CEO servant leadership and strategic service differentiation: The role of high-performance work systems and innovativeness

We develop and test a moderated mediation model in which CEO servant leadership is anticipated to be a positive for the adoption of service differentiation as a strategic choice. Using a sample of 34 Spanish hotels, two complementary methods of data analysis, ordinary least squares (OLS) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fs/QCA), yielded robust support for our hypotheses. As expected, OLS analysis revealed that hotel CEO servant leadership had a positive indirect effect, via high performance work systems (HPWS), on service differentiation. Moreover, the indirect effect was stronger in hotels with a culture supportive of innovativeness. Fs/ QCA revealed that CEO servant leadership was sufficient to account for successful implementation of strategic service differentiation; HPWS combined with a culture of innovativeness was also associated with service differentiation. Our findings provide valuable guidance concerning the conditions that are likely to foster the successful implementation of service differentiation in the hotel sector.