مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد فرهنگ سازمانی پاسخ كارمندان – الزویر 2020

This study examines how different types of organizational culture moderate the effect of customer incivility on frontline employee (FLE) response. We propose that FLE forgiveness determines their customer-oriented behavior following customer incivility; FLE vengeance mediates the effect of customer incivility on dysfunctional behavior. We further posit that the effects of customer incivility on FLE forgiveness and vengeance would vary depending on the organizational culture (i.e., clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy). We test the research hypotheses by conducting a survey, followed by a scenario-based experiment. Our findings show that forgiveness of customer incivility determines FLEs’ customer-oriented behavior; whereas vengeance influences FLEs’ dysfunctional behavior following customer incivility. Furthermore, organizational culture moderates the effects of customer incivility on FLE responses such that clan culture and adhocracy culture positively moderate the effect of customer incivility on forgiveness, while market culture positively moderates the effect of customer incivility on vengeance.

Introduction

‘Flight attendant abused by passenger on a flight’ (Pochin, 2018) and ‘Customer rants at a coffee store employee’ (Mirror, 2018): These are some of the recent examples of customer incivility toward frontline employees (FLEs). Customer incivility refers to “low-intensity deviant behavior, perpetrated by someone in a customer or client role, with ambiguous intent to harm an employee, in violation of social norms of mutual respect and courtesy” (Sliter, Jex, Wolford, & McInnerney, 2010, p. 468). In service organizations, given increasing customer demands, complexity in service roles, and constraints in organizational resources, FLEs are prone to customer incivility. Additionally, with firms operating under the mantra, ‘the customer is always right’, customers can parlay the maxim with unreasonable requests or by manifesting an absence of comity with FLEs (Hur, Moon, & Jun 2016). Although customer incivility may also be triggered by unsatisfactory service or the customer perception of malicious intent from employees, the incivility spiral could adversely affect both parties (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). Given that customer incivility has become ubiquitous in service organizations, understanding FLE responses to such incivility has important implications for service providers.