Browsing by Author "Guo, Gongxing"

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    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
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    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.