Employee Motivation and Outcomes of Developing and Maintaining High-Quality Supervisor–Subordinate Guanxi in Hotel Operations

Dyadic leader–follower relationships play a significant role in sustainable development of labor-intensive and service-oriented organizations. The purpose of this study is to assess employees’ motivation and outcomes of developing and maintaining high-quality supervisor–subordinate guanxi in Chinese hotels. A survey was undertaken in four- or five-star hotels, with a total of 318 matched employees-supervisor completed responses used for data analysis, which was conducted using SPSS Statistics and SmartPLS. The study’s results show that affection and obligation significantly motivate employees to develop and maintain supervisor–subordinate guanxi, which in turn contributes to the desirable task performance delivery and supervisor autonomy support. Furthermore, the study confirms the mediating roles of supervisor–subordinate guanxi and task performance. This work extends guanxi research and is among the first to identify why hotel employees are motivated to develop and maintain high-quality supervisor–subordinate guanxi based on the contextualization of self-determination theory and Chinese cultural elements.