TY  - EJOU
AU  - Deng, Fan 

TI  - Customer-employee exchange work through psychological safety and self-efficacy for improved hotel employees’ work engagement
T2  - Journal of Psychology in Africa

PY  - 2025
VL  - 35
IS  - 6
SN  - 1815-5626

AB  - This study investigated the relationship between customer-employee exchange (CEX) and employee work engagement (vigor, dedication, absorption), and the role of psychological safety and self-efficacy mediate that relationship. Survey data were collected from 329 Chinese hotel employees (females = 52.9%, tenure: 1–3 years = 50.5%). The results following ordinary least squares regression and the SPSS PROCESS macro indicate that higher customer-employee exchange is associated with employee vigor, dedication, and absorption. Psychological safety and self-efficacy mediate the relationship between customer-employee exchange and vigor and dedication to be stronger, while the work absorption mediating effect is not significant. Our findings underscore the importance of adopting a social exchange theory lens for high-quality customer–employee exchange in service settings–and how this exchange translates into engagement through the socio-cognitive mechanisms of psychological safety and self-efficacy. These findings suggest a need for human resources managers in the hotel industry to engage in customer-employee exchange practices for higher employee work engagement.
KW  - customer-employee exchange; social exchange theory; psychological safety; self-efficacy; work engagement

DO  - 10.32604/jpa.2025.068735