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In this chapter, the authors present a theoretical model useful for analyzing people’s perceptions of what they should do, should not do, and should be allowed to do at work. These perceptions create powerful motivational forces that shape workplace behavior. The authors describe various aspects of this model – a deonance perspective – as it relates to rights (permissible behavior) and responsibilities (behavioral prescriptions and proscriptions). The authors demonstrate how it offers new insights beyond those available from existing theoretical models, and the authors outline its implications for research and the practice of human resource management.

Because of increasing wealth inequality, China has been confronted with resentment against the rich (referred to hereafter as RAR or Choufu in Chinese), which is a growing concern owing to its potential to foment social conflict. Drawing on social comparison and deonance theories, this paper aims to provide theoretical insights into RAR within the Chinese context and to develop an RAR scale. Following spillover theory, the attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of RAR in organizational settings will be explored.

This research consists of two studies. Study 1 conceptualizes RAR and develops an RAR scale by using three separate samples. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses are conducted to establish scale reliability and validity. Study 2 uses hierarchical linear regression analysis to test whether employees’ RAR attitude spills over from the societal to the organizational setting.

Results suggest that RAR can be conceptualized as two distinct but related dimensions – emotional RAR and moral RAR. These two forms spill over to the workplace, influencing employees’ work attitudes and behaviors. Emotional RAR relates negatively to life satisfaction and prosocial organizational behaviors and positively to unethical organizational behaviors. Moral RAR relates negatively to pay satisfaction and positively to prosocial behaviors.

This research suggests that RAR has spillover effects from societal to organizational settings and demonstrates that a more robust understanding of employees’ workplace experience requires acknowledging social experiences, such as conflicts beyond the workplace.

This research contributes to the conflict management literature by exploring RAR as a negative attitude that serves to potentially ignite social conflict. It not only develops a theory-grounded, conceptual RAR model and a reliable RAR scale but also for the first time explores RAR attitudinal and behavioral outcomes beyond the social domain. This study serves as a meaningful touchstone for future research to incorporate social attitudes into organizational behavior research.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate how managers react to their own abusive supervision. Accordingly, this research identified a mechanism that managers may use to make amends for their abusive supervisory behaviors.

Two studies were designed. Study 1 was an online experimental study involving 99 full-time managers in the hotel industry that examined how managers’ internal factors moderated the relationship between enacted abusive supervision and embarrassment. By applying a critical incident technique to survey 235 full-time managers in the hospitality industry in Study 2, the moderating role of power distance belief as a context-related factor was tested. Furthermore, the mediating role of embarrassment between managers’ abusive supervision and their impression management was examined.

Managers who enact abusive supervision may experience embarrassment and thus be more likely to use impression management tactics, such as apology. Moreover, this study revealed the boundary conditions that influence managers’ reaction toward their own abusive supervision.

Hospitality industry practitioners can use the findings of this study as a basis for the development of policies and training programs to promote positive organizational culture and minimize unethical workplace behaviors.

Previous studies in this area have focused on subordinate-centric perspectives; this study is one of the few that has examined abusive supervision from an actor-centric perspective.

This paper aims to examine the widespread effects of service actors’ verbal aggression on witness customers’ intentions toward the service organizations through their self-conscious emotions. The moderating roles of the witness customers’ empathic tendencies and the source of aggression are also examined.

In two scenario-based experiments and by adopting a multifoci approach, severity of mistreatment (aggression vs incivility vs no-mistreatment) and source of mistreatment (employee-to-employee and customer-to-customer) were manipulated to test distinctive effects of witnessing aggression on self-conscious emotions and intentions.

This study shows that witnessing aggression during service experiences negatively influences customers’ intentions towards the service organization through self-conscious emotions. Moreover, empathic tendencies of customers make these effects more pronounced. It is also shown that witnessing employee-to-employee aggression has a stronger effect on self-conscious emotions and intentions than customer-to-customer aggression.

This paper uncovers the distinctive effects of aggressive behaviors of service actors on self-conscious emotions from the third-party perspective. It is also shown that empathic tendencies can be detrimental to service organizations in certain conditions.

The results warn service managers against verbal aggression because of its negative effects on witness customers. It is suggested that they should try to clarify the incident and restore justice in front of the witnesses.

This paper is one of the first attempts to investigate the distinctive effects of witnessing aggression during service experiences and the roles of self-conscious emotions and emphatic tendencies.

Purpose – We outline a theoretical model of the emergence of justice climate in groups, teams, and organizations, and in doing so integrate multiple justice perspectives (e.g., affective events, fairness heuristic, deonance, justice integration, multifoci justice, overall justice).

Approach – In this theoretical paper, we propose that justice climate is spawned at the level of the event; individuals experience discrete events and then use their emotional reactions related to these events as information in forming fairness judgments. Cognitive processes explicated in justice integration theory, fairness heuristic theory, and fairness theory also play a role. Over time, these judgments about various perpetrators – which may include the evaluation of outcomes, procedures, information, and interpersonal treatment – are aggregated to form individual-level, stable judgments regarding the fairness of exchange partners with whom employees interact (e.g., supervisors, coworkers, and customers). Through socialization and social-information processing, and influenced by organizational structure and social networks, these individual multifoci justice perceptions merge to form multifoci justice climate, which over time lead to the formation of shared cognitions of overall justice climate.

Value – The chapter proposes a temporal model of how discrete events at the individual level merge to form individuals’ multifoci justice perceptions, shared multifoci justice climate, and ultimately overall justice climate. The chapter offers multiple propositions and concludes with recommendations for empirically testing the model.

This paper aims to model staff reactions to a hotel based on the way they perceive hotel’s treatment of customers. It suggests that employees are not motivated to help abused customers in the form of customer-oriented behaviors (COBs) until employees also feel that they are victims of abuse by the hotel. Hence, effects of staff’s unfavorable justice perceptions for customers on employee COBs are expected to be negative until staff’s unfavorable justice perceptions for themselves, interacting in this relationship, turn it positive.

Drawing on social exchange and compassion theories, the argument is made that staff members who are also victims of abuse by the hotel can empathize more with guests, turning quid pro quo responses to abuse of customers into compassionate responses.

Regression results from a field study of 280 employees at ten hotels in the Canary Islands provide general support for our hypotheses.

By understanding when and why (un)fair treatment of guests and staff has consequences for the hotel in the form of COBs, hotel managers can favor a better staff response to hotels’ careful stewardship of the service encounter in terms of COBs. The reversal of the direction in the relationship suggests the unfolding of compassion within a justice framework, which challenges the long-lived perceived incompatibility between compassion and justice in the organizational literature.

The present study is the first one to study COBs stemming either from staff responses to hotels’ abuse of customers or COBs resulting from the interaction between perceived justice for customers and justice perceptions for themselves.

In this chapter, we examine employee prosocial rule breaking as a response to organizations’ unfair treatment of customers. Drawing on the deontic perspective and research on third-party reactions to unfairness, we suggest employees engage in customer-directed prosocial rule breaking when they believe their organizations’ policies treat customers unfairly. Additionally, we consider employee, customer, and situational characteristics that enhance or inhibit the relationship between employees’ perceptions of organizational policy unfairness and customer-directed prosocial rule breaking.

Purpose – We offer a view of interpersonal justice climate in which the benefits of fair treatment might be stronger within some groups versus others, depending on characteristics of the supervisor, the group, and the organization in which the group is embedded. We further identify a potential silver lining that may be associated with low interpersonal justice climate. Overall, our intent of this chapter is to offer a more nuanced view of the topic to enhance our understanding of interpersonal justice within groups.

Design/methodology/approach – We review literature on status to support our propositions.

Findings – We examine how a supervisor's idiosyncrasy credits, a group's status, and an organization's emphasis on hierarchy will moderate the relationship between unfair interpersonal treatment from a supervisor and the group's perceived interpersonal justice climate. Also, we suggest that low levels of interpersonal justice climate may actually lead to greater affiliation among group members and ultimately enhance perceptions of group cohesion.

Originality/value – Previous literature on justice climate has largely focused on procedural justice, whereas generally ignoring interpersonal exchanges between a group and its supervisor. This chapter contributes to research on justice at the group level by examining the potential moderating effects of status on the generation of interpersonal justice climate. Further, and in contrast to previous research, we offer a potential positive outcome that may result from low interpersonal justice climate.

Mining is surrounded by controversy, in spite of corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects. This study aims to explore the theory on CSR and shared value (SV) and identified a gap in an approach to implementing CSR and SV. Perceptions of multi-stakeholder relationships in the South African mining context were elicited.

A qualitative research design included 17 semi-structured interviews with 3 stakeholder groups, including members of the community, government representatives and mining management and secondary data of company documents on CSR.

The qualitative research revealed important gaps between CSR and SV theoretical frameworks, normative ethical approaches and operationalizing of these at the mine to the detriment of effective multi-stakeholder relationships.

Mines have to engage with the community and government stakeholders proactively and build relationships.

Ethical normative approaches have to be considered. Government has to take note of this study’s findings with regards to negative consequences of institutionalized CSR for trust between mines and communities.

The literature review differentiates theoretically between normative and instrumental stakeholder theory, philanthropic and business case CSR, SV and their implicit normative ethical approaches. The semi-structured interviews revealed legacy issues and lack of engagement between mine and community as main barriers to multi-stakeholder relationships and raised important questions on normative ethical approaches to CSR and SV. The direct and indirect barriers by government, community and mine management are identified and differentiated.

In this chapter, we summarize and build on the current state of the customer mistreatment literature in an effort to further future research on this topic. First, we detail the four primary conceptualizations of customer mistreatment. Second, we present a multilevel model of customer mistreatment, which distinguishes between the unfolding processes at the individual employee level and the service encounter level. In particular, we consider the antecedents and outcomes unique to each level of analysis as well as mediators and moderators. Finally, we discuss important methodological concerns and recommendations for future research.