Browsing by Author "Cheng, Bao"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Customer incivility and service sabotage in the hotel industry
    (Emerald, 2020-04-16) Cheng, Bao; Guo, Gongxing; Tian, Jian; Shaalan, Ahmed
    Purpose: Using equity theory, this study examined the relationship between customer incivility and service sabotage among hotel employees. Specifically, we examined the mediating role of revenge motivation between customer incivility and service sabotage and investigated the moderating role of emotion regulation in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach: A multiwave, multisource questionnaire survey was conducted with 291 employee-supervisor dyads at chain hotels in Shenzhen, China. Previously developed and validated measures of customer incivility, revenge motivation, emotion regulation, and service sabotage were adapted. Findings: Customer incivility increased employees’ revenge motivation and service sabotage. Emotion regulation acted as a boundary condition in customer incivility’s direct effect on revenge motivation and in its indirect effect on service sabotage through revenge motivation. Cognitive reappraisal can ameliorate the detrimental influence of customer incivility while expressive suppression can exacerbate its adverse effects. Practical implications: Managers should monitor and deter the emergence of uncivil behavior, provide psychological support for employees experiencing customer incivility, and encourage such employees to use emotion regulation with cognitive reappraisal rather than expressive suppression. Originality/value: To our knowledge, no prior research has investigated the customer incivility–service sabotage relationship in the hotel industry. This study addresses this gap by shedding light on how customer incivility can motivate service sabotage among hotel employees. Furthermore, we used equity theory rather than the commonly used resources perspective to offer new insight into the customer incivility–service sabotage relationship
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    The hidden costs of negative workplace gossip: its effect on targets’ behaviors, the mediating role of guanxi closeness, and the moderating effect of need for affiliation
    (Springer, 2022-01-06) Cheng, Bao; Peng, Yan; Shaalan, Ahmed; Tourky, Marwa
    This research explores the harmful effects of negative workplace gossip (NWG) on targets and organizations, including its impacts on helping behavior and knowledge hiding. The mediating role of guanxi closeness and the moderating role of need for affiliation are also examined. The study, based on conservation of resources theory, collected data from 526 employees in the hospitality industry in China, using a three-wave survey design. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was employed to test the hypotheses. The empirical results showed that NWG was a strong predictor of reduced helping behavior and increased knowledge hiding; and that guanxi closeness mediated both the negative relationship between NWG and helping behavior, and the positive relationship between NWG and knowledge hiding. Additionally, need for affiliation was shown to act as a moderator between NWG and guanxi closeness: high need for affiliation amplified the negative impact of NWG on guanxi closeness, and then further affected employees’ helping behavior and knowledge hiding. This study therefore offers an important new perspective for interpreting the detrimental effects of negative gossip in organizations, providing not just theoretical advances but practical ways in which managers can proactively reduce these impacts.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Negative workplace gossip and targets’ subjective well-being: a moderated mediation model
    (Taylor and Francis, 2022-01-25) Cheng, Bao; Peng, Yan; Zhou, Xing; Shaalan, Ahmed; Tourky, Marwa; Dong, Yun
    Negative gossip is an everyday part of life and work whose outcomes have been the focus of a growing number of studies. However, the impact of negative workplace gossip on employees’ subjective well-being (SWB) appears to have received no attention in the literature. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we use time-lagged data from 243 employees in five firms in China to investigate the processes underlying the links between negative workplace gossip and SWB. Our findings show that negative workplace gossip has a significant negative effect on SWB, and that psychological distress mediates this relationship. We also find that emotional intelligence plays a moderating role between negative workplace gossip and targets’ psychological distress. Our results indicate for the first time that negative workplace gossip increases psychological distress and lowers SWB among its targets. As a result, several managerial implications are suggested, such as seeking to reduce the prevalence of negative workplace gossip, offering early support to employees in psychological distress, and taking steps to raise the emotional intelligence level of staff.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    The impact of AI service failure on human employee behavior and customer service performance
    (Emerald, 2025-12-31) Tian, Jian; Lin, Hongxia; Tourky, Marwa; Cheng, Bao
    Purpose: This study aims to investigate how and when artificial intelligence (AI) service failure stimulates employees’ differentiated work behaviors. Design/methodology/approach: A multi-wave, multi-source survey involving 284 employee-supervisor pairs was conducted across 15 four-star and five-star hotels in Guangzhou, China. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings: Findings suggest that AI service failure induces schadenfreude toward the organization among employees with low perceived insider status, which then leads to procrastination behavior; however, it triggers sympathy toward the organization among employees with high perceived insider status, which further results in proactive customer service performance (PCSP). Practical implications: Their work offers practical insights for tourism and hospitality companies on promoting PCSP and reducing procrastination behaviors among service employees in response to AI service failures. Originality/value: By incorporating perceived insider status as a moderator, and examining the mediating roles of schadenfreude and sympathy toward the organization, this research enhances the theoretical understanding of AI service failure and its consequences from the employee perspective.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    When and how does leader humor promote customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior in hotel employees?
    (Elsevier, 2022-11-28) Cheng, Bao; Dong, Yun; Kong, Yurou; Shaalan, Ahmed; Tourky, Marwa
    This study explores whether leader humor can encourage staff to exceed job expectations in their positive behavior toward customers, even in the notoriously stressful context of the hospitality industry. Based on our findings, leaders who use humor are more likely to prompt employees to engage in customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Leader humor affects customer-oriented OCB through the mediating effect of relational energy. In addition, employee traditionality and relational energy differentiation moderate the process. Using time-lagged data collected from 456 employees in 71 teams in China’s hotel industry, this study adds significant knowledge to the under-researched area of humor and leader humor in the hospitality industry. The findings suggest that hospitality leaders can implement humor to obtain positive effects by raising relational energy and triggering customer-oriented OCB, particularly among less-traditional workers and in situations of low relational energy differentiation.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    When targets strike back: how negative workplace gossip triggers political acts by employees
    (Springer, 2020-10-15) Cheng, Bao; Dong, Yun; Zhang, Zhenduo; Shaalan, Ahmed; Guo, Gongxing; Peng, Yan
    This study examines why and when negative workplace gossip promotes self-serving behaviors by the employees being targeted. Using conservation of resources (COR) theory, we find that targets tend to increase their political acts as a result of ego depletion triggered by negative gossip. We also show that sensitivity to interpersonal mistreatment and moral disengagement moderate this process. Specifically, we demonstrate that targets with high levels of sensitivity to interpersonal mistreatment are more likely to experience ego depletion, and that targets with high levels of moral disengagement will find it easier to persuade themselves to engage in political acts. We conducted a three-wave time-lagged survey of 265 employees in Guangdong, China, to test our hypotheses. The results support our theoretical model and indicate that COR theory can be used to explain the impacts of negative workplace gossip. Alongside our important and timely theoretical contributions, we provide new perspectives on how managers can avoid or mitigate these political acts.