Spiritual leadership and service performance among Chinese flight attendants: The mediating effects of meaningful work and work engagement

Abstract

Abstract As an irreplaceable part of flight crew for passenger carriage in big aircraft, flight attendants are responsible for cabin safety, security, passenger service and emergency during the flight. However, as the main interface between passengers and airlines, flight attendants’ delivering of high quality service is crucial in retention of passengers’ loyalty and airlines’ prosperity. Hence, how to promote flight attendants’ service performance during the flight is important in airline management. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to explore the roles of spiritual leadership, meaningful work, work engagement and flight attendants’ service performance in the sample of 313 Chinese flight attendants from China Eastern Airlines Co., Ltd. and its branches. Correlation analysis indicated that spiritual leadership, meaningful work, work engagement and service performance were significantly correlated with each other. Bootstrap analysis showed that meaningful work and work engagement not merely play a simple mediating role between spiritual leadership and service performance, but jointly play a chain mediating role. Theoretical implications for this research and managerial suggestions for how to improve flight attendants’ service performance in airline management are discussed.