Servant leadership and tourism businesses’ outcomes: a multiple mediation model

Purpose This paper aims at explore the intervening role of servant leadership in tourism businesses' outcomes, in the context of travel agencies. Drawing on servant leadership theory, the authors develop a multimediation model exploring the relationships between servant leadership and person–job fit, work–life balance, work engagement, innovative work behavior and job crafting. Design/methodology/approach Using SmartPLS3, data collected from 942 travel agencies operating in Egypt, a questionnaire was used to obtain data on how travel agency employees envisage their organization’s adoption of servant leadership, person–job fit, job crafting, work–life balance, work engagement and innovative work behavior. Findings The authors show that servant leadership correlates positively with person–job fit, work–life balance, work engagement, innovative work behavior and job crafting, while job crafting correlates positively with work–life balance, work engagement and innovative work behaviors. The partial mediating roles of both job crafting and person–job fit in the link between servant leadership and work–life balance, and the partial mediating role of work engagement in the link between servant leadership and innovative work behaviors. Originality/value Up to date, research on the effects of servant leadership on person–job fit, job crafting, work–life balance, work engagement and innovative work behavior has been inadequate. In terms of contextual applicability, an empirical investigation of the relationship between these factors in travel agencies is not available. By empirically examining these relationships in the context of Egyptian travel agencies, the current study has bridged a gap in the tourism and hospitality literature, human resources management and organizational behavior literature.