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This study aims to investigate the effect of social undermining on the service employees' boundary-spanning behavior though perceived fit with job (P-J fit). This study also aims to examine the moderating role of ethical climate in the relationship between service employees' perceived fit with job (P-J fit) and boundary-spanning behavior.

Using a sample of 469 Korean bank and insurance employees, research model and hypotheses were tested. Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling and the hierarchical regression model.

The results showed that supervisor and co-worker undermining have detrimental influences on the service employee's perceived fit with job. P-J fit has a positive effect on employees' boundary-spanning behavior and this relationship was positively moderated by the employee's prevailing perception of organizational practices and procedures that have ethical content.

This research should be evaluated in light of limitations, one of which is the reliance on cross-sectional data. The generalizability of this research model across settings and across outcome variables is still an open question. The measures of social undermining were based on participant perceptions, and in each case, participants make judgments about their negative behaviors retrospectively. Furthermore, the data were collected in Korea, so generalizing the hypothesized model beyond this setting is limited. Since Korea represents a distinct cultural and economic context, future research could examine the model in different countries.

The findings of this study confirm the crucial role of managers in creating an ethical climate where decisions are based on formally stated ethical guidelines. Such guidelines help service employees solve the ethical dilemmas that are common to their positions. These research findings demonstrate that creating an ethical climate is not only the right thing to do but also has significant benefits for both the service employees and the organization.

Considering the boundary-spanning role of the service employee, not only the organizational side (supervisor and co-worker undermining), but also the customer is specified as a major source of social undermining.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the recognition of sexual harassment (SH); to describe the relationships among SH, employees’ burnout, customer-oriented boundary-spanning behaviors (COBSB); and to verify the moderating effect of employees’ psychological safety (PS), all within deluxe hotels in South Korea.

Prior to verifying the hypotheses, reliability and confirmatory factor analysis were managed, and correlation analysis was used to confirm the directionality between the hypotheses. The hypotheses were analyzed using a structural equation model and multi-group analysis was used to analyze the moderating effect.

Perceived SH was significantly related to employees’ burnout and COBSB. Also, the employees’ burnout was significantly related to COBSB. The moderating effect was significant; low PS greatly increased relative to the effects of SH on COBSB.

All types of companies consider unethical behaviors, such as SH in the workplace, as crucial problems that degrade the individual quality of life, and some firms have devised active measures to prevent and relieve damages. Companies should implement employee-centered policies that enable employees, the victims, to formally report and testify to what they have suffered from without revenge from their assailants. All the factors that contribute to the institutional control of SH within the working environment should be taken into consideration, and strict standards should be applied on a company level by criminalizing such behaviors. Employees should be trained on how to effectively cope with diverse types of SH.

This paper proposes a research model in which work engagement (WE) mediates the effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and internal marketing (IM) simultaneously on customer-oriented boundary-spanning behavior (COBSB).

The study deploys structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine data acquired from 355 frontline bank employees (FBE) of private banks.

The findings of this study demonstrate that both FBE's perceptions of CSR and IM are positively related to their WE, proposing that adding CSR practices to existing IM programs is likely to boost anticipated employee work attitudes such as WE, which consecutively increase positive employee job outcomes such as COBSB. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by conceptually and empirically gauging CSR and IM practices simultaneously in the banking sector.

This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by investigating the relationship between CSR and IM to COBSB via WE in frontline service roles in the retail banking sector.

Drawing on social exchange theory, this study aims to investigate the relation of customer sexual harassment (CSH) and customer-oriented organizational citizenship behaviors (customer-oriented OCB), as well as the mediation of customer–employee exchange (CEX) and the moderation of hostile attribution bias.

The hypotheses were examined through a field study performed in six hotels in three Chinese cities and an experimental study.

The results revealed that CSH undermined the quality of CEX, leading employees to withdraw from customer-oriented OCB. Additionally, the hostile attribution bias of service employees reinforced the direct relationship between CSH and CEX and its indirect relationship with customer-oriented OCB via CEX.

The findings suggest that hospitality organizations should endeavor to reduce the occurrence of CSH, and that by valuing and encouraging the development of high-quality CEX, they can mitigate its detrimental effects. Special attention should also be paid to hospitality employees holding strong hostile attribution bias.

First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to explore the influence of CSH on customer-oriented OCB among hotel employees. In addition, examining the effect of CSH from the social exchange perspective represents a new theoretical approach. The finding also contributes to the literature on CEX by identifying an important antecedent. Finally, by investigating hostile attribution bias as a moderator, this research provides insights into how individual differences moderate the destructive influence of CSH.

This study aims to address the need to study salesperson’s customer orientation and its effectiveness to explain the efficacy of predispositions and skills at individual level. This study is set in the Indian context and, therefore, offers a detailed insight from an Indian sales force perspective. Also, this study introduces self-leadership into sales literature.

A model was tested using survey data collected from salespeople within a print media company located in India. A structural equation model was used to test the hypotheses.

The results suggest an interesting interplay between salesperson’s customer orientation and his/her sales performance. The relationship between customer orientation is fully mediated by salesperson’s emotion regulation ability and his/her salesmanship skills. Results support the role of natural rewards strategies as driver of individual level customer orientation which will be of great interest in future research in this area.

The research suggests that a salesperson’s customer orientation relates positively with sales performance through two process variables – emotion regulation and salesmanship skills. Within an Indian sales force, individual salesperson’s customer orientation is significantly influenced by his/her natural rewards strategies which have important implication for sales force recruitment. Moreover, sales training and other interventions targeted toward building salesmanship skills and emotion regulation abilities may actually enhance effectiveness of customer-oriented sales force. Theoretical and managerial applications are also discussed.

This study extends the literature through its examination of an Indian sales force, the incorporation of self-leadership construct (natural rewards strategies) and its argument for an alternative approach toward salesperson’s customer orientation effectiveness.

Employee gratitude is often associated with positive customer-related benefits. However, our understanding of employee gratitude is notably underdeveloped within the service literature. To address this issue, this study aims to position employee gratitude within the service profit chain (SPC) framework as a complementary mediator. Further, the authors empirically examine service climate as a central antecedent to employee gratitude and employee customer-oriented behavior as an outcome that triggers an internal and external reciprocal social exchange.

The examination of the research questions was done across two studies, using employee self-reported data (Study 1) and employee–customer dyadic data (Study 2). In Study 1, the authors investigate how employee gratitude mediates the relationship between service climate and customer-oriented behavior, with employee interpersonal influence functioning as a moderator. In Study 2, the authors examine how customer-oriented behavior, an outcome of Study 1, influences customer satisfaction and customer avoidance, with customer gratitude functioning as a mediator.

Results from both Study 1 and Study 2 support the proposed relationships. These studies contribute to the service literature by evaluating how and why employee gratitude functions as a significant factor in determining employee and customer behavior within the service context.

This work enriches the gratitude literature by empirically testing a novel theoretical perspective on employee and customer gratitude in service encounters. In doing so, the authors provide a more nuanced understanding of how internal and external processes are connected and potentially reinforced in SPC.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how customer incivility affects service employees’ emotional labor (i.e. surface acting) and the way surface acting augments their emotional exhaustion at work, and in turn, damages customer orientations of service employees.

Using a sample of 309 department store sales employees in South Korea, a two-stage mediation model is used in terms of structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that customer incivility is positively related to service employees’ use of surface acting; this, in turn, results in feelings of emotional exhaustion, which are negatively related to their customer orientation. That is, the findings of this study shows that the negative relationship between customer incivility and service employees’ customer orientation was fully and sequentially mediated by service employees’ surface acting and emotional exhaustion.

The main limitation is the nature of the cross-sectional data the authors used in the analysis. It gives us reason to be very cautious in reaching conclusions concerning causal relationships among variables, since the authors did not capture longitudinal variation.

The research shows that customer incivility has a negative effect on service employees’ customer-oriented behaviors since experiences of customer incivility among emotionally exhausted employees via surface acting generates inadequate and unfair sense-making related to the treatment offered by customers, which increases the tendency of decreasing their effort and loyalty for customers to prevent further loss of emotional resources. Therefore, service organizations should devise appropriate strategies and implement systematic programs for reducing employee exposure to customer incivility, or preventing it altogether.

The current study broadens the conceptual work and empirical studies in customer incivility literature by representing a fundamental mechanism of why customer incivility negatively affects service employees’ customer orientation. The primary contribution of the study is to gain a deeper understanding of how customer incivility leads to lower employee customer-oriented behaviors through double mediating effects of surface acting and emotional exhaustion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine causal relationships between role stress, customer orientation, selling orientation, and job performance of retail salespeople.

The sample (n=259) was salespeople in eight units of a national department store located in the USA. Participants in the clothing, accessories, shoe, and home furnishings departments completed self‐administered questionnaires. To test the hypotheses, structural equation was employed using AMOS 4.0.

Role stress (i.e. role conflict and role ambiguity) affected customer orientation and also had direct and indirect effects on job performance mediated by customer orientation. The impact of role conflict was negative on customer orientation, but positive on selling orientation and job performance.

Retail managers are instrumental in creating a culture conducive to the practice of customer orientation and the degree to which retail salespeople experience role stress.

This study is notable because it investigated the intuitively plausible question of whether customer‐orientated behavior mediates the effects of role stress on retail salespeople's job performance.

The purpose of this study is to empirically test and extend knowledge of the determinants of customer‐oriented behavior (COB) of service providers in an affective, high contact service setting (healthcare).

The authors examine the relative effects of dispositional variables (e.g. personality of service provider), as well as service climate and job satisfaction on five dimensions of customer‐oriented behavior. The research hypotheses are tested using self‐report data collected from 270 nurses in five hospitals (public and private). Qualitative work, including three focus groups with nurses and a series of depth interviews with patients, was conducted to test the applicability of the scales.

Results support the role of personality, job satisfaction and service climate on employees' COB, but do not support interaction effects. Various personality traits have differing effects on different types of customer‐oriented behaviors. Service climate has effects on both technical and interpersonal behaviors whereas job satisfaction impacts only technical behavior.

This study was conducted in an affective, high contact and high emotional labor setting, i.e. healthcare, and in an Eastern collectivist culture (Thailand). As a result, the generalizability of the findings into other service settings and cultures needs to be undertaken with care.

For service employees to display customer‐oriented behaviors, the organization must first recruit individuals with high levels of conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion and emotional stability. Second, the organization must create a climate for service that supports, encourages and motivates service employees to better serve their customers. This service climate at the unit/branch level includes inspirational leadership, providing appropriate tools and technology, training, and commitment from senior management to a truly customer (patient) centric organization. Finally, when the organization is successful in creating satisfaction among employees, then employees are more inclined to offer a better technical performance.

This is one of only a few studies that have examined the impact of personality and organizational variables on front‐line employee performance.

This study aims to investigate the antecedents of frontline employees’ boundary-spanning behaviors in the hospitality industry. Anchored in transactional stress theory, affective events theory and motivation theories, a conceptual model was built to explore the impacts of hindrance stressors on boundary-spanning behavior.

Data were collected from frontline employees in the hospitality industry in the USA. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used.

The findings revealed that despite hindrance stressors’ negative indirect impact on frontline employees’ boundary-spanning behaviors, intrinsic motivation worked effectively to reduce hindrance stress and influence subsequent emotions leading to boundary-spanning behaviors.

This study provides substantial and detailed strategies for hospitality practitioners who are pressed to alleviate the hindrance stressors from which frontline employees frequently suffer, foster employees’ positive emotions and ease negative emotions while promoting boundary-spanning behaviors. Cultivation of employees’ intrinsic motivation and emotional management is encouraged, as is effective organizational structure and management intervention. All of these are deemed helpful in buffering employees’ work-related stress while motivating them to go above and beyond their nominal duties.

Very few studies have examined how “bad” hindrance stressors affect boundary-spanning behaviors. Rather than suggesting that hindrance stressors are relevant only to counterproductive behaviors, this study extends both the stress and boundary-spanning literature by uncovering the impact of hindrance stressors on frontline employees’ boundary-spanning behaviors while accounting for the roles of workers’ motivation and emotion.