The Effects of Experienced Customer Incivility on Employees’ Behavior Toward Customers and Coworkers

Abstract

This study investigates how customer incivility is related to employee incivility toward both customers and coworkers by assessing the effects of emotional job demands and burnout. The target population of this research is frontline employees working in the full-service restaurant segment in the United States. Convenience sampling was used to select participants for an online survey. The results show that employees’ experienced customer incivility is positively associated with both emotional job demands and burnout. In addition, emotional job demands mediate the association between experienced customer incivility and burnout. Moreover, it presents the positive relationships not only between burnout and employee incivility toward customers but also between burnout and employee incivility toward coworkers. This study provides theoretical and practical implications by investigating the detrimental influence of customer incivility as a stressor to trigger emotional job demands and burnout, which can lead to deviant behaviors toward both customers and coworkers.

Keywords

customer incivility employee incivility emotional job demands burnout

Introduction

Workplace incivility has received increased attention from both practitioners and researchers within service industries because of its frequency and the magnitude of its impact (Bunk & Magley, 2013). Ninety-eight percent of employees experience incivility at work, and about 50% of these experiences happen at least once a week (Porath & Pearson, 2013). Most of the research on workplace incivility mainly focused on within-organizational sources, for example, supervisors or coworkers (e.g., Hur, Kim, & Park, 2015). However, service employees experience social violations from customers more frequently than from coworkers (Sliter, Sliter, & Jex, 2012) because they have the responsibility to interact with customers on a regular basis (Torres, van Niekerk, & Orlowski, 2017). Even though most interactions with customers are civil in nature, some are not (Torres et al., 2017). Customers, for example, raise their voices at the employee or take their anger out on the employee (van Jaarsveld, Walker, & Skarlicki, 2010). Most employees link their stress to customers exhibiting rude or unpleasant behaviors (Han, Bonn, & Cho, 2016). Even though these interactions are considered major sources of stress at work, service employees are required to endure them (Cho, Bonn, Han, & Lee, 2016). Thus, only a few studies have investigated the influences of customer incivility, especially in the hospitality industry (e.g., Cho et al., 2016; Huang & Miao, 2016).

Customer mistreatment of employees affects employees’ well-being by increasing demands, depression, and anxiety (Baranik, Wang, Gong, & Shi, 2014). According to the job demands–resources model (JD-R; Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001), demanding interactions with customers are perceived as job demands, and, moreover, these job demands cause more exhaustion for employees when trying to maintain their performance level (Alarcon, 2011). The affective events theory (AET; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) posits that this emotional exhaustion could be expressed through deviant behaviors toward people, including customers and coworkers in the workplace. A few studies presented the detrimental effect of customer incivility on employees’ deviant behaviors toward customers by identifying mediating factors such as job demand and emotional exhaustion (van Jaarsveld et al., 2010). However, there have been limited efforts made to understand how experienced customer incivility provokes employees’ counterproductive behaviors toward coworkers within the organization. Employees’ counterproductive behaviors toward coworkers could create an unfavorable work environment that can affect employees’ job performance and turnover (Cortina, Kabat-Farr, Leskinen, Huerta, & Magley, 2013). Thus, it is necessary to identify the factors that mediate customer incivility and employee incivility toward coworkers so that guidance can potentially be provided to managers, leading to better work environments and employee well-being.

This study aims to investigate how employees’ experienced customer incivility is associated with employee incivility toward both customers and coworkers. The specific objectives are (a) to assess the relationships not only between experienced customer incivility and employees’ emotional job demands but also between experienced customer incivility and burnout, (b) to measure the mediating role of emotional job demands on the association between experienced customer incivility and burnout, and (c) to test the association between burnout and employee incivility toward both customers and coworkers.

This study is meaningful from both theoretical and practical perspectives because it investigates the detrimental influences of customer incivility as stressors that increase employees’ emotional job demands and burnout, which can result in deviant behaviors toward both customers and coworkers in the workplace. This study suggests how an extraorganizational source of incivility affects within-organization incivility. The findings of this study help practitioners see why they should manage customer-related stressors appropriately, rather than ask employees to put up with the stressors, in order to provide a better quality of service to customers and enhance employees’ well-being.

Literature Review

Experienced Customer Incivility

Customer incivility was conceptualized as “low-intensity deviant behavior, perpetrated by someone in a customer role, with ambiguous intent to harm an employee, and in violation of social norms of mutual respect and courtesy” (Sliter, Jex, Wolford, & McInnerney, 2010, p. 468). Customers may not have a clear intention to harm even though they might be discourteous or rude to employees. Thus, the concept of customer incivility is a distictive construct from other customer mistreatment behaviors, such as verbal aggression, because it includes ambiguous intentions (Sliter et al., 2012). The construct of customer incivility could be categorized as a daily hassle because dealing with rude and disrespectful customers can be a daily occurrence within the service industry (Cho et al., 2016). Even though a single experience of customer incivility might not lead to negative outcomes, an accumulation of experiences related to customer incivility may be perceived as stressful (Han et al., 2016). The high frequency of customer misbehavior was revealed by researching the hospitality industry (e.g., Grandey, Tam, & Brauberger, 2002). Employees reported that on average they experience mistreatment from customers 10 times a day (Grandey, Dickter, & Sin, 2004).

Research on customer incivility showed its effects on emotional exhaustion and a high level of stress (e.g, Hur, Moon, & Han, 2015). Moreover, employees who experience customer incivility tend to exhibit counterproductive behaviors in the workplace (Walker, van Jaarsveld, & Skarlicki, 2014). Customer incivility as a workplace stressor, especially in the hospitality industry, significantly decreases job performance and increases counterproductive behaviors (Torres et al., 2017).

The Direct Influence of Experienced Customer Incivility on Burnout

Burnout was viewed as “a form of job strain emanating from accumulated work-related stress” (Cole, Walter, Bedeian, & O’Boyle, 2012, p. 1551). It refers a chronic occupational stress reaction (Le Blanc, Bakker, Peeters, van Heesch, & Schaufeli, 2001) and is especially prevalent among service employees (Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998). Burnout is a multidimensional phenomenon consisting of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment (Maslach, 1982). Emotional exhaustion means a reduction in an individual’s emotional resources. Depersonalization describes a state where an individual holds negative attitudes toward the other individuals with whom they work or to whom they render a service (Maslach, 1982). An individual who experiences a lack of professional accomplishment feels that they cannot meet the job requirements and that their work is not contributing to their organization (Maslach, 1982). Among these three dimensions, researchers generally considered emotional exhaustion and depersonalization as the core dimensions of burnout (Bakker, Demerouti, & Euwema, 2005) because they are correlated with one another more strongly than with personal accomplishment (Lee & Ashforth, 1996). Moreover, among the three dimensions of burnout, personal accomplishment presents the weakest associations with the other variables (Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998). Thus, in the present study, burnout is restricted to the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization dimensions. The concept of burnout has been investigated extensively in the hospitality industry since service jobs are considered to be forms of emotional labor (e.g., Lu & Gursoy, 2016). Studies on burnout present that customer contact and heavy workloads increase employees’ burnout (e.g., van Jaarsveld et al., 2010). The studies also show that employees’ burnout decreases their organizational commitment and job satisfaction (e.g., Chan, Wan, & Kuok, 2015).

According to the AET, employees perceive situations in which customers engaged in mistreatment behaviors as negative affective events (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). Customers usually have more power than employees; furthermore, employees cannot choose their customers in the hospitality industry (Kern & Grandey, 2009). Thus, employees cannot avoid negative affective events. These negative affective events arouse negative emotions in employees, for example, anger and unhappiness (Basch & Fisher, 1998). In prolonged exposure to stressful stimuli, employees cannot reduce their physiological state of stress, which in turn, gives rise to a chronic psychological state such as burnout (Chuang & Lei, 2011). However, the empirical research assessing experienced customer incivility primarily presented its effect on the emotional exhaustion facet of burnout (Han et al., 2016). Thus, this study includes not only emotional exhaustion but also depersonalization as core dimensions of burnout.

Hypothesis 1₀: Experienced customer incivility is not positively associated with burnout.

Hypothesis 1_a: Experienced customer incivility is positively associated with burnout.

The Indirect Influence of Experienced Customer Incivility on Burnout

Emotional job demands.According to the JD-R model, job demands are explained as the “physical, social, or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical or mental efforts and are therefore associated with certain physiological and psychological costs” (Bakker et al., 2005, p. 170). Examples include an unfavorable environment, work pressures, and interactions with demanding customers (Bakker et al., 2005). This present research specifically focuses on the emotional aspects of job demands, because emotional job demands are especially relevant for service employees (Le Blanc et al., 2001). Working with people in a consumer-friendly way increases emotional demands that are primarily related to job strain in service employees (Veldhoven, Jonge, Broersen, Kompier, & Meijman, 2002).

Customer contact as a stressor could increase employees’ job demands (Kim, Shin, & Umbreit, 2007). More specifically, exposure to customer incivility in a customer service interaction might increase employees’ perceptions of job demands (van Jaarsveld et al., 2010). In the service industry, employees are forced to exhibit customer-friendly attitudes continuously. This might conflict with the expression of their genuine feelings, especially when they experience customer incivility (Le Blanc, de Jonge, & Schaufeli, 2000). Thus, dealing with negative interactions with customers, as a significant job stressor (Penney & Spector, 2005), could arouse emotional job demands from employees in the service industry.

Hypothesis 2₀: Experienced customer incivility is not positively associated with emotional job demands.

Hypothesis 2_a: Experienced customer incivility is positively associated with emotional job demands.

The job stress literature presents that emotional job demands trigger stress reactions, for example, psychological health symptoms and burnout (Le Blanc et al., 2000). In the same vein, the JD-R model posits that excessive job demands can increase employees’ strains (Demerouti et al., 2001). A high level of emotional job demands makes employees feel emotionally exhausted because they feel emotionally drained by their interactions with people. To cope with these emotional demands, employees might try to protect themselves by treating others in a cynical and indifferent way, which is called depersonalization (Le Blanc et al., 2001). Empirical research suggested the significant effect of job demands on employees’ emotional exhaustion and depersonalization (e.g., Kim et al., 2007).

Hypothesis 3₀: Emotional job demands are not positively associated with burnout.

Hypothesis 3_a: Emotional job demands are positively associated with burnout.

According to Hockey’s (1993) control model of demand management, in a situation of a high level of emotional job demands, employees react in two ways. First, even though employees might experience irritability and fatigue, by doing so, they exert more efforts to keep a consistent job performance. In this regard, empirical research in the hospitality industry has shown the effects of surface acting, which means faking feelings of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization (e.g., Kim, 2008). Second, employees lower their performance levels by limiting their physiological and psychological efforts. Employees try to psychologically distance themselves from stressful situations, and this is related to the high level of burnout (Ben-Zur & Yagil, 2005). In both cases, dealing with uncivil customers’ requests eventually results in psychological and physiological costs, for example, fatigue and burnout (Hockey, 1993).

Hypothesis 4₀: Emotional job demands do not mediate the association between experienced customer incivility and burnout.

Hypothesis 4_a: Emotional job demands mediate the association between experienced customer incivility and burnout.

The Influence of Burnout on Employee Incivility

Employee incivility refers to a low-intensity behavior directed at supervisors, coworkers, and customers with ambiguous intention to harm; the incivility might also violate social norms of interpersonal treatment (van Jaarsveld et al., 2010). Even though employee incivility may be subtle, it can be an individual’s stressor by manifesting and then continuing for a period of time (Cortina & Magley, 2009). Research presented the negative consequences of employee incivility, for example, employees’ well-being and unhappiness, and the negative organizational outcomes, for instance, job satisfaction and performance (e.g., Rupp & Spencer, 2006).

The conservation of resources (COR; Hobfoll, 1989) theory posits that when employees experience burnout, they might reduce their performance to conserve their remaining resources (Wright & Hobfoll, 2004). Thus, employees who feel burnout tend to exhibit uncivil behaviors toward customers since they do not have enough cognitive resources to perform in a civil manner. Moreover, employees who experience more emotional exhaustion engage in higher levels of counterproductive behaviors (Baumeister, 2001). More specifically, based on the target similarity model, incivility might be directed toward the source of the burnout (Lavelle, Rupp, & Brockner, 2007). Thus, employees who experience customer incivility reciprocate incivility by targeting the source: customers.

Hypothesis 5₀: Burnout is not positively associated with employee incivility toward customers.

Hypothesis 5_a: Burnout is positively associated with employee incivility toward customers.

Burnout is considered an indication that employees cannot control and regulate their emotions appropriately in interactions with others (Zapf & Holz, 2006). Thus, according to the COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989), when employees experience burnout, they no longer behave in a civil manner toward coworkers in an effort to conserve their resources (Wright & Hobfoll, 2004). In addition, the AET theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) posits that experiences of rudeness and disrespect are significant events triggering negative emotions in an individual; thus, the individual demonstrates counterproductive behaviors at work as compensation for the dissatisfaction (Richards & Schat, 2007).

Hypothesis 6₀: Burnout is not positively associated with employee incivility toward coworkers.

Hypothesis 6_a: Burnout is positively associated with employee incivility toward coworkers.

Figure 1 shows the proposed research model.

Figure 1

The Proposed Research Model

Method

Sampling and Data Collection

The target population of this research is frontline employees working in the full-service restaurant segment in the United States. In full-service restaurants, including family, casual, upscale, and fine dining, individuals can experience a relatively high level of personal services from employees, and employees have more interactions with customers (Han, Back, & Barrett, 2010; Yüksel & Yüksel, 2002). A self-select sampling was used to collect data, and an online survey was conducted with Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk). Previous research in the hospitality literature recruited restaurants or hotel employee samples through Mturk (e.g., Orlowski, Murphy, & Severt, 2016) since Mturk samples were as reliable as samples from other data sources (Paolacci, Chandler, & Ipeirotis, 2010). Participants were given incentives as a compensation for participation. They were asked to answer screening questions, for instance, a question asking for an explanation on their interactions with customers at work. Stevens’s (1996) recommendation of using 15 observations to one observed variable was applied to calculate the estimated minimum sample size. In this study, there were 19 variables and thus the estimated minimum sample size was 285. Of 360 responses, 26 responses from respondents who were not frontline restaurant employees were eliminated. Therefore, a total 334 responses were retained for further data analysis.

Measurements

A survey questionnaire was constructed after thoroughly reviewing the literature. As an initial instruction, participants were asked to answer questions about their experiences with customer interaction at work and to explain those experiences in detail to exclude responses from respondents who were not a part of the target population of the study.

The second section included questions about participants’ perceptions and experiences in the workplace. Experienced customer incivility was measured by five items using a scale developed by Burnfield, Clark, Devendorf, and Jex (2004). Emotional job demands were measured with three items adapted from the study of Veldhoven et al. (2002). Burnout was assessed by five items adapted from the study of Demerouti et al. (2001). Employee incivility toward customers was measured with three items adapted from the study of Walker et al. (2014). Employee incivility toward coworkers was assessed by three items adapted from the study of Sliter et al. (2012). All items were measured with a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). The final section asked about participants’ demographic and employment information.

Prior to the main survey, a pilot test was performed to measure the reliability and readability of the measurement items by inviting 31 participants who were working or had worked at a full-service restaurant in the United States as frontline employees. The reliability was investigated, and based on the participants’ feedback, some wordings of the survey questionnaire were revised to increase the readability.

Data Analysis

At first, the data screening procedure was applied to check not only whether there were missing values and outliers but also whether the data met the assumptions for further analysis (Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Tatham, 2006). For testing common method variance, a Harman’s single factor test was conducted (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). This research performed descriptive statistics to obtain the respondents’ demographic and employment information. A two-step approach of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling analysis was applied to assess the proposed hypotheses. SPSS 20 and AMOS 20 were used for data analysis.

Results

Profile of Respondents

Table 1 summarizes the profile of the respondents. There were more male (55.0%) than female respondents (45.0%). Most of the respondents (68.9%) were between 18 and 34 years old. The majority of respondents were Caucasians (82.1%) and single (65.9%). As for the educational levels, 46% of the respondents had earned an associate degree or some college degree. According to one statistic, there were more male employees (50%) than female employees (40%) in the full-service restaurant industry (Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, 2015). In addition, employees who were 16 to 34 years old made up a large part (64.5%) of the restaurant workforce (National Restaurant Association, 2015). Moreover, according to the government data analysis of racial segregation, the most common ethnicity of waiters and waitresses (78%) was Caucasian (Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, 2015). Thus, the respondents’ demographic profile of this study adequately represented the population. As for the industry tenure, 45.4% of the respondents had been working more than 1 to 4 years. Regarding the working positions, 87.4% of the respondents were frontline staff, and most of the respondents were permanent employees (87.1%).

Table 1

Demographic Profile of Respondents (N = 302)

Demographic Variables	Frequency (N = 302)	Percentage
Gender
Male	166	55.0
Female	136	45.0
Age (years)
18-24	54	17.9
25-34	154	51.0
35-44	62	20.5
45-54	22	7.3
>55	10	3.3
Ethnicity
Caucasian	248	82.1
African American	16	5.3
Native American or American Indian	4	1.3
Hispanic or Latino	10	3.3
Asian	22	7.3
Pacific Islander	1	0.3
Other	1	0.3
Marital status
Single	199	65.9
Married	103	34.1
Education
Less than high school diploma	1	0.3
High school diploma	37	12.3
Some college	94	31.1
Associate degree	45	14.9
Bachelor’s degree	113	37.4
Graduate degree	12	4.0
Years of working
1 or less	49	16.2
More than 1 to 4	137	45.4
More than 4 to 6	47	15.6
More than 6 to 10	35	11.6
Longer than 10	33	10.9
Position
Staff	264	87.4
Supervisor	38	12.6
Employment status
Permanent employee	263	87.1
Temporary employee	39	12.9

Measurement Model

In the data screening process, 20 responses with incomplete answers and 12 extreme outliers were excluded from further data analysis. Of the 360 restaurant employees invited to participate this survey, 302 provided valid responses for data analysis (83.8% response rate). A Harman’s single factor test was conducted to evaluate common method variance. An exploratory factor analysis with an unrotated factor solution generated five factors, and the first factor explained 35.6% of the total variance, which indicated that common method variance was a limited concern.

CFA was applied to assess the measurement model. A total of four items, one from experienced customer incivility, two from burnout, and one from employee incivility toward customers, were excluded because their factor loadings were lower than the minimum value of |.5| (Hair et al., 2006). The measurement model was respecified, and the result of the CFA presented that the overall model fit was good, χ²(77) = 130.950 (p < .001), χ²/df = 1.701, comparative fit index (CFI) = .945, goodness of fit index (GFI) = .945, root mean square residual (RMR) = .038, and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .048.

The construct validity was measured in terms of the convergent validity and discriminant validity (Shuttleworth, 2009). As presented in Table 2, the factor loadings of all constructs were high, indicating that the constructs explained a high portion of variance. In addition, the composite reliability for the constructs exceeded the minimum values of .70; thus, the convergent validity was satisfactory. For the discriminant validity, the average variance extracted values were compared with the squared correlations between constructs. As shown in Table 3, all of the average variance extracted values were higher than the squared interfactor correlations, which indicated that the discriminant validity was supported (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).

Table 2

Item Measurement Properties

Construct	Standardized Factor Loadings	Composite Reliabilities	Cronbach’s α
Experienced customer incivility		.837	.849
Customers make insulting comments to me.	.807
Customers take out anger on employees.	.758
Customers do not trust the information that I give them and ask to speak with someone of higher authority.^a
Customers are condescending to me.	.706
Customers make comments that question my competence.	.727
Burnout		.808	.813
After work, I tend to need more time than in the past in order to relax and feel better.	.870
After my work, I usually feel worn out and weary.	.701
It happens more and more often that I talk about my work in a negative way.	.715
During my work, I often feel emotionally drained.^a
Lately, I tend to think less at work and do my job almost mechanically.^a
Emotional job demands		.859	.857
In my work, I am confronted with things that really upset me emotionally.	.724
My work is emotionally demanding.	.911
In my work, I have to deal with difficult customers.	.812
Employee incivility toward customer		.828	.806
I am short with the customers.	.928
I am blunt with customers.	.746
I do not listen to customers.^a
Employee incivility toward coworker		.876	.870
I ignore or exclude coworkers while at work.	.748
I raise my voice at coworkers while at work.	.849
I am rude to coworkers at work.	.911

Note: All item standardized factor loadings are significant at p < .001.

Dropped item.

Table 3

Latent Variable Correlation Matrix

	1	2	3	4	5
1. Experienced customer incivility	.563^a
2. Burnout	.452**^b	.587
3. Emotional job demands	.396**	.575**	.671
4. Employee incivility toward customers	.408**	.182**	.105	.709
5. Employee incivility toward coworkers	.255**	.187**	.186**	.555**	.703

Entries on the diagonal are average variances extracted. b. Correlations are below the diagonal.

Correlation is significant at the .01 level (two-tailed).

Structural Model

Structural equation modeling analysis with a maximum likelihood method was performed to validate the proposed research model depicted in Figure 1. The results indicated a reasonable model fit, χ² = 304.730, df = 149 (p < .001), χ²/df = 2.045, CFI = .935, GFI = .907, RMR = .054, and RMSEA = .059. Figure 2 presents the hypotheses with each standardized coefficient.

Figure 2

Results of Structural Equation Modeling Analysis

Experienced customer incivility was positively related to both employee burnout (γ = .48, p < .001) and emotional job demands (γ = .48, p < .001). These relationships indicate that if employees experience customer incivility, they tend to feel burnout and emotional job demands. Given these results, the null Hypotheses 1₀ and 2₀ were rejected. Experienced customer incivility exerts a similar influence on burnout and emotional job demands.

Emotional job demands was positively associated with burnout (β = .61, p < .001). This relationship presents that employees’ level of emotional job demands is related to their level of burnout. Therefore, the null Hypothesis 3₀ was rejected.

Burnout was positively associated with employee incivility toward customers (β = .92, p < .001) and coworkers (β = .35, p < .001). This association means that if employees feel burnout, they are more likely to exhibit incivility toward both customers and coworkers. Consequently, the null Hypotheses 5₀ and 6₀ were rejected. Employees’ burnout exerted a much stronger effect on employee incivility toward customers than toward coworkers. As a result, all null hypotheses predicting no relationships among the constructs were rejected.

The Mediating Effect of Emotional Job Demands

Based on the modern approach, the amount of mediation indicates the indirect effect (MacKinnon, 2008). The direct effect of experienced customer incivility on burnout was .48, and its indirect effect was .2928 (.48 * .61). Accordingly, a total effect of experienced customer incivility was .7728 (.48 + .2928). Thus, 37.5% of the influence of experienced customer incivility on burnout was mediated by emotional job demands, and 62.1% was direct. This result indicates that employees’ experienced customer incivility is directly associated with employees’ burnout. At the same time, experienced customer incivility increases burnout indirectly by triggering emotional job demands as well. Thus, the total effects of experienced customer incivility on burnout are increased because of the mediating effect of emotional job demands. Consequently, the null Hypothesis 4₀ was rejected.

Discussion

A high frequency and a strong impact of workplace incivility, especially customer incivility, were reported as a phenomenon in the hospitality industry (Grandey et al., 2002). Interactions with customers, especially negative interactions, cause stress to employees; therefore, it can negatively affect their well-being (Witt, Andrews, & Carlson, 2004). In addition, this negative experience not only decreases employees’ job performance (Blau & Andersson, 2005) but also increases deviant behaviors (Cho et al., 2016). Even though these potential negative influences of experienced customer incivility happen frequently at work, only a few studies have investigated these influences within the hospitality industry (Han et al., 2016). Therefore, this study aimed to understand and propose how customer incivility is related to employee incivility toward both customers and coworkers by investigating the influences of emotional job demands and burnout.

The results of this research presented that experienced customer incivility is positively related to both emotional job demands and burnout, and it exerted a similar influence on both. Pressure to keep high-quality service standards in a situation where customers exhibit uncivil behaviors toward them triggers high emotional job demands from employees in the service industry. This result is in line with the previous research that presents the significant effect of employees’ surface acting, as opposed to showing their genuine feelings, on their stress levels (e.g., Kim, 2008). At the same time, as the JD-R (Demerouti et al., 2001) model posits, interaction with uncivil customers is associated with employees’ burnout because of the higher level of stress (Han et al., 2016). This result is consistent with the literature that shows the significant effect of customer incivility on employees’ emotional exhaustion, which is one facet of burnout (e.g., Cho et al., 2016).

Employees’ experienced customer incivility also aroused more burnout indirectly through the increase of emotional job demands. As the control model of demand management (Hockey, 1993) posits, once employees perceive higher levels of emotional job demands, they tend to feel burnout since they react by trying to put more effort into maintaining their performance level or reducing their performance level. This cumulative effect is in line with previous research presenting the deleterious effects of the demanding aspects of work on employees’ emotional exhaustion and fatigue (Veldhoven et al., 2002). About one-third of the total effects of experienced customer incivility is added to employees’ burnout by increasing their emotional job demands.

Employees who feel burnout are inclined to be hostile to their customers and coworkers. As the COR (Hobfoll, 1989) theory presents, employees are less likely to behave in a civil manner toward both customers and coworkers in an effort to conserve their remaining resources (Wright & Hobfoll, 2004). The detrimental influence of burnout on employee incivility toward customers is in line with the target similarity model, indicating employee incivility might target the source of the burnout (Lavelle et al., 2007). Moreover, the result is consistent with the AET (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), presenting that employees’ negative emotions lead to deviant behaviors toward coworkers. Interestingly, employees tend to be involved in reciprocating incivility toward the source—customers—much more than in expressing their negative emotions toward coworkers.

Theoretical Implications

The theoretical contributions of this research are twofold. First, this research extends the incivility literature by presenting the influences of emotional job demands and burnout as psychological mechanisms underlying the association between customer incivility and employee incivility. To understand the detrimental influence of customer-related stressors in the workplace, more efforts are required to understand the psychological mechanisms (van Jaarsveld et al., 2010). Thus, this study presents how customer incivility exerts its effects on employees’ deviant behaviors toward customers by incorporating the JD-R model and the literature on stress. More important, this study shows how the spillover effects of customer incivility on employee incivility toward coworkers within the organization happens. Second, it suggests the mediating role of emotional job demands to link the association between customer-related stressors and burnout by applying the control model of demand management (Hockey, 1993). This finding presents that customer incivility increases a level of physiological costs from employees both directly and indirectly by triggering emotional job demands. It shows that employees’ reactions to handling customer-related emotional demands could trigger burnout.

Practical Implications

This study gives significant insights for service practitioners in the hospitality industry. Interactions with customers are inevitable for service employees, and those employees are not able to decide which customers they serve. If training in how to adequately handle difficult customers was provided, for example, strategies to defuse upset customers, it could result in employees experiencing fewer demands and less burnout. It is also recommended for managers to give employees autonomy to deal with situations with uncivil customers so that employees could control the situation by themselves. This could lead to employees not perceiving these situations as demanding (Grandey et al., 2004).

Once employees perceive high emotional demands because of experienced customer incivility, they tend to experience more burnout by trying to react to these demands. Previous research suggested the importance of organizational interventions to mitigate the effects of stress and increase employees’ well-being (e.g., Poulin, Mackenzie, Soloway, & Karayolas, 2008). Thus, organizations need to provide support for employees to cope with these demands so that they do not eventually feel burnt out. Employees might have time to refresh their minds if work breaks in a quiet place between peak times are provided. Workshops or training on how to handle work-related stress well could also help employees relieve stress (Poulin et al., 2008). It is also recommended that managers maintain regular communication with each employee to understand their demanding situations and give them personalized solutions to deal with those situations. When frontline employees believe that their supervisors are supporting them when dealing with errors and the resulting consequences in a service setting, they feel safer and avoid negative work outcomes such as their intention to leave (Guchait, Paşamehmetoğlu, & Dawson, 2014).

Moreover, organizations need to formulate ideas to encourage employees to provide quality service. It has been recommended that public recognition and appraisal systems be implemented to increase employees’ intrinsic motivations, which fosters employees’ cooperation and the continuous improvement of services (Deming, 1986). Previous researchers suggested the implementation of strategies for fostering intrinsic motivation and then the support of this positive motivation through extrinsic rewards to support and recognize employees’ accomplishments (Hackman & Wageman, 1995). They also emphasized that these formal rewards should positively reinforce employees’ desired behaviors in the workplace (Kerr, 1975). Thus, the implementation of reward and recognition programs is recommended for organizations to discourage and prevent negative workplace deviance (Appelbaum, Iaconi, & Matousek, 2007). In addition, these programs could promote employees’ extrarole behaviors directed at the organization such as using tact when dealing with others and tolerating temporary inconveniences without complaints (McNeely & Meglino, 1994). Social functions, such as outings for employees, could be held to give employees more opportunities to socialize with coworkers and thus have more camaraderie.

Limitations and Future Research

Although this research contributes to the incivility research, it has limitations and provides potential avenues for future study. First, the generalization of the findings outside of this research should be approached cautiously. This study applied a self-selected convenience sampling of frontline employees who accessed the questionnaire via Mturk. A self-selection bias may arise in a situation where individuals select themselves to participate in a survey. This study has a biased sample with a nonprobability sampling with limited generalization. Moreover, the data was collected from a western cultural population. The results could be different in other cultural populations; thus, studies within different cultural populations could help validate the findings of this study. Second, organizational behavior measures tend to be susceptible to social desirability bias, especially when the data are self-reported (Testa, 2009). The social desirability bias can occur when individuals feel pressure to respond in a way that makes others perceive them in a more favorable manner. Thus, future research needs to apply coworkers’ or supervisors’ evaluations in this measurement. Last, this study employed a cross-sectional survey to obtain the data about the influence of customer incivility at one point in time. Therefore, future studies need to employee a multiwave longitudinal research approach for readily incorporating risk factors that fluctuate over time. It is also recommended that future research combine a qualitative approach, such as interviews with both employees and customers along with field observations, to get a deeper understanding of customer incivility and burnout.

Footnotes

Haemi Kim (e-mail: haemi.kim@okstate.edu) is a doctoral candidate at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK. Hailin Qu, PhD (e-mail: h.qu@okstate.edu) is the Regents professor in the School of Hotel and Restaurant Administration at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

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