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This study aims to examine task and relationship conflict and their linkage with defensive communication strategies, i.e. mature, neurotic and immature defensive communication. Furthermore, Study 1 also investigated the mediating impact of relationship conflict and the moderating impact of a manager’s active-empathic listening in dealing with task conflicts and the defensive communication of the employees. Study 2 intended to assess the causal direction of task conflicts and defensive communication strategies.

This research integrates the Job Demands–Resources framework, Conservation of Resources theory and Conflict Expression framework. Data from 124 professionals in India’s tertiary industry was gathered using a longitudinal approach. Study 1 analyses the dynamics between conflicts and defensive communication while considering managers’ active-empathic listening as a potential mitigating factor. Study 2 was conducted after a 10-month interim to delve into the intricate causal connections between defensive communication strategies and task conflicts. For analysing the data, SPSS was used for conducting confirmatory factor analysis. Furthermore, to analyse the conceptual framework and the hypothesised relationships in this study, partial least squares (PLS) modelling was performed using Smart-PLS 4.0.

Task conflicts have a significant negative association with mature and neurotic defensive communication, whereas they have a strong positive relationship with immature defensive communication. Relationship conflict significantly mediates the association between task conflict and immature defensive communication. The moderating role of the manager’s active-empathic listening was not supported. In addition, the relationship between immature defensive communication and task conflict is significantly positive, outlining their bidirectional association. In contrast, the association between mature defensive communication is significantly negative. This highlights the potential of immature defensive communication to create escalatory conflict spirals and of mature defensive communication to de-escalate them.

Defensive communication strategies, commonly explored in the psychological realm, particularly within family and romantic relationship contexts, have received limited attention in organisational behaviour. This longitudinal study offers a unique perspective on the evolution of defensive communication and its impact on task conflict over time, enhancing the understanding of how individuals adapt their communication strategies as conflicts persist or dissipate. The investigation also advances the understanding of conflict spirals, illustrating the potential of mature defensive communication to de-escalate conflicts while revealing a bidirectional connection between immature defensive communication and task conflicts.

Leaders need to prioritise addressing task conflicts, particularly those that might spiral into relationship conflicts. This would present managers with the ability to make task conflicts more functional in nature, which could help to enhance both team and organisational achievements. The bidirectional relationship between task conflict and immature defensive communication points towards the exigency for managerial and organisational initiatives to prevent the development of conflict spirals at the workplace.

This study offers crucial interdisciplinary perspectives into the body of literature with the longitudinal investigation of the connections between managers’ active-empathetic listening, task conflict, relationship conflict and the various defensive communication strategies. With the help of insights from this study, managers and leaders will be empowered to take the necessary actions to reduce employee defensive behaviours and foster a supportive culture for evoking positive and desirable performance.

The purpose of this study is to examine how a service provider’s offer quality is evaluated (OQ).This study shows that attitude toward the salesperson in a service context (AS) is an important antecedent to OQ.

This study involves three studies, first is a dyadic data analyzed with HLM, second is an experiment and the third an IAT.

The findings of this study show that active empathetic listening increases offer quality evaluations, regardless of the AS level. However, at lower levels of AS, sales perseverance negatively affects offer quality evaluations.

While research suggests that listening is extremely important, there is also research that suggests that perseverance is more important. Considering data from sales people and from consumers, the authors examine when listening and when perseverance is important.

In this study, active empathetic listening is purposed as being an antecedent to a salesperson's communication skill, ability to maintain quality relationships and build trust. The study proposes that communication skill, relationship quality and trust all moderate the relationship between AEL and sales performance.

Survey research using salespersons was conducted; structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses of the model.

The findings confirmed that AEL was positively related to salespersons' communication skills, relationship quality and trust. The proposed moderators of communication and trust received support when predicting sales performance.

This was the first empirical study to examine the role of AEL in a relationship selling model. AEL was found to directly affect levels of trust, relationship quality and overall communication skills of salespeople. More research on the role of AEL in the relationship selling process should be investigated.

Managers that focus on long-term relationships in a dyadic buyer-seller relationship may benefit most from this study. A scale that can be used to measure existing levels of AEL in the sales force is included. AEL may better enable salespeople to develop long-term relationships with their customers.

This study examines a form of listening (AEL) that is proposed to be superior to other forms of listening within the personal selling context. Presently little research on the importance of listening and its impact on relationship building exists. This is the first study to test AEL as an antecedent to relationship skills of salespeople.

The purpose of this study is to explore salesperson empathy and the moderating impact of positive/negative affect on a salesperson’s listening and adaptive selling behaviors. It also seeks to identify whether and how empathy influences performance.

The study’s hypothesis was analyzed using data collected from business-to-business salespeople working for a manufacturing firm. A partial least squares analysis was used to test the study’s proposed hypotheses.

The results of this study show that empathy and the moderating role of positive affect foster desirable sales behaviors (listening and adaptive selling behaviors) that subsequently enhance in-role (expected) and extra-role (discretionary) performance.

Contributions from the findings enhance the literature through its consideration of how the direct effect of empathy on sales behaviors (a salesperson’s listening and adapting selling behavior) is moderated by the salesperson’s positive and negative affect and how sales behaviors impact final sales outcomes (in-role and extra-role performance).

The main purpose of the study is to examine the relationships between e-listening and customers’ perceptions of interpersonal service quality and utilitarian value during e-contact center interactions.

Participants completed an online survey about their service experiences with e-contact centers. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

This study found that e-listening is highly related to interpersonal service quality and utilitarian value. Interpersonal service quality is positively related to e-satisfaction and e-loyalty, both with e-contact centers and e-retailers.

The study utilizes general active empathetic listening (AEL) constructs identified in previous research. Although these constructs provide a way to differentiate the cognitive aspects of AEL, and therefore, a mechanism for discerning utilitarian value, further qualitative studies on nonverbal cues in online communications would develop insights into more granular, behavioral dimensions and effects of e-listening. In addition, the study is based on general e-retailing processes, and is not focused on a specific business or sector. The magnitude of the effects of e-listening on the different factors related to customer relationships may vary with different sectors.

E-contact centers should provide interpersonal interactions that emphasize utilitarian value. The centers should be staffed by employees who are well trained in AEL and who are provided with appropriate resources. The interactions of these e-contact centers can provide significant input to e-retailers about the improvement of service quality and resulting customer e-loyalty.

The research provides an original view of service quality in e-contact center contexts and makes a valuable contribution to understanding the evolving service offerings of multi-channel e-retailing. The study provides support for the argument that value and quality in interpersonal interactions with e-contact centers lead to satisfaction and consequently to customer loyalty.

The purpose of this study is to assess the comparative influence of two empathy dimensions (cognitive and emotional attributes) on emotional service experience and behavioral intention among business and leisure hotel guests. Studies relevant to empathy dimensions are relatively scarce in tourism and hospitality.

The current study reviewed the concepts of empathy, and empirically compared perceptions of empathy attributes between the two groups. The survey was intended to examine how well the hotel employees emotionally handle hotel guests’ incidents or inquiries related to any discomforts through personalized attention. The data were collected from 330 hotel guests who had actually complained about service failures while staying at the hotel during the record-breaking summer of 2013 in terms of number of visitors to Jeju. An active empathetic listening (AEL) tool has been taken to measure the hotel guest’s cognitive views and behavioral intentions, as well as emotional empathy measures under the empathic concern and emotional contagion.

The results revealed that empathetic dimensions strongly influenced the service experiences of hotel guests. While the emotional service experience of business guests was almost completely determined by the cognitive empathy, the emotional service experience of the leisure guests was mainly governed by the emotional empathy.

These outcomes suggest that the empathetic services through a “purpose of visit”-oriented manner might enhance the guest’s overall emotion positively.

According to the prior literatures and empirical findings in hospitality and tourism, empathy can be seen as subscale in SERVQUAL instrument. This paper focus on insights of empathy dimensions, and it was revealed that the interaction of both the cognitive and emotional dimensions of empathy conjointly determines the overall emotional service experience and intention of hotel guests.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relations between salespeople’s empathy and listening behaviour and the relationship quality (RQ) customers have with their banks, taking into consideration the moderating effect of felt stress (FS) experienced by salespeople. The paper examines specific effects of FS on factors related to a salesperson’s performance.

To examine the proposed model, responses from 150 customers were collected and matched with responses from 25 salespeople working at a major ba ' nk in Chile. The paper analysed the dyadic data gathered using two analysis techniques. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the relationships proposed at the customer level. Moreover, hierarchical linear modelling was used to test the moderating effect of FS, measured at the salesperson level, on the proposed relationships.

The results show that customers’ perceptions of salespeople’s listening behaviour mediate the relationship between customers’ perception of salespeople’s empathy and RQ with the bank. Moreover, the positive relationship between salespeople’s empathy and salespeople’s listening behaviour, and the positive relationship between salesperson’s listening and customer’s RQ with bank are attenuated by the salesperson’s FS.

This paper examined the effects of the salesperson’s empathy and listening behaviour on the quality of customer relationships with the bank. Moreover, dyadic data show that such effects are influenced by variables related to the bank’s salespeople, such as FS. The findings show that under high FS conditions, salespeople with high listening skills will have negative effects on their customers’ RQ with the bank.

The purpose of this paper is to expand our understanding on team listening by incorporating an action component. The authors empirically test the effect of this expanded concept, namely team action listening on team success, and investigate how team commitment moderates the relationship between team trust and team action listening.

The authors explored listening in teams in the field and in the lab, both qualitatively and quantitatively, through studying 474 team members representing 100 teams. The authors tested the hypotheses by structural equation modeling augmented with in-depth team interviews.

The findings showed that: teams demonstrate that they listen by taking action, teams that exhibit action listening are more successful, there is a direct relationship between team trust and team action listening and team commitment negatively moderates this relation in larger teams.

Managers should encourage taking action in team discussions. Yet, they should be wary of the detrimental effects of team commitment to team action listening particularly in teams with high trust. Commitment increases the risk of groupthink and decreases the participation to team discussions and listening. In particular, managers may benefit from keeping the team smaller, as in large teams, commitment suppresses the relationship between trust and team action listening.

This study extends research on team listening by adding the action aspect that distinguishes successful teams. It is one of the first to investigate the interrelationships between team trust, commitment, team action listening and success in teams.

This study aims to develop an empathetic and user-centric customer support service design model. Though service design has been a critical research focus for several decades, few studies focus on customer support services. As customer support gains importance as a source of competitive advantage in the present era, this paper aims to contribute to industry and academia by exploring the service design model.

The study adopted a theories-in-use approach to elucidate mental models based on the industry’s best practices. In-depth interviews with 62 professionals led to critical insights into customer service design development, supported by service-dominant logic and theory of mind principles.

The ensuing insights led to a model that connects the antecedents and outcomes of empathetic and user-centric customer service design. The precursors include people, processes and technology, while the results are user experience, service trust and service advocacy. The model also emphasises the significance of the user’s journey and the user service review in the overall service design.

The model developed through this study addresses the critical gap concerning the lack of service design research in customer support services. The key insights from this study contribute to the ongoing research endeavours towards transitioning customer support services from an operational unit to a strategic value-creating function. Future scholars may investigate the applicability of the empathetic user service design across cultures and industries. The new model must be customised using real-time data and analytics across user journey stages.

The empathetic and user-centric design can elevate the customer service function as a significant contributor to the overall customer experience, loyalty and positive word of mouth. Practitioners can adopt the new model to provide superior customer service experiences. This original research was developed through crucial insights from interviews with senior industry professionals.

This research is the original work developed through the key insights from the interview with senior industry professionals.

Even though remote work has been around for years and COVID-19 has rapidly increased its prevalence among organizations, research on remote employee engagement is limited. Informed by social exchange theory and social support theory, the purpose of the current study is to examine how internal listening, including both organizational and supervisory listening, influences remote employee engagement and the mediating role of remote employees perceived organizational supportiveness and affective organizational commitment.

Using survey as the research method, the study recruited full-time employees who fully work remotely in the United States of America. The data were collected in early December 2021, and a total of 527 complete and valid responses were used for data analysis. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the study hypotheses.

The results showed that both organizational and supervisory listening had an indirect effect on remote employee engagement by strengthening their perceived organizational support and affective organizational commitment. Both organizational listening and supervisory listening could make remote employees feel they are supported by the organization. However, only supervisory listening had a significant direct impact on remote employees' affective commitment to the organization.

This study is among the first that examines the importance of listening in motivating employee engagement in the context of remote work. The findings showcase the communication functions, from the aspect of organizational and leadership listening, in inspiring the remote workforce. Moreover, this study contributes to the understanding of listening as a pivotal force in driving employees' positive emotional and relational outcomes when they work remotely.