Role of Dysfunctional Customer Behavior, Psychological Capital, and Job Crafting in Job Outcomes Among Frontline Customer Service Employees

Abstract

Customer misbehaviour has become an everyday phenomenon which tends to have short-term and long-term impacts on both employees as well as organizations. Current research was conducted with the aim to determine the role of dysfunctional customer behaviour, psychological capital, and job crafting in job outcomes (job satisfaction, job stress, and emotional labor) among frontline customer service employees serving in shopping malls located in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Specifically, this study aimed to look upon the moderating role of dysfunctional customer behavior. The complete research is comprised of pilot study (N= 50) and main study (N= 440). Phase I of pilot study focused on instrument selection, tryout, expert opinion, and committee approach, and phase-II focused on preliminary psychometric assessment of the instruments. The main study focused on establishment of reliability and validity (through CFA) of instruments, and hypothesis testing. Results confirmed the reliability and validity of the instruments. The analysis scheme included descriptive statistics, correlational analysis, moderation analysis, t-test, and One-way ANOVA. The framework of the study had theoretical support from the Conservation of Resource (COR) theory. Findings of the study revealed that the resources (psychological capital and job crafting) are positively correlated with job satisfaction and are negatively correlated with job stress. With emotional labor, the relationship of these resources is non-significant. Findings also revealed that dysfunctional customer behavior moderated the relationship of job crafting with job stress and emotional labor. It also moderated the relationship between psychological capital and job stress. However, dysfunctional customer behavior did not moderate the relationship between job crafting and job satisfaction”, “psychological capital and job satisfaction”, and “psychological capital and emotional labor”. Group differences were significant for a few demographic variables which are discussed in detail. Implications, suggestions, and limitations are mentioned in the discussion section.