I Have Had Enough: When and How Customer Mistreatment Leads to Coworker Undermining

Service workers are more prone to experience customer mistreatment because of their frequent interactions with them. Hence, it compels them to the level where their performance is compromised. Employees who face customer mistreatment feel ill-treated and develop the desire for revenge. Based on the...

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Published inFrontiers in psychology Vol. 13; p. 629901
Main Authors Huilian, Zhou, Waqas, Muhammad, Yahya, Farzan, Ahmad Qadri, Usman, Zahid, Fatima
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 09.05.2022
Subjects
China
coworker undermining
customer mistreatment
Psychology
revenge desire
social exchange theory
social exchange theory
customer mistreatment
revenge desire
coworker undermining
China
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Summary:Service workers are more prone to experience customer mistreatment because of their frequent interactions with them. Hence, it compels them to the level where their performance is compromised. Employees who face customer mistreatment feel ill-treated and develop the desire for revenge. Based on the social exchange and displaced revenge perspective, this study examined the relationship between customer mistreatment and coworker undermining, and individual-level resource-based moderator service rule commitment (SRC) for this relationship. An analysis of time-lagged, dyadic data ( and ) from the Chinese service industry confirmed that customer mistreatment significantly predicted coworker undermining. In addition, in support of the resource perspective, employees' SRC effectively restricts an effect of customer mistreatment on coworker undermining. Finally, this study contributes to the customer mistreatment and coworker undermining literature by highlighting their relationship. This study also shows the importance of SRC in restraining the adverse effects of customer mistreatment.
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This article was submitted to Organizational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
Reviewed by: Valentina Sommovigo, University of Pavia, Italy; Hirra Pervez Butt, University of Science and Technology of China, China
Edited by: Erich Christian Fein, University of Southern Queensland, Australia
ISSN:1664-1078
1664-1078
DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.629901