EMPLOYEE ATTITUDES AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION - MAKING THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL CONNECTIONS

Previous research has established links between employee attitudes and customer satisfaction. Little theory has been used to help explain and build on the results of these studies. A theoretical model of the employee attitude-customer satisfaction process is proposed based on Bagozzi's (1992) model of attitudes, intentions and behavior. Employee attitudes and intentions, and customer satisfaction data from a service-oriented organization with 160 offices is used to provide an initial test of the usefulness of the model. Cross-validations of the model with and without common method variance were conducted. The results provide strong support for the model. Suggestions are offered on extensions of the model in future research.