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Occasionally, retail employees “break the rules” in order to help customers. Currently, there is little research on the mechanisms by which a sales assistants’ positive deviance intentions help them attain specific personal and organisational goals. The purpose of this paper is to examine one mechanism, hope, which develops employees’ deviance intentions to provide benefits to the customer, themselves and the organisation.

A survey captured responses from 270 frontline employees from the retail and services sector. AMOS 23 was used to conduct measurement, path and mediation analyses.

This study highlights the role of employee hope in developing employees’ positive deviance intentions, and improving perceptions of organisational performance. Results demonstrate that the direct positive impact of hope on positive deviance intention was significant. Furthermore, positive deviance intention was found to positively impact employee goal attainment and perceived organisational performance. The authors’ employee hope model offers a better understanding of positive outcomes of employee deviance, suggesting that retail managers should invest resources to build strong employee–organisation relationships.

This is the first study to empirically demonstrate that employee hope can explain how customer-oriented positive deviance intentions help employee goal attainment and improve their perceptions of organisational performance.

Organisations today seek high engagement levels from their employees for their superior performance amid the highly competitive environment. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of positive deviance facilitators (PDFs) in enhancing employee engagement at work.

The study adopts the interpretive structural modelling (ISM) and Matrice d’Impacts Croisés-Multiplication Appliquée á un Classement (MICMAC) analysis to understand the process of how positive deviance may fuel employee engagement in an organisation. Because of the lack of empirical evidence on the relationship between employee engagement and positive deviance, ISM approach was adopted as it helps in understanding the subjective experience and learnings of experts involved in the field. The MICMAC analysis classifies the relevant factors into four clusters and helps in understanding the dynamics involved.

Based on the opinions shared by industry and academia experts, a structural model was developed to understand the hierarchy and interactions among the eight PDFs leading towards employee engagement.

The study offers both theoretical and practical implications. The model developed in the current study could be used as a base model for future studies concerning employee engagement and deviance. The importance of human resource management practices in fuelling positive deviance and employee engagement is also highlighted. The study discusses various practical implications for human resource managers and top management.

The literature on positive deviance at work is still at a nascent stage. Empirical studies on deviance largely focus on the destructive/negative side of workplace deviance, and studies on positive outcomes from workplace deviance are rare. This present study provides a unique opportunity to understand how positive deviance can be used to enhance the engagement levels of employees.

This study aims to investigate the positive side of employee deviance. Historically, research exploring employee deviance focussed on undesirable organisational and individual outcomes. Thus, previous research has empirically established that employee deviance harms both the organisation and organisation's employees. Recent studies argue that employee deviance also has a positive effect; however, such studies are limited in number. The extant research fails to consider the positive side of employee deviance, and therefore, the present studies bridge the gap through a systematic literature review on positive deviance.

The study examined peer-reviewed theoretical and empirical journal articles related to workplace deviance. An initial search resulted in 2,691 research articles, of which 40 papers were considered relevant for the study given the objective of this paper. Research papers were extracted from the Web of Science, EBSCO and Scopus. The extracted data were then synthesised to formulate the research questions and objectives for this study.

Basing on the systematic literature review, the study presents six main themes: positive deviance and younger workforce, positive deviant leader and subordinates and positive deviance as a strategic tool for employee engagement, positive deviance and positive organisational scholarship, positive deviance and entrepreneurial orientation. The study also proposes positive deviance as a mediator/moderator of other relationships within an organisation.

Systematic literature is a methodology that relies on the availability and accessibility of research studies based on the research criteria. The study considered three significant databases to identify the relevant papers for the study. Therefore, the research is limited, and the possibility of omitting the papers is not ruled out, although unintentional.

The paper is plausibly the first research to conduct a systematic literature review on positive deviance. The study establishes and reconfirms the encouraging side of employee deviance. The study extends the literature on workplace deviance in two significant ways. First, the paper systematically examines the empirical and review literature related to positive deviance and presents a greater understanding of the predictors, consequences, methodologies, etc. Second, the study highlights the critical research gaps in this area and suggests the course of action for future research.

Fashion retail employees sometimes “bend the rules” to help their customers. Referred to as customer-oriented deviance, this study responds to calls to examine the motivational antecedents of this behavior. This research also tests the moderating effect of tenure on the relationships between a frontline employee's motivations, their customer-oriented deviance behaviors and commitment to the organization.

Data were collected via a self-completed, anonymous, online survey provided to a sample of 390 sales associates employed in retail fashion businesses.

Findings demonstrate that fashion retail employees were inclined to adapt service procedures and engage in deviant communication about either their organization and/or the products they sell for both pro-social and self-directed reasons. Interestingly, long-tenured employees demonstrated consistently lower motivations to engage in consumer-oriented deviance compared to short-tenured employees. However, analysis indicated no significant differences between short-tenured and long-tenured employees in their consumer-oriented deviance behaviors and commitment to the organization.

The cross-sectional nature and single-level data collection naturally put limitations on the generalizability of this research. The study does not examine alternative constructs that might mediate/moderate tested relationships, such as perceived empowerment, gender or risk, hence, future potential avenues for further inquiry are presented.

This research contributes to positive deviance theory and extends existing knowledge by developing an extensive model of motivational antecedents, a moderator and an outcome of consumer-oriented deviant behavior. For managers, this research provides valuable insights for organizations, which may create positive effects on service quality and a reduction in employee turnover.

In the era of the service economy, the personalized needs of customers are increasing rapidly. It often occurs that front-line employees bend organizational rules to help customers. The study sought to explore the influence mechanism of servant leadership on specific dimensions of customer-oriented deviance from the manager’s perspective, examine the mediating role of psychological security, and the moderating role of error management climate in the process.

We conducted an online survey study in China from April 10 to 29, 2023. We use online survey questionnaire technique and random sampling method for data collection. The authors collected 385 questionnaires from China and tested the model by SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 24.0.

The results show that servant leadership significantly promotes employees' deviant customer-oriented behaviors, psychological security plays a mediating role between servant leadership and deviant customer-oriented behaviors, and error management climate has a positive moderating effect between servant leadership and deviant customer-oriented behaviors.

This study explores the influence mechanism of servant leadership on deviant customer-oriented behaviors. The results of this study not only enrich the theoretical research on the formation mechanism of deviant customer-oriented behaviors but also provide a reference for leaders to correctly view and effectively manage employees' deviant customer-oriented behaviors.

Blockchain can track the material from the manufacturer to the end customers. Therefore, it can ensure the product's authenticity, transparency and trust in the retail supply chain (SC). There is a need to trace and track the retail products before it reaches the customers to check the quality of the products so that expired products can be recycled and reused, which in turn will help gain customers' trust. This research aims to investigate retail employees' behavioural intention to adopt blockchain in the retail SC.

To examine the behavioural intention of employees in the retail SC, the research uses three theories – the technology acceptance model; the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology; and the theory of planned behaviour. The technology acceptance model measures the employee's acceptance of blockchain in the retail SC. The unified theory of acceptance is used in this research to measure how blockchain adoption will improve the performance of the employees. The theory of planned behaviour is used in this research to measure whether the employees intend to adopt blockchain. A survey was carried out in the retail stores of India. Exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were used for data analysis.

This study found that the employees of the retail stores have a positive intention and attitude to adopt blockchain technology. Further, it was found that perceived behavioural control and effort expectancy was not promoting blockchain adoption in the retail sector.

This study will help the retail stores' employees understand the blockchain in their operations and will motivate the top management of the retail companies to adopt this technology. The study is limited to the retail SC in India only.

This study uses three theories technology acceptance model; the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology; and the theory of planned behaviour, which were not used in earlier studies of blockchain adoption in the retail SC.

The rapid evolution in artificial intelligence (AI) has redefined the customer experience and created huge opportunities for companies to interact with customers using chatbots. This study explores the role of AI chatbots in influencing the online customer experience and customer satisfaction in e-retailing.

A research model based on the technology acceptance model and information system success model is proposed to describe the interrelationships among chatbot adoption, online customer experience and customer satisfaction. Personality is a moderator in the model. The authors used a quantitative approach to collect 425 useable online questionnaires and Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) and SmartPLS to analyze the measurement model and proposed hypotheses.

The usability of the chatbot had a positive influence on extrinsic values of customer experience, whereas the responsiveness of the chatbot had a positive impact on intrinsic values of customer experience. Furthermore, online customer experience had a positive relationship with customer satisfaction, and personality influenced the relationship between the usability of the chatbot and extrinsic values of customer experience.

This research extends understanding of the online customer experience with chatbots in e-retailing and provides empirical evidence by showing that extrinsic and intrinsic values of online customer experience are enhanced by chatbot adoption.

This paper aims to examine whether information technology (IT) managers’ virtual listening, as rated by their high-tech employees, affected turnover behaviour beyond a new constellation of variables, some of which have never been researched as antecedents of turnover behaviour, particularly during a pandemic or crisis. Namely, the main aim, among others, is to answer the research question: does IT employees’ perception of the quality of their supervisors’ virtual listening in the pandemic and crisis era, when employees and managers work remotely, will negatively affect turnover behaviour? If yes, in which constellation of antecedents the virtual listening effecting on turnover behaviour?

Logistic regression analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses via SPSS 26 and PROCESS (Model 6). The variance inflation factor was calculated to test multicollinearity. Interaction was tested using the Hayes and Preacher PROCESS macro model. The researchers also used the J-N technique test (Johnson–Neyman via process). The supplemental analysis used also PROCESS MACRO (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA, 2023) Model 4 and Bootstrap test.

The findings show that perceptions of supervisors’ virtual listening quality as rated by their employees moderated the relationship between organisational deviance as a type of organisational misbehaviour (OMB) and turnover behaviour and had the strongest effect on turnover behaviour beyond other key predictors (organisational deviance as a type of misbehaviour, turnover intention, job satisfaction, embeddedness and alternatives in the labour market). Alternatives to current work moderated the association between the perception of managers’ virtual listening behaviour as rated by their employees and turnover behaviour. Specifically, when alternatives in the labour market were high or medium, the perceived quality of managers’ virtual listening reduced turnover behaviour. Finally, the perception of the IT employees supervisors’ virtual listening moderated the relationship between organisational deviance and turnover intention among high-tech employees.

Evaluating supervisor listening in the high-tech firm may have value in terms of its relationship to outcomes such as retaining employees, turnover intention and especially turnover behaviour. The effect on turnover behaviour and of that new constellation of antecedents on turnover behaviour when people work remotely was not researched yet and important for the post COVID-19 era. Additionally, in contrast to most studies of turnover, this study also focus on the positive aspects of turnover and especially turnover behaviour to organisations in general and especially to high-tech firm and not just the negative aspect as was researched until now. Another contribution is the finding that when employees perceived their managers’ virtual listening quality as high, the effect of deviance as a type of OMB on turnover behaviour was positive. Namely, the listening as a moderator and turnover assisted in making the organisation cleaner from inappropriate behaviour. Additionally, when alternatives in the labour market are high or medium, perceived quality of virtual listening of managers as rated by their employees can reduce turnover behaviour. This virtual listening–turnover relationship and the moderator of alternatives to current work had not previously been found in the turnover literature and this is also significant a contribution to the turnover and withdrawal literature.

Unlike most empirical investigations that have tested the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinate’s workplace deviance in a large and formal organizational setup, this study investigates the effect of abusive behavior of owner-manager of small entrepreneurial establishments on subordinate’s workplace deviance. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, it explores the moderating effect of intention to quit on the relationship between abusive supervision and organizational as well as interpersonal deviance; and second, it investigates whether the moderating effect between abusive supervision and intention to quit will be stronger for organizational deviance (supervisor directed) than for interpersonal deviance (others directed).

The participants of this study were 240 restaurant and hotel employees working in three small entrepreneurial organizations in the eastern state of India. The authors have collected data on the predictor and criterion variables at two time points with a separation of three to four weeks for reducing common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2012). At Time 1, participants completed measures of the perception of their owner-manager’s abusiveness and their intention to quit. At Time 2, participants responded to organizational deviance and interpersonal deviance.

The findings of the study is in line with previous research studies (Tepper et al., 2007; Thau et al., 2009) that reported intention to quit will moderate the positive relationship between abusive supervision and organizational deviance and interpersonal deviance such that the relationship will be stronger when intention to quit is high rather than low. The finding of the study also corroborates the prediction that the interactive effect between abusive supervision and intention to quit will be stronger for organizational deviance (supervisor directed) than for interpersonal deviance (aimed at other members of the organization) when intention to quit is higher.

This study is among the very few empirical research studies that have investigated the effect of abusiveness of owner-manager on subordinate’s workplace deviance in small organizations. Another unique aspect of the study is that it is one of few to propose and test, how (whether organizational deviance or/and interpersonal deviance) and to what extent (more organizational or supervisor directed than interpersonal or others directed deviance) subordinates of abusive supervisor retaliate by engaging in workplace deviant behaviors.

The creativity of retail employees seems to be of the utmost importance for ensuring the performance of organizations in service settings. This paper contributes to the existing theory by investigating the direct and indirect effects of goal orientations on the creativity and performance of retail employees. The authors propose a framework depicting the relationships between goal orientations and employee creativity and performance, including the intervening effects of self-efficacy and customer orientation.

The study was conducted with retail frontline employees of a large retail bank in Portugal. The sample consists of 267 valid responses. Structural equations are used by applying the maximum likelihood method to test the conceptual framework.

Results are broadly supportive of the hypotheses. Learning orientation is, directly and indirectly, related to creativity, but only indirectly to performance. As to performance orientation, it is indirectly related to creativity through self-efficacy and customer orientation, and directly as well as indirectly, to performance. The authors investigate the extent to which the effects of goal orientations on creativity and performance are mediated by self-regulatory mechanisms, namely self-efficacy, and customer orientation.

The results recognize that learning and performance goals are neither mutually exclusive nor contradictory, which collide with past empirical evidence showing that learning goals are generally associated with more favorable outcomes and performance goals with more negative or equivocal ones. These outcomes underscore the need and relevance for managers to foster both goal orientations to promote the creativity and performance of retail employees, representing a particularly salient issue in retail businesses characterized by significant interpersonal interactions.