Abstract

As an increasingly fierce competition in hospitality industry?the service quality of frontline service employees
determine the success of hotels. Therefore, it is significant to improve the service quality of frontline service
employees by enhancing their job performance. According to the conservation of resources theory, frontline
service employees are easily confronted with role conflicts, which result in job burnout and negatively influence
job performance. However, the relationship between “role conflict-burnout-job performance” is not consistent
according to previous studies. Motivated by the theoretical concern to further understanding of this subject, the
purpose of this article is to explore whether role conflict will affect job performance through job burnout. Based
on the data of 189 frontline service employees from 18 budget hotels, this study tests the hypotheses. The results
show that: (1) Role conflict is positively related to burnout; (2) Both role conflict and burnout are negatively
related to job performance; (3) Burnout partially mediated the relationship between role conflict and job
performance. Implications for practices are discussed.

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