Cheng Pengfei, Jiang Jingxuan, Xie Sanbin, Liu Zhuangzi
School of Economics and Management, Xi'an University of Technology, Xi'an, China.
Front Psychol. 2022 Oct 10;13:966845. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.966845. eCollection 2022.
Despite increasing interest being given to dysfunctional customer behavior in multiple service sectors, it is unclear how and why different types of dysfunctional customer behavior (verbal abuse, disproportionate demand, and illegitimate complaint) affect frontline employees' emotional labor during the service interactions. Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, we propose a conceptual model in which verbal abuse, disproportionate demand, and illegitimate complaint differentially influence frontline employees' emotional labor strategies (surface acting and deep acting). Further, the boundary conditions of these relationships are considered by introducing perceived organizational support and customer orientation as moderators. Using survey data from 436 frontline employees of five call centers in China, hypotheses were tested through a hierarchical regression analysis. The results indicated that verbal abuse and illegitimate complaint exerted positive effects on surface acting. Particularly, these positive effects were weaker when frontline employees perceived organizational support was high. Also, verbal abuse's positive effect on surface acting was weaker when frontline employees' customer orientation was high. Customer's verbal abuse, disproportionate demand, and illegitimate complaint negatively influenced frontline employees' deep acting. The negative effect of disproportionate demand on deep acting was weaker when perceived organizational support was high. However, when frontline employees' customer orientation was high, the negative effects of disproportionate demand and illegitimate complaints on deep acting were weaker.
尽管多个服务行业对功能失调的顾客行为越来越关注，但尚不清楚不同类型的功能失调的顾客行为（言语辱骂、过度需求和不合理投诉）如何以及为何会在服务互动过程中影响一线员工的情绪劳动。基于资源保存理论，我们提出了一个概念模型，其中言语辱骂、过度需求和不合理投诉对一线员工的情绪劳动策略（表层行动和深层行动）有不同影响。此外，通过引入感知到的组织支持和顾客导向作为调节变量来考虑这些关系的边界条件。利用来自中国五个呼叫中心的436名一线员工的调查数据，通过分层回归分析对假设进行了检验。结果表明，言语辱骂和不合理投诉对表层行动有正向影响。特别是，当一线员工感知到的组织支持较高时，这些正向影响较弱。此外，当一线员工的顾客导向较高时，言语辱骂对表层行动的正向影响较弱。顾客的言语辱骂、过度需求和不合理投诉对一线员工的深层行动有负面影响。当感知到的组织支持较高时，过度需求对深层行动的负面影响较弱。然而，当一线员工的顾客导向较高时，过度需求和不合理投诉对深层行动的负面影响较弱。
