Reducing Customer-Directed Deviant Behavior: The Roles of Psychological Detachment and Supervisory Unfairness

Abstract

Conservation of resources (COR) theory proposes that mistreatment by customers (termed “customer mistreatment”) can deplete employees’ resources, lessen their ability to regulate their behaviors, and result in them engaging in customer-directed deviant behavior. However, COR has been criticized for its lack of precision regarding how this process unfolds. Integrating the person-situation interactionist perspective with COR theory, the present paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of COR theory by explicating how individual characteristics and work context—namely, psychological detachment and supervisory unfairness—can combine to attenuate/exacerbate the relationship between customer mistreatment and employees’ customer-directed deviant behavior. Using a multilevel field study with 1,092 daily-based surveys among 157 Korean call-center representatives, our results show that frontline employees’ emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship between customer mistreatment and customer-directed deviant behavior that occurs on the next working day. When faced with customer mistreatment, employees with lower (vs. higher) psychological detachment were more likely to be emotionally exhausted and engage in customer-directed deviant behavior on the next working day. Moreover, their emotional exhaustion predicted customer-directed deviant behavior more so when their supervisors treated them unfairly (vs. fairly). Taken together, the results show that the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion was strongest among employees with low (vs. high) psychological detachment and who reported more (vs. less) supervisory unfairness. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications as well as directions for future research are discussed.