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Service with a conscience: moral dilemmas in customer service roles

Dana Yagil (University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel)
Tamar Shultz (School of Behavioral Sciences, Netanya Academic College, Netanya, Israel)

Journal of Service Theory and Practice

ISSN: 2055-6225

Article publication date: 8 May 2017

1767

Abstract

Purpose

Service employees are frequently exposed to moral dilemmas as a result of their boundary role, attending to the interests of both the organization and customers. The purpose of this paper is to explore organizational and personal values that generate moral dilemmas in the service context, as well as emotions related to employees’ moral decisions.

Design/methodology/approach

Using the critical incidents technique, data were collected from service providers about moral dilemmas in the workplace. The data were analyzed independently by each author, with an agreement rate of 84-88 percent.

Findings

The results show that service employees confront dilemmas as a result of conflicts between the following organizational and personal values: standardization vs personalization; profit vs integrity; and emotional display rules vs dignity. Moral decision making involves emotions generated by customer distress, negative emotions toward customers, and emotions of guilt, shame, or fear.

Originality/value

Little research has studied moral conflicts in service encounters from employees’ perspective. Using a qualitative approach, this study explores the role of personal values and moral emotions in such processes.

Keywords

Citation

Yagil, D. and Shultz, T. (2017), "Service with a conscience: moral dilemmas in customer service roles", Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 689-711. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSTP-04-2016-0089

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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