Search results

Burnout, which is caused by chronic stress, is common in the service professions and has a negative effect, both on the service provider's job performance and customer satisfaction. Empowerment is a potential buffer against the stress involved in service roles, but its advantages may depend on the service provider's desire to be empowered. The study examines several interactive effects of empowerment and seeking power on service provider burnout. In addition, the study examined the relationship between service providers' burnout and customers' reports of their satisfaction with the service.

Questionnaires were administered to 198 participants, comprising 99 service provider‐customer dyads coming from public service organizations, that is government offices, welfare services, health services, and education, and private services, that is banks and communication companies. The dyads selected for the study were engaged in a “service relationship,” that is, the customer has repeated contact with a particular provider.

Service providers with a high power motivation experience more burnout as a result of stressful relationships with customers than service providers with a low power motivation. This effect, however, is reversed when service providers are empowered. Furthermore, the negative relationship of burnout with customer satisfaction was found to be stronger with a high level of empowerment than with a low level of empowerment.

Practices of human resources such as selection and training should take into consideration the effect of service providers' predispositions on their willingness and ability to function under a high level of empowerment.

The study shows the negative relationship of service providers' burnout with customer satisfaction and contributes to the understanding of the factors that should be considered in regard to the empowerment of service providers, in order to minimize burnout and its negative effect on customer satisfaction.

The study examined drivers’ perceptions of police officers enforcing traffic laws as well as emotions stimulated during apprehension. The subjects, 693 males in the army, completed a questionnaire measuring perceived attributes of police officers, drivers’ evaluation of police officers’ conduct, emotions aroused during apprehension for a traffic offense, perceived importance of police enforcement of traffic laws, and the perceived deterring effect of the police. The results show that drivers attribute disagreeable traits to police officers, perceive the latter’s conduct unfavorably, and experience a high level of stress during apprehension. Young drivers perceive police officers more negatively than do older drivers and experience more anger and less shame and guilt during apprehension. Belief in the importance of police in enforcing traffic laws is predicted by a driver’s evaluation of police officers’ conduct and the perception of police officers’ traits. The deterring effect of the police force is predicted by emotions of stress experienced during apprehension, as well as by attitudes toward police officers. Results are discussed in relation to the effect of self‐serving biases on drivers’ perception of police officers.

Prior theoretical research focuses primarily on inauthentic emotional displays during the enactment of service roles, in the form of emotional labour, with little attention paid to factors that promote genuine emotional expressions during employees’ customer interactions. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model in which employee trust in the supervisor leads to more authentic emotional displays. Supervisors’ positive and negative affectivity constitute antecedents of this trust.

To analyse the data, collected from supervisors and employee–customer dyads, this study used hierarchical linear modelling.

Trust in the supervisor relates to authentic emotional displays in service encounters, according to both employees’ self-reports and customers’ evaluations. Supervisors’ positive affectivity relates positively to employees’ trust; trust mediates the relationship of affectivity with employees’ authentic emotional displays.

Positive supervisor affectivity and employee trust in the supervisor influence employee authenticity, and customers notice employees’ authenticity during service encounters.

This study advances understanding of the factors that enhance employees’ authenticity in service interactions while also contributing to understanding of the role of the supervisor in service organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to model and study the effectiveness of an attack on the anonymity of Internet users by a group of collaborating eavesdroppers.

The paper is based on an analysis of the Internet topology. The study is based on two methods for choosing nodes that contribute the most to the detection of as many communicating Internet users as possible.

The paper illustrates that it is possible to compromise the anonymity of many Internet users when eavesdropping on a relatively small number of nodes, even when the most central ones are protected from eavesdropping.

It is assumed that the Internet users under attack are not using any anonymity enhancing technologies, but nodes can be protected from eavesdropping. It proposes a measure of the success of an attack on Internet users' anonymity, for a given deployment of collaborating eavesdroppers in the Internet.

The paper shows that several, and not necessarily the most prominent, collaborating nodes can compromise the anonymity of a considerable portion of Internet users. This study also emphasizes that when trying to completely compromise the anonymity of Internet users, an eavesdroppers' deployment strategy that considers eavesdroppers' collaboration can result in substantial resource saving compared to choosing a set of the most prominent nodes.

The paper proposes a new measure of anonymity level in the network, based on the linkability of the Internet users. This paper is the first to present results of a non‐trivial Group Betweenness optimization strategy in large complex networks.

This chapter explores the effect of service employees’ trait authenticity on customer satisfaction as mediated by work engagement, surface acting, and perceived authenticity. Data were collected from service employee–customer dyads. The results indicate that employees’ work engagement and surface acting mediate the effect of trait authenticity on customers’ satisfaction and perception of authenticity. Trait authenticity is positively related to work engagement and negatively related to surface acting. Evidence that authenticity is desirable in service roles suggests that organizations should consider this characteristic as a significant factor in selection and placement of service employees.

The existing research on service climate emphasizes its benefits for customers, employees and organizational outcomes. Service climate translates into organizational expectations from service employees to continuously show appropriate emotions when engaging with clients. However, these expectations may also take a toll on employees, who need to regulate their emotions using emotional labor strategies in order to conform to the organization’s expectations. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the service climate and employees’ use of emotional labor strategies, and investigate how service employees’ service knowledge, skills, abilities and other attributes (KSAOs) affect this relationship.

In two separate studies, one with a sample including 100 nurses working in 15 wards, and the other comprised of 244 luxury hotel chain employees working in 39 departments, participants were surveyed about their perceptions of the service climate and their use of emotional labor strategies. In addition, each participant’s direct manager assessed his/her service KSAOs.

Results demonstrated a positive association between the service climate and the use of surface emotional labor strategies for employees who had limited service KSAOs.

Organizations may choose to hire service employees based on their service-related KSAOs and develop training and development programs for those who have fewer capabilities in these areas. In addition, organizations may want to rethink the traditional climate-induced emotional display rules and emphasize instead more authentic service encounters in order to lessen the toll that service climate takes on certain employees.

While service climate depicts the core values and beliefs of the organization about service, and helps employees to translate them into behaviors that promote high service performance, the current paper points to a potential toll it may have on employees well-being due to their use of surface emotional labor strategies.

The International Journal of Organizational Analysis (IJOA) is a leading journal that has published high-quality research focused on various facets of organizational analysis since 1993. This paper aims to conduct a retrospective analysis of the IJOA journey from 2005 to 2020.

The data used in this study was extracted using the Scopus database. The bibliometric analysis, using several indicators, is adopted to reveal the major trends and themes of the journal. The mapping of bibliographic data is carried using VOSviewer and Biblioshiny.

The study findings indicate that IJOA has grown for publications and citations since its inception. Five significant research directions emerged, i.e. organizational diagnostics, organization citizenship behaviour, organizational commitment to employee retention, psychological capital and firm performance, based on cluster analysis of IJOA’s publications.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of IJOA. The study presents the key themes and trends emerging from a leading journal, considered a high-quality journal, for researching various facets of organizational functioning by academicians, scholars and practitioners.