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Response of Service Employees to New Organizational Goals Without Specified Rewards: A Quasi-Experiment

Ya Zhu et al.

Journal of Service Research2026https://doi.org/10.1177/10946705261425728article
AJG 4ABDC A*
Weight
0.50

Abstract

Frontline service employees are integral to the successful implementation of firms’ customer relationship management strategies. Conventional methods typically utilize explicit incentive contracts to motivate employees to align with organizational objectives. Nevertheless, the effects of new organizational goals without specified rewards (NOG-WSR) on employees’ performance are not well documented in the literature. Leveraging a quasi-experimental design, this study analyzed the impact of a new organizational goal on employees’ responses, introduced by a large service firm that did not specify explicit incentives to its branches. Empirical findings from 48,464 individual–month observations reveal that NOG-WSR has a positive short-term effect on employees’ goal-related performance. More importantly, we identified employees who are more likely to respond to the NOG-WSR. This study extends the expectancy theory and reveals that NOG-WSR is effective in motivating employees who have a higher expectancy of being able to attain the new goal and a higher expectancy of reward tied to the new goal. Contributions and implications are discussed.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/10946705261425728

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@article{ya2026,
  title        = {{Response of Service Employees to New Organizational Goals Without Specified Rewards: A Quasi-Experiment}},
  author       = {Ya Zhu et al.},
  journal      = {Journal of Service Research},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/10946705261425728},
}

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Response of Service Employees to New Organizational Goals Without Specified Rewards: A Quasi-Experiment

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.