Influence of Employees ’ Perceived Organizational Support and Job Performance on Customer Satisfaction : An Empirical Support from Nepalese Hospitality Sector

This study investigated the interrelationship of Perceived Job Performance (PJP), Perceived Organizational Support (POS) and International Customer Satisfaction (CS) in Nepalese hospitality sector. The data were collected with 152 international customers and 158 hotel employees. Results indicate that Perceived Job Performance and Perceived Organizational Support is directly related to International Customer Satisfaction, though no direct effect of Perceived Organizational Support over Customer Satisfaction was found. Perceived Organizational Support significantly mediates partially between Perceived Job Performance and Customer Satisfaction. Thus, Perceived Job Performance can strongly relate with achieving higher level of Customer Satisfaction in hospitality sector with mediations of Perceived Organizational Support. It signifies that hospitality industry in Nepal, should pledge a proper inventiveness in the direction of creating an organizational employee supportive environment that need to increase the effect of job performance towards achieving the ultimate goal of customer satisfaction.


Introduction
In today's competitive market environment, a top priority for hospitality firms is to deliver service quality (Karatepe, 2011).The quality of service critically resulted in customer satisfaction.One of the components of quality of service and its sustainability depends on employees' performance.Frontline employees play the most critical role in this process (Bouranta et al., 2009;Yavas et al., 2010).Efforts to enhance customer satisfaction have been considered critical by many organizations, particularly those in the service sector (Schmit and Allscheid, 1995).It is critical when the hospitality industry caters the overall tourism industry, where international tourist plays an important role in the expansion of tourism sector.In service organizations, employees interact directly with their customers (service users) in service encounters.
The interaction between the employees and customers are more important in service organization.Customer satisfaction is one of the most investigated topics in the tourism and hospitality industry due to its role in the survival and future of any tourism products and services (Gursoy, McCleary, & Lepsito, 2007).In services setting, customer satisfaction mainly depends on the process of service delivery a fact that highlights the important role of the front-line employees' performance.
The critical role in the employees' performance, they are to be sufficiently supported by the organisation.So that, the employee create a desired to work and feel that their contributions are valued by the organization and that the organization cares about their well-being (Eisenberger et al., 1986).Significantly, influences both individual and organizational performances, ranging from the employee's physical/psychological well-being and job satisfaction to customer service quality/ performance and customer satisfaction (Hur, et al. 2105).Accordingly, this study focuses in order to add value to the deeper understanding of influence of employees' perceived job performance, employees' perceived organizational support on customer satisfaction in Nepalese hospitality industry.Secondly, this study also examines a conceptual model of mediating influence of perceived organizational support over the effect of job performance on customer satisfaction.

Research Objective/s
This research aims to investigate the relationship between Employees' Perceived Job Performance (PJP), Employees' Perceived Organizational Support (POS), and International Customer Satisfaction (CS) in Nepalese hospitality industry.

Literature Review
A significant stream of research in organizational studies focuses on both the internal functioning of the service organization and the effect of this functioning on customer satisfaction (e.g.Wiley, 1996;Ryan et al., 1996, Hartline andFerrell, 1996).Many firms use customer satisfaction measurements to evaluate the performance of goods, services and employees and try to link them to customer attitudes and behavior (Peterson & Wilson, 1992;Johnson & Gustafsson, 2000;Olsen, Witell, & Gustafsson, 2014).Several studies have focused on customer satisfaction in different perspectives.
These literatures state that the customer satisfaction can depend on a series of elements that belong to the subjective sphere of the customer and to the objective quality of the product/service experienced (Biswakarma, 2015).As the perceived quality of service is often determined by the manner in which service employees not only act and speak with the customer but also how they regulate their feelings, most service organizations encourage their employees to manage their emotions in service interactions to maximize customer satisfaction (Bryman, 2004).However, researchers have questioned this simple method of directly linking positive emotional display or the regulation behavior of service employees with customer satisfaction (Söderlund andRosengren, 2008, 2010).For example, the higher POS employees have, the higher their job satisfaction and job performance, in particular, will be due to an intense sense of obligation to repay their organizations (Eisenberger et al., 2001).Researches indicate that companies with an excellent customer service record reported a 72% increase in profit per employee, compared to similar organizations that have demonstrated poor customer service; it is also five times costlier to attract new customers than to retain existing customers (Duncan, 2004;Duncan & Elliott, 2004).Bitner (1992) also supported the notion that employee and customer responses to the firm environment influence the social interaction between them.In similar manner, j ob performancehas been shown to be the best method for achieving better hotel service, productivity, and efficiency as well as improving guest satisfaction (Sternberg, 1992).

3.1.Employees' Perceived Job Performance and Customer Satisfaction
Much of the burden for customer perceptions of service quality lies on front-line personnel (Hoffman and Ingram, 1992).The consequences of customer satisfaction is linked with employee performance in several studies.Previous empirical studies evidently presents strong relationship between employee performance and customer satisfaction.Study of Douglas, Thomas, &Ingram, (1992) andFrederick Reichheld (2000), presents a positive correlation with customer oriented behavior and concluded that employee performance is essential to customer satisfaction.Likewise, Heskett, Jones, Loveman, Sasser, and Schlesinger (1994) establish a framework in which internal service quality drives employee satisfaction, which, in turn, drives employee performance that generates service quality.Employee with their job performance interact with customers and affect the perception of the customer.

3.2.Employees' Perceived Organizational Support and Customer Satisfaction
There are few previous studies based on the direct relationship of Organizational support and customer satisfaction.Perceptions from both the frontline employees and their customers, reveals that some job resources as elements of organizational support exert its impact on several employee behaviors as well as direct impact on customer satisfaction (Siddiqi, 2014).Studies like Singh & Singh (2010), Hassan, Hassan, & Shoaib (2014) argues in the direction of relationship between POS and CS.POS significantly moderated the relationship between surface acting and job satisfaction, as well as the relationship between deep acting and job performance (Hur, 2014).Hur (2014) study indicated that POS increases or decreases the relationship between emotional labor and job-related outcomes.Employees' work efforts are manifested through their sense-making of the endorsement provided by their organization, which enhances their job performance (Duke et al., 2009).

3.3.Perceived Organizational Support and Perceived Job Performance
POS refers to "the extent to which the organization values [employees'] contributions and cares about their well-being" (Eisenberger, Huntington, & Hutchison, 1986).POS has been previously investigated as the willingness of an organization to provide employees with adequate working conditions and assignments (Eisenberger et al., 1986).The idea of POS was first introduced officially by Eizenberg in an article in organizational literature 1986 (Hakkak, Gashti, & Nawaser, 2014).POS captures an employee's beliefs concerning the extent to which the organization values (employees') general contributions made on the organization's behalf and cares for their well-being (Eisenberger, Huntington, & Hutchison, 1986;Wickramasinghe & Wickramasinghe, 2012).
POS can have direct and indirect effect on employee behavior and the relation between them (Hakkak, Gashti, & Nawaser, 2014).Armeli, Eisenberger, Fasolo, & Lynch, (1998), studied patrol officers in USA with high socio-emotional needs, found that there was generally a positive relationship between POS and performance.POS is the extent to which employees perceive that the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being (Guan, Sun, Hou, Zhao, & Luan, 2014).
POS may be encouraged by employees' tendency to ascribe human-like traits or characteristics to organizations (Eisenberger, Huntington, & Hutchison, 1986).
Positive relationship between POS and work-related outcomes has been found in the study like Armeli, Eisenberger, Fasolo, & Lynch (1998), Rhoades and Eisenberger (2002), Susskind et al. (2000).Karatepe (2012) study suggested that perceived organizational support influenced service recovery performance and job performance.
Likewise, POS was found positively related to evaluative and objective measures of performance in standard job activities (Armeli, Eisenberger, Fasolo, & Lynch, 1998, Eisenberger, Huntington, & Hutchison, 1986).In other studies like Settoon, Bennett, & Liden, (1996) and Wayne, Shore, & Liden (1997), it was found no relationship between POS and work performance using structural equation modeling.In conclusion, previous studies emphasized that job performance leads to customer satisfaction via perceived organizational support.

Research Gaps
Most of the research in international arena has covered or focused PJS and PJP as determinants of CS.However, to the best of author's knowledge, few studies focused on employee POS and CS in the past.Specially, in Nepalese context there is no study to empirically support the relationship of POS as a determinant of CS.At the same time, research in the area that explores relationship between PJP, POS and CS in a single model has not been undertaken.Therefore, having identified this gap in the extant literature, the present study that along with these linkages, investigates the impact of PJP, POS on CS.It is a valuable attempt to plug the gap.

Research Framework and Hypotheses
Based on literature review the relationship of PJP, POS, and CS seen under the proposed framework in

Conceptual Model and Instrumentation
The conceptual framework for this study constitute of three construct-Perceived Organization Support (POS), Perceived Job Performance (PJP) and Customer Satisfaction (CS).Rhoades et al., (2001) Perceived organizational support (POS) scale with eight items, Bowra et al., (2011) Perceived Job Satisfaction (PJS) scale with three items and Gunarathne (2014) Customer Satisfaction (CS) 7 items scale in 5 point likert scale was adopted for the study.

Analytical Strategy
At first, the variables were put into the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to ensure the factor loading of the items into its latent variables.Next, a two-stage approach of CFA and SEM was performed to test the hypothesis to identify significant direct and indirect effect of variables.Based on data obtained from hotel employees and customers, the hypothesized relationships were tested using AMOS v23 through structural equation modeling and other descriptive analysis was performed with SPSS v23.
(n=93), female employees constituted of 41.1% (n=65   (Nunnally, 1978).In the event of that, total variance as explained by the three factors was 74.436% cumulative variance.The factor loading of the three factors is placed in Annexure-1.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)
Erstwhile to examining the relations among the variables, the subscale or the construct of latent variables was analyzed with confirmatory factor analysis to establish its unidimensionality of the whole construct (questionnaire items).Forthwith, a certain degree of model fit is necessary before the testing of the general model is done (Mulaik & James, 1995).So, CFA model fit test was done.Table 4 presents the results of the CFA and figure 2 present the structural model with factor loading.There should be at least 3 items with significant loadings (>0.30) (Suhr, undated).In view of this, all factor loading are higher than 0.5.Correspondingly, on the basis of the modifications indices, the model fit has been achieved.Modification indices suggested remedies to discrepancies between the proposed and estimated model.
Standard residual covariance was tested for significantly decreasing the model fit.
AGFI=.811 (>.80 Hu and Bentler, 1999).PCFI=0.789(> 0.50 James, Mulaik & Brett 1982).IFI = 0.958, TLI = 0.949, within the threshold (> 0.90 Tucker & Lewis 1973), PGFI = 0.634 (> 0.50 James, Mulaik & Brett 1982).GFI was 0.861.At least three indices must be fitted well to determine the model fit (Hair et al., 2010).Table 4 and figure 02 presents the summary of model fit indices.et al., 2010).This is a satisfactory level of internal consistency of the measures and there exist some common points of convergence (Hair et al., 2010).This indicates measurement model is according to the assumptions which were originally made.The result indicated that there is a moderate level of PJP and POS in hospitality sector in Nepal with a mean value of 3.72 (SD=0.636),and 3.59 (SD=0.56).

9.4.Reliability, Convergent Validity and Discriminant Validity
Correspondingly imperative, the level of satisfaction has a mean value of 3.61 (SD=0.78),that indicates a moderate level satisfaction.

Impact Analysis
The model path analysis shows the Regression Weights heading the standardized loadings along with standard errors and p-values that are presented in table 8. PJP -> CS unconstrained estimates are significant, whereas insignificant in POS -> CS.The Standardized Regression Weights can be interpreted as the correlation and influence between the observed variable and the corresponding common factor.PJP-> CS is significant at the 0.01 level.The construct of POS ->CS has no significant influence on each other with p>0.05 level.The Standardized Regression Weights is comparatively high in factor construct of PJP->CS than POS -> CS constructs.

Hypothesis Testing (SEM)
In view of the above, the regression weight had made it clear understanding of impact of PJP on CS but not in POS and CS directly.The results shows PJP positively affects the CS (ß = 0.654, p<0.01), would cause the CS to increase by 65.4%.Hence, path analysis determined the theoretically based hypotheses PJP has significant positive direct effect over the CS.However, POS does not have direct effect over CS.
The hypotheses were verified using the values (shown in the path diagram in figure 3 and table 8) H1 is accepted, however, H2 is failed to be accept.

Discussion and Conclusion
As a result of empirical findings that demonstrate, the significant relationship between  (2000) and Heskett, Jones, Loveman, Sasser, and Schlesinger (1994).
It is also empirically proved that the consequences of customer satisfaction is also linked with POS with weak to moderate relationship with CS, it supports previous studies of Siddiqi, (2014), Hur (2014), Singh & Singh (2010), Hassan, Hassan, & Shoaib (2014).However, it is found that there is no direct impact of POS on CS.The lack of a noteworthy direct effect from POS on CS does not diminish the value of the former.
Similarly, it has been established that employee perceived organizational support  (2012), Kermani (2013), Wiley (1991), Pantouvakis & Bouranta (2013).This can be interpreted with the organizational support to the employees can strongly relate with achieving higher level of CS in Nepalese hospitality sector.It emphasized on managerial implications that CS can be achieved at higher level with creating PJP by improving POS, it supports the findings of Guan, Sun, Hou, Zhao, & Luan, (2014) that signifies that POS influenced job performance indirectly.
Thus, it may be concluded that the present study provides evidence that CS is correlated with PJP and POS, with mediating effects of POS towards the effect of PJP on CS.POS increase performance of standard job activities and actions favorable to the organization that go beyond assigned responsibilities (Rhoades and Eisenberger 2002).Therefore, hospitality industry in Nepal, should pledge a proper inventiveness in the direction of creating an organizational employee supportive environment to increase the job performance.So that, the ultimate goal of customer satisfaction can be achieved.This will lead the organization towards its achievement of goals.Finally, if the business wants to satisfy the needs of its customers, it must first support its employees.
Figure 01: Model of Hypothetical Relationships

Table 02 : Profile of the Respondents
Before analyzing the model with CFA and SEM, the factor loading of latent variables was confirmed by EFA with Principal Component Analysis, component rotated with

Table 04 : Summary of Model Fit Indices for Structural Model of Service Quality Measures Observed Values of the Model
χ2= Chi-Square; p -value for the model, Df= Degree of freedom; RMSEA= Root mean square error of approximation fit index; PCLOSE=p of Close Fit, GFI= goodness of fit index; CFI= Comparative fit index; AGFI= Absolute goodness of fit index; PCFI= Parsimony goodness of fit index; IFI= Incremental fit index; TLI= Tucker-Lewis index; PGFI= Parsimony goodness of fit index.

Table 05
Reliability with the indices of CR > 0.7, Convergent Validity with the indices of CR > AVE, AVE>.5, Discriminant Validity with the indices of MSV < AVE, ASV < AVE (Hair presents the result of the reliability and validity.FL, CR and AVE were used to test convergent validity.MSV and ASV were used to test the discriminant validity of the measurement model.Similarly, reliability was analyzed with CA.

Table 06 : Descriptive Statistics of POS, PJP and CS
Correlation matrix is presented in table 7, it indicates that there is a comparatively moderate to strong correlation between PJP and POS with r= 0.568, p=0.001,PJP and CS with r=0.507, p=0.001.Similarly, comparatively moderate correlation between POS and CS with r=0.346, p=0.001.As expected, a positive moderate to strong relationship between the variables was achieved.

Figure 03: SEM-Path Analysis 12. Mediating role of Perceived Organizational Support towards Perceived Job Performance over Customer Satisfaction The
current model also investigated the mediating role of POS towards PJP over CS with formulation of H3.The direct effect by the construct model was performed first and later the mediation effects were analyzed based on the respective hypothesis.The construct for mediation test was performed through SEM (path analysis) with bootstrapping.The bootstrap estimates presented were based on 2000 sample and Bias-corrected CI at 95%.H3 was verified using the values of direct beta without mediation, direct beta with mediation and indirect beta as shown in table 9.The result indicates that POS have partial mediation towards PJP on CS.It signifies that there is a mediating effect of POS over the relationship of PJP and CS.It signifies not only the importance of the employees' perception on organizational support towards their job performance, it too indicates the importance of organizational support towards customer satisfaction.Hence, H3 is accepted, as there is a mediation relationship in between the variables under observation PJP->POS->CS.

Table 9 : Summary of Hypothesis Testing to Identify Mediation
satisfied with the service quality of the Hotel..899