What has employee loyalty to do with “love” to clients? Testing approaches to work as mediators
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-05-2021-0212 |
| Published date | 22 November 2022 |
| Date | 22 November 2022 |
| Pages | 149-161 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Ali Kazemi,Tinna Elfstrand Corlin |
What has employee loyalty
to do with “love”to clients? Testing
approaches to work as mediators
Ali Kazemi
University West, Trollh€
attan, Sweden, and
Tinna Elfstrand Corlin
University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose –Drawing on the organizational psychology literature and social resource theory, this research
aimed to investigate how attitude toward the employer (i.e. loyalty)and attitude toward the client (i.e. approach
to work: professional, market-oriented and person-centered) relate to the perceived importance of socio-
emotional resources in providing care to older people.
Design/methodology/approach–Swedish frontline care staff members participated in an electronic survey
using a cross-sectional design. Mediation analyses were conducted to examine proposed direct and indirect
effects of loyalty on the perceived importance of socio-emotional resources in care through three different
approaches to work in care settings.
Findings –In general, the results confirmed the hypotheses.Thus, the analyses showed a positive association
between employee loyalty and the perceived value of socio-emotional resources in care, which was partially
mediated by the person-centered and professional approaches to work. Moreover, the analysesshowed that the
person-centered approach was more strongly related to the perceived value of socio-emotional resources in care
than the other two approaches, lending support to the superiority of the person-centered approach in this
context.
Originality/value –The study highlights that there exist multiple approaches to work in care settings. Also,
the insights about how loyalty toward the employer relates to approach to work in care settings and the
perceived value of socio-emotional resources in care are novel and of crucial importance to practitioners and the
outcomes of care.
Keywords Employee loyalty, Commitment, Approach to work, Socio-emotional resources, Socio-emotional
support, Professional, Market-oriented, Person-centeredness, Elderly care, Aged care
Paper type Research paper
As we grow old our health deteriorates and our social network narrows. Receiving
instrumental and emotional support from family and friends as well as from care staff has
been shown to be associated with increased psychological well-being among older people
(Chao, 2012). Instrumental support can be described as aid or tangible support (Cohen and
Wills, 1985), while emotional support involves communicating reassurance, empathy and
affirmation (Bottorff et al., 1995). Put differently, care is composed of two interrelated
dimensions of task (instrumental support) and relation (emotional support) (Kazemi and
Kajonius, 2015). Although provision of emotional support usually is not part of formal job
descriptions of staff in elderly care services, and as such could be conceived as extra-role
behavior (Van Dyne et al., 1995), previous research clearly demonstrates the crucial
importance of relational factors for positive outcomes of care (e.g. Chenoweth et al., 2009;
Loyalty,
resources,
and approaches
to work
149
© Ali Kazemi and Tinna Elfstrand Corlin. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is
published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce,
distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and no commercial
purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence
may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 18 May 2021
Revised 28 May 2022
11 August 2022
Accepted 4 October 2022
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 44 No. 7, 2022
pp. 149-161
Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-05-2021-0212
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