1. IntroductionAt present, under the influence of COVID-19, service-oriented enterprises, such as hotels and tourism, are facing great crises and challenges [1]. At the same time, the proportion of the service industry in the national economy has been increasing, and services have become the most active factor and the most important force in the social economy. In the era of the service economy, the market competition of service-oriented enterprises is increasingly fierce. In addition, with the continued diversification and individualization of customer needs, service-oriented enterprises are facing tremendous pressure and challenges when providing services to customers [2]. Employee innovation is the foundation of organizational innovation, and it is also the source and motivating force of organizational survival and development. It is of great significance to improve the competitiveness of enterprises and guarantee customer loyalty [3]. For service-oriented enterprises, how to make employees deal with problems flexibly and solve problems creatively so as to ensure the quality of service and improve customer loyalty and corporate image has become a matter of urgent concern [4]. Most of the posts of employees in service-oriented enterprises have practical attributes. The service innovation behavior of employees in the process of work can promote the continuous innovation of enterprise service forms, thus enhancing the ability of enterprises to meet the needs of customers to ensure that enterprises can maintain a competitive advantage in market competition [5]. Service innovation behavior is usually not in the service scope stipulated by the post-duty requirement, and the employees often need to undertake certain responsibilities and risks when carrying out the service innovation in the process of work; previous studies have found that both individual factors and situational factors have an impact on individual service innovation behavior [6]. Therefore, it is an important issue that cannot be neglected for service-oriented enterprises to discover the factors that hinder the service innovation behavior of employees and stimulate the service innovation behavior of employees.Research on employee service innovation behavior is one of the hot spots in the field of human resource management. In the process of providing services, employees generate new ideas to solve problems and put them into practice, thus promoting organizational innovation, which plays an important role in promoting the core competitiveness of enterprises [7]. How to stimulate the service innovation behavior of the individual in the enterprise is always an important proposition in the organization management, but in some cases, even with the encouragement and promotion of the organization, many employees are still reluctant to experiment with service innovation [8]. The research on the influencing factors of service innovation behavior can be summarized in two aspects: individual factors and situational factors. The former includes self-knowledge [9], personality traits [10], intrinsic motivation [11] and other individual subjective factors. The latter includes organizational culture [12], leadership style [13], organizational structure [4], and other situational factors.As a subjective feeling of employees, organizational fairness depends on their evaluation of fairness [14]. Organizational fairness is an important index to measure the management level and competitiveness of enterprises, and research shows that organizational fairness can not only affect the attitude and behavior of employees [15], but it is also closely related to the stress and emotional reaction of employees [16]. A fair organizational environment can increase employee satisfaction and performance levels, evoke positive emotional perceptions of employees, and thus have a more positive behavioral response to the organization [17]. When employees feel that the organizational environment is unfair, they will think that their interests have not been properly protected and respected, thus resulting in a negative emotional reaction, having a disadvantageous influence on the employee’s work behavior and the organization’s unfolding work [18]. However, there are few studies on the mechanism of the effect of organizational fairness on the service innovation behavior of employees in service-oriented enterprises; then, as an important subjective feeling of the organization’s staff—organizational fairness—whether it will affect the work behavior of the organization employees. Specifically, for the employees of service-oriented enterprises, whether organizational fairness is a factor affecting the service innovation behavior of employees and what is the mechanism and boundary condition of the effect of organizational fairness on the service innovation behavior are topics worthy of further discussion both in theory and in practice.The research on the intermediary mechanism of service innovation behavior by scholars mainly takes two paths: external environmental conditions and individual characteristics; the variables involved included intrinsic motivation [19], self-efficacy [20], work autonomy [21], organizational support [22], and so on. However, the research on the effect of organizational fairness on the service innovation behavior of employees in service-oriented enterprises from the perspective of relative deprivation has not been discussed yet. Organizational fairness is one of the important bases for employees to perceive the organizational environment, and it is also an important factor influencing employees’ psychological state and beliefs [23]. Employees’ perceptions of the fairness of the organizational environment and the resulting psychological states and beliefs have an impact on their behavior [24,25]. Relative deprivation expresses an individual’s perception of their own disadvantage, as well as the negative emotions such as anger and unhappiness that result from comparison with the reference group [26]; relative deprivation may occur when employees feel that they have been treated unfairly in the organization through comparison, and then affect the attitude and behavior of employees. Therefore, this paper suggests that employees’ relative deprivation may play a mediation role between organizational fairness and employees’ service innovation behavior. Furthermore, although organizational fairness is prone to changes in employee mood and psychology, the extent to which it affects outcomes is often influenced by individual idiosyncrasies [27]. Attributional style is a cognitive style that can reflect personality traits with individual differences and relative stability [28]. Individuals who tend to attribute to external are more likely to attribute perceived inequities in the work environment to external environmental causes, such as organizational system inequities, resulting in a greater psychological gap and psychological imbalance, the expression of negative emotions is more prominent, which has a negative impact on their behavior [29]. At present, there is still a gap in the research on the effect of attribution on service innovation behavior in service-oriented enterprises; in order to make up for this deficiency, this study will discuss the moderation effect of attribution style on the relationship between relative deprivation and service innovation behavior in service-oriented enterprises.

Based on social cognitive theory, this study attempts to explore the effect of organizational fairness on the service innovation behavior of employees in service-oriented enterprises from the perspective of employees. By focusing on the psychological perception and attribution of organizational fairness in the workplace of employees in service-oriented enterprises, to explore the internal mechanisms of this process (the mediation effect of relative deprivation) and whether there is a boundary effect (the moderation effect of the attributional style). In order to theoretically make up for the deficiency of the research on service innovation behavior of employees in service-oriented enterprises in the field of human resource management, and also provide theoretical guidance for managers of service-oriented enterprises to improve their employees’ organizational fairness and inspire their service innovation behavior by improving their working environment, working atmosphere and improving their organizational system.

3. Methodology 3.1. Data Collection and Research Objects

In this study, the data were collected using a questionnaire. During the preparation of the questionnaire, the mature scale in high-level journals was selected, and appropriate adjustments were made in combination with the specific research in this paper to ensure the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. The Likert 5 scale was used for all items.

Specifically, for the measurement of organizational fairness, refer to the scale [57] developed by Ambrose and others, including 6 items: “Generally speaking, the company treats you fairly”; “My work arrangement is fair”; “The superior’s work decisions are made in an unbiased way”; “All work decisions are applied consistently to all relevant employees”; “My superiors will treat me sincerely for decisions involving my work”; “When making decisions about my work, my superiors will give me explanations that I can understand”.For the measurement of relative deprivation, refer to Cho et al. [58]’s cognitive emotional R D dual dimensional structure model, including four items: “Compared with the surrounding colleagues, you feel your salary is relatively low”; “Compared with your expectation or the past, you feel your salary is relatively low”; “Compared with the colleagues around you, the organization gives you less resources (status, reputation, rights, etc.)”; “Compared with your expectation or the past, the organization gives you less resources (status, reputation, rights, etc.)”.For the measurement of service innovation behavior, refer to the scale [7] prepared by Scott and Bruce, which contains 4 items: “I am good at searching for new technologies, processes, technologies /product ideas in my work”. “In my work, I will generate creative ideas”; “I will investigate and seek the funds needed to implement new ideas”; “I will make appropriate plans and timetables for implementing new ideas”.For the measurement of attribution style, refer to the Multidimensional Multi Attribution Causality Scale [59] prepared by Lefcourt et al. This scale includes four dimensions: ability, effort, situation, and luck. Among them, ability and effort are internal attribution styles, while situation and luck are external attribution styles. It includes 8 items, 4 of which measure the internal attribution style: “In my opinion, getting along with others is a skill”; “In my experience, there is a direct relationship between lack of friendship and social incompetence”; “It takes effort to maintain friendship”; “As far as I am concerned, the success of making friends depends on how much I have done”. Four items measure external attribution style: “No matter what I do, some people just do not like me”; “Even when I do not want to associate with others, some people can make me have a good time”; “Accidents often account for a large proportion of the discord between friends”; “According to my experience, making friends is mostly a matter of luck”.

In this study, employees of service-oriented enterprises, such as hotels and exhibition enterprises, were investigated. In order to reduce the impact of common method bias, the survey method of multiple time periods and multiple data sources was adopted. Before the formal survey, a small-scale pre-survey was carried out, and the opinions and suggestions expressed on the survey items were adjusted according to the questionnaire respondents so as to make the survey items of the questionnaire easier to understand. Formal research is conducted online and offline at the same time. The online respondents were employees of two hotels that supported this study. Using the method of random sampling, offline surveys were conducted on a multiple-time and multiple-data source survey on employees of service enterprises such as hotels and exhibition enterprises in Taiyuan, China. The survey was conducted from July to August 2022. A total of 384 valid questionnaires were collected by the two methods. On this basis, the researcher further eliminated the questionnaires with obvious filling errors and serious data missing and finally obtained 342 valid questionnaires, with an effective rate of 89.1%.

3.2. Sociodemographic Data

In the valid questionnaire, the male proportion was 37.7%, and the female proportion was 62.3%. The overall age of the employees is relatively young, including 37.1% aged 18–25, 30.5% aged 26–30, 21.6% aged 31–40, and 10.8% aged over 40. Most of them have a junior college education, among which 24.6% are at senior high school level or below, 49.1% are at junior high school level, 19.6% are at the undergraduate level, and 6.7% are at the Master’s level or above. Work experience of less than one year accounted for 32.7%, 1–3 years accounted for 31.6%, 3–5 years accounted for 21.9%, and more than 5 years accounted for 13.7%. This sample is in line with the basic characteristics of employees in service-oriented enterprises and has a certain representativeness.