Alleviating or exacerbating mistreatment? Leaders' cognitive and emotional reactions to witnessed customer mistreatment.
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| Title: | Alleviating or exacerbating mistreatment? Leaders' cognitive and emotional reactions to witnessed customer mistreatment. |
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| Authors: | Liu, Pei, Ma, Yu, Wang, Xiaotian, Li, Xin, Li, Aimei |
| Source: | Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology. Jun2025, Vol. 98 Issue 2, p1-29. 29p. |
| Subjects: | Empathy, Leaders, Cognitive testing, Executives, Research funding, T-test (Statistics), Psychological distress, Probability theory, Leadership, Emotions, Descriptive statistics, Customer relations, Analysis of variance, Interpersonal relations, Customer satisfaction, Psychosocial factors, Offensive behavior, Employee attitudes |
| Geographic Terms: | China |
| Abstract: | Customer mistreatment is a prevalent phenomenon in service industries. However, limited studies have focused on leaders' reactions to witnessed customer mistreatment. Drawing upon literature on customer mistreatment, trait activation theory and empathy, we present a comprehensive theoretical framework to explore when and how service managers react to witnessed customer mistreatment. We propose that witnessed customer mistreatment is highly relevant to leaders' trait empathy and they jointly influence leaders' cognitive processes, specifically their interdependent self‐construal, and emotional responses, specifically distress. These reactions, in turn, shape leaders' positive and negative interpersonal behaviours. Across two experiments and a multi‐level, multi‐source and multi‐wave field study, we found that leaders with trait empathy were more likely to construe the self interdependently and experience distress after witnessing customer mistreatment. An interdependent self‐construal then led to more servant leadership behaviour and less incivility, whereas distress resulted in more incivility. In summary, our findings suggest that service managers with trait empathy may both alleviate and exacerbate the detrimental effects of customer mistreatment. Implications for mitigating customer mistreatment from the perspective of service managers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
| Copyright of Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) | |
| Database: | Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection |
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| Abstract: | Customer mistreatment is a prevalent phenomenon in service industries. However, limited studies have focused on leaders' reactions to witnessed customer mistreatment. Drawing upon literature on customer mistreatment, trait activation theory and empathy, we present a comprehensive theoretical framework to explore when and how service managers react to witnessed customer mistreatment. We propose that witnessed customer mistreatment is highly relevant to leaders' trait empathy and they jointly influence leaders' cognitive processes, specifically their interdependent self‐construal, and emotional responses, specifically distress. These reactions, in turn, shape leaders' positive and negative interpersonal behaviours. Across two experiments and a multi‐level, multi‐source and multi‐wave field study, we found that leaders with trait empathy were more likely to construe the self interdependently and experience distress after witnessing customer mistreatment. An interdependent self‐construal then led to more servant leadership behaviour and less incivility, whereas distress resulted in more incivility. In summary, our findings suggest that service managers with trait empathy may both alleviate and exacerbate the detrimental effects of customer mistreatment. Implications for mitigating customer mistreatment from the perspective of service managers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| ISSN: | 09631798 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/joop.70025 |
