Does Incivility Cost? Examining the Effects of Incivility in Service Settings

Abstract

Uncivil behaviors, which include rude, humiliating, and disrespectful behaviors, generally create unmanageable and uncontrollable conditions in service settings. Incivility is one of the most experienced interpersonal misbehaviors in organizations (Cortina et al. 2001; Pearson and Porath 2005) but organizational studies have dealt with incivility as a latent intra-organizational problem, disregarding the effects on customers. However, incivility is a human conduct that can occur not only among employees but also among all social actors. By drawing on Appraisal Theory (Lazarus 1991), this chapter encompasses three experimental studies to understand the effects of uncivil interactions (among employees and among other customers) on customers’ emotional appraisals of the service context and behavioral intentions. Incivility and its role in the appraisal process will be evaluated in Study 1 by comparing high incivility, low incivility, civil, and no messages conditions. We hypothesized that high incivility will result in higher degree of regret and disappointment than low incivility. Furthermore, all incivility conditions will result in higher degree of regret and disappointment than civil and control conditions. We also hypothesized that regret and disappointment mediates the effect of the level of incivility on customer’s overall satisfaction from their service experience and generalized judgments from service provider. Moreover, the incivility source (employee vs. other customer) moderates the effect of incivility level on these emotions (moderated mediation). To have a profound understanding of the influence of incivility with further studies, service expectancy (Study 2—high vs. low value proposition) and the agency role (Study 3—customer is the decider for the service provider vs. not) will be examined with between group scenario-based experiments. In these studies, we expect that appraisals of these factors influence customers’ attitudes and intentions via the mediation of certain emotions (regret and disappointment). In study 3, by drawing on the literature on regret and disappointment (Zeelenberg et al. 1998, 2000) we also hypothesized that regret is significantly higher than disappointment only for incivility among employees condition when the customer is the decision-maker (self-agency). Appraisal theory indicates that emotional states of individuals vary by self-agency level, due to the perceived responsibility of what is experienced (Dijk and Zeelenberg 2002). In all of the studies customer’s empathy tendencies (McBane 1995), proximity to emotional contagion (Doherty 1997) and tolerance to negativity levels will be measured and integrated to the model as covariates because in social contexts, personality traits that are prone to emotional contagion may introduce bias. After pretests for manipulation and credibility checks, scenario-based experiments will be conducted using online data collection methods (MTurk). MANOVA, Hayes and Preacher’s (2014) moderation analyses, and bootstrapping methods for testing moderated serial mediation will be used for testing group differences.References available upon request.