambidexterity as the Sustainable Attitude for Prosocial Passenger Service. Sustainability. 2023; 15(1):242. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15010242

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Choi, Hyung-Min, and Daniel Kessler. 2023. "Airline Cabin Crew Members’ Ambidexterity as the Sustainable Attitude for Prosocial Passenger Service" Sustainability 15, no. 1: 242. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15010242

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