Digital job demands and employee service behavior in the hospitality industry: a cognitive-affective personality system perspective

Amidst the rapid evolution of digital technology, employees are increasingly subjected to evolving job demands. Exploring the impact of digital job demands on frontline employee service behaviors is essential. Drawing on the cognition-affect personality system theory, this study constructs a dual-path model to explore the distinct impacts of digital learning demands and digital workload on frontline employee service behaviors. Data from 274 hotel employees in China were collected at three time points. Results showed that digital learning demands had a positive indirect effect on proactive service behavior via problem-solving pondering, and digital workload had a positive indirect effect on service sabotage via affective rumination. Furthermore, employees’ cognitive flexibility moderated the effect of digital learning demands on problem-solving pondering and the mediation effect of problem-solving pondering, such that the two effects were stronger when cognitive flexibility was high. The theoretical contributions and practical implications of the findings are discussed.