Purpose
This study aims to explore the concept of frontline employee’s brand sabotage behaviour (BSB) and the influencing factors of BSB in the hotels and their partner travel agencies from the perspective of perceived justice and establishes a moderating mechanism based on emotional resource supplementation.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper developed a measurement scale of BSB through interviews with hotel employees and multiple rounds of questionnaire surveys in Study 1 and tested the research model and hypotheses using a structural equation model analysis in Study 2.
Findings
The results of multiple rounds of surveys indicate that a positive perception of procedural justice helps to restrain employees from implementing BSB but the employee’s perceived customer injustice can directly stimulate not only the BSB but also reduce employees’ perception of the level of procedural justice. However, when employees’ self-efficacy for emotional regulation is higher, the positive relationship between customer injustice and BSB and the negative impact on procedural justice is weakened.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that managers should implement practices to suppress BSB by actively managing the service interaction process and reduce the instances of unjust customer behaviours, while preventing employees from sabotaging brands at both organizational and employee levels by promoting organizational procedural justice and employees’ self-efficacy for emotional regulation.
Originality/value
The research results enrich the discussion on the integration of resources in the process of value co-creation and the common sabotage of brand value caused by resource abuse. Further, this study also supplements and perfects the theory of service brand management.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore integrity issues for travel services in China using the framework of a stress and coping model to focus on customers’ perceived unfairness, responsibility attribution and their negative emotions.
Design/methodology/approach
– A content analysis of 80 online customer complaints provides a brief profile of these integrity issues.
Findings
– Integrity issues frequently appear during service delivery and are primarily rooted in the unethical behavior of travel service employees or partners. Service contracts and fairness are used by customers as standards to evaluate harm caused by integrity issues. Customers attribute responsibility for these issues to the travel agency or tour operator, and not their employees. Finally, customers feel angry and disappointed when they experience an integrity issue and sometimes feel helpless.
Research limitations/implications
– Future studies can collect data by multiple means and further examine the correlations between customers’ cognitive appraisals, negative emotions and relationship outcomes in the context of integrity violation.
Practical implications
– Integrity management in travel services should be integrated with service management and promise management. Travel agencies must take immediate actions to reduce the negative influences of integrity issues. Moreover, the tourism sector in China should make efforts to control integrity problems at the industry level.
Originality/value
– This study contributes to the prior model of trust violation by investigating the trigger events of integrity violation and emphasizing the roles of customers’ perceived unfairness and negative emotions.
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