The influence of servant leadership on employees' outcomes via job embeddedness in hospitality industry

Purpose Drawing from social exchange theory, the purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of servant leadership on organizational citizenship behavior, turnover intentions and work performance through mediating role of job embeddedness. Design/methodology/approach The data were gathered from 252 frontline employees of Pakistan's hotel industry in two-time lags with an interval of two months by using purposive sampling. PLS-SEM was applied for the analysis of data and hypothesis testing. Findings The study ascertained that job embeddedness is a potent mediator between the nexus of servant leadership and aforementioned work outcomes. The study results portray that servant leadership promotes job embeddedness, OCB, work performance and reduces turnover intentions. Research limitations/implications Hotel management can use job embeddedness to boost servant leadership and reduce turnover intentions. In addition, management should also increase servant leadership by organizing training and workshops for their managers, which ultimately improves followers' organizational citizenship behavior and work performance. Practical implications Hotel management can use job embeddedness to boost OCB, work performance and reduce turnover intentions. In addition, management should also increase servant leadership by organizing training and workshops for their managers, which ultimately improves followers' citizenship behavior and work performance. Originality/value There are numerous calls for research to ascertain as well as sparse literature available whether job embeddedness act as a mediator in the nexus of servant leadership and work outcomes or not. The current study fills these voids and contributes to the literature by empirically examining the mechanism of job embeddedness between servant leadership and the work outcomes.