Customer aggression, emotional dissonance and employees' well‐being

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the mediating role of emotional dissonance in the customer aggression‐job‐induced tension relationship and the role of job autonomy in buffering against the negative consequences of emotional dissonance.Design/methodology/approach – In total, three samples of service workers were recruited from Northern Israel between the years 2007 and 2008 and data were collected with self‐reported questionnaires. Research hypotheses were tested with hierarchical regression analyses.Findings – The present results show that emotional dissonance is significantly associated with a decreased sense of well‐being, even after controlling for negative disposition. The results also confirm that customer aggression relates to job‐induced tension through its influence on emotional dissonance, and that emotional dissonance is less likely to increase job‐induced tension and emotional exhaustion when the level of job autonomy is high.Practical implications – The findings suggest that ...