The Role of Customer Perceived Ethicality in Explaining the Impact of Incivility Among Employees on Customer Unethical Behavior and Customer Citizenship Behavior

Yu-Shan Huang (), Shuqin Wei () and Tyson Ang ()
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Yu-Shan Huang: Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
Shuqin Wei: Marshall University
Tyson Ang: Marshall University

Journal of Business Ethics, 2022, vol. 178, issue 2, No 13, 519-535

Abstract: Abstract Incivility among employees in frontline encounters is prevalent, but little is known about its impact on customers’ ethics-related perceptions and behaviors. Drawing upon the stimulus–organism–response paradigm, this study examines how witnessing incivility among employees can serve as a social atmospheric cue to influence customers’ perceived ethicality of an organization and their subsequent behaviors. According to our results, in response to employee-to-employee incivility witnessed during frontline encounters, customers perceive the uncivil employees’ organization to have a lower level of ethicality. In turn, customers engage more in unethical behavior (i.e., opportunistic behavior) and less in customer citizenship behavior (i.e., customer tolerance of employee-induced errors). We further demonstrate that the negative effect of uncivil employee-to-employee interactions on customers’ perception of the ethicality of an organization is amplified when customers have an a priori perception that the organization is competent. The findings hold theoretical and practical implications for the management of employee-to-employee incivility and unethical customer behavior during frontline encounters.

Keywords: Employee incivility; Customer perceived ethicality; Social cognition; Warmth; Competence; Customer citizenship behavior; Customer unethical behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-020-04698-9

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