The impact of customer misbehavior on frontline employees’ work–family conflict and withdrawal behaviors
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
ISSN: 0959-6119
Article publication date: 3 April 2024
Abstract
Purpose
Customer misbehavior has a negative impact on frontline employees. However, the underlying mechanisms from customer misbehavior to employees’ negative outcomes need to be further unfolded and examined. This study aims to propose that employees’ affective rumination and problem-solving pondering could be the explanatory processes of customer misbehavior influencing employee attitudes in which coworker support could be a moderator.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-method approach was designed to test this study’s predictions. Study 1 conducted a scenario-based experiment among 215 full-time hospitality employees, and Study 2 used a two-wave, longitudinal survey of 305 participants.
Findings
The results demonstrate the impact of customer misbehavior on work–family conflict and withdrawal behaviors. The mediating role of affective rumination is supported and coworker support moderates the processes.
Practical implications
Customer misbehavior leads to negative outcomes among frontline employees both at work and family domains. Hotel managers should help frontline employees to cope with customer misbehavior by avoiding negative affective spillover and providing support properly.
Originality/value
The studies have unfolded the processes of affective rumination and problem-solving pondering through which customer misbehavior influences work–family conflict and withdrawal behaviors among frontline employees. The surprising findings that coworker support magnified the negative effects have also been discussed.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for the financial support from Macau University of Science and Technology Foundation (FRG-22–114-SLA), the Key Grant (Grant No. 72332010) and other grants (Grant Nos. 72172161, 72001052, 71872191) from the National Science Foundation of China, and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2021A1515011978).
Declarations of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship or publication of this article.
Citation
Zhao, X.(R)., Wang, F., Mattila, A.S., Leong, A.M.W., Cui, Z. and Yang, H. (2024), "The impact of customer misbehavior on frontline employees’ work–family conflict and withdrawal behaviors", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-07-2023-0942
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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