How Service Employees’ Mindfulness Links to Task Performance through Psychological Resilience, Deep Acting, and Customer-Oriented Behavior

Mindfulness is directly and indirectly linked to better task performance among service employees. In a study of 359 workers in Korea, mindfulness first strengthens psychological resilience, which then promotes customer-oriented behavior and deep acting (genuine emotional engagement). These sequential steps together enhance how well employees perform their tasks. The findings suggest that mindfulness resources in the workplace can benefit both employees and customers by building resilience and improving service interactions.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This study investigates the specific pathways through which mindfulness influences task performance, focusing on the sequential mediating roles of psychological resilience, customer-oriented behavior, and deep acting. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze data collected from 359 employees in the service industry in Korea. The results confirm that mindfulness has a significant direct and indirect relationship with task performance. Improved resilience through mindfulness can be the basis for fostering customer-oriented behavior and deep acting, which sequentially enhance task performance. This study provides a comprehensive understanding of how mindfulness leads to improvements in task performance and highlights the significance of mindfulness for both customers and service employees. It also expands the existing knowledge of mindfulness by empirically integrating resilience, customer-oriented behavior, and deep acting, which have not been extensively studied in mindfulness research. The findings have practical implications from a managerial perspective, emphasizing the importance of mindfulness resources in the workplace.