Do emotions play a mediating role in the relationship between owner leadership styles and manager customer orientation, and performance in service environment?

This study examines the dynamic relationships among leadership style (transformational and transactional), emotion in service employees, customer orientation (dimensions of enjoyment and needs), and job performance. The study proposes a model based on existing literatures and examines the mediating role of service employees’ emotion in the relationship between leadership style and their customer orientation. The study found that all four elements of transformational leadership have a significant effect on positive emotion. Emotion is found to have a significant influence on both enjoyment and needs dimensions of customer orientation and to partially mediate the relationship between leadership style and customer orientation.

► The study examines the relationships among leadership, emotion, customer orientation, and performance. ► The study found that all four elements of transformational leadership have a significant effect on positive emotions of employees. ► Emotion is found to have a significant influence on both dimensions of customer orientation. ► Emotion is also found to partially mediate the relationship between leadership and customer orientation.