Labors of love: service employees on customer participation

Abstract

PurposeVery few studies have considered how customer participation (CP) influences service employees' well-being. CP may lead employees to engage in emotional labor strategies (surface/deep acting), which can elevate their job stress. Whereas surface acting involves falsifying emotions, deep acting involves empathizing with others. Therefore, the current article examines how these emotional labor strategies arise from CP and create job stress.Design/methodology/approachStudy 1 is an online survey of service employees' wellbeing during CP (n = 509). Study 2 compares service employees' responses within hedonic and utilitarian service settings through a scenario-based experiment (n = 440). PROCESS was used to analyze the data in both studies.FindingsFirst, study 1 supports that perceived CP increases job stress. Secondly, surface acting mediates the link between CP and job stress, but deep acting does not. Thereafter, Study 2 shows that the link between CP and job stress decreases as employee-customer identification (ECI) increases only during surface acting. Additionally, the impact of surface acting on job stress during CP is greater for hedonic services than utilitarian services, but there is no significant difference for deep acting.Originality/valueThis article contributes an original perspective by comparing models of service employees' responses to CP and job stress in hedonic versus utilitarian settings. Moreover, the intervening effects of ECI and emotional labor strategies on job stress, as demonstrated through these employee-facing models, offer added value to the CRM and co-creation literature.

Can customer participation promote hospitality frontline employees’ extra-role service behavior?

“…In turn, such attitudes may cause them to fail to absorb new information and knowledge from customers or build meaningful relationships with them, leading them to experience less thriving. Consistent with our arguments, studies have found that employees may sometimes view customer participation negatively; they feel uncertain and more stressed when customers participate in the service production or delivery process (Choi and Lawry, 2020;Yoo et al, 2021). Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:…”

An investigation into the antecedents of frontline service employee guardianship behaviours

“…However, the direct effect of employee engagement on guardianship behaviour (c 5 0.247) is not significant (p > 0.05), and the product of (a 3 b) 3 c (0.421 3 0.247 5 0.103987) is positive. This suggests that psychological ownership has a full mediation effect (Choi and Lawry, 2020) in the association between employee engagement and guardianship behaviour. Consequently, engaged employees with feelings of psychological ownership for their supermarket are likely to practice guardianship behaviour to prevent shoplifting.…”

Orta Kademe Yöneti̇ci̇leri̇ni̇n Strateji̇k Davranişlari Üzeri̇ne İş Doyumu Ve Duygusal Bağliliğin Etki̇si̇

“…Tüm bu yönetimsel eylemler, alt düzey çalışanlardan elde edilebilecek bilgiler ışığında yapılabilir. Ancak bu bilgileri doğrudan üst yönetimin elde edememesi, OKY'nin rolünü öne çıkmaktadır (Choi & Lawry, 2020).…”