Employees’ Responses to Customer Mistreatment – Evidence from the Hospitality Industry in Poland

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Purpose. The purpose of the paper is twofold: to examine the frequency at which dysfunctional behaviours of customers and employees occur, and to investigate the linkage between customer mistreatment and service sabotage in hospitality organisations. Method. The study is based on data collected through administration of an online questionnaire from 153 food service employees in Poland. To achieve the posed objectives, descriptive statistics, repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and hierarchical multiple regression analysis were employed. Findings. In the research, it was discovered that at food service establishments, dysfunctional behaviours are more often directed towards employees than customers and work-related customer mistreatment is more common than that person-related. Moreover, both forms of mistreatment by customers contribute to service sabotage. Research and conclusions limitations. The data collection involved the non-random sampling technique and the sample size was relatively small. Consequently, generalisation of the findings beyond the specific context of this research is restricted. Practical implications. The identified relationships allow to emphasise the importance of actions to be taken by employers to neutralise the negative effects of dysfunctional customer behaviours on employee behaviours. Originality. The present research contributes to the ongoing debate on the behavioural responses of employees to customer mistreatment in hospitality settings. Type of paper. Research article.