Customers as contributors and reliable evaluators of creativity in the service industry

Using hair stylists, we examined the nature of creativity in a service setting and the impact of customers as part of the social context for employee creativity. We also assessed whether customers could serve as reliable evaluators of creativity. To do so, we collected data from multiple sources: service providers, supervisors, and customers. Results demonstrated that customer input and customer affective‐based trust made significant, positive, and independent contributions to service‐related creativity. Moreover, customers in the service industry proved to be reliable raters of employee creativity, compatible with supervisors. Finally, input and trust were associated differently with service‐related and organization‐related creativity. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The different paths to post‐merger identification for employees from high and low status pre‐merger organizations

A well‐known downside of organizational mergers is that employees fail to identify with the newly formed organization. We argue that developing an understanding of factors that affect post‐merger identification requires taking the pre‐merger status of the merger partners relative to each other into account. This is because relative pre‐merger status determines employees' susceptibility to different aspects of the merger process. Specifically, for employees of a high status pre‐merger organization, we expected post‐merger identification to be strongly influenced by (i) pre‐merger identification and (ii) the perceived change in the status. In contrast, we expected post‐merger identification of employees of a low status pre‐merger organization to be strongly affected by the perceived justice of the merger event. Longitudinal data were obtained from a merger of two public sector organizations and the results supported our hypotheses. Our study shows that the extent to which pre‐merger identification, status change, and justice are important determinants of post‐merger identification depends on the relative pre‐merger status of the merger partners. Our discussion focuses on theoretical implications and managerial ramifications of these findings. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

They don't want to be temporaries: similarities between temps and core workers

This study investigated the impact of employment status (temporary/regular) on the employee–organization relationship in samples from two firms employing both temps (n = 234) and regular or core (n = 204) workers. Temps and regular workers held similar beliefs regarding the nature of their employment relationship. However, among those temps for whom temporary work was their preferred status, the employment relationship was less socioemotional and more economic than was the case for other workers. When these temps preferred regular employment, their relationships were high socioemotional and low economic, comparable with that of core workers. A employee–organization relationship high on socioemotional terms was positively related to satisfaction with the organization, an attitude which in turn mediated the relationship between employment relationship and employees' performance and civic virtue behaviors (behaviors as assessed by their supervisors). Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The supervisor POS–LMX–subordinate POS chain: Moderation by reciprocation wariness and supervisor's organizational embodiment

We present three studies providing an increased understanding of the interdependence between perceived organizational support (POS) and leader–member exchange (LMX). Using employees from a social service agency and new hires from a variety of organizations, we report evidence for a relational chain leading from supervisors' perceptions of support by the organization (supervisor POS) to the formation of high‐quality LMX relationships with their subordinates (first link), who interpret high‐quality LMX as support from the organization (subordinate POS, second link) and, ultimately, repay the organization with increased dedication and effort (examined here in terms of reduced withdrawal behavior). The relationship between supervisor POS and LMX with subordinates was strongly moderated by supervisor fear of exploitation in exchange relationships (reciprocation wariness), holding only for supervisors with low reciprocation wariness. Consistent with the view that employees perceive the organization as partly responsible for treatment received from supervisors, LMX was found to be more strongly related to POS when employees highly identified their supervisors with the organization (supervisor's organizational embodiment), and this interaction extended to reduced withdrawal behavior. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emotional labor threatens decent work: A proposal to eradicate emotional display rules

Emotional labor—the management of emotional displays as part of one's work role—has emerged as a growth area of study within organizational behavior and customer service research. In this article, we call attention to the human costs of “service with a smile” requirements with little benefits. We first review the evidence showing that requiring positive emotions from employees induces dissonance and depleted resources, which hinders task performance and threatens well‐being. We articulate how formalized emotion display requirements limit self‐determination by threatening the autonomy, competence, and belongingness needs of employees. Further, via an organizational justice lens, we argue that emotional labor is an unfair labor practice because employees in such circumstances are (1) undervalued by the organization (constituting distributive injustice); (2) disrespected by customers (constituting interactional injustice); and (3) self‐undermined by organizational policies (constituting procedural injustice). We then argue for bringing light to the dark side of emotional labor with a “modest proposal”: Organizations and customers should abandon formalized emotion display expectations and replace such efforts with more humanistic practices that support and value employees, engendering positive climates and an authentically positive workforce. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trust as a mediator of the relationship between organizational justice and work outcomes: test of a social exchange model

Data obtained from full‐time employees of a public sector organization in India were used to test a social exchange model of employee work attitudes and behaviors. LISREL results revealed that whereas the three organizational justice dimensions (distributive, procedural and interactional) were related to trust in organization only interactional justice was related to trust in supervisor. The results further revealed that relative to the hypothesized fully mediated model a partially mediated model better fitted the data. Trust in organization partially mediated the relationship between distributive and procedural justice and the work attitudes of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and organizational commitment but fully mediated the relationship between interactional justice and these work attitudes. In contrast, trust in supervisor fully mediated the relationship between interactional justice and the work behaviors of task performance and the individually‐ and organizationally‐oriented dimensions of citizenship behavior. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Work status and organizational citizenship behavior: a field study of restaurant employees

This survey‐based field study of 257 service employees developed and tested a model of differences in the organizational citizenship behavior of full‐time and part‐time employees based on social exchange theory. Questionnaire data from matched pairs of employees and their supervisors demonstrated that part‐time employees exhibited less helping organizational citizenship behavior than full‐time employees, but there was no difference in their voice behavior. We also predicted that both preferred work status (an individual factor) and organizational culture (a contextual factor) would moderate the relationships between work status and citizenship. For helping, results demonstrated that preferred status mattered more to part‐time workers than to full‐time. For voice, preferred work status was equally important to part‐time and full‐time workers, such that voice was high only when actual status matched preferred status. Contrary to our expectations, work status made more of a difference in both helping and voice in less bureaucratic organizations. We discuss the implications of work status for social exchange relationships, differences in the social exchange costs and benefits of helping compared to voice, and ramifications of our findings for future research. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Redesigning computer call center work: a longitudinal field experiment

Computer technology call centers provide technical assistance to customers via the telephone to solve computer hardware and software problems. The simultaneous demands for technical and customer service skills often place strain on call center employees, frequently producing poor job attitudes. We utilized a field experiment (N = 149) with a randomly assigned pretest–posttest and control group design to compare three interventions' effectiveness on employee job attitudes in a computer technology call center: Intervention 1 focused on aligning organizational structures; Intervention 2 focused on increasing employee involvement in work processes (high‐involvement); and Intervention 3 implemented autonomous work teams. We found that high‐involvement work processes produced the most potent effects on job satisfaction and organizational commitment attitudes, as well as on performance (i.e., improved customer satisfaction scores, increased closed problems, reduced problems escalated, and fewer repeat calls). Further, we found that group work preference moderated the results between the group‐oriented interventions and employees' job satisfaction. Under high involvement and in autonomous work teams, high preferences for group work resulted in greater job satisfaction than when employees had lower preferences for group work. However, preferences for group work were not associated with increased organizational commitment in either intervention. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Being there: the acceptance and marginalization of part‐time professional employees

Part‐time professional employees represent an increasingly important social category that challenges traditional assumptions about the relationships between space, time, and professional work. In this article, we examine both the historical emergence of part‐time professional work and the dynamics of its integration into contemporary organizations. Professional employment has historically been associated with being continuously available to one's organization, and contemporary professional jobs often bear the burden of that legacy as they are typically structured in ways that assume full‐time (and greater) commitments of time to the organization. Because part‐time status directly confronts that tradition, professionals wishing to work part‐time may face potentially resistant work cultures. The heterogeneity of contemporary work cultures and tasks, however, presents a wide variety of levels and forms of resistance to part‐time professionals. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model that identifies characteristics of local work contexts that lead to the acceptance or marginalization of part‐time professionals. Specifically, we focus on the relationship between a work culture's dominant interaction rituals and their effects on co‐workers' and managers' reactions to part‐time professionals. We then go on to examine the likely responses of part‐time professionals to marginalization, based on their access to organizational resources and their motivation to engage in strategies that challenge the status quo. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multiple perspectives of congruence: relationships between value congruence and employee attitudes

The relative importance of multiple types of value congruence—person–environment (P‐E), person–person (P‐P), and perceptual fit—across two hierarchical levels (workgroup and manager) and across multiple dimensions of values was investigated in a sample of 951 employees from 113 bank branches. As expected, different types of value congruence and different value dimensions were differentially important for outcomes. Both P‐E fit (between an individual's personal values and the cultural values of the organization) and perceptual fit (between an individual's perception of the organization's values and the organization's values as perceived by others) were found to be related to satisfaction, commitment, and turnover intentions, while P‐P fit (between an individual's personal values and the personal values of others) was not. Further, P‐E congruence results were generally stronger for fit with the workgroup than fit with the manager and results were stronger for the rational goal dimension which focused on external customer service. In contrast, results for perceptual fit revealed that fit was generally more important for fit with the manager than fit with the workgroup and was generally more important for the open system dimension which focused on flexibility and innovation. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The two faces of high self‐monitors: Chameleonic moderating effects of self‐monitoring on the relationships between personality traits and counterproductive work behaviors

This study examines whether and how self‐monitoring moderates the relationships between two personality traits (agreeableness and conscientiousness) and counterproductive work behavior directed toward the organization (CWB‐O) and toward other employees (CWB‐I). High self‐monitors strive to attain personal goals related to status and prestige enhancement by adjusting their behavior to what the situation requires or allows for. We propose that the status enhancement motive can take on two different yet related forms—impression management (interpersonal potency) and opportunism (win‐at‐all‐costs)—depending on relevant situational cues. We hypothesize that in public, interpersonal settings where their behavior is visible to others, high self‐monitors' desire to enhance their status by looking good to others suppresses the natural expression of low agreeableness via increased engagement in CWB‐I. Conversely, we hypothesize that in private, non‐interpersonal settings where their behavior is rarely visible to others, high self‐monitors' desire to enhance their status by doing whatever it takes to get what they want intensifies the natural expression of low conscientiousness via increased engagement in CWB‐O. On the basis of two independent samples of participants, results of moderated multiple regression analyses provided support for the hypotheses. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Employee voice behavior: A meta‐analytic test of the conservation of resources framework

Although voice (i.e. expressing change‐oriented ideas and suggestions) has frequently been investigated as a way for workers to reciprocate to their employers for the positive treatment they receive, much less is known about how workers use voice to deal with stress. This study takes a conservation of resources perspective to examine the relationships among workplace stress, voice behavior, and job performance. We first examined the strength of relationships of three major groups of workplace stressors and strains (job based, social based, and organization based) with voice behavior. We then examined the relationships of voice behavior with performance variables (e.g. in‐role performance and creativity) to investigate how voice may help workers preserve or accumulate resources to enhance their performance. The meta‐analytic findings presented here provide support for a negative relationship between workplace stress and voice and a positive relationship between voice behavior and performance outcomes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Customer‐related social stressors and service providers' affective reactions

Previous research has shown that customer‐related social stressors (CSS) have negative effects on service providers' long‐term well‐being. Little is known, however, about short‐term and mid‐term affective stress reactions and reciprocal effects between service providers' affect and CSS. The aim of this study was to expand extant research (i) by analyzing service providers' short‐term (across a day) and mid‐term (across 2 weeks) affective reactions to perceived CSS; (ii) by analyzing intraindividual as well as interindividual effects; and (iii) by investigating reciprocal effects of affective reactions and CSS that may eventually lead to psychosocial cycles. Our study employed a diary design with three measurement occasions per day over five consecutive days and a two‐week panel design using a sample of employees from public service organizations (N = 106). Results showed that CSS elicit changes in service providers' short‐term and mid‐term negative affects. We also found support for reversed effects of service providers' affective reactions on experienced CSS indicating psychosocial cycles between customers and service providers. To prevent escalation, we discuss potential resources. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Change‐oriented organizational citizenship behavior: effects of work environment characteristics and intervening psychological processes

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has attracted major research effort for the last two decades. The vast majority of studies of OCB have been devoted to affiliative forms of such behavior including interpersonal helping, courtesy, and compliance, which are intended to maintain and reinforce the status quo. The present study attends to another form of OCB that challenges the status quo through suggestions for constructive changes in work methods, processes, and policies. This study identifies a set of workplace characteristics that predict change‐oriented OCB. Multi‐level analyses of large‐scale longitudinal data showed that strong vision and innovative climate predicted change‐oriented OCB via both individual‐ and cross‐level processes. These contextual influences were mediated by two intervening variables: psychological empowerment and felt responsibility for change. The results suggest that change‐oriented OCB is significantly predicted by only organizational characteristics. Group‐level dynamics may be less important for understanding challenging types of OCB than for affiliative types such as helping or compliance. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Employment commitment as a moderator of the maternal employment status/child behavior relationship

Research findings suggest that maternal employment exerts no consistent detrimental effects on children. In this study, the moderating role of employment commitment and child sex on the relationship between maternal employment status and child behavior is investigated. Mothers and teachers provided behavioral ratings for 185 elementary school children (M age = 9.42 years). Employment commitment moderated the influence of employment status on mothers' and teachers' ratings of children's attention problems and immaturity: Children whose mothers' employment status and commitment were not congruent were less attentive and more immature than those whose mothers' employment status and commitment were congruent. The statistical and applied significance of these results is suggested, as is the possibility that mother-child interactions mediate the manner in which incongruencies between employment status and employment commitment influence children's inattention-immaturity.     

Analysis of bus collision and non-collision incidents using transit ITS and other archived operations data

Introduction

This paper analyzes factors contributing to bus operations safety incidents at TriMet, the transit provider for the Portland Oregon metropolitan region.

Method

The analysis focuses on 4,631 collision and non-collision incidents that occurred between 2006 and 2009. Empirical analysis of these incidents draws on a wide array of operator-level data recovered by transit ITS technologies in combination with information from TriMet's human resources, scheduling, and customer relations databases. Incident frequencies are estimated in relation to operators' demographic characteristics, employment status, assigned work characteristics, service delivery and performance indicators, temporal factors, and customer information.

Results

Apart from identifying factors that are empirically related to the frequency of safety incidents, the findings offer insights into operations policies and practices that hold promise for improving safety.

Impact on Industry

Potential for safety improvement based on analysis of archived operations and human resource data.     

Psychological ownership and feelings of possession: three field studies predicting employee attitudes and organizational citizenship behavior

An increasing number of scholars and practitioners have emphasized the importance of ‘feelings of ownership’ for the organization (even when employees are not legal owners). In this exploratory study, we examine the relationships of psychological ownership with work attitudes and work behaviors. We start by developing hypotheses based on the psychology of possession and psychological ownership literatures. We then test these hypotheses with data from three field samples, using responses from over 800 employees, as well as manager and peer observations of employee behavior. Results demonstrate positive links between psychological ownership for the organization and employee attitudes (organizational commitment, job satisfaction, organization‐based self‐esteem), and work behavior (performance and organizational citizenship). More important, psychological ownership increased explained variance in organization‐based self‐esteem and organizational citizenship behavior (both peer and supervisor observations of citizenship), over and above the effects of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Contrary to prior theoretical work on psychological ownership, results, however, fail to show an incremental value of psychological ownership in predicting employee performance. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Supervisors' emotional exhaustion and abusive supervision: The moderating roles of perceived subordinate performance and supervisor self‐monitoring

Drawing from conservation of resources theory, this study aims to create new knowledge on the antecedents of abusive supervision. Results across 2 independent field studies within a manufacturing context (Study 1) and a customer service context (Study 2) consistently demonstrated a 3‐way interaction pattern, such that supervisors' experiences of emotional exhaustion, perceived subordinate performance, and self‐monitoring were jointly associated with subordinates' abusive supervision perceptions. A supplementary scenario experiment further corroborated this pattern. Together, the present studies illustrate a contingency model of abusive supervision's origins, highlighting emotional exhaustion as an important risk factor that is particularly likely to trigger abusive behavior among supervisors with lower (rather than higher) self‐monitoring who are faced with a relatively underperforming subordinate. As such, this research advances the abusive supervision literature by offering new insights into the complex resource conservation processes that may give rise to subordinates' abuse perceptions.     

“Killing them with kindness”? A study of service employees' responses to uncivil customers

Experiencing uncivil customers is a frequent reality for many people working in the service industry. Past research has established that dealing with uncivil customers can be distressing for employees and can sometimes lead them to engage in reciprocal, discourteous behavior. The purpose of our research is to delve deeper into the experience of customer incivility from the perspective of service employees in order to better understand the various ways in which they respond to customer incivility. We conducted 64 interviews with service employees across an array of occupations and developed a typology of responses to customer incivility. These responses fell into four categories based on the extent to which service employees' actions were intended to promote social harmony (and therefore could broadly be considered civil or uncivil), as well as their perceived agency in the situation. We describe how each response was associated with different interpersonal and intrapersonal consequences and explain the implications of our typology for management theory and practice.     

The emergence of team helping norms: Foundations within members' attributes and behavior

This research examined the antecedents of organizational citizenship behavior helping norms in teams, specifically with regard to how members' personality, values, beliefs, and helping behavior predict the emergence of helping norms in newly formed project teams. We drew from theory on emergent phenomena and team composition research to propose and test a compilation model of how helping norms are influenced by having at least one member with particularly low (minimum) or high (maximum) levels of attributes that may influence helping‐norm development (i.e., conscientiousness, agreeableness, other‐oriented values, personal helping beliefs). We further examined the extent to which members' helping behaviors, as rated by peers, predicted helping norms and whether these behaviors mediated the relationship between individual attributes and helping norms. The results of a longitudinal study of 47 student project teams revealed that teams' minimums on agreeableness, other‐oriented values, and personal helping beliefs had direct relationships with helping‐norm emergence, and the effects of agreeableness were mediated through mean helping behavior. By contrast, teams' maximums on these attributes showed no relationships with helping norms, and only a team maximum on agreeableness was associated with teams' mean helping behavior. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.