Good Thoughts Lead to Good Deeds: How Frontline Public Employee’s Social Mindfulness Affects Service-Oriented Organizational Citizenship Behavior

In the context of rising pressures on services without linked resources, service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (SOCB) has been recognized as a contributor to public sector success. Using the theory of empathy-induced altruistic motivation, we investigated how frontline public employees’ social mindfulness affects SOCB through PSM, as well as the moderating effects of perceptions of citizen mistreatment (PCM) and perceptions of gratitude on the relationship between PSM and SOCB. Online survey data from 409 Chinese frontline public employees from diverse sectors were analyzed. The results showed a positive and significant association between social mindfulness and SOCB, mediated through PSM. This link between PSM and SOCB remains non-significantly affected by PCM but is significantly strengthened by perception of gratitude, as consistently observed across the entire moderated mediator model. The public sector should consider social mindfulness when allocating and training frontline employees and create conditions for healthy interactions between them and citizens.