Investigating the moderating effects of service climate on personality, motivation, social support, and performance among flight attendants

•We examine the moderating effects of service climate on personality and performance.•Social support and service climate moderate the personality–performance relationship.•Work motivation is an important moderated mediator for improving service performance.•Distinguishing different types of work motivation is needed to maintain performance.

As service work becomes more complex and diversified, proactive behaviors become even more critical as determinants of organizational success. This study investigates the moderated mediation and three-way interaction effects that exist in the relationship between the variables ‘proactive personality’ and ‘service performance’. A self-administered questionnaire collected data from 205 flight attendants. Using hierarchical regression analysis, the results show that the relationship between ‘proactive personality’ and ‘service performance’ is moderated by other variables, namely ‘social support’ and ‘service climate’. Another variable ‘intrinsic motivation’ is found to be important when a low ‘service climate’ would otherwise inhibit service performance. The implications of the research findings are provided and discussed.