Research Article
The Negative Effects of Customer Incivility on Service Employees’ Work and Life Domain: Moderated Mediation Effect of Perceived Organizational Support and Psychological Distress
Kookmin University
Kookmin University
Published: January 2017 · Vol. 46, No. 3 · pp. 663-690
DOI: https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.17287/kmr.2017.46.3.663
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Abstract
This study focuses on the negative effects of customer incivility on employees’ behaviors in work-domain and non-work domain. Drawing on displaced aggression, this study investigates whether the employees’ workplace deviance and family undermining are the result of psychological distress evoked by customer incivility. The authors conceptualize customer incivility as a type of aggression. Employees use workplace deviance (organizational deviance and interpersonal deviance) and family undermining as displaced aggression when they experience customer incivility. Using a sample of 168 service employees, we hypothesized that customer incivility, mediated by psychological distress, would increase service employees’ workplace deviance and family undermining. In turn, we hypothesized that the positive relation between psychological distress and deviance (undermining) would be moderated by perceived organizational support (POS). Additionally, we hypothesized that POS would moderate the indirect effect of customer incivility, mediated by psychological distress, on deviance (undermining). The results show that the main effects of customer incivility on interpersonal deviance and family undermining and the mediating effect of psychological distress on the relation between customer incivility and interpersonal deviance and family undermining are significant. The moderating effect of POS on the relation between psychological distress and family undermining is significant. Finally, the moderated meditation effect of POS and psychological distress on the relationship between customer incivility and family undermining is significant. We examined the implications of the negative effect of customer incivility on employees’ work and life domains.
