Deviant Behavior of Staff and Customers in Service Organizations: Causes and Consequences

In: Moscow University Economics Bulletin, Band 2019, Heft 1, S. 157-181

Abstract

The academic research in the area of service marketing generally assumes friendly or neutral context of the encounters between employees and customers while providing or consuming the product. Recently, however, scholars are witnessing a new notion, namely 'Dark Side of Marketing' (DSM) which entails an increasing stream of pertinent publications in the literature. DSM is a complex yet multifaceted notion and refers to adverse effects of marketing paradigm implementation for humans, businesses and environment. Deviant behavior is a notable phenomenon pertinent to the nature of DSM, as it is mostly examined in relevant studies in comparison with other DSM manifestations. Deviant behavior is also emphasized in DSM studies because of its definitely negative impact on customer satisfaction, loyalty, WOM and, ultimately, on business performance metrics. To date, there is no DSM studies completed in the context of the Russian service industry as literature witnesses although this research question bears an apparent relevance for local business. This paper is destined to bridge this gap by defining the deviant behavior antecedents and gauging their consequences for marketing actors at the servicescape. The research results are based on empirical study of data collected from n=133 sample and on the analysis with utilization of Structural Equitation Modeling (SEM) method.