Från beröm till beteende : En kvantitativ studie om hur prestationsbaserade verbala belöningar indirket formar kundorientering

Sammanfattning

Organizations within the service sector face the challenge of understanding how leadership behaviours, such as feedback and praise, actually influence employees’ customer-oriented behaviours. Although contingent verbal rewards are commonly used as a tool to guide performance, it remains unclear how they affect customer orientation in practice. Previous research has primarily focused on direct relationships or isolated effects on psychological states, while the interaction between motivational factors and work climate-related conditions in relation to customer orientation has received limited attention. This thesis addresses this research gap by examining how contingent verbal rewards relate to customer orientation, and whether this relationship is mediated by intrinsic motivation and psychological safety. The study adopts a quantitative research approach and was conducted as a survey, focusing on service employees in Sweden. The results show that contingent verbal rewards do not have a significant direct effect on customer orientation. However, they have positive effects on both intrinsic motivation and psychological safety, which in turn have significant positive effects on customer orientation. The indirect effects are significant, indicating that intrinsic motivation and psychological safety function as mediating mechanisms in this relationship. These findings suggest that the effect of contingent verbal rewards depends on the psychological processes they activate in employees, rather than influencing behaviour directly. This thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of how customer-oriented behaviour is shaped in service contexts by demonstrating that the relationship between leadership behaviours and behavioural outcomes is indirect and context-dependent. By integrating Self-Determination Theory and research on psychological safety into a unified model, the thesis shows that customer orientation develops through the interaction between individuals’ internal drivers and the social work environment. Overall, the findings indicate that organizations need to focus on creating conditions that foster motivation and psychological safety, rather than relying solely on contingent praise as an isolated management tool.