Too mindful to be bored? A dynamic lens on state mindfulness among hospitality frontline employees

Abstract

Given the dynamic service environment, hospitality frontline employees require mindfulness to manage unpredictable customers’ demands. Departing from prior research that has primarily focused on trait mindfulness, this study draws on Conservation of Resources theory to elucidate how state mindfulness, as a crucial psychological resource, alleviates employee boredom experiences and work withdrawal. Moreover, this study introduces work meaningfulness into its investigation of state mindfulness and reveals that employees perceiving their work as less meaningful may derive more benefits from state mindfulness, as evidenced by the more obvious reduction in boredom observed following state mindfulness. Experience sampling data from 111 hotel employees over 10 workdays supported the hypotheses through multilevel regression analysis. By shifting the focus to the dynamic effects of mindfulness, this study advances the mindfulness literature and encourages hospitality managers to leverage state mindfulness to reduce employee boredom experiences and work withdrawal.