How and for whom does customer incivility affect employee outcomes? A three-wave survey

In the service sector, customer-related social stressors may weaken employees’ well-being, impairing job-related outcomes. Drawing on the Conservation of Resources theory and on the psychology of sustainability, fostering personal resources become critical to encourage service providers who can effectively manage such job demands. This study investigated how customer-related social stressors and customer orientation influence service recovery performance and whether resilience buffers the negative effects of customer incivility on service recovery performance. One hundred and fifty-seven Italian customer-contact employees completed a questionnaire analyzing customer incivility, customer-related social stressors, resilience, customer orientation, and service recovery performance. Regression analyses and SEMs were conducted. Although all customer-related social stressors indirectly and negatively influenced service recovery performance by increasing burnout symptoms, customer incivility only exerted a direct and detrimental impact on service recovery performance. Customer orientation was directly and positively associated with service recovery performance. Highly resilient employees were less affected by variations in service recovery performance across customer incivility levels. Within the psychology of sustainability framework, promoting resilient workplaces is crucial to foster healthy and sustainable work settings. Service organizations can greatly benefit from providing their employees with psychological resilience training programs, cultivating high customer-oriented attitudes through mentoring sessions, and hiring highly customer-oriented and resilient employees for customer-contact occupations.

PurposeBased on the resource conservation theory, this research paper aims to evaluate the positive impact of customer orientation on frontline employees' emotional exhaustion and the moderating effects of customer incivility and supervisor monitoring.Design/methodology/approachTwo-wave data from 484 frontline employees in power supply business halls were analyzed. This study used AMOS 23.0, SPSS22.0 and PROCESS macro for data statistics and analysis.FindingsOur empirical research demonstrates that customer orientation has a significant positive impact on frontline employees' emotional exhaustion. At the same time, supervisor monitoring moderates the relationship between customer orientation and emotional exhaustion. The higher the interactional or observational monitoring, the stronger customer orientation's effect on frontline employees' emotional exhaustion. Moreover, a three-way interaction model exists between customer orientation, customer incivility and supervisor monitoring.Practical implicationsThis study yields practical implications for helping the frontline employees of service-oriented organizations alleviate multiple interpersonal workplace pressures.Originality/valueBased on resource conservation theory, this paper used a novel approach to focus on customer orientation, customer incivility and supervisor monitoring as interpersonal stressors.

This study explores the impact of customer incivility (CI) on service recovery performance (SRP) of Indian frontline banking employees with emotional exhaustion (EE) as a mediator. Whether job crafting behaviour of the employees would assuage the effect of uncivil customer interactions and, thereby, help in maintaining superior recovery performance is further investigated. Data from 428 dyads of employees were gathered to test the hypothesized relationships using structural equation modelling in AMOS 23. The results indicated that CI negatively influences SRP, and EE significantly mediates this relationship. Increasing social and structural resources significantly alleviate the negative effect of (a) CI on EE, (b) CI on SRP and (c) EE on SRP. On the other hand, increasing challenge job demands and decreasing hindrance job demands do not moderate the relationship between (a) CI and EE and (b) CI and SRP. However, decreasing hindrance job demands significantly moderate the negative effect of EE on SRP while, surprisingly, increasing challenge job demands strengthens the relationship between EE and SRP.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine how customer incivility affects service employees’ emotional labor (i.e. surface acting) and the way surface acting augments their emotional exhaustion at work, and in turn, damages customer orientations of service employees.Design/methodology/approach– Using a sample of 309 department store sales employees in South Korea, a two-stage mediation model is used in terms of structural equation modeling.Findings– The results indicate that customer incivility is positively related to service employees’ use of surface acting; this, in turn, results in feelings of emotional exhaustion, which are negatively related to their customer orientation. That is, the findings of this study shows that the negative relationship between customer incivility and service employees’ customer orientation was fully and sequentially mediated by service employees’ surface acting and emotional exhaustion.Research limitations/implications– The main limitation is the nature of the cross-sectional data the authors used in the analysis. It gives us reason to be very cautious in reaching conclusions concerning causal relationships among variables, since the authors did not capture longitudinal variation.Practical implications– The research shows that customer incivility has a negative effect on service employees’ customer-oriented behaviors since experiences of customer incivility among emotionally exhausted employees via surface acting generates inadequate and unfair sense-making related to the treatment offered by customers, which increases the tendency of decreasing their effort and loyalty for customers to prevent further loss of emotional resources. Therefore, service organizations should devise appropriate strategies and implement systematic programs for reducing employee exposure to customer incivility, or preventing it altogether.Originality/value– The current study broadens the conceptual work and empirical studies in customer incivility literature by representing a fundamental mechanism of why customer incivility negatively affects service employees’ customer orientation. The primary contribution of the study is to gain a deeper understanding of how customer incivility leads to lower employee customer-oriented behaviors through double mediating effects of surface acting and emotional exhaustion.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the main and interaction effects of self-rated promotion and prevention regulatory focus on self-rated work performance, emotional exhaustion and sickness absence for managers and non-managers separately. The authors expected that promotion focus relates positively to performance and negatively to sickness absence, while prevention focus relates positively to exhaustion and sickness absence, both for managers and non-managers. Furthermore, the authors expected that promotion focus relates positively to performance but also to exhaustion and sickness absence when prevention focus is high, only for managers (i.e. a manager’s dual regulatory focus can be an effective but also exhausting leadership strategy).Design/methodology/approachThe authors tested the hypotheses via moderated regression analyses among two independent groups, managers (n=241) and non-managers (n=415).FindingsPromotion focus was positively related to managers’ and non-managers’ performance and negatively to non-managers’ sickness absence, while prevention focus did not have any main effects. As expected, managers’ promotion focus was positively related to managers’ sickness absence when managers’ prevention focus was high (i.e. dual regulatory focus). Furthermore, managers’ promotion focus negatively related to managers’ performance when managers’ prevention was high, failing to support the hypothesis.Practical implicationsPromotion focus should be enhanced by organizations among leaders and employees. The authors also cautiously discuss the possibility of interventions comparing a promotion focus with dual-focus training.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the literature by examining the joint (rather than main) effects of promotion and prevention focus on work behavior and the authors address these links among managers and non-managers.

PurposeThis study aims to examine how workplace incivility (i.e. coworker and customer incivility) affects service employees’ creativity, specifically the way emotional exhaustion at work decreases their intrinsic motivation, and, in turn, damages service employees’ creativity. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to show the mechanism by which both coworker and customer incivility at work affects service employee creativity.Design/methodology/approachService employees from a hotel in South Korea were surveyed using a self-administered instrument for data collection. Out of 450 questionnaires, a total of 281 usable questionnaires were obtained after list-wise deletion, for a 62.4 per cent response rate. Structural equation modeling analysis provided support for the hypotheses.FindingsThe results indicate a serial multiple mediator model in which both coworker and customer incivility increase service employees’ emotional exhaustion, which, in turn, reduces their intrinsic motivation at work and ultimately decreases their creativity. That is, the findings of this study reveal a negative relationship between workplace incivility (i.e. coworker and customer incivility) and service employees’ creativity that is fully and sequentially mediated by the service employees’ emotional exhaustion and intrinsic motivation.Research limitations/implicationsThe use of cross-sectional self-reports potentially raises concerns about common method bias. Caution is recommended in reaching conclusions concerning the causal relationships between the variables, as the current study did not capture causality variation. For instance, it may be that emotional exhaustion from incivility gradually compounds over time, leading to a greater negative impact on service employees. In contrast, employees may develop strategies to cope with uncivil behavior over time, which attenuates the negative effects on service employees as time passes. A longitudinal design might offer an alternative to overcome this limitation in future research.Practical implicationsConsidering the findings about the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion between workplace incivility and employee outcomes (i.e. intrinsic motivation and creativity), firms should consider establishing systematic institutional practices and policies to prevent employees from feeling emotionally exhausted from workplace incivility. Executive and senior management teams would benefit by instituting strict policies and regulations which nurture desirable behaviors among organizational members that protect victims of workplace incivility.Originality/valueThis study is the first to examine the relationship between workplace incivility and creativity. Moreover, the present study attempts to develop an understanding of the underlying mechanism through which both coworker and customer incivility negatively affect service employees’ creativity.

Purpose This study explores the antecedents and impacts of customer incivility (CI) on frontline employees (FLEs) in Vietnam’s banking sector and eco-friendly hotel industry with religious beliefs (RB) and internal green marketing orientation (IGMO) as moderators. Design/methodology/approach This study analyzed two surveys completed by 390 bankers and 520 hotel staff using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to assess the proposed relationships based on the conservation of resources (COR) and social cognitive theory (SCT) frameworks. Findings Customer orientation (CO) is inversely related to CI, suggesting that higher levels of CO are associated with lower CI. Moreover, CI indirectly influences service performance (SP) through psychological mechanisms, notably emotional exhaustion (EE) among banking employees and forgiveness (FG) among hotel staff. RB among FLEs in the banking sector moderates the relationship between CI and EE, whereas IGMO moderates the link between CI and FG in the hospitality industry. Practical implications Strong IGMO within hospitality organizations enhances FLEs’ ability to forgive, thereby improving their emotional resilience and SP. Similarly, RB among banking employees reduces EE, which improves their SP. Organizations can boost employee performance and well-being by incorporating targeted internal communication initiatives and tailored training programs to cultivate a more positive, resilient and high-performing workforce with a sustainable service culture and improved organizational effectiveness. Originality/value This study investigates CI and its effects on FLEs through the unique moderating roles of RB and IGMO in Vietnam’s banking and hospitality sectors.

This study investigates the structural relationships among customer-related social stressors (disproportionate customer expectation, ambiguous customer expectation, disliked customers, and customers’ verbal aggression), emotional exhaustion, and service recovery performance, with customer orientation (CO) serving as a moderator between customer-related social stressors and emotional exhaustion as well as emotional exhaustion and service recovery performance. The study uses data collected from a survey of 1,014 frontline service employees in Korea’s tourism service sectors. The results indicate that customer-related social stressors positively influence emotional exhaustion; emotional exhaustion negatively influences service recovery performance; and CO acts as a moderator. CO moderates both the effects of customer-related social stressors on emotional exhaustion and those of emotional exhaustion on service recovery performance, by weakening the effects for higher CO employees. This study contributes to both theory and practice by combining the four constructs of customer-related social stressors, emotional exhaustion, service recovery performance, and CO in addition to examining their relationships while focusing on customer-related factors.

This study investigates the mediating role of meaningfulness in the connection between human resource management practices (HRMPs) and service recovery performance (SRP) and the moderating effects of customer incivility in the relationship between meaningfulness and SRP. The current study employs convenience sampling to collect cross-sectional data from 454 hotel employees in Bangladesh and analyses using SmartPLS. HRMPs and meaningfulness are significantly correlated, as is meaningfulness with SRP. Meaningfulness mediates the relation between HRMPs and SRP. Employee-perceived customer incivility also negatively moderates the connection between meaningfulness and SRP. This study contributes to existing research by applying the theory of self-concordance and the cognitive appraisal theory of stress to test the mediating and moderating effects of meaningfulness and employee-perceived customer incivility, respectively. The implications are discussed.

Frontline hospitality employees inevitably face customer complaints and verbal aggression from time to time. Some employees seem to be able to shake off this negative energy and offer service recovery, while others collapse under such onslaughts. This study of 243 frontline employees of casual dining restaurants in Korea found that customer orientation is an important factor in employees’ ability to avoid emotional exhaustion and provide service recovery. The study first establishes the harmful relationships among customer verbal aggression, emotional exhaustion, and (successful or failed) service recovery performance. By incorporating customer orientation into the model, the study documents its buffering role as a personal coping resource. In summary, (1) customer verbal aggression intensifies emotional exhaustion, (2) emotional exhaustion mitigates service recovery performance, (3) customer verbal aggression does not mitigate service recovery performance, (4) emotional exhaustion fully mediates the harmful relationship between customer verbal aggression and service recovery performance, and (5) the detrimental effects of customer verbal aggression are greater among employees with low customer orientation than high orientation employees with regard to the effect of emotional exhaustion on service recovery performance.

PurposeThe purpose of the present study is to extend the body of research on healthcare management by examining the effect of workplace stressors, including abusive supervision, customer incivility and the perceived threat of COVID-19 (PCT), on turnover intention. The study also contributes to healthcare management research by examining the mediating role of emotional exhaustion, the moderating role of employee resilience and constituent attachment.Design/methodology/approachThe study developed and tested a model explaining the relationship between abusive supervision, customer incivility, PCT, emotional exhaustion, turnover intention, employee resilience and constituent attachment. Data were collected from a sample of 375 frontline employees who work in private hospitals in Mashhad, the second-most populous city in Iran.FindingsThe findings indicate that abusive supervision and customer incivility, directly and indirectly, affect turnover intention through emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, employee resilience was found to mitigate the relationship between stressors excluding the PCT and emotional exhaustion. Moreover, constituent attachment decreased the likelihood of turnover intention among employees who experienced abusive supervision. The findings suggest that controlling abusive supervision, customer incivility and PCT can lead to less emotionally exhausted employees with lower turnover intention. Furthermore, enhancing employee resilience and constituent attachment can decrease emotional exhaustion and turnover intention.Originality/valueDespite the large body of research on the relationship between the variables mentioned above, few studies have presented a conceptual model based on the relationship between them. This article presents a conceptual model that has not been previously discussed in any other publication to examine the moderating effect of organizational and individual factors in the relationship between workplace stressors and their consequences, which have not been widely covered in existing literature. Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, job embeddedness theory and attachment theory, the present study aims to fill this gap in the literature.

Frontline service employees frequently interact with customers and are increasingly exposed to customer incivility, which is distressing and hinders service employee outcomes (i.e. creativity and performance). Ultimately, it affects service quality and corporate reputation and thus should not be overlooked by service organizations. The predominant explanation of the impact of customer incivility on service employee outcomes in the existing literature is emotion-based; however, motivation-based explanations are still in their infancy. Applying the conservation of resources theory, this study aimed to elucidate the underlying mechanism of how customer incivility impairs service creativity and service performance. Data were derived from an online research platform and through the three waves of the survey with 337 frontline employees in high-contact service industries. The partial least squares structural equation modeling results indicate that customer orientation was a missing but influential link between customer incivility and service creativity and service performance, even after controlling for emotional exhaustion and work engagement. This more solid understanding of the mechanisms driving customer incivility on service outcomes can help service organizations that suffer the negative effects of customer incivility.

WORK ENGAGEMENT HAS BEEN WIDELY recognized as a critical factor driving organizational performance (Lockwood, 2007) and providing organizations with a competitive advantage (Swarnalatha and Prasanna, 2013). As such, it has frequently been studied for its positive effects on job performance, organizational commitment, health (Halbesleben, 2010), career success (Ng and Feldman, 2014), and job satisfaction (Kane et al., 2014) and its negative effects on stress and turnover (Huynh et al., 2014). Given the favorable organizational and individual outcomes associated with engagement, researchers have turned their attention to identifying antecedents in hopes of improving engagement among employees.Extant research has shown that predictors of work engagement include coworker and supervisor support (Sarti, 2014), job control (Kuhnel et al., 2012) as well as the dispositional traits of emotional intelligence, openness to experience, extraversion, and conscientiousness (Akhtar et al., 2015). An additional dispositional characteristic that has not yet been examined for its effect on work engagement is one's regulatory focus.The premise of regulatory focus theory (RFT) (Higgins, 1997) is that individuals may be either promotion or prevention focused. In the work environment, those who are prevention focused are concerned with maintaining their job security and behave in ways that help them avoid losses. They are not concerned with achieving goals but rather maintaining what they have. Those with a promotion focus are primarily concerned with achieving goals and obtaining rewards. Thus, their primary motivation is goal achievement and they behave in ways that facilitate reaching their goals. In the workplace, this may be promotions and/or salary increases.Applying RFT to the current study allows us to argue that the relationships between both prevention and promotion focus with work engagement are positive; however, these relationships hold for different reasons. Essentially, prevention-focused individuals are engaged such that their performance is adequate to fully perform their jobs. Promotion-focused individuals engage in order to excel and be recognized and hopefully identified for promotions.One variable that may affect the relationships between regulatory focus and work engagement is perceived self-value (PSV). PSV refers to how valuable people think they are to their organization (Eisenberger et al., 2002; Ozcelik, 2013). High PSV reflects a feeling of strong value, that the organization needs me. Low PSV indicates a feeling that the individual is not valued and the organization could do just as well without me. This self-perception may interact with one's regulatory focus such that work engagement is enhanced or limited.The purpose of the current study is twofold. First, using RFT as our theoretical foundation, we explore the relationships between prevention and promotion focus and work engagement. Combining these two areas expands the engagement literature by adding new predictor variables. Second, we introduce PSV as a moderator of these relationships to highlight the differences between promotion and prevention focus. The hypothesized model is shown in Figure 1.Regulatory focus theoryRegulatory focus theory (RFT) (Higgins, 1997, 1998) rests in large part on approach/avoidance theories of motivation which suggest individuals are motivated to engage in behaviors that yield positive end states and will avoid behaviors that may produce negative end states. Specifically, RFT proposes individuals self-regulate as they pursue goal adoption through one of two mechanisms: promotion focus or prevention focus. Generally, individuals are motivated to achieve favorable outcomes and avoid negative outcomes and do so through the adoption of a promotion and/or prevention focus. While the underlying purpose for the behavior is the same-achieve a goal-the goals for which individuals strive differ. …

Testing the stressor–strain–outcome model of customer-related social stressors in predicting emotional exhaustion, customer orientation and service recovery performance

Recently, due to the important role of customers and the growing need for knowing all features regarding customers by providing access to sufficient information about different services and various ways for service delivery, it is crucial to identify problems associated with interacting with customers and keeping long-term relationships with them such as major factors affecting the hotels’ profitability and stability. The aim of the current study is to investigate the impact of service leadership on variables such as customer orientation, adaptive selling, service recovery performance, and in-role performance. A questionnaire-based survey was used for collecting data from 93 participants chosen through simple random sampling from among 145 employees and managers working at the service sectors of two-stars and higher-rated hotels of Isfahan city in Iran. The results of statistical analysis which obtained via the LISREL software through structural equation modeling proved that service leadership had a strong and positive influence on customer orientation, adaptive selling, service recovery (organizational citizenship behavior), and in-role performance (job performance), however, the minimum influence was attained from adaptive selling. It was also indicated that customer orientation had the most significant impact among all variables. Some recommendations for further research are also presented.