Suchergebnisse

There is an important literature suggesting that the consumer has become a key focus of identity and figure of authority in contemporary society. Within this literature, however, there is little consideration of the role that the identification with the customer could play in management control within production, nor of the ensuing potential contradictions. This paper examines these issues in front line call centre work. Control in this setting is theorised as being informed by dual logics of customer-orientation and bureaucratisation. The paper shows the important use of norms of customer identification in control. It also highlights two levels of contradictions in the use of these norms. First there is the contradiction between continuing bureaucratic control and the attempts to develop normative control. Second, there are contradictions within the development of customer-related normative control. Specifically, the definition of the customer as the focus for normative commitment is a contested terrain, with systematic and significant differences existing here between call centre workers and management.

Withdrawal from work by frontline employees (FLEs) is generally perceived by managers as counterproductive or anti-service behavior. However, there may be detrimental effects of continuing to provide a service, particularly after an FLE has experienced incivility. The possible beneficial effects of withdrawal on frontline service employees' well-being have rarely been investigated. In this article, we conducted two studies to examine the moderating role of on- and off-task withdrawal behaviors on the relationship between customer incivility and employees' emotional exhaustion. In Study 1, we examined parking officers' reactions to customer incivility. We found support for the role of off-task withdrawal as a resource-replenishing strategy, which mitigated the relationship between customer incivility and emotional exhaustion. In Study 2, we examined a sample of nurses in a large hospital to compare the replenishing potential of both on-task and off-task withdrawal strategies. We found that off-task withdrawal served a replenishing function, while on-task withdrawal aggravated nurses' feeling of emotional exhaustion as a result of customer incivility. These results highlight different resource implications, including recovery benefits of short-term withdrawal behaviors at work, and provide important theoretical and practical implications for the management of customer incivility and frontline service employees' well-being and performance.