Unpacking the Relationship Between Customer (In)Justice and Employee Turnover Outcomes: Can Fair Supervisor Treatment Reduce Employees’ Emotional Turmoil?

Danielle D. van Jaarsveld, David D. Walker, Simon Lloyd D. Restubog, Daniel Skarlicki, Yueyang Chen, Pascale H. Frické

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Service employees can experience considerable resource demands from customers and supervisors in their day-to-day work. Guided by the conservation of resources (COR) perspective and organizational justice research, we explored the relationship between interpersonal injustice (e.g., being treated with low dignity and respect) by customers and employee turnover (e.g., voluntary turnover, turnover intentions). Specifically, we proposed that customer interpersonal injustice relates positively to employee turnover outcomes through a process first involving employee experiences of negative emotions, and second, employee emotional exhaustion. We also examined whether supervisor interpersonal justice mitigates this process by providing emotional resources that buffer the demands of customer interpersonal injustice. We evaluated these predictions in a programmatic series of three complementary field studies involving retail employees (Study 1, N = 263), restaurant employees (Study 2, N = 206), and contact center employees (Study 3, N = 317). The results showed that (a) customer interpersonal injustice relates positively to employees’ negative emotions, (b) employee negative emotions are positively associated with emotional exhaustion, and (c) emotional exhaustion relates to higher employee turnover outcomes. Our results also show that the indirect effect of customer interpersonal injustice on employee turnover intentions (Study 2) and voluntary turnover (Study 3) is weaker when employees perceive more (vs. less) supervisor interpersonal justice. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)301-319
Number of pages19
JournalJournal of Service Research
Volume24
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2021

Keywords

  • conditional indirect effects
  • conservation of resources theory
  • customer interpersonal injustice
  • organizational justice
  • voluntary turnover

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Information Systems
  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

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