Exposure to workplace bullying and negative gossip behaviors: Buffering roles of personal and contextual resources

This study adds to business ethics research by investigating how employees' exposure to workplace bullying might spur their negative gossip behaviors, as well as how this effect might be buffered by their access to two personal resources (religiosity and innovation propensity) and two contextual resources (work meaningfulness and trust in top management). Survey data collected among Canadian-based employees who work in the religious sector reveal that workplace bullying increases the likelihood that they spread negative rumors about other organizational members, but this effect is weaker when employees (1) can draw from their religious faith, (2) are motivated to generate innovative ideas, (3) derive meaning from their work, and (4) have confidence in the trustworthiness of top management. For management scholars and practitioners, this study thus pinpoints different resources that diminish the risk that workplace bullying infuses work environments with even more negative energy, as might occur if bullying spills over into additional, negative gossip behaviors.     

Religion,spirituality, and well-being: A systematic literature review and futuristic agenda

Informed by religion and psychology literature, this study reviews the literature on religiosity, spirituality, and psychology to support existing theory development in the current emergence of “Management, Spirituality, and Religion” field of study, encourage new contextual thinking and develop a framework to guide businesses on the integration of spirituality and religiosity at work given their documented benefits in relation to personal well-being and productivity. Using the Web of Science (WoS) database, the paper reviews and synthesizes recent research in a systematic, transparent, and reproducible manner. In addition, to verify and include the state-of-the-art of high-quality scientific articles, we refer to the Chartered Association of Business Schools list leading to the adoption of the following criteria: (a) journals listed in the ABS ranking as 3- and 4-star class, (b) indexed under the field of ethics (i.e., ETHICS-CSR-MAN), (c) articles published between 2000 and 2021, and (d) topical relevance. The review extends the existing literature by developing a framework for organizations that helps in identifying possible linkages between religiosity, spirituality, and employee well-being. This was done by (1) extending the six indicators of Ryff's well-being framework, (2) highlighting potential spiritual practices for individuals and organizations and their implications, and (3) presenting a framework that is contextualized to the extent possible and that can serve as a useful guide for organizations. Insights from our review yield in turn two key propositions: (1) workplace spirituality and individual spirituality are both important for employees' well-being, and (2) individual religiosity is an important factor for personal well-being. This offers in turn reinvigorated awareness and new insights into the topic under study. The study highlights in closing an array of future possible research directions.     

Who do we blame for abusive supervision?

Research has looked extensively at one side of abusive supervision (that is employee perceptions) and subsequently linked this phenomenon to supervisors' actual behaviour. We address this research gap by investigating the other side—employee characteristics as a factor related to the perception of abusive supervision (AS). Data collected from 443 employees within the Pakistani telecommunications industry revealed that employees' intimidation behaviours was positively related to their perceptions of AS, mediated by emotional exhaustion. In addition, recognition (from top management) was found to moderate the indirect effects of intimidation on AS via emotional exhaustion. Our findings challenge the assumption that supervisors are to blame for exhibiting abusive behaviour and identify a new, underlying factor related to AS.     

Managers' emotional displays and employees' willingness to act entrepreneurially

In this study we draw on the literature of emotions and entrepreneurial motivation to analyze how and why emotional displays of managers influence the willingness of employees to act entrepreneurially. Using an experimental design and 2912 assessments nested within 91 employees from 31 small entrepreneurially oriented firms, we find that managers' displays of confidence and satisfaction about entrepreneurial projects enhance employees' willingness to act entrepreneurially, whereas displays of frustration, worry, and bewilderment diminish employees' willingness. Moreover, we find that displays of satisfaction, frustration, worry, and bewilderment moderate the effect of managers' displayed confidence on employees' willingness to act entrepreneurially. Our findings have implications for the emotions and entrepreneurial motivation literature.     

Customer response toward employees’ emotional labor in service industry settings

In the current study, we develop and test a moderated mediation model that explores the mechanisms that underlie the influence of employees' emotional labor on customer loyalty by considering affective reactions and cognitive appraisals simultaneously and illustrating moderating factors that alter their effectiveness. A sample of 259 individuals from across the United States over 20 years old were recruited on Amazon's Mechanical Turk to participate in the survey. Our emotions as social information based model clarifies the distinct roles of customers' detection of employees' deep acting and surface acting in influencing customers' affective reactions and cognitive appraisals. The current research also reveals that impact of customers' detection of employees' emotional labor on customer outcomes varies as a function of the employees' nonverbal communication.     

Implementation and Outcomes of Customer Value: A Dyadic Perspective

This study examines the concept of customer value based on the views shared by service firms and their consumers. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, the study reveals customer satisfaction and retention as outcomes of front-line service employees' value delivery practices. Our results suggest that service employees' efforts to deliver customer value, even when based on a dyadic view, do not necessarily lead to customer retention. Rather, customers become more loyal when the value provided by service employees is matched by consumers' satisfaction. In other words, satisfaction is an important and necessary mediating variable between employees' efforts and customer retention.     

The role of personality characteristics and service failure severity in consumer forgiveness and service outcomes

Abstract

This study investigates how consumer personality characteristics of religiosity, spirituality, and emotional intelligence and the severity of service failure affect emotional and decisional forgiveness as a response to service failure. Further, the study explores the relationships between these two forms of forgiveness and service outcomes, including the intention to switch the service provider and spread negative word of mouth. Findings reveal that consumer religiosity has a strong and positive effect on both types of forgiveness. However, contrary to expectations, consumer spirituality has a negative relationship with decisional and no relationship with emotional forgiveness. While consumers' perceived severity of service failure is negatively related to both types of forgiveness, the findings also suggest that emotional intelligence exerts a significant moderating influence on the relationship between service failure severity and emotional forgiveness, whereas its moderating effect on decisional forgiveness does not appear to be significant. Results demonstrate the asymmetric effects of perceived severity of service failure and the two types of forgiveness on negative service outcomes. These findings contribute to the understanding on the role of consumers' implicit personality characteristics in interpretation of service failure incidents.     

It takes two to interact – Service orientation,negative emotions and customer phubbing in retail service work

The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore the relationship between frontline employees' service orientation, negative emotions and handling strategies during situations of customer incivility involving phubbing. In such situations, the logic and the practical implications of service orientation are challenged. Drawing on a survey of 2,940 employees in the Swedish retail sector, the paper shows that service orientation impacts upon how situations involving difficult customers are handled, and that this impact is mediated by employees’ negative emotional reactions. The paper contributes to retail management by pointing to the limitations of solely relying on service orientation and similar ideals in situations of customer incivility.     

Perceived conflict avoidance by managers and its consequences on subordinates' attitudes

Conflict handling by managers gives rise to significant emotional and cognitive experiences for affected employees and has far‐reaching effects on the effectiveness of a group and an organization. In this conceptual paper, we argue that despite many claims made by managers in their self‐reports that they engage in either dominant or compromising conflict‐handling strategies when managing conflict within a group, they may be perceived by employees as adopting neglect or avoidance behaviors. We examine how such perceived managers' avoidance styles could influence employees' perceptions with regard to justice, trust, and politics within an organization.     

Intrinsic religiosity and counterproductive work behavior: The mediating role of Islamic work ethic

This research aims to examine the impact of intrinsic religiosity on counterproductive work behavior directed toward the organization (CWB-O) and the mediating role of Islamic work ethic in this impact. The data were collected from employees working in the hotel and restaurant industry (n = 684). The findings revealed that intrinsic religiosity had a positive and significant effect on Islamic work ethic. It was found that Islamic work ethic also had a negative and significant effect on CWB-O. Similarly, intrinsic religiosity had a negative and significant effect on CWB-O. In addition, it was identified that the Islamic work ethic had a mediating role in the impact of intrinsic religiosity on CWB-O. Taking into consideration that the relationship between intrinsic religiosity and CWB-O and the role of Islamic work ethic in this relationship has not yet been examined in literature, the theoretical contribution of the current research can be better understood. From the perspective of practical contribution, this research may help and guide managers to understand how intrinsic religiosity affects CWB-O.     

Between a rock and a hard place: Seizing the opportunity of demanding customers by means of frontline service behaviors

Service businesses are increasingly facing more demanding customers as a result of a shift in power from the service providers' side to the customers' side. Related literature predominantly examines the negative side of this ongoing trend, while overlooking the positive side. The major aim of this paper is to examine how frontline employees — investment account managers — deal with the ongoing increase in customer demandingness. To address this, we draw on adaptability performance theory to test the facilitating effect of frontline employees' post-transaction service behaviors (SBs) — diligence, inducements, information communication, sportsmanship, and empathy — as a means of adaptation to higher levels of customer demand. Findings indicate that frontline employees adapt most of their SBs' intensities to match customers' demands. The results show that some SBs actually increase the effectiveness and efficiency of frontline employees' service performance, leading to an increase in customer value and satisfaction. Customer value is found as a mediator in some of the relationships between SBs and customer satisfaction. Contrary to the conception of the negative outcomes of customer demandingness, service firms need to consider taking advantage of customer demandingness by stressing the role of frontline employees in adapting to customers’ demands.     

Hope and positive affect mediating the authentic leadership and creativity relationship

The study analyzes how authentic leadership (AL) predicts employees' creativity both directly and through the mediating role of employees' positive affect and hope. Two hundred and three employees working in Portuguese retail organizations participate in the research. Employees report their hope and positive affective states, as well as the AL of their supervisors. Supervisors report the employees' creativity. The main findings are: (a) AL predicts employees' creativity, both directly and through the mediating role of employees' hope; (b) AL also predicts employees' positive affect, which in turn predicts employees' hope and, thus, creativity. The study enriches the understanding of the processes through which AL improves employees' creativity, and provides valuable insights for both scholars and practitioners. By promoting AL, and employees' hope and positive affect, organizations may increase employees' creative performance, creativity being an important path to organizational performance.     

The Effect of Workplace Negative Gossip on Employee Proactive Behavior in China: The Moderating Role of Traditionality

In this study, we examined the relationship between workplace negative gossip, as perceived by the targets, and proactive behavior by focusing on the mediating role of the target’s emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of the target’s traditionality. Our results from dyadic data on 234 supervisor–subordinate relationships in China revealed that (1) workplace negative gossip was negatively related to proactive behavior; (2) emotional exhaustion mediated this relationship; and (3) traditionality strengthened both the relationship between workplace negative gossip and emotional exhaustion and the indirect effect of workplace negative gossip on proactive behavior via emotional exhaustion. Our findings have a number of theoretical and practical implications for the research on mistreatment and proactive behavior.     

Employee emotional response toward healthcare organization’s service recovery efforts and its influences on service recovery performance

Previous studies on service recovery performance of frontline employees have focused primarily on the direct relationship with the organizational efforts for service recovery. However, based on the reformulation of attitude theory (appraisal-emotional response-behaviour), we believe that the emotional responses (work engagement and burnout) toward organizational efforts for service recovery of frontline employees mediate the relationship. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine how healthcare frontline employees show their emotional response toward the organizational efforts for service recovery and it influence on actual recovery performance. This study uses two conflicting emotional responses, burnout and work engagement, to examine how employees react toward organizational efforts, helping better understand employees?? evaluations of the efforts. Research model and hypothesis were tested using a sample of frontline employees who perform none-clinical activities in hospitals. The results showed that teamwork and empowerment have positive effects on work engagement. In addition, customer complaint management, empowerment, and teamwork influenced negatively on burnout. Lastly, work engagement and burnout showed statistically significant impact of service recovery performance of frontline employees. Among the organizational efforts for service recovery, teamwork was the most important factor in improving frontline employees?? work engagement and lessened their burnout, respectively. Interestingly, customer service training had a negative effect on burnout. Besides, by comparing our research model to two alternative models, we confirmed the validity of the research model.     

Customer deviance in retailing: Managers’ emotional support and employees’ affective wellbeing

Retail employees are increasingly under pressure as they are confronted with the dark side of customer behaviour: Customer deviance (NCD). Consequently, retailers face difficulties retaining employees in the job leading to workforce shortage in the industry as more and more retail workers leave their jobs. While some academic research displays the impact of NCD in retail, it leaves its effects on employees, their intentions to leave the job, including the mitigating factor of managerial support structures unexplored. Applying the job demands-resources model, this research fills this gap by investigating NCD in store-based retail, by identifying a series of employees' responses in correspondence with such behaviours and by revealing various support factors as moderators of NCD's effects on employees. Structural equation modelling of data obtained from surveying 108 retail employees in stores confirms the mediation of emotional exhaustion, affective ill-being and job (dis-)satisfaction, in the context of employees facing NCD and their leaving intention. The research raises awareness for emotional care in the form of managerial strategies targeting emotions, the supervisor's role and trust-enhancing mechanisms in retail care management, in order to attenuate NCD's negative effects on retail employees.     

Developing meaningfulness at work through emotional intelligence training

To date, there remains a significant gap in the human resource development (HRD) literature in understanding how training and development contributes to meaningful work. In addition, little is known about how individuals proactively make their work more meaningful. This article shows how emotional intelligence (EI) training promotes learning about sources of meaningful work and documents managers’ experiences of independently applying to the workplace what they have learnt about meaningfulness from their EI training. Data is collected from participant observations and interviews with trainers and managers attending three externally provided, ‘popular’ EI training courses. Interpreting the data through Lips‐Wiersma and Morris's model of meaningful work enables a clear articulation of managers’ capacity to shape their work environments to create four, interconnected sources of meaningfulness: inner development, expressing one's full potential, unity with others and serving others. The findings also reveal structural and agential constraints when individuals attempt to create meaningful work. Practically, the study demonstrates the importance of training to enhance work of value and significance and offers recommendations for practitioners.     

Effect of newcomer socialisation on organisational commitment,job satisfaction,and turnover intention in the hotel industry

The academic literature features organisational socialisation as playing a crucial role in the early stages of newcomer employment. During this assimilation stage, newcomers adapt to a new workplace more effectively if socialisation is encouraged. It has been found that socialisation minimises the negative effects of unmet expectations on overall organisational effectiveness, including employee turnover – an issue that has become a considerable problem for many hotels. Extending this logic, this study aims to understand socialisation by specifically assessing whether turnover is determined by employees' beliefs about job satisfaction and individual commitment to an organisation and the hotel profession in general. The study of 428 respondents from 61 international tourist hotels in Taiwan implies that social interaction enables organisations to gain, from an increase in commitment to the organisation, job satisfaction and a decrease in newcomers' intent to leave the hotel profession. Two major contributions to the existing literature result (a) commitment to the organisation plays a dominant role in employee turnover intent and (b) job satisfaction is a powerful method of reinforcing individual commitment to the organisation.     

The effect of customer-initiated justice on customer-oriented behaviors

Researchers have been thorough in their examination of the influence of organizational factors (e.g., supervisors, climate) on employees' perceptions of justice in the workplace. However, much less effort has been directed toward understanding how factors external to the organization – namely, customers – influence perceived justice. This represents an important omission because frontline employees are often held accountable for customer satisfaction which, ultimately, may depend on customers' initial treatment of frontline employees. The research reported herein explores this possibility by proposing that (1) customer interpersonal justice enhances employee-customer fit, (2) customer informational justice increases both employee-customer fit and self-efficacy, and (3) employee-customer fit and self-efficacy interact in prediction of frontline employee customer-oriented behaviors. The results affirm the proposed relationships and thus provide initial evidence that employee-customer fit and self-efficacy mediate the effects of perceived customer-justice on customer-oriented behaviors; the implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.     

The Role of Religiosity in Stress, Job Attitudes, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Religion and faith are often central aspects of an individual’s self-concept, and yet they are typically avoided in the workplace. The current study seeks to replicate the findings about the role of religious beliefs and practices in shaping an employee’s reactions to stress/burnout and job attitudes. Second, we extend the literature on faith in the workplace by investigating possible relationships between religious beliefs and practices and citizenship behaviors at work. Third, we attempted to study how one’s perceived freedom to express his/her religious identity at work was related to workplace attitudes and behaviors. Mixed results suggest that religiosity can be related to stress and burnout, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior. More research is needed to further qualify the results and explore the effects of one’s perceived freedom to express his/her religious identity in the workplace.     

Relevant factors that affect service recovery performance

This paper explores the factors that affect employees' service recovery performance from the perspectives of internal management. In addition, this paper combines the techniques of linear multi-variable statistical analysis and nonlinear fuzzy neural network methodology to analyse data and validate hypotheses. This paper selects travel agents who have frequent interactions with customers and provide intangible services. The empirical finding indicates that the more authoritative leaders have a more negative effect on employees' service recovery performance. Strong corporate culture works against employees' service recovery performance. Employees with high self-efficacy have better service recovery performance. The important characteristic of this paper is that it combines multi-variable analysis and nonlinear fuzzy neural network methodology in its empirical approach. Meanwhile, the factors concerning internal management within an organisation are examined, and measures to enhance employees' service recovery performance are proposed. In other words, these are responses to improve service recovery performance of employees on a preventive basis within an organisation. This is very different from the consumers' perspectives as seen in most of the previous literature. Past studies tend to focus on the amendments and responses of service recovery from the perspectives of consumers, and a vast majority of the case studies examine western enterprises. This paper studies small and medium enterprises in Taiwan and illustrates the factors that affect employees' service recovery performance.