Chinese Business Review, November 2014, Vol. 13, No. 11, 659-667 doi: 10.17265/1537-1506/2014.11.001 Effects of Service Standards Communication and Servant Leadership on Strategic Competence and Customer Orientation Deniz Maden, Aylin Göztaş, Füsun Topsümer Ege University, Izmir, Turkey Service standards communication and servant leadership are both important mechanisms to improve an organization’s service process. Therefore, they are likely to affect strategic competence and customer orientation skills of organizations. In this research, customer orientation and strategic competence are undertaken in relation with servant leadership and service standards communication, using a sample of 106 Turkish firms’ executive assistants. The results prove that service standards communication and servant leadership have a strong positive relationship with both strategic competence and customer orientation. Keywords: service standards communication, servant leadership, strategic competence, customer orientation Introduction Strategic competence and customer orientation are both critical concepts in determining an organization’s relations with employees and customers. While service is one of the fundamental processes in organizational management, it has an important effect on determining the strategic competence and customer orientation. Within this research, service standards communication and servant leadership as two main variables in the service process are undertaken in relation with strategic competence and customer orientation. After the literature review and hypotheses development, the method of the research is explained and the results are discussed. Literature Review Service Standards Communication Service standards communication is based on employees’ perceptions about the organization’s ability to communicate what is expected from employees in terms of service standards, practices, and behaviors (Lynn & Lytle, 2000). Service standards communication is the degree to which the organization measures, controls, and communicates service quality standards (Garcia, Varela, & del Rio, 2011). Service standards guide employees by providing a framework of what is expected from them and the actions that they can do. For the service process to work efficiently, service standards should be known by members of the organization. Conformance to service standards will be met if they are communicated well to all members of the Deniz Maden, Ph.D., Department of Public Relations, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey. Aylin Göztaş, Ph.D., professor, Department of Public Relations, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey. Füsun Topsümer, Ph.D., professor, Department of Public Relations, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Deniz Maden, Ege University, Faculty of Communications, Izmir, Bornova, Turkey, 35100. E-mail: deniz.maden@ege.edu.tr. DAVID PUBLISHING D