Stop being mean! Customer incivility influencing employee incivility via employee burnout: a hospitality context

ABSTRACT

This study examines the effect of customer incivility on employee burnout and incivility in the restaurant sector. The results showed that supervisory support moderated the relationship between customer incivility and employee burnout but not the relationship between employee burnout and employee incivility. The study also investigated the role of burnout (i.e. emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished personal accomplishment) as mediator in the relationship. A sample of 446 Chinese restaurant employees was used, and the results indicated that customer incivility had a significant impact on employee incivility through employee burnout. The study found that supervisory support served to moderate the relationship between customer incivility and employee burnout, but it had no impact on the correlation between employee burnout and incivility. Additionally, it explored the sequential mediating effect of the three aspects of burnout, namely emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished personal accomplishment. This study provides insights for restaurant operations to minimize employee incivility, especially for stressful times such as during the COVID-19 pandemic.

摘要

这项研究探讨了顾客不文明行为对餐饮行业员工倦怠及不文明行为的影响。研究结果显示，主管的支持可以调节顾客不文明行为与员工倦怠之间的关系，但无法调节员工倦怠与员工不文明行为之间的关系。本项研究还研究了员工倦怠的三个方面，即情绪衰竭、去人格化和低成就感在调节以上关系中的中介作用。研究使用了446名中国餐饮员工的样本，结果表明，顾客不文明行为通过员工倦怠对员工不文明行为产生了显著影响。研究发现，主管的支持在顾客不文明行为与员工倦怠之间的关系中起到了调节作用，但对员工倦怠与不文明行为之间的相关性没有影响。此外，研究还探讨了员工倦怠的三个方面，即情绪衰竭、去人格化和低成就感的顺序中介效应。这项研究为餐饮运营中（尤其在应对COVID-19大流行等紧张时期）针对减少员工不文明行为的策略制定提供了重要的实证支持。

KEYWORDS:

• Customer incivility
• employee incivility
• burnout
• supervisory support
• restaurant management

关键词:

• 顾客不文明行为
• 员工不文明行为
• 员工倦怠
• 主管支持
• 餐厅管理

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yi Wen

Yi Wen is a MSc graduate from School of Hospitality, Food, and Tourism Management at The University of Guelph, Canada. Her research interest includes human resource management, hospitality management and operation in tourism and hospitality (E-mail: [email protected]).

Lena Jingen Liang

Lena Jingen Liang is an Assistant Professor in Faculty of Business at The University of Prince Edward Island, Canada. Her research interests include consumer behaviors in marketing, automation, information technology in the service sector (E-mail: [email protected]).

HS Chris Choi

HS Chris Choi is Professor in School of Hospitality, Food, and Tourism Management at The University of Guelph, Canada. His interests include consumer behavior in the era of automation, information technology, AI, and on & offline digital retailing and service within the tourism, hospitality, and leisure context (E-mail: [email protected]).

Michael Yu

Michael Yu is a Ph.D. student in School of Hospitality, Food, and Tourism Management at The University of Guelph, Canada. His interests include consumer behavior in cannabis consumption, incivility culture in the food service context, and tipping behavior (E-mail: [email protected]).