Having Control or Lacking Control? Roles of Job Crafting and Service Scripts in Coping With Customer Incivility

Despite previous studies that examined factors that would help service employees cope with customer incivility, the role of employee-initiated job strategies has rarely been explored in the context of customer incivility. Drawing on the job demand-control model, we proposed that a high-control job strategy (such as job crafting) alleviates the deleterious effect of customer incivility on job performance through emotional exhaustion, whereas a low-control job strategy (such as service scripts) aggravates this effect. To test the proposed moderated mediation effects, we collected three-wave data from 272 hotel employees and their 54 team leaders over a 6-month period. As predicted, job crafting and service scripts performed contrasting moderating functions. Specifically, the customer incivility-emotional exhaustion relationship was weaker for employees who engaged in job crafting more often than for those who did not. Job crafting also mitigated the negative indirect effect of customer incivility on job performance through emotional exhaustion. In contrast, the customer incivility-emotional exhaustion relationship was more pronounced among employees who used service scripts more often. Service scripts further exacerbate the negative indirect effect of customer incivility on job performance through emotional exhaustion. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for occupational health research.

Automated summary

The study found that job crafting helps alleviate the negative impact of customer incivility on employee emotional exhaustion and job performance, while service scripts exacerbate this impact.