A Self-Esteem Threat Perspective on the Downstream Customer Consequences of Customer Mistreatment
Creators: name: Amarnani, Rajiv
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2016
Subjects: customer mistreatment
self-esteem threat
self-verification
customer satisfaction
customer aggression
extra-role service behaviors
contingencies of self-worth
customer service

description: A Self-Esteem Threat Perspective on the Downstream Customer Consequences of Customer Mistreatment A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The Australian National University, 2016 Committee Co-chairs: Professor Prashant Bordia and Professor Simon Lloyd D. Restubog Committee Members: Dr Deshani Ganegoda and Dr Vinh Lu Customer mistreatment encompasses a broad range of poor interpersonal treatment that employees receive from customers such as verbal abuse and rudeness (Wang, Liao, Zhan, &amp; Shi, 2011). Subjected to customer mistreatment, employees perform poorly, feel angry and psychologically distressed, and withdraw from their work (Skarlicki, van Jaarsveld, &amp; Walker, 2008; Baranik, Wang, Gong, &amp; Shi, in press; Sliter, Sliter, &amp; Jex, 2012). While much is known about the psychological experience of customer mistreatment of the employee—fairness and resource loss—less is known about the implications of customer mistreatment for the employee’s sense of self. Customer mistreatment conveys contempt and disregard for employees, that they are unworthy of respect and dignified treatment in the eyes of the customer. In this way, customer mistreatment may serve as a self-esteem threat, or a challenge to employees’ positive views of their worth (vanDellen, Campbell, Hoyle, &amp; Bradfield, 2011). High self-esteem employees may compensate for the blow to their ego during subsequent customer encounters in ways that are detrimental to service delivery. While the possibility of a “spiral out” effect of customer mistreatment to subsequent customers has been raised (Groth &amp; Grandey, 2012), little is known about its behavioral mechanisms and boundary conditions. In the customer mistreatment literature, outcomes for customers have received little attention. This project comprises a programmatic series of three multiwave, multisource studies investigating the role of employee self-esteem threat in the relationship between customer mistreatment and downstream customer outcomes. Study 1 demonstrates that the consequences of customer mistreatment for downstream customer satisfaction are amplified by employee high self-esteem. This study was conducted in a sample of food service employees and customers. Study 2 replicates the base moderation model from Study 1 in a retail sample and extends the model by examining the employee behavioral mechanisms that mediate the relationship between customer mistreatment and downstream customer dissatisfaction. Consistent with theory, employee self-esteem amplifies the indirect effect of customer mistreatment on downstream customer satisfaction through supervisor-reported customer-directed organizational citizenship behaviors. Lastly, Study 3 unpacks the employee self-concept mechanisms by which customer mistreatment elicits self-esteem threat through the role of an approval-contingency of self-worth (CSW-Approval). Consistent with theory, the negative relationship between customer mistreatment and downstream customer satisfaction is evinced only among employees with both high self-esteem and high CSW-Approval. Each study successively addresses limitations to and alternative explanations of preceding studies. This series of studies contributes to the literature in four significant ways. First, these studies test a novel account of the psychological experience of customer mistreatment: self-esteem threat. The self-esteem perspective sheds light on how the consequences of customer mistreatment follow not just from employees’ perceptions of external events but also from their internal judgements of the self (Swann, Chang-Schneider, &amp; McClarty, 2007). Second, these studies advance our understanding of customer mistreatment by bringing the customer into the picture. Looking merely at employee outcomes of customer mistreatment belies the full scope of the phenomenon. Third, these studies examine the mechanisms and boundary conditions of a little-studied organizational phenomenon: the spiral-out effect of customer mistreatment (Groth &amp; Grandey, 2012). Fourth and lastly, these studies introduce others’ approval as a source of contingent self-esteem at work. The burgeoning literature on contingent self-esteem at work has so far only examined performance as a source of esteem (Ferris, Lian, Brown, Pang, &amp; Keeping, 2010); Study 3 departs from the existing literature by introducing another source of self-esteem—other’s approval—involved in how employees’ manage self-esteem threat from customer mistreatment.