The relationship between customer-related social stressors and job outcomes: the mediating role of emotional exhaustion

Abstract

Using the health impairment process of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model as the theoretical framework, this study proposes and tests a research model that investigates the mediating role of emotional exhaustion in the relationship between customer-related social stressors and job outcomes. Job performance, extra-role customer service, and turnover intentions are three job outcomes used in the current study. Respondents were full-time frontline hotel employees in Cameroon. Data were obtained from these employees with a time lag of one month. The results of structural equation modelling (SEM) suggest that emotional exhaustion fully mediates the relationship between customer-related social stressors, as manifested by disproportionate customer expectations (DCE), customer verbal aggression (CVA), disliked customers (DC), and ambiguous customer expectations (ACE), and the aforementioned job outcomes. Specifically, the results suggest that the indicators of customer-related social stressors jointly affect emotional exhaustion that, in turn, leads to negative job outcomes such as poor job performance, reduced extra-role customer service, and increased turnover intentions.

Impact of Psychological Aggression at the Workplace on Employees’ Health: A Systematic Review of Personal Outcomes and Prevention Strategies

“…Customer psychological aggression is significantly associated with emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment (Dhaini et al., 2015; Dormann & Zapf, 2004; Grandey et al., 2004; Karatepe & Nkendong, 2014; Karatepe, Yorganci, & Haktanir, 2009; Li & Zhou, 2013; Llor-Esteban et al., 2017; Viotti, Gilardi, Guglielmetti, & Converso, 2015; Winstanley & Whittington, 2002), fear, diminished psychological well-being, physical symptoms (LeBlanc & Kelloway, 2002; Pacheco et al., 2016), back pain and joint pain (Dhaini et al., 2015) poor life satisfaction (Itzhaki et al., 2015), social dysfunction (Llor-Esteban et al., 2017), sleep problems, and stress (Hanson et al., 2015).…”

“Bad jobs”: a case study of toilet attendants

“…Police officers Germany 7 (Holz, 2006) 10 (Hoppe, 2011) 16 Postmen Germany 9 (Isic, 1999) 17 Call centre employees Germany 10 (Janssen, 2004) 18 Elderly care nurses Germany 11 (Johnson, Holdsworth, Hoel, & Zapf, 2013) 19 Customer-facing employees, national retail organization UK 12 (Kaiser, 2000) 20 Educators Germany 13 (Karatepe, 2011) 21 Hotel employees UAE 14 (Karatepe & Anumbose Nkendong, 2014) 22…”

The impact of social and temporal job demands and resources on emotional exhaustion and turnover intention among flight attendants

“…The aforementioned challenges faced by frontline employees in tourism go with several negative consequences such as impaired employee wellbeing, reduced job performance and customer service or even absenteeism and sabotage (Chen & Kao, 2012;Kao, Cheng, Kuo, & Huang, 2014;Karatepe & Kaviti, 2016;Lee, Ok, Lee, & Lee, 2018). One important outcome is emotional exhaustion Hu, Hu, & King, 2017;Karatepe & Nkendong, 2014), which in addition to impairing employee well-being and performance also affects central aspects of service delivery such as customer satisfaction (S€ oderlund, 2017). Another consequence which is frequently linked to this depletion of emotional resources is turnover intention (Babakus, Yavas, & Karatepe, 2008;Cho, Choi, & Lee, 2014).…”