Customer Orientation and Job Satisfaction of Service Middle Managers: A Research on the Directionality of the Relationship and its Boundary Conditions

Abstract

The directionality of causal relationship between customer orientation and job satisfaction is unclear from previous research. Additionally, research on this topic is based on service-workers, while middle managers are ignored, although their critical role. Drawing from literature on person-situation interaction and fit theory we develop some hypothesis on middle-manager customer orientation and job satisfaction. We test this hypothesis with 535 branch managers from a commercial bank. Results confirm that customer orientation is an antecedent of job satisfaction, and job fit and customer contact time moderates this relationship.