The Language Backfire Effect: How Frontline Employees Decrease Customer Satisfaction through Language Use

Extant marketing research holds that customers prefer frontline personnel to speak the customers’ first language. Furthermore, current managerial practices instruct frontline employees to either use the customers’ first language or, in international settings, to use English. Through five studies in different retail and service contexts, we identify situations where the opposite is true. The results of the first two studies suggest that if customers initiate contact in a second language, the frontline employee’s switch to the customer’s first language constitutes an identity threat leading customers to feel less satisfied; an effect we term the language backfire effect. Our third study extends these results to a domestic context to test for the impact of linguistic acculturation on how immigrant customers perceive frontline employees’ language switch. The fourth study replicates the findings in a real-life retail context. These results present a paradox for marketing research: although frontline employees switch to customers’ first language to accommodate them, these actions might not have the desired consequences. Having identified and described the problem of the language backfire effect, our final study introduces and verifies a managerially actionable solution: combining the language switch with a language proficiency compliment offsets the language backfire effect.     

Service sabotage: The dark side of service dynamics

While many aspects of services research assume that employees are largely compliant to management prescribed service standards, a number of recent studies have highlighted the deliberate sabotage by service workers as a key issue. We contend that service sabotage is important not simply because of the pervasiveness of such behaviors, but also because of the impact that such acts can have on firm growth and profitability. Consequently, we seek to achieve three inter-linked objectives in this article. First, we highlight how service saboteurs harm customers’ service experiences and negatively affect the performance of the firm. Second, in order to assist managers in recognizing these behaviors, we identify the most common types of service saboteurs and forms of sabotage. Specifically, we classify and describe four main types of service saboteurs: Thrill Seekers, Apathetics, Customer Revengers, and Money Grabbers. Finally, and most importantly, we provide a series of suggestions regarding how managers might effectively address service sabotage in their firms. These include gathering information and exploiting existing data to establish the extent and nature of sabotage, recruiting the right quality of service staff, training and rewarding employees, enriching and empowering employees, developing a service culture, and initiating better monitoring systems and procedures.     

Employee Motivation to Co-Create Value (EMCCV): Construction and Validation of Scale

Value Co-Creation (VCC) is an emerging concept that has vast applications in theory and practice. Though previous research has provided enough insights on the customers' role in VCC, relatively less research exists on employee motivation to co-create value (EMCCV) with customers. Among other reasons for such less empirical investigations, one is the unavailability of measurement scale for EMCCV. Therefore, the drive of this study is to conceptualize, develop, and validate a scale to measure EMCCV. Drawing from the expectancy theory and adapting the standard scale development procedure, this study develops EMCCV as a higher-order construct that constitutes four dimensions namely professional identity, financial motives, recognition motives, and career opportunities motives measured by 17 items. The measurement scale is developed in the context of automotive service centers; however, it has a broader application on the frontliners of all service industries and can be adapted in other service-oriented contexts. The scale is tested in a theoretical framework and has provided sound reliability, convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity.     

Building the bottom line by developing the frontline: Career development for service employees

Service firms must remember that the way they treat their employees is exactly how those employees will, in turn, treat customers. As such, taking good care of frontline personnel should be a top management concern. One way that service employees can be shown they are valued members of the organization entails the implementation of thoughtful and organized career development programs, initiatives which help increase employees’ job satisfaction and feelings of empowerment in their customer-facing roles. Before they can become enthusiastic about meeting the needs of their customers, employees have to feel that their own needs are being met within the organization. In this regard, firm investment in frontline employee career development programs will be money well spent: they are capable of reducing employee turnover and increasing customer satisfaction, loyalty, and profitability. This article provides a conceptual model of career development which should prove useful to service managers in evaluating their own career development efforts. Also presented herein is a framework for tying together many disparate areas of career development that have heretofore been handled separately in the services literature.     

Matching the Personal Initiative Capabilities of FLEs to Their Self-Regulatory Processes and the Firm's Initiative Climate

Frontline employees (FLEs) — the people behind the counter, on the phone, or walking the shop floor — can profoundly affect the customer experience. Harnessing the capability of FLEs to positively shape customer experiences is critical for service firms.However, placing the right employee in the right frontline role is not an easy task. To deliver positive service experiences, FLEs must be customer-oriented, placing customers’ interests first. In addition, FLEs need to demonstrate personal initiative by going beyond prescribed job roles to find solutions to customer problems. We propose that personal initiative is an important mediating variable in the relationship between customer orientation and FLE performance. Further, we examine whether this relationship is strengthened or weakened when a firm’s climate encourages initiative-taking behavior and FLEs have a prove or avoid orientation, or engage in deep or surface acting. We test the model across two studies using a multi-respondent data collection procedure within the retail banking sector. Our findings demonstrate that personal initiative mediates the relationship between customer orientation and FLE performance. Notably, this effect is stronger when a firm’s climate encourages initiative-taking and when FLEs have a prove orientation or engage in deep acting, and that the effect is weaker when FLEs have an avoid orientation or engage in surface acting. Our findings underscore that it is only when the fit between FLEs, their roles, and the work climate is right that firms will get the best out of their employees (c.f., Arthur et al. 2006; Kristof-Brown et al., 2005).     

组织新聘员工与原有员工冲突动因及其消减的实证研究

冲突作为一种社会现象,在组织内外随处可见。随着我国劳动力人才市场化配置的日趋完善,组织的人员流动也日趋频繁,组织新聘员工与原有员工冲突已成为一种普遍现象,然而针对该现象的研究却是凤毛麟角。本文以实证研究的方法分析了导致此类冲突的动因及其有效的消减方式。研究结果表明：性格差异等七项因素是导致此类冲突的动因;针对不同动因引发的冲突,有着不同的有效消减方式。     

Just the Right Amount of Ethics Inspires Creativity: A Cross-Level Investigation of Ethical Leadership,Intrinsic Motivation,and Employee Creativity

Based on ideology-infused psychological contract theory and cognitive evaluation theory, this study investigated the curvilinear relationship between ethical leadership and employee creativity. A curvilinear mediation model was proposed to explain the impact of ethical leadership on creativity, using employee intrinsic motivation as the mediator. Applying a two wave sampling design that consist 258 employees and their leaders, we found that employee creativity improved as ethical leadership increased from low to moderate levels. However, the employee creativity improvement was attenuated when ethical leadership increased from moderate to high levels. Furthermore, the study also revealed that employee intrinsic motivation partially mediated this curvilinear relationship. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

家庭经济地位与生育行为:宏观环境的调节效应

使用2005年全国1%人口抽样调查数据研究家庭经济地位对中国妇女违反政策生育行为的影响。考虑到社会情境对个体行为的重要影响作用,本研究构建多层模型分析不同省级社会环境下家庭收入对违反政策生育行为的影响。家庭经济因素对个体生育行为的影响会随着省级社会环境的不同而呈现出巨大差异。在女性在农业部门就业比例高的地区,收入呈负向影响;女性在农业部门就业比例低的地区,收入呈正向影响。这说明社会环境对个体行为的影响机制是复杂的。研究结果对生育政策调整具有一定的启示意义。     

灵活就业人员购买商业养老保险的影响因素研究

本文基于社会调查数据,运用因子分析法,建立OLS模型,从灵活就业人员的角度,研究影响其购买商业养老保险意愿的主要因素。对于被解释变量的处理,将灵活就业人员自身情况、家庭影响及主观态度纳入考察,建立评价受访者购买商业养老保险意愿的统一指标,再采用因子分析等方法提取政策认知、整体认识、收支能力、职业附加、环境压力五个因子作为解释变量,构建回归模型,在对比归纳中进一步实证。根据研究结果,为商业养老保险及相关政策的实施提出建议,并对商业保险及社会保险的一体化融合途径得出启示。     

Associations Between Organizational/Individual Factors and the Intentions of Employees

Abstract

This study of a university school foodservice operation examines whether a positive or negative association exists between the individual and organizational factors and the intentions to stay or leave the current job for foodservice employees or internal customers. The individual factors include job status, service length, age, education level, and job position. The organizational factors include several job characteristics, intrinsic motivation, formalization, participative decision-making and psychological stress. Job characteristics indicated a significant positive impact on university retention across the job characteristics of autonomy, feedback, dealing with others, and variety. The organizational factors of perceived formalization and participative decision-making also had a significant positive impact on university employee retention. The organizational factors of intrinsic motivation, task identity, and friendship opportunities did not have a statistically significant positive or negative impact on university employee retention yet had the directions of relationship that was expected. Finally, psychological stress had a negative impact on university employee retention. The article ends with suggestions for future research and limitations of the current study.     

Employees and the Operation of Accountability

This article examines a social accounting cycle in a Danish savings bank with specific focus on how employees interacted with the cycle. The case study is based on archival material and observations of employee engagement sessions that were a significant part of the cycle. The article exposes the ways in which the cycle can be understood as an initiative that prompts different forms of accountability. The cycle had the potential to bring different forms of accountability together, but the cycle also faced challenges that threatened its relevance from an employee perspective. These challenges might have implications for the way we perceive social accounting and the role of employees.     

领导排斥对员工亲组织非伦理行为的影响：自我提升动机的中介作用

基于自我提升理论,从自我提升动机和马基雅维利主义视角出发,探讨了领导排斥对员工亲组织非伦理行为的作用机制。通过对两阶段收集的451份问卷进行数据分析,结果发现:领导排斥对员工亲组织非伦理行为具有显著正向影响;员工自我提升动机在领导排斥与员工亲组织非伦理行为关系中起中介作用;员工马基雅维利主义调节了其自我提升动机与亲组织非伦理行为间的关系,即员工马基雅维利主义水平越高,其自我提升动机对亲组织非伦理行为的正向影响越强;员工马基雅维利主义正向调节员工自我提升动机在领导排斥与亲组织非伦理行为间的中介作用,即员工马基雅维利主义水平越高,其自我提升动机的中介作用越强。研究结论不仅拓展了领导排斥理论的研究,也为管理者正确认识领导排斥、管理员工遭受领导排斥后的认知与行为提供了新思路。     

Management and Legal Issues Regarding Electronic Surveillance of Employees in the Workplace

Since the attack on the World Trade Center in New York, and on the Pentagon in the United States, concerns over security issues have been at an all-time high in this country. Both state and federal governments continue to discuss legislation on these issues amid much controversy. One key concern of both employers and employees is the extent that employers, espousing a “need to know” mentality, continue to expand their capability and implementation of surveillance of employees in the workplace. With the technology typically growing faster than the speed of legislation, protective or permissive, the management and legal issues involved in electronic monitoring of employee communications in the workplace, are and well should be on the agenda for discussion of every management and legal team in American business today. Companies have a legitimate right to protect their trade secrets from disclosure by disgruntled employees. Similarly, companies also have a duty to protect their good names and reputations from unauthorized employee communications with outside parties, and even other employees, that may damage them. It is also a prime duty of management to ensure, in their direction of their workforces, that the employees execute their responsibilities by working full time on their stated objectives. In this regard, any management that fails to oversee its workforce to ensure that employees are not expending valuable company time, for which they are being compensated, on personal business, including unauthorized communications, is remiss in its responsibilities to its shareholders. The company may see a reduction of the price of its shares in the marketplace if it does not protect the economic interests of its shareholders.     

中国与印度服务业比较:竞争力及其影响因素

近年来,中国和印度成为亚洲经济发展备受瞩目的国家,两国在服务业领域的竞争成为关注的焦点。本文从产业结构、服务贸易总量与结构、服务贸易竞争力指数三方面考察了中印两国服务业竞争力的现状,并借助波特的"钻石体系"理论,对中印两国的要素条件、需求条件、相关支持产业及对外开放等因素进行了分析,得出虽然印度在目前取得了服务业的竞争优势,但是中国在今后的发展中更具潜力的结论和启示。     

员工职业成长的影响因素及对策探析——基于组织和员工双向视角

本文首先对职业成长的内涵进行了界定,其次探讨了影响员工职业成长的个人因素和情境因素,最后从组织和个人的视角提出了促进员工职业成长的对策,主要包括加强职业生涯管理、增强人力资本、培养积极的心理资本和扩展广泛的社会资本等,对促进员工的职业成长具有一定的借鉴意义。     

A Model of Sponsorship Effects on the Sponsor's Employees

Drawing from the corporate sponsorship literature, a model is developed that seeks to explain how externally directed corporate sponsorship can influence the behavior of the sponsor's employees. External sponsorship conveys a signal that can impact on employees’ perceptions of their employer. The model seeks to explain the processes and types of possible impacts. Although the model requires confirmation, its conceptualization raises additional avenues to assess the benefits of corporate sponsorship.     

The Effects of Humor on Ad Processing: Mediating Role of Brand Familiarity

The effect of humorous advertisement on memory and attitude has been an important topic among advertising scholars. However, scholars have used fake brands to test the effects of humor. Since the possibility for consumers to be exposed to the commercial for a completely new brand is very low, using a fake brand to test humor effects is not realistic. Hence, this study examined the role of brand familiarity on the effects of humor on memory and attitude by using existing brands in a laboratory experiment. This study suggests a different structural model for familiar and unfamiliar brands based on the previous studies in consumer behavior. Results revealed different effects of humorous advertisements for the familiar or unfamiliar brands. The structural model proposed for this study revealed a mediating role of brand familiarity on humor effects. Humorous ads worked better for the unfamiliar brands. For the familiar brands, the effects were mediated by the subjects’ brand familiarity and prior brand attitude.