Customer deviance in retailing: Managers’ emotional support and employees’ affective wellbeing

Kathrin Mayr and Christoph Teller

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2023, vol. 72, issue C

Abstract: Retail employees are increasingly under pressure as they are confronted with the dark side of customer behaviour: Customer deviance (NCD). Consequently, retailers face difficulties retaining employees in the job leading to workforce shortage in the industry as more and more retail workers leave their jobs. While some academic research displays the impact of NCD in retail, it leaves its effects on employees, their intentions to leave the job, including the mitigating factor of managerial support structures unexplored. Applying the job demands-resources model, this research fills this gap by investigating NCD in store-based retail, by identifying a series of employees' responses in correspondence with such behaviours and by revealing various support factors as moderators of NCD's effects on employees. Structural equation modelling of data obtained from surveying 108 retail employees in stores confirms the mediation of emotional exhaustion, affective ill-being and job (dis-)satisfaction, in the context of employees facing NCD and their leaving intention. The research raises awareness for emotional care in the form of managerial strategies targeting emotions, the supervisor's role and trust-enhancing mechanisms in retail care management, in order to attenuate NCD's negative effects on retail employees.

Keywords: Retail employee job demands; Customer deviance; Interpersonal emotion management; Retail care management; Employee wellbeing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:72:y:2023:i:c:s0969698923000383

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2023.103291

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