Examining temporal precedence between customer mistreatment and customer-directed counterproductive work behavior
Department
Michael A. Leven School of Culinary Sustainability and Hospitality
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-1-2020
Abstract
© 2019 American Psychological Association. Customer-directed counterproductive work behavior or CWB (harmful acts directed toward customers), a significant concern for service organizations, has become a topic of increasing interest in recent years. Although the predominant view in the literature is that customer-directed CWB represents a retaliatory response to customer mistreatment, temporal precedence between the two variables has not yet been adequately established. In the present study, we tested reciprocal effects between customer mistreatment and customer-directed CWB using a 2-wave survey in a sample of call center employees. We found that customer-directed CWB predicted customer mistreatment but customer mistreatment did not predict subsequent customer-directed CWB, suggesting that the relationship is neither reciprocal nor in the direction typically assumed. These findings challenge the prevailing unidirectional view in the literature, suggesting instead that customers mistreat employees who frequently engage in customer-directed CWB. Further, our results indicate that at the between-person level, customer-directed CWB may be driven by factors other than customer mistreatment.
Journal Title
International Journal of Stress Management
Journal ISSN
10725245
Volume
27
Issue
3
First Page
281
Last Page
291
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1037/str0000153