Service orientation and performance

Abstract

Research has shown a connection between organizational culture and organizational performance. Researchers have also proposed that service orientation, as a form of organizational culture, leads to better organizational results. This article addresses the following two research questions: (1) is it possible to use Denison measuring instruments (DOCs) to assess service orientation? and (2) what is the relationship between service orientation and organizational performance? This research is based on data collected from nine organizations in 2020 and 2019. The data were combined into one database and cleaned, after which 875 valid answers remained. The results showed that 23 questions from DOCs covered 30 out of 35 questions from SERV*OR measuring instrument, that has been specially designed for the purpose of evaluating service orientation. Data analyses revealed that the assessment of internal reliability was good (? = 0.94) and that many questions had a correlation of more than 0.3 but none had a correlation of more than 0.7. Furthermore, the results showed that service orientation based on DOCs explains 47% of the variability in performance as the average of the six performance factors used in DOCs. The strongest relationships were found between Service orientation and the performance factors job satisfaction (R2 = 0.40; ? = 0.64) and overall performance (R2 = 0.40; ? = 0.63). Whereas the weakest relationship was found between service orientation and the performance factor profit (R2 = 0.14; ? = 0.37). The main limitations of the study are that the data originate from organizations that have all excelled in their fields and received various awards for their success. Therefore, the results cannot be generalized to the relationship between service orientation and performance in companies that do not perform as effectively or have a weaker culture. Further research aims to examine such comparisons and to more accurately, identify the strong links between service orientation and job satisfaction.